Thursday, November 30, 2023
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There was a day in 1998 when a white guy from Pennsylvania stood in the middle of a civil war in Sudan, where every day, children were being tortured, killed and orphaned. That guy was Sam Childers. But if you ask Sam today, he'll tell you those children saved him.
How's that? Well, Sam had a rough past. He ran with biker gangs, got into fights, drank, and sold drugs. When he turned to religion for help, his pastor sent him to Sudan to help rebuild villages that had been destroyed in the war. But while he was rebuilding those houses, he suddenly saw a way to rebuild his life, too. Sam says God spoke to him, and told him to build an orphanage - in the middle of a war zone.
Sam founded that orphanage, and today, it's one of the largest ones operating in Southern Sudan. But it wasn't enough to look forward; Sam also wanted to fight back. So, he picked up a machine gun and turned his anger on the brutal rebel militia that turned children into soldiers.
Now, Sam's life story has been made into a movie - 'Machine Gun Preacher', which aired at the Toronto International Film Festival, stars Gerard Butler as Sam, a man fighting for the children of Sudan, while fighting against his own inner demons.
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