Window on the World

Window on the World

From Randal Dick
Superintendent of Missions

How Christians
shape mission

PASADENA—There is a corner of the world where unimaginable atrocities exist.

In this month’s column, I share with you the following correspondence I received from Robi Sonderegger. I warn you, his experiences are difficult to absorb; however, his incredible example of how Christians shape mission reveals the scope of God’s mission in the world today.

Robi and Noleen Sonderegger with their son, Jhae.

I introduced Dr. Sonderegger and his wife, Noleen, to you in the March 1999 issue. They played a key administrative role in helping Faith Orphanage Foundation in Kitwe, Zambia. Dr. Sonderegger is a clinical psychologist and director of Family Challenge Charitable Trust. He uses his profession as a passport into difficult and challenging environments to bring hope and the love of Jesus Christ.

From Robi Sonderegger June 3, 3:28 a.m.

Last year Noleen and I set up a mental health charity called Family Challenge, in New Zealand, and now independent offices are running in Australia and Zambia. With the birth of our son, Jhae, we have since moved back to Australia and set up our own clinic on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland (closer to grandparents Fritz and Karen Sonderegger).

We do regular mental health promotion seminars (biblically based) on building emotional and behavioral resilience in children and their families in schools, churches and community centers.

The organization presents a purely professional image and has been embraced by the community. As professionals we are invited to forums that Christians would otherwise not be welcome, and yet we deliver a Christian message wrapped up in a scientific framework.

In 2004 we are focusing on the plight of escapee child soldiers and child sex-slaves in northern Uganda. The rebel group called the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has been killing, torturing, maiming, raping and abducting large numbers of children; abducting young boys for use as rebel soldiers and young girls as sex, trade and labor slaves.

(For more information on the situation in Uganda, see “Broken Lives of the Twilight Children” at news. telegraph.co.uk.)

Children abducted by the LRA are forced to fight against Ugandan military forces, raid villages for food, destroy property, rape and slaughter civilians, and abduct other children. This year alone, it is estimated the group has kidnapped more than 3,500 children for its use, with many young girls given to rebel commanders as “wives,” and reportedly sold, traded or given as gifts to arms dealers in Sudan.

In addition to being beaten and raped, children are often forced to witness their parents being killed. Moreover, as a means of trauma and emotional manipulation, abducted children are required to participate in the killing of other children (or face being killed themselves). About 20 children continue to be abducted every day.

While many abducted children have died from disease, maltreatment and armed conflict, an estimated 7,000 children have managed to escape. We aim to offer professional support for these children, as well as trauma rehabilitation training for community initiatives.

July 24, 7:40 p.m.

Here’s an update on my most recent trip to Zambia and Uganda. I took with me a man in his late teens (an ex-client) for an eye-opening and life-changing experience.

First stop: rural Zambia

I was impressed by the progress made by a few community members who participated in a leadership training program we started many years ago. They had truly broken the dependency syndrome and were tremendously successful at establishing churches, developing their own medical clinics, starting schools for hundreds of underprivileged children, organizing adult literacy classes, and a host of other projects.

The next phase of our work in Zambia is developing a home for orphans in Chingola (Zambian Copperbelt). We come across destitute, orphaned kids who really have no extended family left or who are rejected because in-laws are already caring for so many children. For them, it seems as though heading to prostitute themselves and beg on the streets is their only option.

In the past we have come across single grandparents looking after 20 or more children—left behind when their own children died of AIDS. Like so many other peasant farming grandparents, they are unable to adequately care for the children or send them to school. Many more families are child-headed households, usually girls between 12 and 15 years of age who are looking after their younger siblings (after their parents died of AIDS).

How do they earn enough money to feed their siblings? Selling their bodies to the truck drivers who pass through. It is these children who often miss out on the services provided by the larger non-government organizations (NGO).

While I was in Africa, God placed on my heart the idea to start small pure-orphan homes (10 to 12 children) headed by committed Christian Zambian couples and families so the children can grow up in a family setting rather than on the streets or in an orphanage.

Such establishments would be in the form of proper houses with access for volunteers to come on short-term missions and share their skills, talents and gifts in a cultural exchange.

Next stop: Northern Uganda (the primary purpose for the trip).

I survived the war in northern Uganda (thank God), and truly had a tremendous time there equipping the saints with biblically based mental health training.

Sharon Tan e-mailed me with a timely scripture, Isaiah 61:1-3.

I have never seen such destitution in all my life.

I visited three refugee camps swarming with internally displaced families (two million people) because of the war in the north. Living conditions could scarcely be called living. Twenty percent of all refugees throughout Africa are in this area.

The people are banned from farming because it might be seen as though they are helping the rebels.

The U.N. world food program had not shown up for three to four months to deliver food, and so the situation was quite desperate.

The people are completely dependent on world aid, which is less than sufficient. As such, hopelessness has gripped the region. People sit idle all day drinking and having sexual affairs, which creates a whole host of other social and health dilemmas.

The saddest part of all was working with the children themselves and listening to their experiences. I was in a state of shock (and still emotionally drained) at the degree to which children are being abused, and the extent to which manipulative techniques for physical, mental and sexual abuse are taken. Nothing could have prepared me for what these children told me.

I then journeyed on to Lira (central-northern Uganda) and met with officials to discuss the further training of health professionals from all NGO disciplines to eradicate witchcraft rehabilitation practices.

No rehabilitation is available for these children. There are a few centers where the children go for a week or two after being interrogated by the Ugandan Army, and here a whole variety of witchcraft cleansing ceremonies are performed, but no formal health care for the trauma they have experienced.

The mutilation of the children at these camps following beatings and cuttings in captivity was a sight not to behold—I couldn’t believe my eyes. Severed noses, lips, limbs, and other things. Two children after receiving 500 lashings quite literally had their buttocks fall off.

The only consolation is that God has allowed us to now bring help into the region. Slowly but surely, God is moving us to bring tangible post-traumatic intervention into the four districts.

While in the north, I felt God whispering that a long-term trauma rehabilitation and skills training center needs to be established in Padea. More than the massive funding required (as God always provides the way), the main dilemma is who is going to do the work? Perhaps I am weak in faith, because after having come back from the war zone, I am not the most keen person to say, “Here I am Lord, choose me.”

For the first time I struggle putting my life on the line because of my little boy Jhae. Being away from my family for one month was hard enough, taking them into a war zone is almost unthinkable, and being apart from them for so long with the real possibility of not returning is nothing short of torture to me. Still, this work desperately needs to be done.

On a positive note, the young man I took with me to Africa for a life-changing experience gave his life back to Jesus while we were near the border of Sudan, while many children were gathered praying for protection throughout the night from the rebels. Watching the children (as young as six years old) worship and beseech God in such a sincere and powerful way (such that I have never seen before in all of my African experiences throughout the years) was a humbling experience for us both.

If you are moved to get involved financially or if you have skills you would like to contribute, please ask.

For more information on the work being done by Family Challenge, please see www.familychallenge.com.au

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