Pastor Rick Warren's Civil Forum on Faith

On August 16th I attended the Saddleback Church Civil Forum on Faith with  special guests Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain.

Surprisingly, my impressions of the Candidates as it relates to Darfur were not dissimilar.

Pastor Warren asked both candidates if they felt there was evil in the world and should they confront it, negotiate with it or attempt to abolish it.

Sen. Obama answered thoughtfully agreeing that Darfur and Rawanda were in fact a Genocide. He did not elaborate on what immediate steps he would take to resolve the crisis in Darfur. His overall view as I understood it was that negotiation would be his first approach; with the help of the "International Community". This has been tried and has not worked so far.

McCain took a stronger tone but his answer was as diffuse as Obama's.When pushed about the UN he said there are times when you do not wait for the UN to take action; but I suspect this had more to do with Iraq than with Darfur.

He said what was going on in Darfur "must be stopped" but he did not elaborate on what, if elected, he would do.

Here we are again, everyone knows what is happening in Darfur is wrong, yet no one is willing to commit their language in the form of a plan of action. It's baffling. You either have a plan or you don't. You are either willing or you are not. 

A better question to the candidates would have been "What specifically would you do to help bring an end to the genocide in Darfur".

We already know there is much evil in the world.

Lopez Lomong, the hope of a people

By Collette Kaplan

When I went downstairs to read the LA Times this morning, my husband; with his usual hour head start on me said, "You are going to be very happy when you read the front page and very happy when you read the sports page!". 

I never read the sports page...ever! Being suspicious, I pulled that section out of the stack first and screened it. On the front page, there was a photograph of a group of runners with the subtitle,"Lopez Lomong was voted by Captains of the U.S. Teams to carry the American flag into the opening ceremony". My husband had correctly predicted my reaction. I was happy, very happy!

I knew about Lopez Lomong because I heard him interviewed on NPR where he talked about the joy of making it onto the Olympic Team after dreaming about it as a child in Sudan.

 

The story of Lomong goes something like this: At the age of 6, during what was then called a civil war in Southern Sudan, Lemong was abducted and forced to work as a child solider. He managed to escape and walk three days where he and a few other boys crossed the boarder into Kenya where he was arrested and placed into a refugee camp. He would spend the next ten years of his young life in that camp.

The International Rescue Committee had a special program that was able to get hundreds of these boys out of the bleak refugee camps and into the US. We know them as the "Lost Boys".

Lomong was one of the lucky ones chosen to go. He was placed with a foster family in Tully, New York. He attended Northern Arizona University and won NCAA titles in the 1500 and 3000 meters.

Last year Lemong became a U.S. citizen, tomorrow he will carry our flag and participate with pride in an Olympic Dream that represents hope for the suffering people of Darfur. As a nation that prides itself with concern and compassion for others, this will be an honest moment dedicated to some of our treasured founding principles; "Liberty and Justice for all".

This is all thanks to a group of American athletes who understand that there is more to life than sports and that the Olympics are in fact a political event for the country that hosts them. Though the message may be nuanced, it is a great one to send to the world.

I have never cried reading the sports page, today was a first.