blessed are the peacemakers

i'm sure most of you heard about the terrorist bombing last week in kampala, uganda, where hundreds of people had gathered to watch the final game of the world cup. we hear things like this on the news all the time, and generally are fairly numb to the news. if it doesn't directly affects us, we move on pretty quickly. i know i do. it was a little rattling to hear about this, but mostly because steph (my sis) spent a summer in kampala, and for a brief second i thought, "woah, what if she had been there during something like this?" and then i forgot about it.

and then i heard about someone i had never met who died in the attack, but his story hit home for me. nate henn, a guy from north carolina, was interning for invisible children, and died in the blast. (if you don't know about invisible children, they are an incredible organization raising awareness about the use of child soliders in joseph kony's war in uganda, and also raise money to build schools and develop programs for northern uganda's war-affected children. they are doing great things). i could tell you the rest of his story, but you really should just watch the video. he lived an inspiring life, one to be celebrated and imitated.

Nate Henn // 1985 - 2010 from INVISIBLE CHILDREN on Vimeo.

it's really hard to make sense of any of this. but in a blog post about this specific event, JD Greer (a pastor of Nate's parents at Summit Church) said it best:

"death and pain put the joy of salvation in sharp relief."

blessed are the peacemakers.

check out the rest of nate's story & invisible children: http://blog.invisiblechildren.com/2010/07/in-loving-memory-of-nate-oteka-henn/