The book I read to research this post was Living On The Edge by Sam Childers which is a very good book that I bought from kindle. Sam runs missions combined with orphanages in South Sudan, Ethiopia and Uganda. He is an ex-biker with a bad past in things like drugs and became a christian which for him was like a renaissance as with the help of the lady he later married he became a successful businessman and preacher. He did do another book Another Man’s War which is also reviewed on this site and is a better book. That book was made into a film, Machine Gun Preacher starring Gerard Butler. For many he is the closest thing to any form of law and order especially in South Sudan where the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army which is largely financed by the Sudan in the North regularly makes incursions into the South and does things like massacre people and burn villages. In the area Sam operates and he literally has to have volunteers going around with machine guns it is relatively trouble free as a result. He has to raise $32,000 every week to fund his orphanages so more recently he has had to take more of an administrative role. I was quite moved by both these books. This book is around 150 pages so is fairly long. Apparently Gerard Butler who was very hands on with preparing for his role hung around with bikers, construction workers and even visited the missions where they had to take out kidnapping insurance although it turned out to be fairly safe. The President of Sudan has been indicted by the court in The Hague for international war crimes and although many in Africa it has nothing to do with the court and is an Africa, one thing he argues is many of those killed aren’t a threat in any way to these and they are just being sadistic. A lot of the victims are children who are as part of joining the rebels made at gunpoint to disembowel their own mothers. If they don’t co-operate they face a similar fate. I really enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it.
