COMMENTARY: Listen to the Children

c. 2000 Religion News Service (Bishop T.D. Jakes is pastor of the 24,000-member Potter’s House Church in Dallas. He traveled to Washington in May to join other concerned pastors and congressmen in taking a stand on behalf of the Sudanese people.) (UNDATED) As an African-American, the tragedy of slavery resonates loudly in my ears. I […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Bishop T.D. Jakes is pastor of the 24,000-member Potter’s House Church in Dallas. He traveled to Washington in May to join other concerned pastors and congressmen in taking a stand on behalf of the Sudanese people.)

(UNDATED) As an African-American, the tragedy of slavery resonates loudly in my ears. I am deeply aware of its long-term ramifications felt by succeeding generations. As a Christian, I am grieved that our nation’s leaders seem to pick and choose the most “marketable” atrocities to squelch, and allow other equally heinous situations to fester and their infection to spread.


But as a father and member of the human race, I am encouraged by the character and integrity of a generation of future leaders who are speaking out now in defense of the helpless, even while their elders’ voices are absent.

I’ve been listening to one particular elementary school class that traveled from Colorado to Washington recently in hopes that they might see President Clinton. These small citizens have written their president hundreds of letters and called to request an appointment. They worked through the proper channels to acquire an audience with the “leader of the free world.”

You see, these children have learned freedom is a God-given right and they have a deep concern that freedom for some is being brutally violated.

But they have been met with disparaging silence. Unfortunately, with every passing moment these children know other children’s time is running out.

A few months ago, these fifth-grade students’ teacher read them a small newspaper story about other children and families in the African nation of Sudan. Our innocents heard about Sudanese people who suffer in slavery and face torture, man-made starvation and death daily at the hands of a cruel regime that wants to purge the mostly Christian southern region of Sudan.

In fact, the children learned that more people had died in the Sudanese slaughter than all those whom America rushed to save in Bosnia and Kosovo combined. Their simple logic says the leader of the “free world” should be outraged about the suffering in Sudan as well.

But these children did not bring more rhetoric to add to Washington’s overflowing supply. They brought action as an example for the rest of us.


The boys and girls wanted desperately to do something to help. So they began collecting their lunch money and allowances, put up lemonade stands and solicited donations from family and friends to raise money that would purchase the freedom of at least some of the suffering slaves in Sudan.

Working with humanitarian organizations, they have actually been able to free a precious handful of the 4 million victims being raped, enslaved, displaced and killed in the deliberate and systematic Sudanese genocide.

I, for one, join the voices of the children who want to know the answers to some legitimate questions: As the only remaining superpower, and self-appointed global police, why do we hasten to other parts of the world and ignore the 911 call from Sudan?

As an abolitionist nation, can we truly stand by with a clear conscience and do nothing when we have the ability to rescue the hopeless?

America equals hope to those in need. Today literally tens of thousands of Americans are beginning to wake up and add their voices to these bold children who dare to challenge our national conscience. Do we still have one? I say yes!

And I call on all Americans _ black and white; Christian, Jew and agnostic _ to prove it. We are not only engaged in a struggle for the freedom of enslaved people in Sudan, we are in a struggle for the soul of America.


Listen to the children. America’s greatness is not found in our politicians. It resides in our fifth-graders. I thank God they have not allowed us to sleep through another holocaust. Their wake-up call is buzzing in our ears. Will we hit the snooze button again, or get up and face the music?

DEA END JAKES

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