Causing change in California!

Many, many thanks to Kristin for sending us this inspiring recap of her group's meeting with Congressman Farr's staff in Santa Cruz, CA! Following the meeting, this is what Kristin had to say: "I thought the meeting would feel like the end-all, like some monumental triumph, that somehow, in that hour, we could change the world forever. But it’s never like that. Well, sometimes, we get to have those life-altering experiences in those big moments. But most of the time, it’s the small steps, the everyday faithfulness, the little things, that really make such a huge difference. This was one such small, but very powerful, step."

Read the full description below.

August 20, 2007:

THANKS SO MUCH for being involved with the Knock Knock campaign this past Friday, whether by attending or praying for us. It was quite a successful endeavor.

We were able to meet with Brian Henderson, one of Congressman Farr’s aides and Allison, one of Brian’s fellow staffers, for nearly an hour on Friday. We had seven people from the community able to attend the meeting and got a chance to pray for a bit before the meeting, really asking God to use this meeting to be a small part of bringing justice and peace in Uganda. In reflecting back on our time, it was so amazing to see who God brought to the meeting: among us we had local teachers, those who had been directly involved with Invisible Children events before, members of the VFC/FPC social justice ministry, one woman who is involved with a local organization called Firelight Foundation that works with African kids affected by HIV/AIDS, and a few people who had actually visited Africa—in our little group, there was a collective sense that we all had a stake in what was being talked about in the meeting.

Brian had already heard about some of the issues happening around the war in N Uganda, so it was easy to get right in to the nitty gritty and share with him what specifically we would like Congressman Farr to do to support the people of Uganda. After we explained the situation there, what we would like done and what Invisible Children was all about (including details of the Displace Me event), we showed him the wrap-up video of “Displace Me” One of the people with us was able to carefully observe Brian’s reaction to the video, noticing that he seemed to really be taking it all in, allowing all the information being presented to seep into his mind, to internalize it.

As we closed the meeting, Brian was visibly excited about what had happened, commenting that a lot of people assume our generation (him being part of that generation, as he was probably about 25 himself) is apathetic and lazy about social change, but meetings like this proved those assumptions wrong. He shared that it was so inspiring to see groups likes ours, and organizations like Invisible Children, rallying younger people and getting them interested and active in serving the world around them (I mentioned to him that in a scene from the IC video about Displace Me results going to congress, that one of the senators who would eventually really got behind the placement of a US advisor in Africa, Senator Feingold, commented that when his young daughters ask him about what he’s doing about the LRA, “we” – orgs like IC- “are doing something right.”). Brian was encouraging and hopeful that Congressman Farr would get behind the Child Soldier Prevention Act, as Farr himself served in the Peace Corps, and was passionate about human rights issues- he even mentioned that should Farr be in this very meeting, he would probably be the most excited of them all. Brian was eager to have further discussions with us about this topic and took all of our contact info, encouraging us to check back in a few weeks to see what progress Farr had made on being part of supporting the act.

The most striking part of the whole experience for me was the relative ease of it all. Getting the meeting booked with Brian took two phone calls and a well worded email. Presenting the information took me a couple hours of reading to understand what I was presenting and a conference all on a Friday afternoon. Getting people to come with took 2 mass emails and some phone calls. And the interaction with Brian was easy, light, encouraging and hopeful. Brian really exhorted us to continue bringing issues to our local government, re-iterating a few times how important it is for those of us who want to see change happen to be involved with our representatives and government. He impressed upon us how much power and influence we as normal everyday people can have if we write letters, call our representatives and ask for meetings to talk through things that we are passionate about changing in our country and world.