Sam Childers, the 'Machine Gun Preacher' speaks with Chris Barrett about his work in Africa

Описание: Sam Childers, the 'Machine Gun Preacher' speaks with Chris Barrett of Showbiz411.com about his work in Africa.

Machine Gun Preacher is the inspirational true story of Sam Childers, a former drug-dealing criminal who undergoes an astonishing transformation and finds an unexpected calling as the savior of hundreds of kidnapped and orphaned children. Gerard Butler (300) delivers a searing performance as Childers, the impassioned founder of the Angels of East Africa rescue organization in Golden Globe-nominated director Marc Forster's (Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland) moving story of violence and redemption.
When ex-biker-gang member Sam Childers (Butler) makes the life-changing decision to go to East Africa to help repair homes destroyed by civil war, he is outraged by the unspeakable horrors faced by the region's vulnerable populace, especially the children. Ignoring the warnings of more experienced aide workers, Sam breaks ground for an orphanage where it's most needed—in the middle of territory controlled by the brutal Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a renegade militia that forces youngsters to become soldiers before they even reach their teens.
But for Sam, it is not enough to shelter the LRA's intended victims. Determined to save as many as possible, he leads armed missions deep into enemy territory to retrieve kidnapped children, restoring peace to their lives - and eventually his own. The explosive, real-life tale of a man who has rescued over a thousand orphans from starvation, disease and enslavement, Machine Gun Preacher also stars Michelle Monaghan (Due Date), Kathy Baker (Cold Mountain), Madeline Carroll (Mr. Popper's Penguins), Academy Award® nominated Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road) and Souleymane Sy Savane ("Damages").

From Wikipedia:
In the summer of 1992, Childers experienced what he described as a conversion during a revival at an Assembly of God church. Childers has claimed that was also the same evening that his pastor prophesied that he would go to Africa. At the end of 1998, Childers made his first trip to Sudan. In that first trip and the many that followed, he was exposed to the acts of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA)[2] which he described as atrocious.
Over 30,000 children have been abducted by Joseph Kony and the LRA in the region.[3] Relief organizations report as many as 50,000 children have been abducted and 1.7 million people have been displaced. The abducted children are generally forced to be child soldiers or sex slaves until they escape, are rescued or killed. Thousands of children have become orphans as a result of brutal LRA attacks on remote villages in Southern Sudan and Northern Uganda.

Not long after his first trip to Sudan, Childers and his wife Lynn founded the Angels of East Africa, the Children's Village in Southern Sudan.[4] The Children's Village currently houses and educates over 300 orphans,[5] with over a thousand children rescued since its inception.[6] The staff at the Children's Village are primarily Sudanese orphans and widows themselves. This is currently the largest orphanage in Southern Sudan and is unique in its approach of leading armed rescue missions directly into LRA territory. The Children's Village is the only non-governmental organization that does not pick up and leave when fighting breaks out in the area.[7]
Childers details the events of his life and his experiences in Africa in his book Another Man's War.

In November 2009, Childers appeared on Debra Peppers' television show Outreach Connection in Quincy, Illinois. He revealed that he also rescues children abducted in Northern Uganda in Africa.