Sam Childers - former drug-dealing criminal turned into a preacher

The movie "Machine Gun Preacher" was really a thumbs-up for me because of the lessons that I learned from the life of a former drug-dealing criminal who turned into a preacher and leads an advocacy in saving young Sudanese children and restoring peace in the area. The movie is an inspirational true story of Sam Childers.

Childers grew up in the hills of Pennsylvania. At an early age, Sam started to show a propensity for getting into trouble despite the fact that his parents were loved and respected for being decent and honest people. His father is a former marine and fond of telling Sam "Boy, somebody's gonna kill you one of these days!"

In his early teens, Sam often encounter fist fights. He was lured into selling hard drugs and sleeping with married women. His teen life was full of crime and violence until he became a Shotgunner, an armed guard for drug dealers. He met Lyn, a stripper, and later became his wife.

The touching moments in the movie was when Sam began to distance himself from his former life, maybe because the words of his father always haunts him. He found a job in a construction that made his life do well. Lyn returned to the Church she forsake when she was still a young adult. Lyn encourage Sam to re-establish his relationship with God by joining her in the Church. Sam was baptized and began to live a clean life. By the time Lyn gave birth to a healthy baby girl, Sam already had started his own construction business.




During that time, the African nation was in the midst of the Second Sudanese War. Sam was invited by his Pastor to join a mission group to Sudan tasked  to help in repairing and rebuilding huts being damaged in the conflict. Sam arrived in the village of Yei, Southern Sudan in 1998. His eagerness to help the children in Sudan started when he stumbled across the body of a child torn apart by a landmine.

He later run a mobile clinic when he returned back to Sudan. The worst of Sam's enemies in his endeavor in giving new life and bringing hope for the children was the Lord's Resistance Army, LRA, a brutal rebel militia that murdered hundreds of thousand villagers and kidnapped thousands of children and trained them as soldiers. He pursued his plans of putting up an orphanage and later sold his construction business to finance his project. His family was affected financially that made their car repossessed and a foreclosure notice was issued on their house. He was left with two options to decide, to save their family finances as he got more money to pay the outstanding mortgage or continue finishing the orphanage in Africa. He chose the latter.

Through Sam's efforts, the orphanage became the largest in Southern Sudan and has fed and housed thousands of children. The orphanage has became a home to more than 200 children.

The couple together with their pretty girl, Paige, still live in the same house in Pennsylvania and continue their fight against cruelty and poverty of Sudanese children.

Sam Childers succeed in his plans of serving and helping the children of Sudan. What a nice life story of a brave man. Do you have anything to share here? Please feel free to post some comments.




Image source: MachinegunPreacher.org

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