It was a day that Hashim Adam Mersal will never forget. Hashim is a member of the Zaghawa tribe in the Darfur region of Sudan, where his family kept a large herd of 400 cattle and 150 sheep. That made them wealthy by local standards.
Then on a hot summer day in 2003, the Sudanese government sent the Janjaweed militias to attack black African villages in his region. The Janjaweed swept in on horses, camels and sleek Toyota pickup trucks. They fired their AK-47s and RPG-7s indiscriminately. They then burned Hashim’s village to the ground.
Hashim escaped with some of the livestock, but his father and brother were both killed, along with many others, including eight children in one family. Hashim isn’t sure what happened to the rest of his family.
‘‘It was humans and livestock all mixed together, running for survival,’’ Hashim remembers. ‘‘Some kids were falling behind, and we just couldn’t help. We couldn’t do anything for those falling back. There was lots of crying, but you were too scared to stop and help anyone. Some were wounded and couldn’t keep up. Some were left behind and died.’’
In that flight from terror, Hashim passed other villages that had been burned. ‘‘Bodies were scattered everywhere,’’ he says. Hashim made his way into neighboring Chad and eventually to the States, where he is living as a refugee. “I am alive and breathing, but I am like a dead man who walks,” he says. “The rest of my life will be nothing but sorrow.”
A Nation in Turmoil
In a world of pain and sorrow—famine, war, sex trafficking, slavery—perhaps no nation stands out as much as Sudan. This, the largest nation in Africa, has known only 10 years of relative peace since its independence in 1956. Civil and religious wars have divided the land, the latest being in the Darfur region, where the Arab Muslim government in the capital, Khartoum, is persecuting the black African tribes—fellow Muslims, by the way—who have objected to the government’s policies. The government takes a hands-off approach to genocide by having the unaffiliated Janjaweed do its dirty work. Since the fighting began in 2003, more than 450,000 men, women and children have been killed, and nearly 5 million have been made refugees in Darfur or in neighboring Chad, living on the edge of starvation.
It’s easy to think, What can I do? when looking at such overwhelming despair. But teens around the country have said they can do at least a few small things: let their friends and families know what is happening and raise money to help support the refugees. And so was born Dollars for Darfur, a six-month fundraising and knowledge-raising effort by and for teens. Running from November 2006 through April 2007, Dollars for Darfur included groups from 2,000 high schools in North American and raised $300,000 that went to the Save Darfur Coalition, an alliance of more than 180 faith-based, advocacy and humanitarian organizations that are working to help the people of Darfur.
One such school was Rivers Christian Academy in Elk River, Minn., where Emily Shelley, Karli Anderson and Rachel Maki started a Dollars for Darfur chapter. Karli, 17, and Emily, 18, first heard about Darfur during a presentation at a local community college, where they received class credit for attending. Emily says she didn’t attend the lecture out of any particular desire to help.
“I admit that I went just for the credits,” she says. “I didn’t mean to get anything out of it. But the presentation challenged me to become more aware and not to be so lazy.”
“I was shocked by what I learned and felt like I should do something to help,” Karli adds.
In the meantime, Rachel, 18, had read a news story about Darfur during the summer. “The article didn’t go into great detail, so I didn’t fully understand the desperate situation that the people of Darfur were in,” she says. “When Karli and Emily told me that they had gone to a presentation on the genocide in Darfur, we all decided to get involved.”
Do Something
In later research, Karli learned more. “I saw graphic pictures drawn by orphaned Darfurian children who had witnessed their mothers being raped or their fathers brutally murdered,” she says. “No one I know has ever experienced something like that. I felt that it wasn’t right that so few Americans were aware of what was going on.”
“I saw a clip of a broadcast about a boy whose city was destroyed,” Emily says. “They found his school books in the remains of the city, and they had his name on them, so the news team tracked him down and interviewed him. That moved me. We got to hear his story, so that made the genocide personal.”
The girls knew they couldn’t not do something. “The three steps to stopping genocide are educating, advocating and fundraising,” Emily says. “We felt that the most important step was education, because you can’t do anything about this problem if you don’t know that it exists. We researched how the genocide began, what was happening at the time and different ways we could help. This is when we found the Dollars for Darfur campaign. We took the information we learned and presented it to our school in our weekly chapel service. Most people we told about this knew nothing about what was happening in Darfur. It was encouraging to know that others now knew about the genocide and would be able to help in different ways.”
The girls raised $70 toward Dollars for Darfur—not a huge amount, but Emily, Karli and Rachel knew their efforts had an ultimate spiritual imperative and payoff.
“God calls us to help those in need and to serve Him by serving others,” Rachel says. “The people of Darfur need not only physical and emotional aid, but they also need spiritual aid. God loves them and wants them to hear about His love before they die. By helping them in their time of need, we are showing them God's love and bringing God glory.”
“I believe that Christians have a greater responsibility to help other people,” Karli adds. “Jesus devoted His life to loving other people, and we should do the same, in whatever ways we can.”
“As Christians who know about the suffering of others, it is our duty to do what we can for these people,” Emily says. “We pray always for people; everyone needs prayer. If we can give financially, we give financially. But even if we can’t do that, we are to tell others about what is happening in places like Darfur so they can get involved in whatever way they can. That is what Jesus would do and instructs us to do.”
Changing Inside Out
Learning about suffering in Darfur has changed the lives of Emily, Karli and Rachel. All three now sponsor children through either World Vision or Compassion International.
“These are both great programs, and they make it really easy to get involved,” Emily says. She graduated from Rivers and now attends nearby Anoka-Ramsey Community College. She loves physical training and had originally planned a major so that she could teach physical education, but the experience of learning about Darfur has led her to slightly change her goals.
“I really want to help people,” she says, “so I’m thinking of studying physical therapy. My dream is to serve God in China some day.”
“I want my life to become a life of service,” Karli adds. “That’s why I’ve decided to become a teacher. I’ve considered becoming a missionary of some sort. I just want to go where God wants to use me.”
Rachel is attending Northwestern College in St. Paul, Minn., and plans on majoring in history or literature with a minor in either missions or intercultural studies. “I feel that God is calling me to missions work in Ireland, whether short term or long term,” she says. “But I am still waiting for His time.”
As is often the case, these world-changers found themselves changed by answering God’s call to help those in need. 
