MICHAEL BRANT: Congo Mission to Save Child Soldiers
Goal: Present the DRC Team for “Child Soldier” Rehabilitation, Reconciliation, and Reconstruction My name is Mike Brant and I’m the President of the World Institute for Social Education Development, an educational and social purpose tax exempt 501c3 in the USA, but we work internationally. I’ve lived and worked in 35 countries on 5 continents over a span of 53 years, speak 6 languages, have 14 biological children born in 7 countries, and I speak 6 languages which I use in my work. Over the years, I’ve learned that people are basically the same around the world in that they hope to find happiness, love, and meaning while living a peaceful life. The want the same for their children. These are common dreams. One would ask why it should be so complicated to accomplish this, if everyone wants it. The problem is that we also have a common problem, in that the human nature has good traits and bad ones. We are capable of love, but also of hate; of generosity, but also of greed, and on goes the list of contradictions in our makeup. When these inner problems are multiplied by 8.2 billion people on the planet, which is the count in 2024, things get complicated, and I believe that only God, through His son Jesus Christ can change that in us. That is also my own life experience as a fellow human. Then, there is the problem of power and wealth bringing ambition and oppression of others. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” We see this played out in the world today with the super powers vying to be “Number One”, the abundance of wars, both external and civil, and terrorism not even called war. This is all prophesied as a sign of the end of this era of history, as Jesus said, and there will not be peace until the real Prince of Peace comes, because only He can regenerate us and finally and lovingly enforce that for our own good, which he will. I the meanwhile, what can we do to help those who suffer the atrocities of wars, conflicts, and oppression? Are we supposed to try to do anything? I believe so because Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the Children of God,” so He must want us to do what we can, mostly by helping people to find His love and peace, which they can later share with others. He also quoted a prophecy from the book of Isaiah for Himself, which is in Luke 4:18, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed". I believe He asks us to carry on that work. Specifically this evening, I want to share with you one of our must critical projects to carry this out, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, which has been in civil war for several years now, mainly engineered from outside the country to keep it in conflict so that the precious metals, which we use in our mobile phones can be shipped out for the high tech used to empower their empirical plans. We currently have a Congolese team which has been rehabilitating “Child Soldiers”, actually young teens who have been duped into “fighting for their freedom” , given automatic weapons and a salary, to attack and kill their own villages, and the like. This team goes on, with the permission of the government to open the eyes and minds of these youth, very much at the grass level, so that they turn around. The efforts have been extremely effective. This time, about 2 years ago, had to flee their own village…. from there I will explain the immediate need….
