{"id":2132,"date":"2006-05-11T08:51:51","date_gmt":"2006-05-11T08:51:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/in-the-lords-army.html"},"modified":"2006-05-11T08:51:51","modified_gmt":"2006-05-11T08:51:51","slug":"in-the-lords-army","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/in-the-lords-army.html","title":{"rendered":"In the Lord’s Army"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ugandana horrors and one sister’s fight for her students:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

The rebels marched 139 girls out of the school and into the darkness. They walked one night and one day, through the bush, following no road. The rebels did not realize Sister Rachelle was following their tracks.<\/p>\n

When she found them, the nun fell on her knees and begged the rebels to let her girls go. "She was telling him, ‘Take me and release the girls, or kill me and release my children.’ ” The commander made her take off her habit. "The veil is very important to the sisters," Grace said. "She removed it because she wanted the girls rescued. She had money and medicine. I wish you had seen her. She was so desperate."<\/p>\n

The rebels sat down on banana leaves and began dividing the girls into two groups. "If you looked scared, you are picked. If you looked confident, you are picked. We thought they would kill either group. The girls were trying to disfigure themselves so they would be left behind." Some girls hitched arms up, trying to look crippled. Grace tied her nightgown, hoping they would think she was pregnant and have no use for her.<\/p>\n

Twenty-eight girls were chosen to sit in a separate place. "They chose 28, but they wanted 30. The guy came to me and he said, ‘Didn’t I select you?’ I said, ‘No, sir.’ He took me to the leader of the big group. They said I would be an example to the others."<\/p>\n

"Kill me!" Sister Rachelle shouted. "Don’t kill her."<\/p>\n

The nun knelt down before the commander. The commander told her, "I’m not a god. Get up." Then, 109 girls were chosen, freed to go with Sister Rachelle.<\/p>\n

The girls left behind began to wail. Grace can still hear their screams: No, we would rather die than stay with these people.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ugandana horrors and one sister’s fight for her students: The rebels marched 139 girls out of the school and into the darkness. They walked one night and one day, through the bush, following no road. The rebels did not realize Sister Rachelle was following their tracks. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}