It is a night just like any other night. You as parents are finally resting comfortably upon your softly cushioned couch while the children sit playing with their toys.
The TV has become only faint background noise as you listen to story after story about what happened at school today.
It is at that brief moment in time when you embrace your partner and smile at your children that you realize how wonderful life is.
You notice an hour has slowly crept by as you gently scoop up “the little one” and usher the others quietly to bed.
Tomorrow will be another long day and sleep is just what you need so you sing the last lullaby of the evening and evoke the last heartfelt smile after a goodnight kiss and turn out the lights.
You fall to the bed with reckless abandon and hope for a quiet and restful sleep. A passionate kiss and a whispered “I love you” are shared while the last lights of night are turned out and you fall fast asleep.
“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!!! What are those loud noises?” Your eyes jump to life as the walls of your home violently shake and your oldest comes running to your side.
You look for your wife but she is already at the door and speeding towards the children’s rooms. You leap to the floor and rush to the window for a look.
“Daddy, Daddy! What is that?” BOOOOOOOOMM!!! Run son! You are almost stepping over him as you both tear down the hallway searching for the others.
They are standing along the far wall in the darkness hiding from the explosions outside the window. “I don’t know what is going on but people are running from their burning homes.”
You embrace as a family when you hear your front door being bashed in. Yelling voices fill the downstairs now and you inform your family to not make any sudden movements. It is a time when breathing is feared.
“Everyone get down here now!” Instinct has taken over so you hide yourselves as best as possible. Your heartbeat grows louder and faster when you hear heavy footsteps rushing up the stairs toward you. Your heart almost explodes out of your chest when the door is torn off the hinges from one violent and swift kick.
Your kids see their father pulled by the neck down the stairs and thrown onto the front lawn. Your kids watch as their mother is viscously dragged by the hair outside next to her partner.
Frightened beyond belief, each of you have no idea why this is happening or what is about to happen. Bullets and explosions rip through screams of young and old alike. The neighborhood is ablaze with violence and fire as though hell came to earth tonight.
Your kids run for hiding within the bushes. Some get away, some don’t. As parents, you watch your eldest son manhandled and thrown into the back of an old rickety pickup truck only to be forced into this madness.
Your 3-year-old son is carelessly pitched onto the ground only to have his penis severed and left to bleed out.
Your daughters were lucky to get away but are unfortunate to see what happens to their parents next. It is a sight that will be seared into their minds for an entire lifetime.
They uncontrollably cry as they watch their father beaten within an inch of his life by the butts of rifles and sticks.
As this is happening, they also watch as their mother is continuously raped by multiple men. By chance, you are spared an even worse fate than some wives in your neighborhood didn’t.
You don’t escape the horror of seeing your husband’s head severed before your very eyes though. Mournful cries billow from your mouth as you see your companion’s head roll away with eyes still wide.
Dirt collects along the lines of his many tears like paths of sorrow. And just as quickly as this onslaught came, they leave and spread out like wildfire towards the next houses.
What if this happened here? What if this happened in your neighborhood? What if this happened to you? Imagine it did. Now you know what it is like to be an innocent civilian in Darfur .
Similar stories have been told thousands of times over the sand swept planes of Sudan and under thatch roofed homes of refugees in neighboring Chad.
People are being pushed from their villages and are either killed or forced to run for distant refugee camps.
These images are seen by young and old on a daily basis. So I ask you again. What if this happened here in the United States? What if this happened to your family? Wouldn’t you want somebody to help you? I would think so.
You can help end these stories and stop the genocide that is happening right now in Darfur.
Call or write your elected officials, speak out on these issues or visit websites such as to see what you can do.
It is our God given ability to care for those who need help and the people of Darfur need our help. We can no longer sit idly by and do nothing. It is time to stand up together and say ENOUGH!
End the Genocide.
Joe Rogers lives in Denver.
