I'm the Machine Gun Preacher who Gerard Butler played in film – here's how I survived ISIS and 10 assassination attempts
A HOLLYWOOD star who gave up being a drug dealing bikie is now fighting ISIS through the dripping jungles of central Africa.
The Machine Gun Preacher is on a mission to rescue child sex slaves on the continent - and is has come up against the notorious terror group.
11
11
The priest, real name Sam Childers, is battling ISIS in the Congo as he continues his holy war to save abused children.
He's famously known as being the inspiration behind the movie Machine Gun Preacher.
The film starred an A-list cast of Gerard Butler as Childers, Michelle Monaghan as his wife, and Michael Shannon.
Machine Gun Preacher told the story of how Childers came to be fighting in Africa after growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Once a criminal, he found God, turned his life to charity work in Africa and dedicated himself to saving children.
Machine Gun Preacher - the film - showed him battling Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army in 1997.
Now he's released a self-made documentary - trying to raise money to take the fight to ISIS in Congo.
He said: "I'm not worried about dying. I'm 62 years old. The last thing I worry about is dying. I worry more about living than dying."
After being hammered in the Middle East, ISIS turned to Africa and is now enslaving thousands of children as its militants rampage through impoverished areas.
Childers has a network of orphanages, schools, and farms set up across the centre of the continent.
I fought ISIS in Syria & I know bloodthirsty thugs are plotting comeback after fall of Assad - Europe must be ready, says Brit fighter
But he's come into combat with ISIS as they have expanded into Congo.
He said: "We don't want to see our children be kidnapped, sold in prostitution.
"We don't want to see none of that so I'm willing to do whatever I have to do... and I'm willing to answer for it.
"They are murderers. They're killers.
11
11
11
"I'm not afraid of none of them."
Some 5.4million people have been killed in Congo's ongoing conflicts since 1998 - but the wars have gone largely ignored in the West.
Three children were beheaded by rebel fighters in February and dozens more killed when they took a village.
Childers' belief in God has given the preacher the strength to keep fighting - even against militant Christian groups.
The Lord's Resistance Army raped and abducted girls, mutilated them, and enslaved boys into being child soldiers.
He said: "I've been ambushed over 10 times. Been in over 10 major battles. They tried to assassinate me over 10 times.
"That's just in the Kony War."
Despite the gun battles, Childers says that he was in more danger while a bikie and drug dealer in America.
11
11
He said: "I fought in guerrilla warfare, or been in war over 25 years, and I never was shot in Africa.
"I was shot once and stabbed 3 times in America."
Childers said the soldiering was a means to an end - supporting the good work his organisations do through orphanages and farms.
"What you got to realize those rescues and to be active in stuff like that costs a lot of money.
"I have a lot of children and orphanages and children's homes that got to be taken care of."
Now, he runs a private military company in Congo that works with local forces to try and save children.
Childers said many of the children he rescued were severely mentally damaged by their time spent in captivity.
He said: "They cannot be kept in a normal orphanage with other children until after one year.
"That's if the people believe they're doing well. That's doing the mental evaluations."
11
11
11
But Childers revealed that he preferred to work with children rather than adults, saying they could work through the mental challenges they faced from being victims of rape or violence.
But it's not just ISIS that his charities are fighting, with disease and hunger also continuing to kill children.
Childers said: "So then we feed over 10,000 meals a day. The majority of the children we feed only eat one meal a day, and that's the meal we're feeding them."
Now, the preacher has released a new film trying to raise money for his work.
"Our goal is to do a hundred 1,000 downloads by the end of this year and that money's used for children, man, you know. And so, instead of telling everyone, hey, send me $20.
"We're asking everyone. Look, you want to hear a good story. You want to hear a good story of redemption. You want to hear a good story of saving people's lives. You want to hear a good story of giving all."
Becoming the Machine Gun Preacher
Childers was born into a difficult household with a heroin addict mum and drunkard dad.
They were always Christians, but in his teens Childers got in with the wrong crowd, he said.
"I started doing what they were doing to fit in, smoking cigarettes, smoking marijuana.
"12 years old: drinking, eating pills.
"13, 14 years old: snorting cocaine.
"Then, at 15 years old, I woke up one morning, and here I got a heroin addiction. You know, I'm shooting up cocaine, shooting up heroin."
Childers quit school and said he turned himself into one of the biggest drug dealers in Grand Rapids, running narcotics from all over the US.
He said: "The only good thing was my dad brought me and my brothers up to be hardworking people.
"I always held a job, even though I was a cocaine addict heroin addict.
"But I made a lot of money selling drugs."
Childers said he always believed in God, but "I thought I had everything I needed.
"I had money. I had drugs, guns, women motorcycles."
But then in his early 20s, Childers got into a bar fight that was so awful it changed the course of his life.
"There were big guys, tough guys laying on the floor crying, holding their guts in.
And I said that night, if I get out of here, I'm I'm done living this life."
His charity work has seen Childers honoured with the Mother Teresa Memorial International Award for Social Justice in 2013.
What's happening in Congo?
ISIS has extended its bloody grip in Africa to the Congo in recent years.
The terror thugs are taking advantage of high levels of poverty and an already destabalised nation.
ISIS formally announced its arrival in the country - which it calls the Central Africa Province - in 2019.
It claimed another rebel group - the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) - as its affiliate in the Congo and neighbouring Uganda.
The ADF, originally a Ugandan Islamist rebel group formed in the 1990s and had already established a stronghold in eastern Congo's North Kivu and Ituri provinces.
The ADF rebranded to ISIS and adopted its jihadist rhetoric and tactics.
The group began releasing propaganda via ISIS's media channels, portraying its local attacks—mainly against civilians, Congolese soldiers, and UN peacekeepers—as part of the global jihad.
Hundreds of civilians have been killed in brutal raids, massacres, and bombings by the terror group.
The Congolese army has launched several offensives to knock out ISIS - but has struggled to fully eliminate them.
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The Sun
30 minutes ago
- The Sun
I met ISIS bride Shamima Begum in prison camp – I felt sorry for her but saw true colours when I gave her wrong ‘gift'
AS Andrew Drury made his way through a Syrian camp looking for notorious ISIS bride Shamima Begum, his mind began to race. Although the intrepid filmmaker had been in far more perilous situations - his nerves started to get the better of him. 7 7 7 But when he was introduced to Begum - who left the UK aged 15 to join ISIS a decade ago in 2015 - he was taken aback. "She was very shaky, very nervous, very shut, emotional, tearful," Andrew told The Sun. Father-of-four Andrew met Begum, who grew up in East London, for the first of six times at the Al-Roj camp in Syria in June 2021 while filming for a documentary, Danger Zone. He initially felt sorry for Begum, then 21, and became a close confidant of the Jihadi bride - even securing a Bafta-nominated live interview with her for Good Morning Britain. In less than two years his view of Begum - accused of serving in the feared IS "morality police" and helping make suicide vests - completely changed, however. He saw a colder side when she talked about how the death of her three children no longer upset her and even expressed support of Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi. Extreme adventurer Andrew, who has made treacherous journeys to North Korea and Iraq, said at first Begum was a "thin, ill-looking, sad character" who was "very apologetic". "We took a long walk around the camp, She started to relax, and she said she used to take this regular walk right around the perimeter of the camp to clear her head," he said. "After the interview finished, we walked back to the room. Normally she'd go off to a tent, but she wanted to come back to the room to get a cold drink. "Then I didn't want to insult her at that point, I wanted to say goodbye - I thought I'd never see her again. How Shamima Begum camps are fermenting twisted next generation of ISIS as kids make 'cutthroat' gesture & hurl firebombs "I said, 'Can I shake your hand?' and she asked for a hug. "So she gave me a hug and started to cry." Andrew, from Surrey, said he felt they had formed a connection and believed she regretted turning her back on Western society to join the murderous death cult. "At that point I kind of believed that she was sincere," he said. "I kind of felt sorry for her. I thought at that point she'd been radicalised online, sent out as a prescribed bridge to somebody. "She said she'd made a real bad mistake and really regretted what she'd done. "She owned up to being this person that everybody hates in the UK. "And I felt sorry for her, I've got young daughters, not a lot of difference in age, so I thought people do make mistakes, and I should give her a chance." Andrew - whose book Trip Hazard details his experience in dangerous areas - returned to the camp months later after GMB asked for his help to get an interview with Begum. The author, who has exchanged hundreds of messages with Begum, said he noticed a "subtle change" in the former Brit. Begum, who was stripped of her British citizenship in 2019, appeared to have undergone a more "Western" makeover - ditching her hijab and abaya. 7 7 "She had changed as a character," Andrew said. "She was more short. She wasn't this nervous-cry sort of character. "She looked assured, and she didn't seem such a waif character, and she seemed to be in control of herself and her emotions." Andrew told how Begum spent the night before the live interview "rehearsing" with three of her friends In the camp, which is controlled by armed guards. He added: "Her friends said they'd had their music playing and they were tutoring Shamima what to say. "They seemed pretty together about what she should say, and they were schooling her." Begum married an IS fighter soon after arriving in Syria and went on to have three children, none of whom survived. Andrew - who said he had formed a "bond" with Begum - told how after the interview, Shamima opened her purse and showed him photos of her children. The tragic loss of his own brother Robert as a child made him sympathise with Shamima's plight. "One of them was a scene where the child must have been eight, nine months old, had chocolate around his face," he recalled. "I said, 'What's that?' and she said, 'Oh we used to like baking cakes'. "And it actually makes me quite sad. It was really quite sad knowing the child had died. "She made it sound like an honour that she had shared these pictures with me, which I guess it probably was, because she hadn't shared them before she said." 7 But it was Begum's attitude after Andrew returned to the UK that shocked him - and began to shatter their relationship. "I said to her, 'Those pictures you showed me really upset me, I hope you're okay'," he said. "She messaged back and said, 'Oh, they don't bother me anymore. That doesn't make me sad'. "I thought, was that because she's been traumatised so badly? "But I think she is that hard. I think she's calculated. "I actually don't think the death of her children actually bothered her in the slightest. She was not at all affected by it." After meeting Andrew a couple of times, Begum started asking him to bring stuff into the camp for her - including clothes. The dad said he felt "at a crossroads" about whether to take what she wanted. "I felt bad and guilty that I'd be taking somebody that carried out what could have been some atrocities, clothes," he said. "But then, probably on the soft side of me, and the fact is, she was a young girl, so I was playing with these emotions, but I took her the clothes from Primark. "We had a bundle of stuff, we took some toys for the children because it's not their fault." But then Begum's requests started turning into demands, Andrew said. "The messages continued," he added. Camps breeding next ISIS generation Exclusive by Henry Holloway, Deputy Foreign Editor and Alan Duncan A CHILD no older than eight draws his hand across his neck in a chilling throat-slitting gesture - the message is clear, "You are not welcome here". Other kids hurl stones, shout and scream - while one exasperated camp official shows us CCTV of two youngsters hurling a firebomb. Welcome to camps al-Hol and al-Roj in northern Syria - the fates of which remain uncertain after the fall of tyrant Bashar al-Assad. It is warned these stark detention centres are now the breeding ground for the next generation of the bloodthirsty cult. And much of this new wave of radicalisation is feared to be coming from the mothers inside the camps. Senior camp official Rashid Omer said: "The reality is - they are not changing. This is not a normal camp - this a bomb." He went on: "They are saying it was ISIS who 'liberated' Damascus - and soon they will be coming here." "And then they want to spread to Europe, to Africa, and then to everywhere." The two sprawling sites hold a total of nearly 60,000 including ISIS fighters, families and children. At least 6,000 Westerners are still held among them - including infamous jihadi bride Shamima Begum, the 25-year-old from London. "This time they became slightly more angry, slightly more direct." Before he planned to return to Syria again, Begum told him she wanted two books - Guantanamo Bay Diaries and Sea Prayer - which is inspired by the Syrian refugee crisis. Andrew said she was also being schooled by her lawyer about her media presence. He added: "What she declared by then is that she was hostage in a prison camp - where they were legally held. "That's how she started to see herself. All apologies had gone. "She'd done a documentary with the BBC and was on the front of The Times magazine. "She'd become a celebrity and was loving all the attention. She'd read all the newspaper articles." Andrew - who returned to the camp with a friend and no crew - took some clothes for Begum with him. But it was his decision not to take the books she had demanded that revealed her true colours. "I did go back again, but my feelings were already changing towards her," Andrew said. "It was a little boy's birthday, and I felt so sorry for him. "He wanted a Superman outfit, so I would have gone just for that, because I spend a lot of time in refugee camps. It's not fair for these kids. "I didn't take the books Shamima wanted because I didn't want to. I didn't want her to have that opportunity to what I saw as studying how to be a victim. "She opened the clothes, said she didn't like them. I mean, this is a girl in a prison camp. "She said, 'I didn't really care about the clothes, it was the books I wanted'. So she became quite aggressive in her nature." Who is Shamima Begum? ISIS bride Shamima Begum, who was born in Britain, was stripped of her British citizenship on February 20, 2019. Begum had fled the UK in February 2015 with two other Bethnal Green schoolgirls to join the fledgling caliphate in Iraq and Syria which had emerged out of the chaos of war in those two countries. In February 2019, after the ISIS empire fell, she declared that she wanted to come home with her son. But she appeared to show no remorse and called the 2017 Manchester Arena massacre of 22 people attending a concert 'justified". Her principled position has sparked intense debate about the UK's responsibilities to jihadis who despise the country and everything it stands for, but want to return from Syria. The case took a dramatic turn on February 20 2019 when it emerged the Home Office had opted to strip Ms Begum of her British citizenship. Begum claims she is " willing to change" her ways while pleading for "mercy" from Britain. Her appeals against the decision have all been denied. Begum's attitude then worsened when Andrew became interested in another girl's story. It was one of the final nails in the coffin in the bond Andrew believed they had initially formed. "Shamima had a tantrum that the attention had been taken away from her," he said. "She was like a child that was pretending they were ill. "So during this period of time I was beginning to feel like the connection was gone. "It was broken, and I was beginning not to like her. "I could see things in her I didn't like. I didn't trust her. Her behaviour was poor. She was angry and aggressive. "I had found out from other girls what she was accused of, and they told me the same thing that I had heard before, like sewing suicide vests "Things were ringing in my head like she said early on that the Manchester bombing was legitimate because of what happened in Iraq and Syria. "So I didn't trust her." Andrew's last contact with Begum was around two years ago in a fiery text exchange. She accused Andrew of "selling her out", to which he shot back: "You've sold your country out." Begum last year lost her final appeal challenging the removal of her British citizenship. She can now no longer fight to overturn the revocation of her citizenship within the UK legal system. Andrew said: "I think she's a danger for what she stood for, and I don't think she could ever come back. "I think she needs to go on trial in Syria for the crimes she committed against the Syrian people."
Scottish Sun
7 hours ago
- Scottish Sun
I'm the Machine Gun Preacher who Gerard Butler played in film – here's how I survived ISIS and 10 assassination attempts
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) A HOLLYWOOD star who gave up being a drug dealing bikie is now fighting ISIS through the dripping jungles of central Africa. The Machine Gun Preacher is on a mission to rescue child sex slaves on the continent - and is has come up against the notorious terror group. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 11 Sam Childers in South Sudan Credit: Caters 11 The Machine Gun Preacher is on a mission to save children Credit: Caters 11 Childers was played by Gerard Butler in the Hollywood film Credit: Alamy The priest, real name Sam Childers, is battling ISIS in the Congo as he continues his holy war to save abused children. He's famously known as being the inspiration behind the movie Machine Gun Preacher. The film starred an A-list cast of Gerard Butler as Childers, Michelle Monaghan as his wife, and Michael Shannon. Machine Gun Preacher told the story of how Childers came to be fighting in Africa after growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Once a criminal, he found God, turned his life to charity work in Africa and dedicated himself to saving children. Machine Gun Preacher - the film - showed him battling Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army in 1997. Now he's released a self-made documentary - trying to raise money to take the fight to ISIS in Congo. He said: "I'm not worried about dying. I'm 62 years old. The last thing I worry about is dying. I worry more about living than dying." After being hammered in the Middle East, ISIS turned to Africa and is now enslaving thousands of children as its militants rampage through impoverished areas. Childers has a network of orphanages, schools, and farms set up across the centre of the continent. I fought ISIS in Syria & I know bloodthirsty thugs are plotting comeback after fall of Assad - Europe must be ready, says Brit fighter But he's come into combat with ISIS as they have expanded into Congo. He said: "We don't want to see our children be kidnapped, sold in prostitution. "We don't want to see none of that so I'm willing to do whatever I have to do... and I'm willing to answer for it. "They are murderers. They're killers. 11 ISIS has brutally used child soldiers to fight its was 11 Childers said he has battled other groups like M23 Credit: AFP 11 ISIS in West Africa - where it is strongest in the continent "I'm not afraid of none of them." Some 5.4million people have been killed in Congo's ongoing conflicts since 1998 - but the wars have gone largely ignored in the West. Three children were beheaded by rebel fighters in February and dozens more killed when they took a village. Childers' belief in God has given the preacher the strength to keep fighting - even against militant Christian groups. The Lord's Resistance Army raped and abducted girls, mutilated them, and enslaved boys into being child soldiers. He said: "I've been ambushed over 10 times. Been in over 10 major battles. They tried to assassinate me over 10 times. "That's just in the Kony War." Despite the gun battles, Childers says that he was in more danger while a bikie and drug dealer in America. 11 Childers has been working in Africa since the 1990s Credit: Caters News Agency 11 Childers became a heroin addict and bikie in his youth but turned his life around Credit: Caters News Agency He said: "I fought in guerrilla warfare, or been in war over 25 years, and I never was shot in Africa. "I was shot once and stabbed 3 times in America." Childers said the soldiering was a means to an end - supporting the good work his organisations do through orphanages and farms. "What you got to realize those rescues and to be active in stuff like that costs a lot of money. "I have a lot of children and orphanages and children's homes that got to be taken care of." Now, he runs a private military company in Congo that works with local forces to try and save children. Childers said many of the children he rescued were severely mentally damaged by their time spent in captivity. He said: "They cannot be kept in a normal orphanage with other children until after one year. "That's if the people believe they're doing well. That's doing the mental evaluations." 11 Childers and Butler -- who played him in the 2014 film Credit: Photoshot 11 Michelle Monaghan and Butler in the Machine Gun Preacher film Credit: Alamy 11 Childers first fought in East Africa against the Lord's Resistance Army Credit: Alamy But Childers revealed that he preferred to work with children rather than adults, saying they could work through the mental challenges they faced from being victims of rape or violence. But it's not just ISIS that his charities are fighting, with disease and hunger also continuing to kill children. Childers said: "So then we feed over 10,000 meals a day. The majority of the children we feed only eat one meal a day, and that's the meal we're feeding them." Now, the preacher has released a new film trying to raise money for his work. "Our goal is to do a hundred 1,000 downloads by the end of this year and that money's used for children, man, you know. And so, instead of telling everyone, hey, send me $20. "We're asking everyone. Look, you want to hear a good story. You want to hear a good story of redemption. You want to hear a good story of saving people's lives. You want to hear a good story of giving all." Becoming the Machine Gun Preacher Childers was born into a difficult household with a heroin addict mum and drunkard dad. They were always Christians, but in his teens Childers got in with the wrong crowd, he said. "I started doing what they were doing to fit in, smoking cigarettes, smoking marijuana. "12 years old: drinking, eating pills. "13, 14 years old: snorting cocaine. "Then, at 15 years old, I woke up one morning, and here I got a heroin addiction. You know, I'm shooting up cocaine, shooting up heroin." Childers quit school and said he turned himself into one of the biggest drug dealers in Grand Rapids, running narcotics from all over the US. He said: "The only good thing was my dad brought me and my brothers up to be hardworking people. "I always held a job, even though I was a cocaine addict heroin addict. "But I made a lot of money selling drugs." Childers said he always believed in God, but "I thought I had everything I needed. "I had money. I had drugs, guns, women motorcycles." But then in his early 20s, Childers got into a bar fight that was so awful it changed the course of his life. "There were big guys, tough guys laying on the floor crying, holding their guts in. And I said that night, if I get out of here, I'm I'm done living this life." His charity work has seen Childers honoured with the Mother Teresa Memorial International Award for Social Justice in 2013.
The Sun
7 hours ago
- The Sun
I'm the Machine Gun Preacher who Gerard Butler played in film – here's how I survived ISIS and 10 assassination attempts
A HOLLYWOOD star who gave up being a drug dealing bikie is now fighting ISIS through the dripping jungles of central Africa. The Machine Gun Preacher is on a mission to rescue child sex slaves on the continent - and is has come up against the notorious terror group. 11 11 The priest, real name Sam Childers, is battling ISIS in the Congo as he continues his holy war to save abused children. He's famously known as being the inspiration behind the movie Machine Gun Preacher. The film starred an A-list cast of Gerard Butler as Childers, Michelle Monaghan as his wife, and Michael Shannon. Machine Gun Preacher told the story of how Childers came to be fighting in Africa after growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Once a criminal, he found God, turned his life to charity work in Africa and dedicated himself to saving children. Machine Gun Preacher - the film - showed him battling Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army in 1997. Now he's released a self-made documentary - trying to raise money to take the fight to ISIS in Congo. He said: "I'm not worried about dying. I'm 62 years old. The last thing I worry about is dying. I worry more about living than dying." After being hammered in the Middle East, ISIS turned to Africa and is now enslaving thousands of children as its militants rampage through impoverished areas. Childers has a network of orphanages, schools, and farms set up across the centre of the continent. I fought ISIS in Syria & I know bloodthirsty thugs are plotting comeback after fall of Assad - Europe must be ready, says Brit fighter But he's come into combat with ISIS as they have expanded into Congo. He said: "We don't want to see our children be kidnapped, sold in prostitution. "We don't want to see none of that so I'm willing to do whatever I have to do... and I'm willing to answer for it. "They are murderers. They're killers. 11 11 11 "I'm not afraid of none of them." Some 5.4million people have been killed in Congo's ongoing conflicts since 1998 - but the wars have gone largely ignored in the West. Three children were beheaded by rebel fighters in February and dozens more killed when they took a village. Childers' belief in God has given the preacher the strength to keep fighting - even against militant Christian groups. The Lord's Resistance Army raped and abducted girls, mutilated them, and enslaved boys into being child soldiers. He said: "I've been ambushed over 10 times. Been in over 10 major battles. They tried to assassinate me over 10 times. "That's just in the Kony War." Despite the gun battles, Childers says that he was in more danger while a bikie and drug dealer in America. 11 11 He said: "I fought in guerrilla warfare, or been in war over 25 years, and I never was shot in Africa. "I was shot once and stabbed 3 times in America." Childers said the soldiering was a means to an end - supporting the good work his organisations do through orphanages and farms. "What you got to realize those rescues and to be active in stuff like that costs a lot of money. "I have a lot of children and orphanages and children's homes that got to be taken care of." Now, he runs a private military company in Congo that works with local forces to try and save children. Childers said many of the children he rescued were severely mentally damaged by their time spent in captivity. He said: "They cannot be kept in a normal orphanage with other children until after one year. "That's if the people believe they're doing well. That's doing the mental evaluations." 11 11 11 But Childers revealed that he preferred to work with children rather than adults, saying they could work through the mental challenges they faced from being victims of rape or violence. But it's not just ISIS that his charities are fighting, with disease and hunger also continuing to kill children. Childers said: "So then we feed over 10,000 meals a day. The majority of the children we feed only eat one meal a day, and that's the meal we're feeding them." Now, the preacher has released a new film trying to raise money for his work. "Our goal is to do a hundred 1,000 downloads by the end of this year and that money's used for children, man, you know. And so, instead of telling everyone, hey, send me $20. "We're asking everyone. Look, you want to hear a good story. You want to hear a good story of redemption. You want to hear a good story of saving people's lives. You want to hear a good story of giving all." Becoming the Machine Gun Preacher Childers was born into a difficult household with a heroin addict mum and drunkard dad. They were always Christians, but in his teens Childers got in with the wrong crowd, he said. "I started doing what they were doing to fit in, smoking cigarettes, smoking marijuana. "12 years old: drinking, eating pills. "13, 14 years old: snorting cocaine. "Then, at 15 years old, I woke up one morning, and here I got a heroin addiction. You know, I'm shooting up cocaine, shooting up heroin." Childers quit school and said he turned himself into one of the biggest drug dealers in Grand Rapids, running narcotics from all over the US. He said: "The only good thing was my dad brought me and my brothers up to be hardworking people. "I always held a job, even though I was a cocaine addict heroin addict. "But I made a lot of money selling drugs." Childers said he always believed in God, but "I thought I had everything I needed. "I had money. I had drugs, guns, women motorcycles." But then in his early 20s, Childers got into a bar fight that was so awful it changed the course of his life. "There were big guys, tough guys laying on the floor crying, holding their guts in. And I said that night, if I get out of here, I'm I'm done living this life." His charity work has seen Childers honoured with the Mother Teresa Memorial International Award for Social Justice in 2013. What's happening in Congo? ISIS has extended its bloody grip in Africa to the Congo in recent years. The terror thugs are taking advantage of high levels of poverty and an already destabalised nation. ISIS formally announced its arrival in the country - which it calls the Central Africa Province - in 2019. It claimed another rebel group - the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) - as its affiliate in the Congo and neighbouring Uganda. The ADF, originally a Ugandan Islamist rebel group formed in the 1990s and had already established a stronghold in eastern Congo's North Kivu and Ituri provinces. The ADF rebranded to ISIS and adopted its jihadist rhetoric and tactics. The group began releasing propaganda via ISIS's media channels, portraying its local attacks—mainly against civilians, Congolese soldiers, and UN peacekeepers—as part of the global jihad. Hundreds of civilians have been killed in brutal raids, massacres, and bombings by the terror group. The Congolese army has launched several offensives to knock out ISIS - but has struggled to fully eliminate them.
