Meeting the Machine Gun Preacher

My first interview ever was with a man dubbed “The Machine Gun Preacher.” A man feared by rebels in East Africa, a man who has simultaneously killed and saved hundreds. Not intimidating at all.

As I entered the lobby of Boston’s Liberty Hotel, I saw Sam Childers, by no means a Hollywood insider. He had a permanent “no bs” face partnered with a biker strut, handle bar mustache, faded tattoos and Harley Davidson apparel. With a tooth pick in his mouth, he casually propped his arm over the couch and placed his leather boots on the coffee table. This guy meant business.

Machine Gun Preacher, released on September 30, depicts the true story of Sam Childers, a hard headed, drug dealing biker, who reforms his ways and travels to Sudan to build an orphanage for abandoned children of the Sudanese crisis. In Sudan, Childers hunts down rebels and frees child soldiers, but leaves his unaware, embittered family with the financial and emotional strain of a non-existent father — leaving Childers to choose between his responsibilities in America and those in Eastern Africa.

Muse: What is it like having a movie about you made? Did you have any concerns?

SC: When you sell your life rights to Hollywood, you lose your rights to all control. You can have a screenplay, but once it hits the hands of the director, they can still change it. I wasn’t pleased until the 21^st of August of this year, when I saw the final cut.

Muse: There is a specific scene in the film where you chose to leave some children behind in a ditch because you did not have enough room in your truck. Did this actually happen? If so, what did you think when watching it?

SC: Well it happened differently. We left that night, but did not have enough money to return the next day. Look, back when all these atrocities were happening, I didn’t have no money. I was working with nothing all the time. People didn’t want to give to me because of the whole gun factor. It was a constant struggle all of the time. That day I made the choice to leave some kids behind and that’s something I have to live with for the rest of my life. I can still see the faces on their dead bodies. It really messed me up for a long time. They couldn’t understand why I was giving everything I had to this cause. Now my daughter runs the non-profit and she is as dedicated as I ever was. She wants to help the children of Africa.

While I give the film three and a half stars, I urge you to see for its social relevance alone.

Muse: Last year the Obama administration released a strategy to stop the NRA and aid the Eastern African countries. Have you seen any of these plans implemented?

SC: Joseph Kony [leader of the NRA] is hiding in the Congo, and they’ve been looking for him for years. As far as aid…it’s all a little bit more talk on paper. I haven’t seen a thing different…But it’s not just about Sudan for us anymore. We work anywhere around the world. I’m doing stuff here in the U.S. now on sex trafficking. We’re gonna shut it down.

Muse: How many children have you saved in your life?

S: People say I have saved about a thousand children, but that is just in Africa. During the year, I go on speaking tours around the U.S. in churches and high schools. If you will consider saving a child from drugs as saving a life ‘cuz I do, then I’ve saved thousands of people every year. Whether from war, starvation, disease or from drugs: thousands.

Thousands.