Covenant News

Sudan: The Need Is Desperate, But Hope Is Strong

SOUTH SUDAN, AFRICA (July 26, 2005) - The Evangelical Covenant Church of South Sudan is a denomination in "desperate need," but one that also is strengthened with hope. Those were the findings of a four-person Covenant delegation that returned recently from the war-ravaged nation.

Christians in Sudan have been victims of one of the longest periods of war and suffering of any people in Africa, says Curt Peterson, executive minister of Covenant World Mission. "Nations come and go . . . with the most severe conditions in terms of health, food shortages, poverty, infant mortality, violence and suffering - but South Sudan remains," he observes.

"With all that going on - the loss of life, the level of disease and poverty, the raping of women, families losing their homes and having absolutely nothing but what they can carry - you still have the resiliency of the Sudanese Christians," says Pastor M. Randoph Thompson of Community Covenant Church, in Calumet Park, Illinois, and president of the African American Ministers Association.

Thompson and Peterson were part of a team that also included James Tang, a Sudanese pastor in Fridley, Minnesota, who also serves as World Mission's liaison to the Evangelical Covenant Church of South Sudan (ECCSS); and Jim Sundholm, director of Covenant World Relief (CWR) and the Paul Carlson Partnership. The team traveled July 7-15. Tang still is in the Sudan and unable to contribute to this report.

The north-south distinction and the hostility between the northern and southern regions of Sudan is grounded in religious conflict as well as a conflict between peoples of differing culture and language. The north is predominantly Arabic and Islamic in its faith tradition, whereas the south includes Sudanese from a variety of backgrounds and is primarily Christian in its faith tradition. "What's happening in Darfur is relatively recent compared to what's been going on for decades in South Sudan," Sundholm notes.

The team traveled to Sudan to assess the situation, to participate in worship and to teach seminars on the Bible and principles of Christian leadership and church life over a four-day period. Attending were pastors, Bible school students, lay members, deacons and elders. "After three hours of teaching, the people asked for more – they are so hungry to know the Word of God and to grow in their faith," Peterson says.

The team also met for two four-hour sessions with the ECCSS Church Council, the equivalent of the ECC's Council of Administrators. It was the council's first gathering in their new administrative center in Malakal.

Leaders of the ECCSS with whom team members met included President Simon Tholdonge, Secretary Samuel Puot Tony, Treasurer James Panom Nyak, Executive Director of Ministry Gabriel Kek, Executive Director of Christian Education Joseph Yak Biliew, and Executive Director of Women's Ministry Elizabeth Koda.

Since 1996 the ECCSS has been a church in exile in Ethiopia with South Sudanese living in refugee camps in the Gambella region, Peterson says. "Now they are returning to their home areas and attempting to rebuild their lives and establish their churches." The return is now possible because of a peace agreement between the government in Khartoum and South Sudan that was reached in January, bringing an end to the civil war. However, the agreement does not include Darfur, which is the western region of Sudan.

The team arrived the day before the historic agreement came to fruition with the inauguration of President Al Bashir and the installation of First Vice President Dr. John Garang, general of the South Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM). The new constitution affirms freedom of religion and democratic representation by all provinces in Sudan. The trip also marked the first time that American Covenant leadership had traveled to Khartoum and so deep into South Sudan, Sundholm says.

The team arrived in Khartoum (accompanying photos) and participated in worship at a Covenant Church located west of Khartoum. The service was attended by more than 220 Sudanese in a mud-wall church with no water or electricity. Although people in the area live in mud homes without utilities, "the worship and singing were absolutely amazing," Thompson says.

The homes are even more fragile than elsewhere in Africa because there is no straw or thatching for the roofs to strengthen the walls. "When it rains, you can actually see the houses start to erode," Sundholm says. Many of the roofs are made of garbage bags or tarps.

Covenanters in the Khartoum region still are concerned that they may be displaced, says Sundholm. Their land is wanted by people who have made money from the oil trade so that they can build large homes, he added.

The ECCSS is establishing its administrative center in Malakal, a major city in South Sudan where conditions continue to be primitive. "Seven leaders and five deaconesses are living in four rooms in a deteriorating home rented for $60 per month," Peterson says. "They eat one meal a day at best."

Despite the denomination's own financially impoverished condition, leaders are determined to help meet the physical and educational needs of the returning refugees and others in South Sudan, says Thompson. "The church becomes central to helping restore order and a certain level of life in those cities. The Covenant Church is poised to be a major part of this."

The denomination is intent on developing new churches. "They're church planting all over the Sudan," says Thompson. "Those churches are expected to grow by leaps and bounds in the coming months." Peterson adds, "We have the unique opportunity of providing resources through Covenant World Relief and Friends of World Mission (FOWM) to encourage a new beginning for the church in South Sudan."

The delegation brought along funds from Covenant World Relief and funds from Friends of World Missions. Funds for bus fare also were provided so that members of the churches could attend the meetings with the Americans.

Sundholm says that during the past year, CWR and FOWM have donated:

• $25,000 to assist the desperate needs for food and housing.
• $1,500 to Women's Ministry to enable micro-business startups, such as a sewing business and a tea shop.
• More than $12,000 has been donated in agricultural development funds.
• $8,000 for a school at Bentiu, where hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced to make room for an oil refinery. It is the first non-Islamic school in the area and already has a combined population of 2,200 students attending at two sites.
• $33,000 for a new building that is nearly completed. It was the site of the recent seminars. The building will be the ministry and relief center for the church and also a place of worship in the center of Malakal.
• Additional housing for leaders will be built with $6,000 from FOWM grants.

The ECCSS began informally in 1996. South Sudanese immigrants who had joined ECC congregations first in South Dakota and then in other parts of the Midwest communicated their positive experience to friends and family in refugee camps in Ethiopia, Peterson says. "The believers in exile responded to the Covenant's freedom, biblical center and congregational government that gave everyone a voice."

The first nine South Sudanese pastors were licensed by the ECC in the fall of 1997 in Ethiopia. In January 2000 in Akobo, Sudan, a constitution was accepted and the first pastors were ordained. The ECCSS was born as a "partner" church, Peterson adds. In the early years, the ECC provided food, clothes, and medicines, pastor's education and training, the supply of thousands of Bibles and hymnals in the Nuer language, and development and agricultural projects for both women and men.

The African American Ministers Association has made aid to South Sudan its primary world mission focus, Thompson says, but adds, "that is something that all our churches can be involved with - regardless of whether they are African American churches."

The next step, Thompson says, is for World Mission, Covenant World Relief and the African American Ministers Association to develop a coordinated plan for assistance.

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