On the Move in South Sudan

 

We arrived in South Sudan as our seventeen passenger plane landed on a red dirt air strip in an emerald field.

After passing through a bare room with two tables and a notebook that served as documentation, we exited the small building of immigration into the excitement of the world’s newest nation.

A young man named Mark was there to meet us, holding a sign reading, “Joy and Shannon” with smiley faces drawn in the O’s of our names.

I knew this was a great start.

Before coming to South Sudan, I had heard it was one of the most underdeveloped regions of the world. Driving down the road to Yei, I truly understand what that means. I see no structures outside town, save mud and thatched huts, the occasional concrete shanty. I see no cars on the road, rarely a boda, occasionally a bicycle. But in droves, the road moves on foot.

A sign posted by the side of the road reminds me why this area is so untouched by development.

Untamed land that could be blessing farmers with crops is off-limits. I see the people limping through the streets, missing limbs, maneuvering with sticks made into crutches, being pulled on wagons by friends. I see a beautiful church across the field, but even from afar, the emptiness of the gutted sanctuary screams out. Only the shell remains. Even the base where I am living, the room in which l sleep, was bombed out during the war.

But the beauty of these people is stunning. Their beauty shines through this war-weary land.

We pull into a compound where the Student Prayer Conference has already been meeting since the early morning. I was looking forward to being able to experience it, as Uche has been telling us about it and been keeping us in prayer for what might happen there.

Immediately, we are greeted by a smiling man in local attire. His name is Anthony. He takes Joy and I through the back door of the building to the stage, where the conference is already going strong. We are escorted to a chair in the corner of the stage where the UK team is already sitting, as well as ministers and other speakers.

Once situated, I observe the crowd and I’m literally stunned by what I see. As the conference proceeds, I’m astonished even more as I process the sum of it all.

There are hundreds of students in the building, a sea of pitch black faces. Even though there is a team of white people on stage (a rarer sight here than I imagined) none of their eyes are on us.

They are glued to the speaker as he preaches with fervency about God.

The day wears on, and as one session flows into the next I become aware that here, there are no bathroom breaks. No lunch breaks. No five-minute breaks. Not even a moment to stand and stretch. One session streams seamlessly into the next.

From 8am until 6pm.

No texting. No passing notes. No playing games. No stretching. No leaving the building.

For ten hours straight, these students, elementary age to high school, sit and listen intently to the speakers as they preach. They dance in worship, sing as to blow the doors off the building, cry out to God in tears as they beg for Him to encounter them.

There is no food, because they are fasting.

There is no water, because their fasting includes that, too.

There is only God for their hunger, there is only God for their thirst.

Cramped in a much-too-small room, more than five hundred school children cry out to God in their sweat. Outside the overflowing building, young children stand on tip-toes and cling to the windows to hear. For ten hours straight, they never play, nor joke, nor move. The only break they take from clinging to the window is to clap and raise their hands in worship.

This day also happens to be a school holiday.

More than 500 school children in one town in South Sudan spent their entire school holiday fasting from food and water, sitting in a smoldering room with hundreds of smelly bodies, never moving or talking or playing as they listened to marathon-preaching events from sunrise to sunset.

I honestly can’t remember the last time I was so extraordinarily humbled.

Hundreds stood to accept Jesus. More than fifty stood to become missionaries. It was incredible and overwhelming.

I was riding high on all the amazing things I was seeing and experiencing when one of the speakers began to talk about Sudan.

You could tell tensions were high when the subject was addressed by the reaction of the audience. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Because of the war, every single person had been impacted. Land mines still had to be dodged, towns were leveled and buildings blown out. People hobbled around maimed. Families were split. All news outlets have recently been preparing the world for the war to resume as the President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, has vowed to destroy the government of South Sudan. I had no idea what the reaction would be and if patriotic rhetoric would be preached.

The speaker said this:

“Our enemy is not Sudan!  It is Satan. He has been deceiving those nice people to believe that they must hurt us to please God. Let us pray for their salvation! Let us pray that God even sends missionaries from this room to lead our brothers in Sudan to Christ. And we must pray for Omar al-Bashir to meet God and know that Jesus loves him! Oh God, save Omar al-Bashir!”

The kids roared out in prayer.

“Save them, Jesus! Save Omar al-Bashir and our brothers in Sudan!”

Nothing I’d read on the news led me to believe that this level of love and forgiveness was even possible. I was awestruck as I watched hundreds of kids implore God for the salvation of a man that has marred their lives in the most personal ways.

In that stuffy room with hundreds of kids, I watched the power of forgiveness swell over the atrocities of decades and decades of maiming, stealing, raping, and killing.

That’s when I knew it for certain.

God is on the move in South Sudan.

Jesus is transforming this country.

One act of forgiveness at a time.