Banana Bread Hope

A Letter from Leisa Wagstaff, serving in South Sudan

November 2020

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Brushing aside a compliment on the banana bread we were eating, I explained to my colleague that it was my go-to item whenever I wanted to bake and that after having made so many loaves in my lifetime, I could probably bake a loaf with my eyes closed. Between mouthfuls of deliciousness, fellowship, and updates on family and community, we turned our discussion to our shared congregation, an internally displaced persons (IDPs) worshiping community in South Sudan.

With over two million displaced people living in South Sudan due to conflict and violence within the country and its neighbors, it only takes a glance at a photo of an IDP camp to know that every moment of the camp dweller’s life is challenging. One out of three South Sudanese has been forced to flee their home, and according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Committee, “the combination of conflict, economic crisis and inadequate access to food and livelihoods has eroded vulnerable households’ ability to cope, leaving many IDPs living in protracted displacement with little prospect of achieving durable solutions.”

Then there is surprise flooding during the dry season and continued flooding during the rainy season that wipes out crops, kills livestock, and makes walking across a camp a muddy, treacherous experience. The canvas, mud, plastic, and cardboard-constructed camp homes fail to keep out downpours, and there are few places within that can be considered dry spots.

A few years ago, a fire swept through this camp, taking one child’s life and all the “next-to-nothing” that 150 of these internal refugees had struggled to hold on to. Once again, rebuilding became the next chapter in lives where much is constantly in transition, and stability is often a fleeting moment. The community, however, rallied around each other, read their Bibles, and believed that one day, fleeing from place to place would be no more.

I love spending time with this group of people. Their faith journeys and outreach challenge me to live out my faith and sense of call. They have done a great deal to unite the country regardless of their mother tongue, faith, or ethnicity.

Christmas is an incredibly special time for many in South Sudan, yet warfare and poverty have made celebrating it nearly impossible. This community works hard to make sure that people do not forget that the community is special because of Jesus’ birth. Somehow, each year since regrouping, the community manages to pool their meager resources to ensure that on Christmas (and on many other days as well), everyone has a good meal of traditional dishes, a piece of meat, and every child has at least one piece of candy and popcorn. All camp residents, non-residents, folks of different faiths, young, old, and every ethnic group are invited to worship, eat, sing, dance to traditional music, and bask in goodwill.

When we started talking about the congregation’s youth activities, we wanted to make sure that we addressed both their spiritual formation and helped them overcome some of the significant challenges faced by South Sudanese youth. Comprising over seventy-three percent of the total population (UNDP), young people do not have many opportunities for education job training, job creation, or civic engagement. Hope is hard to find. For teenage girls, early child marriage and much underreported gender-based violence are even more significant hindrances. It was during our discussion of these issues that the banana bread we had just eaten grew into a platform for another engagement in ministry.

Sweet-smelling aromas of banana bread, cake, pie, candy, and cookies became a familiar scent wafting out beneath my apartment door. Young members of the congregation rushed in each Saturday morning to discover how they could transform locally accessible foodstuffs into mouthfuls of deliciousness. One or two were still in school, while others had attended a few grades or had never been to school.

They were eager to learn a skill and sought to pool little bits of money to buy a small charcoal oven. As they measured, sifted, and mixed, I could see their confidence and outlook blossom. Laughter became more frequent. Hesitations to take the next recipe step gave way to an eagerness to experiment with different ingredients. They began to talk of ways to employ their new skills to help themselves and their families and the church and broader community.

When each lesson was over, and baked goods were on the cooling rack, they sat down to watch television, chat, and relax. It was evident that this was a safe space for them, one where they felt protected from loud noises, congested spaces, fear of invasions, too many cares, and a cruel, unrelenting world. Even though I had so much other work to do, they were blessing me with a time to exhale, not worry about tomorrow and breathe in the moment (and smells of their culinary creations).

As they packed the goodies they had produced to carry home to share with family and friends, I saw a better future for each young lady, their families, church, neighborhoods, country, and all of us. Thank you for helping me to help them.

In Service Together

Leisa TonieAnn Wagstaff

(Leisa, who had come to the USA last December to engage in Interpretation Assignment, was not able to return to South Sudan as scheduled in mid-April due to COVID-19.)