The Rev. John Yor, General Secretary of the Presbyterian Church of South Sudan (PCOSS), is asking U.S. Presbyterians for prayers as violence escalates in the Jonglei State in the northeastern part of the country between the Nuer and Murle ethnic groups.
A few weeks ago, before coronavirus took over our thoughts in South Sudan, I joined a meeting of women to talk about community development. Women gathered in a circle after the church service, many of them holding young children on their laps. I started the discussion by reflecting on John 10:10, where Jesus expressed his intention to give us “life, and have it abundantly.”
What does that mean?
We knelt on the pavement, three long lines of women. One woman at a time led in prayer, acknowledging our need and crying out for God’s intervention in South Sudan.
“The weight is on whom?” the Rev. Peter Tibi, executive director of RECONCILE International, asked those gathered at a church in Uganda’s Omugo Refugee Camp.
I sat next to Rachel Obal outside of her home in rural South Sudan, listening to the story of her uncle who, as a boy, was taken from his home by Arabs to be sold as a slave near Khartoum, Sudan. Obal’s words painted a vivid picture as she spoke of how her father followed his brother to rescue him and had to witness the small boy, with hands tied behind his back, paraded in front of crowds to be sold.
For the Rev. Shelvis Smith-Mather, the road to the majestic halls of Oxford University took a journey of nine years and three continents. But it is, he says, a “crazy, wonderful, beautiful story.”
“And… a long story, but the details of the many stops and starts along the way speaks to how it has come together now in God’s time,” he said.
I sat next to Rachel Obal outside of her home in rural South Sudan, listening to the story of her uncle who, as a boy, was taken from his home by Arabs to be sold as a slave near Khartoum, Sudan. Obal’s words painted a vivid picture as she spoke of how her father followed his brother to rescue him and had to witness the small boy, with hands tied behind his back, paraded in front of crowds to be sold. I could see the boy with his hands tied, his knees pressed into the dusty market ground. I could even picture his thin, brown body, still bound at the wrists, placed on a boat. In my mind’s vision, no one else was on the boat; he was a child all alone, floating toward slavery. My heart ached as I listened.
Recent flooding in South Sudan and ongoing political unrest in Haiti have prompted the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to provide humanitarian aid to partner organizations in those countries to help individuals and families affected by the crises.
