Update from Sudan

Just to give you a bit of an update.
My time in Upper Nile was very successful, Pastor John and I managed to fight the mud, and rains to do training for leaders in several villages along the Sobat. We started out our journey with several days of meeting with leaders in Bangli and Kokpiat. Kokpiat is a large military village that typically contains a large detachment of SPLA soldiers. Right as I got there however, a good portion of these soldiers had been deployed to various places in Upper Nile, to combat some serious security threats from a rogue general name George Ator. So the base only contained a couple hundred soldiers. Fortunately, most of the chaplains had not yet been deployed so this gave me a good chance to meet with them for some discipleship, by in large these guys have little to no training for being a chaplain other than the fact that they can read the Bible and know how to pray. Many of them are not even truly born again and all of them have been taught many false doctrines that we are working to weed out. We also met with a large number of pastors and believers in that area and did some really basic teaching for these guys as well. I really have a heart for these soldiers and at some point I would love to be able to create a mobile chaplain training program to take the training directly to them where they are. In Kokpiat we had around 10 people give their lives to Christ.
After leaving there we went to Baliet and spent some time with the people at John’s church. It was good to see everyone again and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to see all the kids, I brought some soccer balls and we had many good games of football out in pasture with them. The orphans are all doing well including the baby who had been sick. Please continue praying for these kids. We were also able to do a good training session with some of the church leaders from 6 different churches. The training was really basic and covered the foundations of being a Christian, it was a good chance to clear up some confusion they from bad teachings they have received from some of the churches.
While in Baliet we had a very good time of evangelism. When I first got there I asked John to take me to share the gospel with all the old men who still do their traditional witchcraft and worship a demon called Ding Deet (great rain) so sure enough we went into their smoke filled huts and spoke to them about the great God who created the world and longed to set them free from the power of the devil. They would shout, yell and argue with me, but they all had the chance to hear the gospel. The really sad part is that most of them used to be in the church, but because most of the churches there only had a form of godliness and denied the power of the gospel these men had been thoroughly vaccinated against the true gospel of Jesus Christ. It was a very sobering thought that because many so called Christians did not represent the power of the gospel they caused these men and their families to return to a life of demon worship. Please pray that the Holy Spirit will destroy the strongholds in these men and bring them to Him before its too late.
We were also able to construct some bucket filtration systems (courtesy of the Texas Baptist Men) for the church members who have agreed to take the orphans into their homes. It was a lot of fun to see the surprise on people’s faces when they saw how clear the water was. The Sobat river is one of the dirtiest rivers in Africa, however there are no other alternatives for these people who have been let down on so many occasions by NGOs who have built but never finished at least 3 water projects in that village. Currently there is one large filtration system which is now completely ruined, and more recently an unfinished bore hole, and sand filter both of which are uncompleted and now useless. John and I decided that our best option was to start just with the families who had the youngest orphans and provide them with a simple gravity drip filter to help with providing good water for their families. We were able to make three of the filters, using large rubber tubs and one big one for the church compound using two 40 gallon drums. I hope to look into more of these practical ways to help to see if there might be a way to get more of these into the homes of people in the community.
We also spent a good portion of time in Abong, which is the first place John planted a church when he arrived back in 2005. However we arrived right in the middle of a huge dispute among the villagers that had erupted into a large fight among many of the families. No one was killed but most of them were too sore and banged up to come to the training, so we just settled for meeting with a handful of the church leaders. One of my purposed for this training was to find good leaders that have potential so that we can train to better reach their people in the future.
John and his church have the vision to start a school so after running over every possible idea we could think of we decided that a graining mill would still be the best business for sustaining this project. We were even able to find a way to order it directly there in Malakal. The estimated cost is around 6,000 USD.
After leaving Upper Nile we went, John and I flew to Juba and spent of couple of days there waiting on a bus to Kajo Keji. However, after only a couple of days John had met with many of his old friends from his time in the refugee camp in Kenya. It was one divine appointment after another as we would often meet these men while we were walking down the street. Some of them had not seen each other in many years so it was a wonderful reunion for him. After meeting with these guys, they asked if it might be possible to start a church there in Juba. John agreed to return there to discuss this with them more in the future.
John and I arrived in Kajo Keji and enjoyed a wonderful time of ministry with the brothers here. It was a very good time for him to be encouraged by the folks down here. We had the opportunity to go out and do evangelism in some of the villages for several days. We were able to see quite a few people come to Christ. One of my favorite times happened when John and Ocan(one of the local pastors) met with a lady who was about to commit suicide after sharing the gospel with her she started crying and saying that God really must love her because he sent them to stop her from killing herself and going to hell. By the time she accepted Christ they were all crying even John…which is very rare for a Dinka. We also had the opportunity to go out with the Bible school students on several crusades in the villages. During this time we saw many folks come to Christ and get set free from alcoholism sickness and demons. One of my favorite was one village where we went that was very close to the Uganda border. We got there late and after preaching no one came forward to receive Christ. This seemed quite odd to me because as I was preaching I really felt the Holy Spirit moving and saw that many of them were visibly moved by the gospel. However, as soon as it got dark about 7 guys came running up as we were about to leave and asking how they could be saved! One of them was the commissioner of the village. They started handing us things from the past like witchcraft stuff and tobacco which the pastor took and burned. It was just like the story of Nicodemus. They came at night because they couldn’t build up the courage in front of their drinking buddies. We didn’t let them off the hook that easy though because we started making them publically confess their faith in Christ in front of everyone, including all their drinking friends. It was wonderful to see the power of the Holy Spirit come on them and enable them to become bold and unashamed of the gospel.
On the 1st of July I had the opportunity to join an indigenous mission trip to a village called Jumbo near Yei. All the churches in Kajo Kaji were asked to contribute three members which meant that about 100+ people and I boarded the big truck for a 10 hour ride (on way) to Jumbo. Over all we had about 40+ people saved, at least 5 set free from demons, and about 20+ healed of various diseases. One of my favorite things happened when some of the pastors and I went out for evangelism, we had been preaching the gospel in the town market and saw a couple of people saved and healed, then someone told us that we needed to go and pray for an old woman who had been bed ridden for years. We went to her home and found that she had been paralyzed and blinded from what appeared to be a stroke for about 4 years. We laid hands on her and prayed then asked her how she felt, she told us that all the pain had left. So we asked her if she was willing to stand up. She sat up and within a few moments she was walking around the house (much to the amazement of her astonished family.) We prayed again the blindness left her, and she could see things outside for the first time in years! We all started worshiping the Lord together and soon the whole family had turned out to see what God had done! To Him be the glory!!
As of right now John is back in Upper Nile. He decided to return because of some fighting that has broken out between the SPLA and a small group of rebels. He informed me that Baliet is now full of refugees from the other side of the river in Jongale state please be in prayer for them and for the situation pray that the church will rise up and take this opportunity to reach some of these people with the gospel. Pray that the prince of peace will reign in that region!
For the King,
Josh