When I returned to Lebanon from Canada in 2005 to serve with the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary (ABTS), a good number of seminary students were Sudanese. Sudan and South Sudan were still one country at the time. God had been using the Sudanese leaders who graduated from ABTS to change the landscape of the ministry in the country. Their genuine faith, faithfulness, and passion for God and their country were contagious. I fell in love with the church in Sudan long before I was able to visit.
After years of civil war, the people in the south overwhelmingly voted for separation from the Republic of Sudan, which was under strict Islamic rule. South Sudan officially seceded from Sudan on July 9, 2011. Up until that time, most Sudanese leaders trained at ABTS were from the south where the majority of the population is (culturally) Christian, while the majority in the north is Muslim. The flourishing churches and ministries in the north, especially in Khartoum, were served by leaders who came from the south.
When South Sudan gained its independence, most leaders serving in the north were forced to move south. This created a leadership gap. However, we noticed that God had already been sending waves of northern Sudanese leaders to ABTS to be equipped for ministry.
Yousif and Sousanna are two of those leaders. Both were active in ministry when they came to ABTS to be equipped. By the time they returned to Sudan from ABTS, the ministries in Khartoum were passing through difficult times due to the departure of many leaders. They immediately immersed themselves into church ministry and were sent to a poor and unreached area south of the city to start a church. They planted themselves in the community and started a vigorous visitation ministry, reaching out to people and sharing the love of Jesus with them. Very soon they had led many in the community to Christ, discipled them, and built a simple clay church building for regular worship. Yousif and Sousanna, along with other leaders, repeated this evangelistic strategy many times until the war in Khartoum displaced most of them—a sad and painful reality of ministry amidst conflict. Wherever they go, Yousif and Sousanna continue to gather people and preach the message of God’s love for them.
We can usually discern what God is doing in a community by the quality of leaders he raises. Most Sudanese church and ministry leaders have faced a lot of hardship as they proclaim the gospel within their communities, but that does not discourage them. On the contrary, it increases their determination and boldness.
Awad is another determined leader that God has raised up. Because of the repeated conflicts in his region of South Sudan, he had left as a refugee to Uganda where he came to faith in Jesus Christ. He moved to Beirut to study at ABTS and be equipped for ministry back in his home country. When the pandemic began, and ABTS had to close the classrooms, the students went back to their homes to complete the academic year online. Awad went back to South Sudan. Continuing his studies was not an easy feat as he had to commute for more than one hour each way to an internet café to be able to study. However, he was undeterred by the challenges and finished his studies successfully. He then poured himself into ministry, starting with his immediate family, which was challenging given the animism and worship of ancestry in their culture. Yet, God used Awad to transform their gatherings into worship of Jesus and they planted their first church under a tree. They had to wait for the rainy season to baptize new believers because of the lack of water in the region. Little by little they moved into a simple straw structure. Now, Awad has trained multiple leaders who are helping lead several church plants despite the difficulties.
What we see in leaders like these is what we read about in the book of Acts. Churches are being planted as they are forced to move from one place to another. They have the special gift of connecting with new communities and sharing the love of Christ, beginning new ministries wherever they go.
The Church in Sudan provides a powerful example of how God sustains and grows the ministry even during times of conflict. To witness what God is doing through these remarkable leaders is incredible. God is drawing people to him from all sorts of cultural and religious backgrounds and is raising faithful women and men who are passionate about his mission. It is such a privilege for us at CBM to be partnering with these leaders in spreading the message of the Good News. We partner by coming alongside them in ministry and relief projects, and benefit from these partnerships by learning from them and from what God is doing in their midst.
