To do anything in the name of someone or something is to do something under its or his authority. We went to South Sudan under the authority and power of the Prince of Peace, Jesus our Savior, our Wonderful Counselor, Redeemer, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Son of God...
Sunday, April 27,
2014
After three days
of travel, we are in Maridi, South Sudan. My route this time began in San Jose
to Los Angeles, then to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and into Entebbe, Uganda.
We spent the night in Entebbe and caught an Eagle Air flight to Yei, South
Sudan. We got our visas and rode in two Land Cruisers. There were six other
travelers this time: three from Kentucky, one from Mississippi, one from Texas,
and one from Oregon. We all met in Amsterdam.
Our destination
is Maridi, which is 118 miles from Yei. That normally doesn't take but about
two hours at home, but this country does not have paved roads, and we were
blessed it didn't rain that day. It had rained the day before and the pot holes
had water deep enough to seem like our vehicles were going to get submerged up
to above the tires. We were going 20 miles mph most times. We started to rate
the bumps by how high we were off our seats. Some of us hit our heads a few
times. Most of the time only those of us in the back seats were doing the
flying, but once in awhile those in the front were off their seats a good four
inches in the air, too. We were tired from jet lag so we just laughed our heads
off. One of the gals on the trip said that where se from, this was called
"muddin" and the dirtiest vehicle was the winner of this recreational
fun. We all agreed Mullai, our driver, would win if he was in Kentucky, but
Mullai just said, "We welcome those men to come to South Sudan and do
muddin' here!"
During our
devotions on Sunday, we read in Jeremiah. The passage was like the Great
Commission passage in Matthew 28 and Mark 16. This Old Testament commissioning
set the tone for our upcoming work for the next two weeks or so.
Jeremiah 1:4-10
And the word of
the Lord came to me saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.
Before you were born I set you apart. I appointed you as a prophet to the
nations."
"Ah,
Sovereign Lord, I said, I do not know how to speak. I am only a child."
But the Lord said
to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a child.' You must go to everyone I send
you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with
you and I will rescue you," declares the Lord.
Then the Lord
reached out his hand touched my mouth and said to me, "Now I have put my
words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to
uproot and tear down, lot destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant."
Like a field
needs to be cleared of trees, grass, and weeds in order to plow and plant crops,
so too, the field of souls for the harvest needs the Lord's touch of uprooting
belief systems, allegiance or loyalties to anything or anyone besides the One
and true God, for he is a jealous God and will not share his glory.
The laborers in
the field only need to say the words the Most High God has instructed to say.
That is mainly the Gospel, the Good news, for it is the power of God unto
salvation.
The Creator of
all, the creator of man and woman is like the potter at the wheel. The fall of
man, or the original sin of Adam and Eve, has marred man of all generations by
sin and death. The Creator, like the potter, has the right to start over, if he
so chooses.
In Jeremiah
18:1-10, God illustrates this:
This is the word
that came to Jeremiah from the Lord. "Go down to the potter's house, and
there I will give you my message." So I went down to the potter's house,
and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay
was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it
as seemed best to him.
Then the word of
the Lord came to me. "Oh house of Israel, can I not do with you as this
potter does?" declares the Lord. "Like clay in the hand of the
potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. If at any time I announce
that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if
that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on
it the disaster I had planned, and if it does evil in my sight and does not
obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it..."
On Sunday afternoon we met with leaders of three churches: Sudan
Pentecostal Church, Christ Disciple Church, and Christian Fellowship Church, the host of our expedition and work.
Mullai and David addressed the pastors and leaders about the week ahead and instructions on I Am Second groups we were going to do that afternoon.
Above is the sign to the church we were going to work with for two weeks. Pictured are Amanda, Pastor Simon, Emmanuel who wants to be an evangelist, my translator Simon Peter, and Assistant Pastor of Christ's Disciples Church, Pastor Anthony.
How
priceless is your unfailing love, O God! People take refuge in the shadow of
your wings.
Psalm 36:7
Because you
are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. Psalm 63:7
First day of ministry - Monday April 28, 2014
Some of the team members went to the new church area, sharing the Gospel and some of us went to the host church's area, Christian Fellowship Church, and a few of us went to Christ's Disciple Church.
Some young men and women waiting at the church for us, and they welcomed us (Pastor Simon, me, Amanda, our translators Wilson, Peter and Simon Peter) with a song. Pastor Simon, Anthony, and Wilson accompanied us to the church. There may have been two more that led us to the church. It was a hot day, and the big mango trees in front of the church was a refreshing sight. The young people were clapping and singing us in, and eventually led us inside their brick building. It is still a wonder to me that I get offered a seat of honor as a guest speaker. Amanda and I are known as double A. TNT consist of Tracey, Nancy, and Taibu and Jesse and Wayne I referred to as JW.
Four of us shared our testimonies. I shared first and it was nice to get to know Pastor Simon, Anthony, and Amanda. There were ten of us. Our first visit was to a home with an elderly man with eye problems, along with a few ladies at the house. I shared God's story at length, and then about the time the ladies were about to pray, a man came out of the tukel and started to ask as questions, mostly about having permission to be there. He gave us the third degree, and we listened...our devotion that morning was to listen to whomever we were going to share with. The man vented. He was saying how the Sudanese are dying, and that we people abroad do not understand this. I let him vent, but also assured him that people abroad cared, and that is why we were there. It was also a good example to show what to do if people were hostile to the message of hope since we had young people with us. They took a stand for their faith by going with us and were ready to learn from us on how to share their faith.
Pictured on the left below is half of the team that worked at Christ's Disciples Church. Two of the guys, the ones in the middle, were from a different church, the Pentecostal Church in the middle of Maridi.
A couple of pics from around the neighborhood where people were playing a game like Mancala (which is similar to a game played in the Philippines called Sunka, using a wooden game board with sunken holes and shells).
Yahweh - He who is...I AM who was Who is and Who is to come
Jesus said he is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, so when I share the Gospel, I usually start with what happened in the beginning. A lot have not heard of God as the Creator of the heavens and the earth and everything in it. As good student of Dr. Garry Friesen of Multnomah University's Pentateuch class, I taught on Creation, Fall, Flood, and Babel to the children below. I made sure that our small groups were going well before I started to reach out to the kids around the church. There were a couple of times the small groups did not meet because it was raining hard. Somehow, the children still managed to find their way to the church, so we continued to reach out to them.
The picture on the right was the group of kids I talked to through my translator, Simon Peter. I read the story of Creation and had the kids draw pictures of their favorite things God created. The picture on the left below is of the last day of the week of our stories and memory verse review. Simon Peter would give the ball to a child and had them recite the memory verse, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" in Sudanese Arabic, the common language of this group. There were several tribes and languages among them, so the tower of Babel story was fascinating to them.
It was fascinating to me to see what they would add to my drawing of Noah's ark. A little girl volunteered to draw some animals to add in the ark. She drew bats (called wat-wat) and snakes - the normal animals seen in this part of the world.
In the shade this snake was bright green...looks like a mamba. Pastor Simon lured it out of the tree and killed this poisonous snake, which was on one of our local guide's property. She was relieved she didn't have to worry about the snake anymore. Our other guide's younger brother was bit by a snake was not with us the last few days because she was with him in the hospital
Yahweh-Rapha God who Heals
Christ's Disciple Church was started in the mid 1980's by the Health Institute. The principal of the institute invited us in and invited us to share the Word of God with the students. Some of the students are already members of the church and hold leadership positions. Although we were unable to work with them during the week, the pastor and other leaders who did the training in I Am Second cell groups and led them during the week were able to facilitate groups on the weekend. The students really liked being engaged with the group, answering the questions and discussing the passages.
My teammate Amanda shared her testimony with the students, and then I shared the Gospel using Creation to Christ story and introducing it by saying that we all suffer from a fatal genetic disease, passed on to by Adam and Eve in the very beginning. I explained how Jesus is the only cure...the only way, the truth and the life, and no one can come to the Father except by him.
Four people accepted Christ
Out of 531 Gospel presentations that the whole team presented, 195 made professions of faith. One of those who made a profession of faith is Justin Thomas. We visited a compound with several tukels and we presented the Gospel to the ones gathered in the kitchen. Then they asked us if we would pray for Justin who could not participate in the gathering because he was bedridden. He did not have use of both of his hands and feet. People had to help him feed, dress and relieve himself. He wanted healing and he wanted us to pray for it. Pastor Simon told him he could call on the name of the Lord himself, so we proceeded to share the Gospel with him. He called on the name of Jesus, for there is no other name under heaven in which a person can be saved. I prayed for a complete healing for him - body, mind, and spirit. When we share the Gospel and people respond we don't really know if their faith is real or not.
The picture below is of the lady we shared the Gospel in that kitchen with others. This was taken a week after, and we asked her why we didn't see her at the bible studies we had with new believers. She stated that she wanted to go but had to go to a funeral and then the hospital as a family member broke an arm. She told us she told people at the funeral that she heard the Gospel and shared it with all of them.
A few feet from the kitchen is the tukel where Justin Thomas lived. We checked on him, which was a week after we prayed for him. He was happy to tell us that he has been able to go out of the tukel and be with people, and has been able to use his right hand and arm, a first occasion in ten years of paralysis.We were amazed at what God had done! He showed us how he can unwrap a candy with his right hand. His faith has made him well.
I love the way the Sudanese worship the LORD. Their songs are happy with lots of harmony, and they dance with joy and lots of energy. This clip reminded me of my Zumba class in Prunedale with Cheryl at MAI, only the guys and kids are part of this activity, not just women. Emmanuel, one of my translators led the group below.
Yahweh Nissi - the Lord is our Banner
After hearing me and translating for me all week, my interpreter Simon Peter shared the Gospel with this group. They all professed their faith in Christ.
There was a prisoner working on a tukel's roof that heard the Good News and was the first to accept the forgiveness Christ offers, and he wanted to share the good news with other prisoners, too.
On this trip there were half days of burning items and plants used in witchcraft to make way for new lives in Christ.
Pictured below are our friends from Uganda. They have a new ministry reaching out to their neighborhood children, and the school name includes "Nissi" which means the Lord is our banner. Wayne and Nancy of Kentucky and Jesse of Oregon and I went to Kampala and then to this resort with Vincent and Julie. Vincent is now an associate pastor at a Pentecostal Church in Kampala, and invited Wayne and anyone in our team to talk to their church members about missions. It was a big church, and there were a lot of evangelists and some of their worship team were there to listen to us about our work in South Sudan, about missions in general.
