He dabs at a tear and clears the roughness from his throat. They were his personal friends—some of those thousands who were shot or starved or raped. The fortunate ones survived months-long treks over fearsome terrain to find a sanctuary of sorts in neighboring countries. They arrived, reported The Guardian (London) in 1992, “carrying their babies and their Bibles. . . .”

We’re talking with Don Stilwell, whose heart breaks—yet hopes—for the people of South Sudan. He has served with SIM for 48 years, some of them as international coordinator of SIM’s community service ministries. But mostly he served with his wife Muriel in East Africa, including a term as director of SIM Sudan during some of the killing years of the north-south civil war.

Now a peace agreement is holding, and refugees are returning. But to what? Smashed churches, roads that don’t work when it rains (more than half the year), towns and villages where an entire generation grew up without going to school. Hundreds of churches lack trained pastors. And “the scourge of Africa” (HIV/AIDS) threatens to cross the border along with the returning refugees.

Refugees Returning

Hope is also returning to South Sudan. A young family from Canada lives in a refugee camp in a neighboring country in order to teach the Bible to the Sudanese. A short-term worker from Canada is teaching them English (official language of South Sudan). As they are repatriated in the next few months, they will take back to their villages the education they’ve gained along with a maturing biblical Christian experience.

Just inside the Sudanese border, a young SIM worker organized a school for 50 teen-aged boys who walked five days from their tribal homeland in order to receive a free education. When they return, they will carry gifts of knowledge and leadership to their hometown people who are largely allied with Islam. Again a tear moistens Don’s cheek and his voice turns husky. “Just imagine,” he says, “Those boys are about 15, just a bit younger than the powerful 19-year-old evangelists of years past, whom God used to win thousands to faith. What potential for leading churches back in their villages!”

Here Don’s thoughts turn nostalgic, taking us back to Chali, South Sudan, April 1964. Two intrepid women have been operating a medical clinic and an orphanage, along with teaching the people about freedom in Christ and translating the New Testament into Uduk. The government has just issued an order evicting them from the country. Christians in the church still harbor fear of the spirits that previously ruled every bit of their lives—the spirits of Satan they had once appeased in rituals at the big baobab tree just behind the missionary clinic. (The missionaries had been unaware, when they first arrived, that the suspicious town leaders had placed them there so the spirits could “take care of them.”)

Now, as the missionaries prepare to depart, a truck comes rumbling over rutted tracks carrying the newly-printed New Testaments. How it bypassed the capital, no one would ever know. But it arrives before the women must leave. Pastor Paul calls the church together under the baobab tree to dedicate the books. He declares that the Word of God gives them victory over the devil whom they used to serve. “The god of this world,” he reminds them from 2 Corinthians 4:4, “who has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel, has been overcome by the arrival of the New Testament in our own language.” Then each man gathers up his courage and hurls his freshly cleaned spear at the tree, confessing that his faith is now only in Jesus Christ.

The missionaries round up all the empty powdered milk cans they’d used to feed their orphans, and in each can they place a New Testament, a hymnbook, a manual on church leadership, a blank notebook and pencils. The tins would protect the precious books from termites and leaks in grass roofs. Each tin leaves Challi in the arms of a believer who promises to use it to start a church.

A few days later, Sudanese police escort the women to Khartoum, from where they will leave Sudan. The day before their flight, a message comes from South Sudan: “The Believers’ Bible Class was meeting when they heard a terrible thud. Pastor Paul and some leaders took a lantern and followed the sound. They discovered that the baobab tree had fallen. The people exclaimed, ‘What Pastor Paul and the missionaries told us is true! We don’t have to fear the evil spirits anymore!’”

Visionary Partnerships for the Future

No group alone can possibly hope to meet South Sudan’s needs. We celebrate the partnerships emerging between SIM, the African churches that relate to us, other agencies, and especially South Sudanese Christians themselves. Churches in Nigeria (ECWA—Evangelical Church of West Africa) and Ethiopia (EKHC—Kale Heywet Church) have made a huge commitment to "Rebuilding Southern Sudan: Church and Nation.”

This program seeks to raise the spiritual and educational level of a population recently freed from decades of war. Jimmy and RoxAnne Cox direct the project, and Ruth Wall is the Education Advisor to ensure compliance with the policies of the official Secretariat for Education in South Sudan. The Nigerian and Ethiopian missionaries sent by their churches will be trained in those policies, then paired in teams and sent to five strategic locations. There they will offer teacher training to about 25 local Sudanese in each center. In the evenings they will provide pastoral training. During the coming year, it is expected that the scope of this project will expand greatly. (Contact your SIM office for more information about this project or to contribute.)

Don Stilwell speaks rapidly now, trying to convey a mountain of needs, opportunities and ministries in our few remaining moments. A simplified Bible teaching plan, known as "Chronological Bible Storying" is being translated into 22 languages of South Sudan (see our project Translation of Chronological Gospel Presentation). Several SIM workers are partnering with Samaritan's Purse in medical ministries. Bible translations are nearing completion for the Mabaan and Dinka-Padang (see our project Sudan Bible Translations).

Soon to come is a Primary Health Care Center (PHCC) in Doro, Mabaan, where a previous SIM hospital was destroyed during the war and where more than 200,000 Mabaan and neighboring people groups face staggering health needs. The center will be christened “Doro Memorial PHCC” in memory of SIM pioneer missionaries Dr. Bob and Claire Grieve who were martyred there in the 1940s.

Also beginning: an HIV/AIDS ministry for South Sudan, a boarding high school, safe drinking water intervention, and training for health care workers. As opportunities emerge, SIM and other workers will seek to respond to the desperate needs they encounter. The love of Christ compels the sacrifice and service of all who are moving to South Sudan.

Pray

• For peace to endure in South Sudan.
• For funding for the massive aid that’s needed (the Sudan Mirror reports that in South Sudan a chicken now costs the same as an AK-47 assault rifle).
• For health and resilience for all the workers, wherever they’re from.

Go

• Five high school teachers
• Agriculture extension officers/workers/farmers
• Water engineer
• Evangelists, church planters, disciplers, church leader trainers