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By President Russ Sommerfeld (This page contains a number of pictures and may take some time to download.) In Acts 11, Luke reports that the message of Christ crucified and risen was preached in Antioch by persecuted Christians. “The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.” (Acts 11:21) When news of this reached the Christian Church in Jerusalem, Barnabas was sent to Antioch where he saw evidence of the grace of God. Barnabas was glad and encouraged the Antioch Christians.
God's Children of Sudan, East Africa In early 2004 the Lord put upon the heart of Nebraska District President Rev. Russ Sommerfeld and his Assistant for Missions and Outreach Rev. Richard Boring to go and see what God is doing in Sudan, East Africa. The news of an emerging Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Sudan had reached their ears from persecuted Sudanese Christians who had come to live in Nebraska and become members and leaders in our Lutheran churches. Sommerfeld and Boring went with Sudanese Vicar John Deang from Christ Lutheran in Lincoln to visit Nebraska native Rev. Ken Greinke, LCMS Executive Director for Africa Missions. A vision to "go and see" was born.
Sudan experienced war beginning in 1983, when a military coup brought Islamist Omar Hassan al-Bashir to power. He immediately imposed “sharia” (Islamic law) throughout the entire country. This launched the twenty-one year long war between the predominantly Christian south and the Islamic north. Six million people of the South fled for their lives. More than two million died and four million now seek refuge and home. Soon Rev. Ray Wilke of Norfolk, director of the Orphan Grain Train, was also eager to “go and see” what God is doing in the Sudan through His Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Sudan, as was Rev. John Fale, former Nebraska District pastor who is now Associate Director for LCMS World Relief and Human Care. Next came Charles Kirsch of Fremont, Nebraska who serves with LCMS World Relief and Human as a developer in Nebraska and five other Midwest states. In December 2004, the Nebraska District Board of Directors authorized Sommerfeld, Boring and Deang to go and see God’s work in the Sudan once peace had been restored in Sudan. Peace came in January 2005, but the “go and see” journey was moved from March to July to November and finally December 2005 due to concerns for safety in Sudan. During this time, under Ken Greinke’s leadership, the team to “go and see” grew to include:
However, it was not in God’s plan for Vicar Paul Gatkuoth Pal, Dr. Paul Mueller and Simon Wur Dup to travel with the team. Vicar Pal was called home to heaven via an auto accident in late November 2005 while at work among the Sudanese of the Lutheran Church of Canada, and Dr. Muller, newly appointed LCMS Executive Director for Africa, was suddenly called home from overseas to be with his wife at the unexpected death of her father. Simon Wur Dup of the Sudanese Lutheran Mission Society was unable to secure a visa in time to accompany the team. Arrival This village of Yambio, which had experienced unrest, including the looting and burning of homes and the deaths of 55 only the previous week, warmly welcomed the team with Christian hymns, songs, prayers, and a special time of worship under the very tree where the first ELCS congregation was established.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Yambio, Sudan, welcomes the LCMS team with a Christian song composed just for the occasion History of the Ministry When John met a young Nuba man named Younan Bashir, he trained him in Lutheran doctrine and sent him back to his home to establish a Mission Training Center to train more leaders. Since then, the mission has been entirely carried out by the local population. Bashir began worshiping with a few others under a tree. In three years, 38 Lutheran congregations were planted in the eastern half of the Nuba Mountains, with opportunities to expand into the western half. It is estimated that the church has grown to possibly as many as 8,000 people! Even so, there are only four pastors to serve this vast region besides the 31 untrained evangelists and six elders. According to the Nuba church leadership, the Lutheran church is now the largest in the eastern region. In November 2001, Rev. Andrew Elisa, president of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Sudan, reported that his church body had about 5,000 members in 23 congregations, and he was the only ordained pastor. In 2005, the Sudanese church has more than doubled in size, with some 10,000 members worshiping in 70 congregations. Elisa is now one of eleven ordained pastors serving the church, More than 60 evangelists, a dozen deacons and one deaconess also serve the church. Peace in Sudan Roads that were closed during the war will open, land mines will be removed, and the church will need to go to new areas now with the Gospel. There are a lot of opportunities to open so many congregations in a short given time. At the same time, there will be competition, particularly from non-Christians. In order for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Sudan to take advantage of the new opportunities to spread the Gospel, Elisa said the church body will need to safeguard its current membership while securing four things: sound Lutheran Christian doctrine, manpower to lead outreach endeavors, transportation to reach remote areas, and the wherewithal to print materials and construct shelters for preaching stations. As Sudan drafts a constitution to guide a new national government that will include representatives from all sides of the conflict, Elisa says his church body will work to preserve the peace and encourage all sides to work together. Traveling in Sudan
Baguga woman wearing Winnetoon, Nebraska, T-shirt Four days of worship, singing, meeting, feasting on goat, chicken, yams, casaba, pumpkins, rice and fresh fruit concluded with an agreement of understanding by all in attendance calling for the development of plans to all work together for the emergence and growth of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Sudan. This was celebrated with a Soccer Game between the “Old Guys” of the American mission visit team and the kid’s team of Yambio. Needless to say, the Yambio kids won 6 to 1. The United Nations peacekeepers in Yambio officiated the game that drew a crowd of nearly 300 and resulted in a great deal of laughter, fun, joy and excitement. The evening feast was attended by the Governor of the Western Equatorial State of South Sudan, Patrick Lamoi, and his cabinet. The team traveled via DC-3 to Juba and met with the South Sudan Vice-President, Riek Machar Teny, who helped the team understand the current lack of infrastructure in Sudan for the return of refugees and the positive impact church can have on this situation. Each team member had the honored opportunity to address Vice President Riek Machar Teny, and dialogue followed as to how various LCMS agencies represented could assist the ELCS, and thereby Sudan. Due to flight problems, the team had to be divided, disappointedly leaving four members of the team, Mrs. Elisa, and the General Secretary of the ELCS in Juba, while President Elisa and the remainder of the team traveled to Khartoum much later in the day than planned. The ELCS is currently headquartered in Khartoum where President Elisa, his wife Linda and their three daughters and one son also live. Khartoum
The ELCS operates St. Paul’s Lutheran Charity Hospital in Khartoum. This 18 bed hospital serves Christians and Muslims alike and provides medical care through four doctors who share the same small office. The team had the opportunity to witness an eye surgery and visit at length with a surgeon and obstetrician. The Charity Hospital serves many who could otherwise never receive medical care. Christians also fear hospitalization in Islamic hospitals due to the possibility of being killed with improper treatments on medications. A Muslim dentist has been so moved by the compassion of St. Paul’s Lutheran Charity Hospital for all people that he offered his services and equipment for free to provide dental care on a part-time basis and regularly does so. While the hospital’s facilities would remind most Americans of late 1950’s hospital care, the services provided are very good for Africa. For example, the government hospital in Yambio was closed while the team was there due to lack of staff, supplies and equipment. The team was also giving the opportunity to visit an Internal Displaced Persons (IDP) Camp near Khartoum. Rev. Ray Wilke’s description of this Camp is compelling. “Five hundred thousand, mostly women and children survivors of the twenty year war, cling to life on the boring brown desert twenty-five kilometers north of Khartoum. They heap up walls of mud covered with sticks and palm branches for shelter. Seven lightweight South Sudan children hoist themselves onto the aluminum United Nations pump handle. When lowered it brings precious water from the depths of the desert reservoir. Perhaps mother will bring rice tonight from her gleanings in the city to add to the water, perhaps not. When I asked Lutheran Bishop Andrew Elisa how these throngs of people survived in this desert place, he said simply, ‘The angels.’ I have no other explanation! ‘They have no jobs, no source of income and the United Nations food supply ended last month.’ And yet there is a mystery among the 'have not' people of the earth that, to my knowledge, has never been explained. The mystery is this, why do the children of poverty laugh so openly and loudly in the midst of their need? In the middle of Africa I saw multitudes of children whose only delight on earth is the freedom to play in the red clay on land they will never own. They run and jump and giggle with glee at the sound of a morning greeting from a neighbor. Their morning meal is still in the bush. Dinner is a sugar cane stump. They greet a stranger with an open-faced grin and ‘hello,’ accompanied by a thrusted hand.” Below is a picture of a mud home in the Internal Displaced Person Camp near Khartoum.
The team also had the opportunity to visit the confluence of the Blue and White Nile and shop in the crowded Khartoum market where every sale must be bartered. The mass of men in white robes with either skull caps for informal wear or turbans for formal wear and women arrayed in flowing long dresses with heads properly covered in beautifully sheer shawls among a multiplicity of open air shops creates an atmosphere unlike any American shopping mall. Ministry Plans LCMS World Mission East Africa Office in Nairobi, Kenya, under Rev. Claude Houge’s leadership provides theological training, which is always the request of the national people of Sudanese Lutheran Church. The people take this training and share it with others. They own the responsibility and privilege that this calling brings and are in turn saying, "Here we are. Send us!" Now that peace has come in 2005, and the movement of people to various areas of the country is possible, attempts are being made to incorporate LCMS World Mission work--which basically has been based outside of the country with refugees in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Uganda--with the work Reverend Andrew Elisa of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Sudan has been doing from inside the country. Of special note is the fact that Nuer-speaking Sudanese in the United States, including those in Omaha, Lincoln, Grand Island and Norfolk, Nebraska, who have joined LCMS congregations, are seeking ways to be in ministry to their countrymen in Sudan as well as to those in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya through the Sudanese Lutheran Mission Society. They are committed to the establishment of the Lutheran Church in Sudan. Many have expressed interest in providing leadership to new congregations or beginning new preaching stations. Also assisting Sudanese Lutherans is LCMS World Relief/Human Care, which has provided food, wells, and medical and agricultural assistance. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Sudan is the result of the efforts of many partners, including the national church in Sudan, Sudanese refugees in the United States, and LCMS World Mission--all working toward the establishment of a single Lutheran church in Sudan. Every member of the team who made the December 2005 journey to “go and see” God’s Gospel at work in The Sudan is now at work considering how they can partner with the emerging Evangelical Lutheran Church of Sudan (ELCS) to assist the mission and ministry God has entrusted to them. In their Agreement of Understanding the Representatives of the ELCS and the Team identified that the following needs exist within the ELCS:
Upon considering these needs, the LCMS team pledged to do the following:
All in attendance agreed to acknowledge the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Sudan to be the national Lutheran church body for the entire nation of Sudan and encourage the ELCS to distribute ministry, services, funds and goods in an equitable manner throughout the Sudan. The LCMS agencies represented in the LCMS Team agreed to receive need requests from the ELCS and present them to the LCMS bodies and agencies they represent. The ELCS and the LCMS team finally agreed to reconvene in the Sudan for further consultation and reflection in two years (2007). The ELCS President Andrew Elisa will call for a meeting of the ELCS Southeast Sudan congregations and invite the Sudanese Lutheran Mission Society of the USA to that meeting. Now that an LCMS team has “Gone and Seen,” the Lord can lead His people of the LCMS in Nebraska to see the role He can give them with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Sudan. Various Districts of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod have become partner districts with specific international mission fields. It is the vision of President Sommerfeld that the Nebraska District – LCMS follow the Lord’s will to partner with the international mission field that is emerging through God’s hand upon the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Sudan, LCMS World Missions, and the Sudanese Lutheran Mission Society of the United States. Please join him in prayer for God’s clear and certain direction. |
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Sudan is the largest nation in Africa, about 967,000 square miles in Northeast Africa, and one-third as large as the continental U.S. Sudan stretches 2,000 miles south from Egypt to Uganda, Kenya and Zaire, and 1,500 miles west from Ethiopia and the Red Sea to Libya, Chad and the Central African Republic. Sudan includes the Land of Goshen, the land that nourished and grew the Hebrews from a clan of seventy to the multitude that Moses led across the Red Sea in that ancient baptism of a nation whom God drew from the water as Israel. It is also the ancient land of Cush, noted in the Scriptures.
The journey into Khartoum was a stark contrast from the South Sudan’s jungles and rural areas. Khartoum is a very busy city of congested traffic, various vehicles, including donkey drawn carts. It is a city dominated by Islam, with mosques and minarets visible in every direction. Islamic cemeteries fill city blocks and are sadly barren and devoid of vegetation among the many markers. The current headquarters of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Sudan is next to a very large Islamic cemetery. The barren and hopeless appearance of that cemetery is quite a contrast to the joyful hymns, songs and laughter of Christian fellowship that emanate from the Lutheran church services next to it. 
Divine Worship in Khartoum was in Zande, Arabic and English at the first service of the day. Three more would be conducted, in Nuer, Arabic and English. The liturgy was the Lutheran order we know so well, complete with Invocation, Confession, Absolution, Hymn of Praise, Collect, Bible Readings, Nicene Creed, Sermon, and Communion Liturgy. The hymns and songs were accompanied by drums and various handmade percussion instruments and filled with the obvious Third Week of Advent joy. Since Islamic Law forbids alcohol, communion wine must come through special arrangements with the Roman Catholic Church. No one is concerned about how long the service lasts. Offerings are given by walking to the front during a song of great joy. Outbursts of joy come from female voices fluttering at high pitches. 
