Sudan the minstry

So you've probably already read all about our adventures in Sudan. So let's talk ministry. Sudan is a lot different than Uganda. The weather is much hotter there as we experienced every day. We were in Southern Sudan which has been sparsely populated over the past 20+ years due to the war there. People are finally returning to their villages...many after years in displacement camps in Uganda. So there's lots of land, but not a lot of development. In the place where we ministered, the soil was very fertile so the people could at least grow crops to sustain themselves.

Magwi is close to the Ugandan border. The people in that county were mostly from the Acholi tribe. Yes, if you know Uganda, there are also Acholis in Uganda. Therefore there are many similarities between northern Uganda and Sudan. Acholis are pretty much a male dominated society. It was something that we experienced on our first day of the conference. Other conferences that I've ministered at in Uganda were packed with people, both men and women just waiting to be fed. In Sudan...men. The few women around were outside cooking for us the whole day. It was a big shock to me. Secondly, I thought we would be ministering to many, but there were only 20 church leaders/pastors there. Made me a little sad.

However, the men there were very responsive to the messages we gave. Pastor Dongo spoke on being a pastor. Pastor Richard spoke on team ministry. And I spoke about what our lives should look like as believers and leaders in our communities. The men were very challenged as we spoke. Some regarding the roles of their wives and how they should minister to them. Others saw how important it was to build teams within their churches so they as leaders didn't have to do anything.

As for me, I sometimes feel inadequate in such situations of speaking/sharing with people. The set of talks that I gave I have given before, but in all reality I really didn't want to be in Sudan. It was way out of my comfort zone. I became accustomed to my life in Uganda. I was in Sudan with no electricity apart from lights from 7pm to 11pm every night. Totally dependent on the time schedule of someone else. My introverted self was screaming out because I had very little alone time. But in such situations is when the Lord really uses me. I really felt the power of the Holy Spirit through times of sharing with the people there. Before leaving for Sudan, I had two talks prepared, but knew that I had to do three. I had some ideas of what to share, but really didn't see where the Spirit was taking me until the night before the last day. Although that talk was very disorganized because of lack of preparation, there seemed to be power behind the message. I was later encouraged by one of the pastors that he was really challenged to think out of the box regarding the types of ministry they focused on there.

The most interesting thing was that as we planned the trip, we never had an intention of focusing everything on one theme. We had never really discussed the breakdown of the talks, but as the days went by, I found that the Lord had really generated a theme to share with the people there. Most of our talks overlapped in subject matter. Many of our main points were in line together. I was just blessed to watch the Holy Spirit work.

So though I can't rate this trip as my favorite ever, I know that there was purpose behind it. I believe the people were blessed and challenged in their ministry. And of course in many ways we were blessed and challenged as well.