South Sudan's secret peacemakers

By Dr Sureka Goringe
Associate Director of Church Connections, UnitingWorld

Posted Sep 21, 2016 in Faith

I have met the peacemakers…

As he stands to greet me, Michael’s height keeps unfurling until I have to step back to keep eye contact.

“We Nilotes grow tall,” he laughs, and we sit down together on deck chairs. Around us on the banks of Juba’s White Nile, various leaders from the Presbyterian Church of South Sudan are sipping soft drinks and chatting.

It’s been a year since Rev Michael Aban Obat (pictured) returned to South Sudan, and his eyes shine as he talks of his work. When he fled the city of Malakal in 2013, the Presbyterian Church lost all their buildings, including the theological college which was burnt to the ground. Their leaders, like everyone else, were scattered across the border or in IDP camps. They were victims of war and are traumatised by all they’ve experienced. Michael and his friend Tut, another minister, returned in 2015, knowing in their hearts that their country needed their church to lead it to peace. They needed to regather strong Christian leaders.

“Our country needs men and women of God to teach them the ways of peace and to care for their pain,” says Michael. “We will face the suffering we have experienced and help others to face it too. We will go forward together.”

Tut and Michael managed to salvage some books from the burnt out library in Malakal and sail it to Juba by boat on the White Nile. They found an abandoned bakery and started teaching theology with 5 students. Now with 20, the new Nile Theological College is Michael’s hope for meeting the church’s need for leaders.

Our talk drifts back to 2013 and Michael’s eyes grow distant.

“When the fighting broke out in Malakal, Peter and I hid in the church compound. We went out at night to try and find others – colleagues, friends and family – to hide with us. Our neighbours were killed, women raped and children cut down. Men and women lay unburied in the streets with nothing to protect their bodies from the dogs.”

It’s not easy for Michael to say these words; his eyes cloud with remembered horror, he turns his face away. The South Sudanese are fisher folk and farmers - not a violent people, but war is its own kind of madness.

“I managed to escape to Cairo, leaving my country like so many thousands every day who fled across the borders and filled the camps in neighbouring countries,” he recalls. “We were all hungry, all exhausted, but none of us understood how much fear and violence had come to live in our minds. I was quickly roused to anger, and I know now how unreasonably I behaved with family and friends. I would try and do ordinary things, but all the time, the horrific things that I had seen would play like a video in my mind – I couldn’t stop it.”

He turns to look directly at me and smiles. “I was one of the lucky ones. I had counselling in Cairo for the trauma of those days in Juba. It made all the difference. I found hope again, I found my God gave me strength again. To speak is not easy, but to suffer alone is far worse.”

And Michael’s face loses its faraway look, his shoulders straighten and he takes a deep breath. Smiling again, he leans forward and fixes me with his gaze.

“This is what my people need – they need healing from the terrible wounds of war. They need to hear God’s Word of hope and peace. They needed to be taught to live peace, to breathe it – commit to it, work for it. That is why I came back – because my church has work to do.”

Michael looks fondly around at his colleagues on the lawn. These men and women have left their families in refugee camps in adjacent countries and returned to Juba with empty hands, but with God’s call in their hearts. Peter, who hid with Michael in 2013 is the Moderator, the wise elder of the group. As Chair of the South Sudan Council of Churches, he risks his life advocating to keep the politicians honest. Paska hasn’t seen her husband for 4 years, but she leads the church women to help each other recover from rape and loss and begin to build livelihoods. Joseph runs the Peace Desk, using every dollar he gets to buy petrol to travel out of town, providing trauma counselling and teaching peace and reconciliation, village by village, congregation by congregation. Rev Stephen is a man on a mission- driven to reopen the 17 schools run by the church so that children can be educated and learn to live in peace.

“I don’t care if they must sit under trees.” he says. “We must not waste a single day. Our children must learn or they cannot build a peaceful nation.”

God has given the Presbyterian Church of South Sudan a vision for peace, and God has called up courageous leaders to work for it. I see with my own eyes the hope that comes with Jesus’ reconciling gospel; the powerful transformation that forgiveness brings. I see what courageous leadership, sacrificial love and servanthood looks like. In the fear and the grief and the pain that is the inheritance of South Sudan, the leadership of faithful Christians, the compassionate and passionate mission of the Church is both the beacon of hope and the guiding hand, leading to a better way.

These brave men and women have begun rebuilding God’s Church in South Sudan. They are the face and hands and feet of God in that place. They are weaving peace person to person – offering trauma counselling and practical help, listening to and encouraging people of different tribal groups to spend time together, creating bonds that will not allow them to turn on one another in future. They speak truth to power, not taking sides and helping hold their government to account. They dream of rebuilding their schools and hospitals, helping their children grow strong and free. And every day, Michael, Peter, Paska, Joseph, Stephen and the others plead peace in every prayer, every word, every act – living their call to the God of peace who does not abandon us.

I have met the peacemakers – they are indeed the children of God.

 

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UnitingWorld is calling for Uniting Church members to phone 1800 998 122 to Pledge for Peace. Pledges will assist UnitingWorld in supporting South Sudan’s Christian leaders to care for those who have been traumatised by war, teach reconciliation and forgiveness, train teachers and rebuild schools, lead public advocacy and engage in peace processes, and provide skills training for families.

To find out more about peacemaking in South Sudan, please visit the UnitingWorld website.

 

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