Last Tuesday I got back from a
short three-week long trip to South Sudan.
In the newsletter I sent out a few days ago I told you about my goals
for the trip and a brief outcome for each of those things. Today I wanted to write again to tell you
more about the church in Lalonga.
One of our regular prayers
is that God would provide godly men in Lalonga for Paul to walk with, disciple,
and eventually to help with the leadership of the church. When we left South Sudan a year ago, Paul
asked me what we were planning to do with the church planting and Bible study
efforts now that everything had dried up, and I told him that we should pray
about that while I’m gone and decide what to do next when I get back. My goal in this is that Paul will ultimately
be the one to make the decision, and that I would simply be there to help him.
We got back to Lohutok on a
Saturday night, so Sunday morning we got up and drove to Lalonga to see the
church. I wasn’t sure what I would find,
but was pleased to see a large group of people gathering when we arrived. They sang like they usually do, and then Paul
got up to teach, but before he started, a man named John got up and told the
Bible story that they were discussing that day.
I don’t remember ever meeting John, but Paul says that I have. I later asked Paul what was going on with
this new guy, and he told me that he has been doing Bible study with John and
another guy for the last year, but the other guy has been losing interest. We talked again about what it means to be born-again,
and Paul assured me that he thinks John is a believer. If this is true, what a huge answer to
prayer!
I also asked Paul for his
thoughts on our next moves in the church planting area. I expected to have a long discussion about
whether we should keep going to the expense of driving to far away villages,
but that didn’t happen. When I asked
Paul what he thought we should do next, he simply said, “We’ve been discussing
starting 2-3 new Bible Study groups in the small villages of Lalonga, we have
some of the places picked out already.”
Some of you have been
asking about the food situation that I wrote about last month. I went back to South Sudan with a little bit
of money (we had to take it from one of our other projects) to help Paul and
the church ladies with their shortage.
Thanks to some Diguna missionaries in our area, we were able to put
1200kg of sorghum on a truck and take it from Torit back to Lohutok, and later
we added another 800kg that we bought locally.
I talked to Paul about the best way to distribute this without everyone
seeing it as coming from me (and deepening the dependency issues we’ve been
struggling so hard against) and he already had an answer. We stored the food in Lohutok, and the
“executive committee” that the Lalonga church had formed to make decisions
would decide how the food would be distributed, and it would be given away from
the church. Thanks to a couple of you
who helped give toward helping with this.
We’re still waiting for
word on when we will be clear to return to South Sudan. God is at work and the way seems to be paved,
so we’re working hard to be ready as soon as we get the okay. Please pray for the church in Lalonga to continue
to grow and disciple each other, and for God’s clear direction regarding our
return, its timing and our focus on finishing our language/culture learning
when we return.
Thanks!
Justin, Amy, Ezekiel, Caleb
This is John about whom I wrote in the letter.
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