FAITH UNDER FIRE IN SUDAN

It was hot, extremely hot. Over 45°C in the shade! We had been walking since 2:00am descending from one cluster of the Nuba Mountains across this great plain to ascend the other mountain range. I could feel blisters on my feet and heat rashes wherever my clothing rubbed against the skin. My backpack seemed to have increased in weight every kilometre we carefully strode through the scorched earth of South Kordofan, scanning the sky for enemy aircraft and watching where we placed our feet to avoid landmines or trip wires.

We were in an island of Christianity in a sea of Islam. The National Islamic Front government of Sudan had declared Jihad (Holy War) against the Christian Blacks of the Nuba Mountains.

Our Frontline Mission team had been strafed by two Mi 24 Hind helicopter gunships upon entry to the Nuba Mountains. Each night, as we showed the Jesus film to remote villages in the Nuba, we could see flares and tracers light up the sky in the distance, and hear the crump of mortars and rattle of machine gun fire, reminding us that we were behind the lines of the longest war still raging. Most of the four tonnes of Bibles, school books, agricultural tools and seed that we had flown into the Nuba Mountains had already been distributed. However, we still had many boxes for the Nuba tribes on the other side of the plain and we were on our way to reach them with our life saving cargo.

Our escorts had stopped for some water in the shade at an oasis. My eyes could not believe what I was seeing in front of me. There was a Nuba man sitting on his donkey. Something looked horribly wrong. Then I realised, the man had no feet! How could he have lost both of his feet?

The man was an enthusiastic evangelist. In order to prevent him from taking the Gospel to neighbouring villages the Arabs had chopped off his feet with an axe. Where his feet should have been, there were now just stumps. Yet, incredibly this evangelist was determined not to allow the inconvenience of not having feet prevent him from fulfilling the Great Commission of our Lord Jesus Christ. His knees were calloused. When not riding on his donkey he was attempting to “walk” on his knees, to reach the neighbouring tribes with the Gospel of Christ.

Suddenly, my blisters and heat rashes seemed quite trivial.

“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings Good News, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims Salvation…” Isaiah 52:7

This Nuba evangelist no longer had any feet, but he had beautiful feet. Despite the cruelty of the National Islamic Front, he was persevering in proclaiming the saving Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. How puny our excuses appear as to why we cannot take part in the next local evangelistic outreach!

Later that day we reached the village of Kauda and showed the Jesus film to the people there. Many of the people told us: “We have never seen a film before!” It was good to get there before Hollywood.

I have had the privilege of showing the Jesus film in many different languages on well over a hundred occasions in very remote parts of Africa.

The reactions of the people in the Nuba Mountains forced me to look at the Gospel message with fresh eyes. The people openly wept and wailed in anguish as the whippings and crucifixion of our Lord Jesus were depicted on the screen. People fell to the ground and sobbed uncontrollably, some literally for hours.

I had walked a long way to encourage the Christians in Kauda. Their church and community had been bombed 10 times in the previous 18 months. On one occasion 19 children and 2 adults were killed when their school was bombed. I went there to encourage them. Actually they encouraged me. Not only was the church building standing, but it was full, packed to overflowing with enthusiastic Christians. They were not willing to have 18 air raids keep them from the highest priority of worshipping our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Over the years I led 27 missions into Sudan, conducting over 1,200 meetings in the country. We distributed over 300,000 Bibles in 22 languages throughout 14 different regions. We trained hundreds of pastors, teachers, medics and chaplains. We helped establish, and equip with Christian text books, over 100 schools.

We experienced artillery barrages and aerial bombardments while preaching in church services. It has been a tremendous privilege to serve the persecuted church in Sudan and to learn from them.

When I first began going behind the lines to serve our suffering brethren in Sudan they told me: “We are a hidden people, fighting a forgotten war. You must be our Ambassador and tell the world what is happening here.”

To fulfill that charge I have written many articles, spoken on over 1,000 radio programs, produced the Faith Under Fire in Sudan book and taken film producers to produce documentaries such as: Sudan : The Hidden Holocaust and Terrorism and Persecution. There is so much we can learn from our beleaguered brethren in Sudan. They realised that they are a Biblical people. The people of Cush are referred to in 60 different passages in the Scripture.

“All you people of the world, you who live on the earth, when a banner is raised on the mountains, you will see it, and when a trumpet sounds, you will hear it. ” Isaiah 18:3

From a missionary perspective, Sudan is a most strategic country in the 10/40 window. There are millions of Evangelical Christians in this officially Islamic country. Most of the Christians in Sudan speak Arabic. Many of them come from a Muslim background. Sudan was the last country to become Muslim. And it could be one of the first countries to be liberated from Islam since Spain.

To reach the final missions frontier of the Muslim Middle East, Sudan could be the spiritual beachhead for the evangelisation of this long resistant mission field. It has been our priority to assist Christians in Sudan not merely to survive the severe persecution, but to thrive and to win their enemies to Christ.

On one occasion I was leading a team from Evangelism Explosion. Dr. James Kennedy had sent them to help Frontline Fellowship train pastors, teachers, evangelists and chaplains. On our first Sunday morning in Sudan we were bombed by the Sudan Air Force. Eight 1,000 kg bombs were dropped in and around the church compound where we were conducting the Evangelism Workshop.

Amidst a crescendo of bombs screaming through the air and exploding all around us, the ground shook and I was pummeled and buried by chunks of dirt and debris thrown up by the blasts. It seemed as if the sky was raining debris from the explosions. Yet, incredibly, no one was killed. I had some cracked ribs, but we were overcome with the exhilaration of knowing that God had protected us. The ground was covered with shrapnel. The trees were pockmarked with shrapnel. Yet we weren’t!

Before long the church was overflowing with over 300 people. How many churches do you know of that would continue with the church service after experiencing a bombing like that?

It was a powerful illustration of the resilience of the steadfast Christians in Southern Sudan that within an hour of being bombed they were packing out their targeted church to overflowing. This was yet another example of the fact that Jesus Christ is building His Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18).

Dr. Peter Hammond is the Founder and Director of Frontline Fellowship. He has pioneered missionary outreaches throughout Mozambique, Angola and Sudan. He is the author of Faith Under Fire in Sudan. Tel: 021-689-4480 email: mission@frontline.org.za web: www.frontline.org.za