NEHEMIAH REBUILDING MINISTRY
Prayer letter for January 2017
The people of South Sudan continue to suffer and many have been forced out of their country into refugee camps in neighbouring countries. Others have fled their homes and are living in refugee camps and in the bush within South Sudan. Our prayer and help is needed more than ever.
I visited Ps Henry, Clare and family in Kampala, Uganda in October last year. The financial support from the NRM fundraising effort in Perth, Western Australia, enabled Clare to open a hairdressing salon and a small shop in the local neighbourhood, and so to begin the process of financial independence for her family. She has employed several South Sudanese women to help out. This is a wonderful blessing within that community and we need to pray for the continued success of the venture. There have been many challenges to overcome and Clare is working very hard.
Ps Henry is kept busy ministering amongst the South Sudanese community. Many of these people are unemployed and, due to lack of money, unable to maintain uninterrupted study programmes. There are now fewer employment opportunities as more refugees are flooding into Uganda. Ps Henry’s influence amongst the young men is widespread and he and his fellow pastors do an amazing job of discipleship and leadership training.
A small group of us from NRM and the South Sudanese International Christian Fellowship (SSICF) Church in Kampala visited the refugee camp in Kyriandongo where we met with Ps Joseph Beb and others who are serving their fellow refugees. The thousands of refugees are poorly resourced with barely enough food, very little medical help and few schools for the children. The churches within the camps are doing their best but need a lot of help to maintain hope, to foster encouragement and self-reliance to the highly traumatised people in the camp. There are thousands of widows and orphans to care for and young people are desperate for meaningful activity to keep them busy.
We visited families and heard about others who were struggling with physical and emotional burdens almost too hard to bear. One young widow we met was caring for 13 children; five of her own and another eight whose mothers – her two sisters – had been killed. Like some others she had space around her tokul (small hut) to grow some maize that was yet to ripen. The children had to walk long distances every day with their jerry cans to collect water, often on empty stomachs. She was staunch and dignified in the face of heartbreaking difficulties but drew comfort from the fact that she was not alone.
Another story we heard was that of a 12-year-old orphan who was left to care for his younger siblings whom he would call in from playing outside to eat the rice and beans he prepared for them. One day they realised it was getting late and he had not called them. When they looked for him they found he had died inside the tokul.
Other stories were equally sad. In spite of this we also heard stories of initiative and creativity as the people and their pastors looked for ways to care for each other. Ps James had raised some money to build school rooms and sleeping quarters where some widows would look after orphans. An outside mission group had provided money for roofs and wall frames for walls. NRM donated money for nailing bamboo for walls which were then covered in mud by the refugee men. We also distributed 200 items of children’s clothes. Volunteer teachers provided literacy and numeracy classes to women inside a church and wherever enough money was found – probably from relatives in the diaspora – there were roadside stalls where people sold things to whoever had money. NRM is looking at how it can help in other ways such as provision of seeds – so that people can grow their own vegetables – and donation of sewing machines so that women can produce clothes to sell.
Christianity is widely practised amongst the South Sudanese. Churches offer the only free-of-charge help to all community members. NRM fulfilled requests for training church leaders and pastors to help them with encouraging the community and with strategies for offering practical help to their people.
Ps Henry and his team are currently finalising plans to bring teaching programmes into Kyriandongo Camp in the next few weeks. This huge camp of hundreds of thousands of refugees is only one of about five camps in Uganda. More camps are in Kenya and Congo. Since NRM visited camps in Adjumani (northern Uganda) in 2014 teams from SSICF church have continued to visit and take in essential supplies, like clothing.
God has moved in amazing ways throughout NRM’s years, giving hope and strength to His people. We have had to be flexible in responding to frequent changes in circumstances. I thank faithful friends for their continued help and of late I particularly want to acknowledge the practical help of Beth and Lyrian, friends whom I had not seen for nearly 30 years. The combined efforts of our modest group have had a huge impact on a huge number of deserving people. God is using you mightily!
Pam Devenish.