These men are in the process of drilling yet another borehole in Jaac.

According to the UN, the war in Darfur has killed 300,000 people and displaced another 2.7 million. Other estimates put the death toll as high as 400,000 killed.  

Escalating violence in Darfur means more refugees – people fleeing the conflict zones. And one of the major “safe zones” where refugees go is the community of Jaac, on the Southern Darfur/Southern Sudan border. Since 2005, the community has grown from a few thousand to now over 200,000 displaced persons. People are spread out over a couple hundred square miles of flat, dry “no man’s land.”  

Persecution Project Foundation is feverishly working to provide a basic water canopy for the population in Jaac. The 100 Wells Campaign has drilled 62 clean water wells in Jaac, with plans to complete 100 by the end of 2010. But this aggressive goal is totally dependent on God’s grace working through the generosity of thousands of Christians in America.  

By using your community in America to support their community in Darfur, thousands of lives are saved. But, most importantly, many souls are saved as well. God has presented PPF with a perfect opportunity to teach the Gospel message in word and deed to many people who have never heard about Jesus Christ. We give them something their bodies need: clean water. And then we introduce them to the Water of Life that nourishes their souls. 

This young girl gets a mouthful of fresh, clean water from a new well.

War is a terrible thing. It is our responsibility to do what is within our power to promote peace. But even when peace seems impossible, Christians can still be encouraged, because we know God is sovereign. Our God uses the wickedness of men to work great good. In the case of Darfur, wicked men are killing and destroying to promote their own selfish agendas. But God is using the extreme upheaval in Darfur to drive many people to Faith in Him. In the end, this is the only way peace will come to Darfur – or anywhere else in the world.

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Participants in the Walk for Water

I had presented a program about the needs in Jaac to all the participants two weeks earlier. With materials in hand, the walkers proceeded to gather sponsors for the event. All of the participants worked hard, and with a matching check from another church family, $7,588 was raised!

O’Brien, Florida boasts a blinking light, a convenience store, and a lovely brick post office in a beautiful, rural country setting. It is not the size of the group, but the HEART, that matters. With the Persecution Project motto, “Do what you can, where you are, with what you have,” anything is possible when we all work together with the Lord’s help.

What a difference we can make for our persecuted brothers and sisters and to encourage our young people, the next generation, to get involved with missions also. Blessings to all from Northern Florida Christian Center in O’Brien!

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Brad Phillips with "Mercy," our Mercedes 911 truck.

PPF driver, David M., and Conductor, Peter B., had completed a delivery of shoes and medical supplies to the Darfur refugee community in Jaac and were headed back to Kenya before the Sudan elections when they were stopped by soldiers manning a roadblock. The rogue soldiers took everything of value the two men carried, including their identification, and forced them to drive troops through the bush to various villages and check points. While this was happening, Nashon waited in Kenya for the team to “check in” to report their progress for the day.

But no word came for three days.

PPF's driver, David M. (second from left) was kidnapped for three days.

Finally, the soldiers released our team, and they drove straight for the border, only to be arrested again by another group of soldiers because our men had no identification! Providentially, a group of Kenyan soldiers patrolling the border saw the truck stopped by the Sudanese soldiers and secured the release of our team.

The two men are now back in Kenya, safe but a little rattled, as you can imagine.

PPF is blessed with a dedicated staff willing to submit to the risks associated with working in a very volatile and even hostile environment. Our goal is to reach the lost with the message of the Gospel, and the persecuted Church with encouragement from the Body of Christ here in America.

God has used the continued support of our ministry partners to supply the materials needs of this ministry. But it is God alone who provides us with the protection to do our work. Please pray that God would continue to keep all of us safe as we seek to be an effective witness for Christ in Southern Sudan and Darfur.

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These children are the first generation of Southern Sudanese in recent history with a chance to have a normal childhood.

April could be the most significant month in Sudan’s history to date… or not.

A casual glance at recent history shows that elections in Africa are not like those of its Western neighbors. Some have even joked that in many African countries, it has been “one man, one vote… one time.”

The story goes like this: Great “reformers” campaign for an end of corruption and waste and a new dawn of prosperity and peace. But once elected to power, they crush all dissent and begin looting the public treasury in many cases worse than the hated predecessors.

A motorcycle parade at a campaign rally in Torit, Southern Sudan.

This could very well be the scenario in Sudan’s elections in April. Since 2005, Southern Sudan and Khartoum have enjoyed a very fragile and nervous peace, accentuated by occasional rows between Southern and Northern troops mostly in the border areas.

Additionally, inner-tribal conflicts have claimed thousands of lives in violent clashes, which Southerners argue, are funded and encouraged by the government in Khartoum to destabilize the South. Most of Sudan’s valuable oil reserves are located in Southern Sudan. Consequently, the ruling government in Khartoum has a vested financial interest in trying to maintain its share of the $ billions of crude pumped out of the ground every year.

Salva Kiir is the current President of Southern Sudan.

According to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), signed by North and South Sudan in 2005, Southern Sudan will have the right to vote on secession in 2011. The April elections are important, because they will show whether a referendum vote can be respected by the government of Khartoum. For years, Sudan’s politics have been dominated by the National Congress Party (NCP), which was formerly called “The National Islamic Front.”

The NCP was, and still is, led by Islamic terrorists. Economic greed makes secession with Southern Sudan undesirable, but the CPA also eliminated “Sharia Law” (radical Islamic law) in Southern Sudan. A vote of separation from Sudan means Sharia Law will be gone for good and that means the jihadists will have been defeated.

All of these factors play into the April elections and that is why PPF asks all its friends, supporters, ministry partners, and fellow believers to take time in April to pray for Sudan.

The April elections in Sudan could make history… or it could repeat history.

Soldiers in South Sudan are aware of the potential for violence during April's elections.

Christians should be careful not to put too much stock in elections. Sudan’s problems are, after all, not fundamentally political but spiritual.

In fact, a major challenge in Sudan is that many people look to political leaders to solve all their problems. But God has warned us through King David not to “put our confidence in princes.”

The peace in Sudan has allowed PPF to become “firmly planted” and our desire is to sink our roots even deeper, and have a larger impact blessing the Church.

In April, this man will vote for the first time in his life.

It is for this reason that we pray for a positive outcome in the April elections. God has given us 5 years to grow and build. Five years to grow, after 22 years of war and destruction. But the spiritual war goes back much farther than 1983, 1956, or other key dates in Sudan’s history. And the damage from this war is widespread and terrible.

But the message of the Gospel can, and has, turned this around. In April, 2010, and every other month of the year, our prayers should not be for one particular political outcome. But rather, “Not our will, but Thine be done!”

“Whate’er my God ordains is right: His holy will abideth;

I will be still whate’er He doth; And follow where He guideth;

He is my God; though dark my road, He holds me that I shall not fall:

Wherefore to Him I leave it all.”

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Every now and again, I like to rummage through some old pictures of PPF ministry activities and remember how good God has been to us through the years.

Pastor Morris preaching to his congregation in Jaac.

Recently, I ran across several early photos of refugees arriving in Southern Sudan from Darfur. They were on the run, severely discouraged, and starving. Most had no shelter. This was the community of Jaac in 2006.

One of the old pictures I found was of a man who looked very down-trodden. He was dressed in rags and huddled under a tree, holding a tarp over himself and a little baby trying to stay dry. At first glance, he looked like just another refugee from Darfur. But this guy was no ordinary refugee. His name was Morris Malual, and little did I know that within a couple of years, this man would be a leader of hundreds in Jaac.

In 2006, PPF found Morris Malual in Jaac huddled under a tarp trying to keep the rain off his baby (who is wrapped in a blanket on his knee).

Today, Morris is a pastor of the largest church in Jaac. He’s a major leader in the community. He leads a group of pastors representing 15 churches spread over 100 square kilometers. Morris also started the first school in Jaac, which initially met under a tree outside his church building. And he was one of the first graduates of a PPF-sponsored 500 hour Bible-training class for pastors.

Seeing Morris today and where he was just a few years ago is a good example of how man looks at the outward appearances, while God looks at the heart. If I was a betting man, I would have said in 2006 that Morris did not stand a chance.

But God, who is rich in mercy, decided “I’m making that guy one of My leaders.” And He did.

Morris’ story should encourage all of us. When we are frustrated with where we are in our lives, we can think of examples like Morris and realize that God can very quickly take seemingly hopeless people in a hopeless situation, and raise them up. With God, all things are possible. Because of God, we should never give up hope.

Pastor Morris' congregation gathers for worship.

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God has, for the past few years, placed a burden on our hearts (my husband’s and mine) to somehow teach our children to celebrate Christmas differently than everyone else does. The problem was that I thought this meant we just needed to spend less and that would teach our children that Jesus is the “reason for the season”.

This year, God led a Sunday school teacher at our church to choose the “Advent Conspiracy” curriculum to be a short-term adult class as a filler for the few weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The following Sunday, we attended our first Advent Conspiracy Sunday school class entitled “Give More”, and I came home in tears. It was about giving more valuable things to those who mean so much to us; giving things like time, homemade or handmade gifts, or contributions to a cause that would mean something to that special person, instead of spending to excess on things those special people don’t really need. The emphasis of the segment was on getting away from the consumerism that permeates all of American society, especially at Christmas.

I realized this was the answer I had been looking for. I told my husband about the letter that we had recently received from Persecution Project Foundation, and asked him what he thought about the 100 Wells Campaign T-shirts and about the idea of doing Christmas differently this year. He asked me to give him the day to think about it. He watched video clips on Persecution Project’s website, and at the end of the day, he told me he believed we should order a shirt for everyone in his family.

Brad Phillips visits one of the newly completed wells in Jaac.

The shirts arrived in time for Christmas (thank you!), and we prepared a short presentation to explain to the family why we were doing something so different and “weird” this year for Christmas. We aren’t sure anyone else will follow along and do Christmas differently with us next year, but we are taking the Advent Conspiracy message (which we believe is a very Biblical message) to heart and from now on we are going to “Spend less. Give more. Worship fully.” with our celebration of Christmas.

God saved the best part for our family, however, and the story does not end with the shirts presented to my husband’s family. Before we left our home for the family Christmas gathering on Christmas Day, my husband was explaining to our four-year old what we were doing with the shirts. He explained that the money for the shirts was going to help the children in Sudan to have water to not only quench their physical thirst, but also to open the door for them to be told about Jesus who can quench their spiritual thirst and give them living water. My husband played some of the Persecution Project video clips about the 100 Wells Campaign, and explained to our four-year old that providing water will let these kids know that Jesus loves them, came to die and rise again to save them from their sins and that anyone who loves Jesus with their whole heart can go to Heaven to be with Him forever.

At this moment, without any prompting, our little boy looked at my husband and said, “Daddy, I love Jesus with all my heart.” It brought us both to our knees in tears of joy and thanksgiving. It’s the first time he has verbalized his love for, and faith in, Jesus.

We originally thought that God was bringing this all together to use us to make an impact on our extended family, while we were doing something small to help bring water to Sudan. What we now see is that God brought this all together at the right time to allow the 100 Wells Campaign to have a profound impact on us. It brought understanding of the love of Jesus to our oldest child, and changed our Christmas morning into one of the most precious and worshipful experiences we have ever had. It was the best Christmas ever, and we can only imagine what God has in store for us as we “do Christmas differently” next year and from now on.

Thank you for being part of God’s plan for us. We are so glad God has blessed us to be able to contribute a small portion to the bigger work you are doing in His name.

I have included a picture of my husband’s family. My husband and I are seated on the floor in front, and the three boys are ours. Caleb, our oldest, loves Jesus with all his heart!

Sincerely,

B.W., Zanesville, OH

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Photos courtesy of AIM AIR.

Persecution Project Foundation was contacted in early January by Pastor Francis Ayul of Faith Evangelical Baptist Association of Churches (FEBAC), one of the pastors we support in the Upper Nile region of South Sudan. He wrote to tell us about a violent attack that had occurred in the village of Atar in the early morning hours of December 31st, 2009.

Pastor Francis told us that a couple of churches in Atar were completely burned to the ground, including the FEBAC church. In addition, the ministry compound for Serving in Missions (SIM) was also destroyed. And Anglican pastor/evangelist Tuong Dau was killed in the raid.

But stories of God’s divine protection are now emerging from this tragedy. We’d like to share one of those with you.

Ruth and Ubandoma were among the first missionaries from Evangel Missionary Society in Nigeria to join the Serving in Missions (SIM) team working in Sudan. Below is an excerpt from their experience.

“In the afternoon of December 30th, I had been working in my garden. I stayed up late – till about 12:30 midnight working on some reports and pictures in my computer. We had just gotten to sleep at about 2:30 AM, when my wife started vomiting from some unknown sickness. I gave her medicine but for some reason, we could not sleep well. At about 4 AM, we awakened and heard some strangers behind our house. It sounded like they were cocking their guns. Not long after, the shooting started.

“When the bullets started flying, we don’t remember how we found ourselves under our bed. Our three children were crying in a nearby room, ‘Dad! Mom! What is happening?’ We called out to them to get under their beds.

“It was only then that we realized the thatched roof above us was on fire. Our roof had plastic under the thatch to keep out rain and bugs. this plastic was suddenly ablaze and the fire spread to all the rooms of our house in seconds. The house filled with smoke. My wife and I crawled to the next room where our children were. Bullets continued flying through our house. By God’s grace, none of us were hit.

“I took my wife and children into the kitchen, but we could not reach the front door because of the smoke. My computer and thuraya phone were lying on the kitchen table. I took the computer and put it on top of my head to protect me from melting plastic that was raining down on us. My wife got to our water supply and tried to spray the water onto the burning grass above us. She was trying to reduce the smoke so we could find the way to our door. Already she had picked up our passports in her hand.

“I went to the door with my computer on my head. The melted plastic dripped down on my left hand and arm, burning my skin. I grabbed our youngest daughter, Kezya, and was holding her close to my chest with my right hand. Shielding my little girl, I unlocked the door. My wife was right behind me pushing the children out the door. When they were all out, I came out last. The whole house was ablaze by now – even the door. As I closed the door and started to move away, it fell on me burning my back.

“We moved out into the open compound and ducked into a tent. In just a moment or two, that tent caught fire as well. We came out and saw our fellow missionaries rushing toward the [metal] toilet, so we followed them. I was the last one to reach the toilet as I was protecting them and wanted to make sure they had reached safety…. After an hour, the fighting had died down.

“Since 2006, when we first came to Sudan, I have kept reading Psalm 23, ‘The Lord is my shepherd.’ During this whole ordeal, this Scripture kept coming back to my mind. ‘Even though I should walk through the valley of death – You are close beside me.’ (NLT) ‘You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Your goodness will follow me all the days of my life.’ These words comforted and strengthened me.

“In retrospect, I see that what happened to us is not our power but is a miracle of God. We lost everything in the fire. This included my personal money, clothes, computer, camera, cook ware and all of our books, including those of our children and all my theological books. But even though we lost all these things, God gave us our lives. Their guns (they used large caliber shells) were aimed right at my bed where I had been sleeping. It is a miracle of God that we were not all killed. I believe this is because God has something for me to do before calling me home.”

We thank God for protecting Ruth, Ubandoma, and their children.

PPF has ministered in the Upper Nile region of Southern Sudan since 2000. This is an area where most churches were completely destroyed during the war between 1983-2005.

Burned hut.

Violence has been on the rise again as the terrorist-controlled government in Khartoum arms local militia groups and encourages conflict between tribes to destabilize the area.

Please pray that God would extend His protection to all the missionaries and organizations working to promote reconciliation and peace in a part of Sudan that has known little of either for the past 50+ years.

The increased violence has only strengthened PPF’s resolve to engage the people of God in this community with encouragement and the power of the Gospel. Only the healing power of Christ can change the hearts of people hardened by years of war and suffering.

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PPF team in front of "Mercy," our new Mercedes 911 truck.

During PPF’s Christmas outreaches, a team traveled south of Southern Darfur to the river town of Nyamlel, to visit an orphanage supported by PPF ministry partner African Leadership. While in Nyamlel, our vehicle suffered a puncture in one of the tires (a normal occurrence). After putting on a spare, which looked like it was about to join its predecessor, the driver recommended we drive to his office in Aweil to pick up a better spare. This would take us two hours out of our way, but we didn’t want to risk sleeping with hyenas in the desolate bush between us and our base camp in Jaac.

Aweil is a large city in Northern Bahr el Ghazal State, and while there, we did a little shopping to replace our depleted stores. On the dusty highway back towards Jaac, we noticed a grey truck on the side of the road.

After pulling over for a closer look, to our surprise, it was PPF’s truck, “Mercy”! Mercy had left Juba several days earlier loaded with 10 metric tons of medicine, medical supplies, and shoes for the refugees in Jaac and was now only 3 hours from her destination.

Mercy was added to PPF’s vehicle fleet in 2009 to save valuable ministry funds that are usually spent on expensive relief flights. As an illustration, the cost for delivering 10 metric tons of aid to Jaac by air could easily exceed $50,000. But by using Mercy, PPF saved tens of thousands of dollars – money that can now go towards evangelistic programs and relief projects like our 100 Wells Campaign. We are so thankful that your support enabled us to add this truck to further our work in Sudan. God is good!

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One of the new wells.

I was somewhere between Gok Machar and Jaac with my team. It had already been a long day. What was supposed to be a three-hour journey had doubled. It was well past dark, and our vehicle was weaving in and out between trees and thorn bushes, trying to avoid the occasional stump protruding from the “road” that was really nothing more than a glorified cow path.

All of a sudden, PPF Director Matt Chancey yelled out, “Hey, stop the car! There’s our rig!” Off the road a ways, lit up like a Christmas tree, was one of our drilling rigs busily drilling another borehole to bring fresh water to the thousands of people in Jaac.

PPF's Matt Chancey washes a child's feet and presents the Gospel during a shoe distribution.

It was a beautiful sight. There was no moon, so the stars were very bright. It was a peaceful night, but not a quiet one, because the air was filled with the hammer-sound of the drilling rig as it pounded its way deeper and deeper through the dark red soil.

Although it was late, the noise of the rig had attracted a lot of attention, mostly from men and boys standing around watching the work.

I felt an overwhelming sense of peace and thankfulness at that moment. I remembered how difficult it had been to finish the first few wells in the community. Now I was witnessing the 41st well being drilled!

Residents of Jaac gather for a time of worship.

By the time I left Africa to return home for Christmas, the 45th well was completed. At the time of publication, the 52nd well was operational in Jaac. Our goal of reaching the half-way mark to 100 wells by Christmas was met. PRAISE THE LORD!

Of course, God uses means to achieve His ends, and that means I need to thank you, our ministry partners, for helping us achieve this aggressive goal in the middle of a world-wide recession. We know God is not worried about the economy, nor should we be. The year 2009 was filled with incredible challenges, but none were greater than God, and He provided for all our needs and many thousands of lives were impacted by the work you have chosen to support.

29 students graduated from our pastor-training program.

In addition to the water project in Jaac, we also witnessed the fruit of our other ministries to the community. It was my pleasure to be joined by my good friend and PPF ministry partner, Larry Warren of African Leadership. Larry and I were privileged to attend a graduation ceremony of 29 pastors in Jaac who had completed more than 500 hours of training sponsored by African Leadership. It had been two years since Larry had last been with me in Jaac, and he summed up the changes in one word: “health.”

Darfur refugees in Jaac eagerly await a PPF shoe distribution.

PPF’s medical clinic in Jaac was very busy, as we received the first of hopefully many shipments of shoes and medicine using our new truck, “Mercy,” to save us thousands of dollars normally spent on expensive relief flights.

It was a wonderful trip, and I felt so privileged to have been chosen to be a part of this vital work in a barren land forgotten by the rest of the world. It reminded me that the same God Who watches over the sparrows has remembered His suffering people in Jaac.

Medical ministry at the PPF clinic in Jaac.

I know most of you reading these pages will never have an opportunity to see this miracle for yourselves, but I hope my words and these pictures convey at least a hint of the magnitude your prayers and testimony of giving have made in the lives of the people in Jaac and other communities in Sudan.

As I write these words at the close of 2009, the words of a powerful hymn keep entering my mind – and I trust they will carry us all through a new and exciting year:

A village celebrates with PPF staff over the completion of a new well.

“To God be the Glory, Great Things He Hath Done!”

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When we think of preaching the gospel, we don’t always associate it with feeding the hungry. Nevertheless, Jesus fed people on many occasions, and He was all about bringing people into the Kingdom of God.

John 6 tells of Jesus feeding 5,000 men with five loaves and two fish. When they had finished eating, there were plenty of leftovers.

A team from PPF traveled to Nairobi in late September and were told that the Soweto Academy located in the Kibera Slum had not been able to feed its students since August. The next shipment of food was due to arrive in November.

We prayed that God would meet the needs of the students and multiply the fish and loaves all over again. Our desire was to get enough food to provide for the children until their next shipment arrived… and God provided.

PPF was able to purchase 32 50-kg bags of rice for the school. Each bag will feed the students for one day. In addition, we bought a truck-load of firewood, so the rice could be cooked in the school’s kitchen.

Additionally, our team delivered much-needed medicines to the Revival Medical Clinic, and taught the Soweto students all about Daniel and his three friends. We encouraged the students to purpose in their hearts not to defile themselves with things or activities that displease God (Daniel 1:8). We also taught that God is able to protect them from persecution (Daniel 3:17), and that God delivers and rescues (Daniel 6:27).

We thank all who supported these outreach activities

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