Editor’s Note: Southern Kordofan State in Sudan (home to the Nuba mountains) is about the size of the State of Georgia. It has few roads and none of them paved. Motorized vehicles are comparatively few and far between. Fuel can be even more scarce. To quickly cover vast areas, Persecution Project’s Discipleship program has equipped pastors and evangelists with motorcycles. Using little fuel and being much easier to repair and maintain, motorcycles are indispensable to the modern-day circuit-riding preachers of the Nuba. What follows is the testimony of one pastor, whose ministry has been blessed by a PPF-provided motorcycle.

My name is Diria Katari Batit. I’m a pastor with the Sudan Church of Christ (SCOC) in the Nuba mountains of Sudan. I was born in 1966 in the village of Heiban, which was the site of the first modern convert to Christianity in 1921. I was raised in a pagan family, but accepted Christ as my Savior as a teenager.

I love to sing and praise God and conduct open-air street evangelism. But when I was a new convert, times were much different in the Nuba. First, I had a lot of opposition from my pagan family members. They refused to support me. They even refused to help me pay the customary dowry for my wife because she, too, was a Christian. But God provided. SCOC adopted me and paid for my marriage.

God used my testimony to bring several members of my family to Christ, as well as many of my friends. But family challenges were nothing compared to the persecution at the hands of the Sudan government.

When I started to evangelize and preach the Gospel in the areas controlled by Islamists, I was imprisoned 15 times. I was beaten and threatened many times to stop preaching. I remember one of the prisons was underground, and I felt I was going to die.

This is what I faced at the hands of the Sudan government. God has also preserved me through many other trials during my ministry. I nearly drowned twice in the Nile River. I survived a terrible house fire. I’ve been buffeted by three car accidents, one tractor accident, and even a landmine.  But the Lord rescued me from all these things.

During all this time, I would walk place-to-place to preach the Gospel. I would preach to any church willing to open its doors. I even formed a unity choir of all the denominations in the Nuba. But my mobility was always a challenge because I had only my own feet for transportation.

In 2018, God blessed me with a motorbike, donated by Persecution Project. Journeys which took me many hours or even days, now take very little time at all. Often, my motorbike is the only form of motorized transportation in a community. As a consequence, I have often functioned as an emergency ambulance to take sick patients to hospital.

Persecution Project motorbikes have greatly aided in fulfilling the Great Commission in the Nuba mountains. I pray the Lord will pour more blessings on those who have donated such a great tool to enhance our ministry capabilities.

Now I am able to go practically anywhere in Nuba Mountains because of this wonderful tool. Do not think a motorbike is a small thing. PPF is doing a great job here in the Nuba Mountains. We pray that God continues to help you stand alongside us.