Independence: The Beginning of A New Life

[Story photo courtesy Every Child
 Ministries] [Cover photo courtesy of
 Words of Hope]

Sudan (MNN) ― South Sudan marked independence Saturday with the jubilation of a people group freed from oppression. Seventy-two hours later, the big question is: Now what?

South Sudan has big expectations to fill as its birth is the culmination of a six-year peace process ending a brutal civil war. However, the new nation is wrestling with extreme poverty, inadequate infrastructure, conflict and other economic woes.

On Monday, lawmakers formed a caretaker government and announced a new currency. Lorella Rouster with Every Child Ministries (ECM) says these are all great steps forward, but there's an absence that's too glaring to ignore. "I don't see the attention of the world to help them."

South Sudan's struggles are similar to those of Northern Uganda. When Northern Uganda came to the world's consciousness, they got help. But aid groups offering to help this newest fledgling nation get on its feet have not been overloud. Despite the veneer of new, it's still a rural Third World country that lacks basic health, education, and roads, not to mention hotels, airports and internet access.

  

Rouster says this is where they can be helpful. They're an agency dedicated to showing the love of Jesus through mercy ministries to homeless street children, through seeking to release and retrain slave children, and through medical and rehabilitation ministries to the sick and handicapped.

Foresight and planning allowed ECM to be strategically placed. "I was there just a few days before Independence, training church and orphanage workers in Southern Sudan in more effective ways of children's ministry,"says Rouster.

Government reports show that those who fled North from the South are now returning home in droves. Agencies and ministries in the South are bracing for an influx of people who need their services and compassion. Rouster says, "The churches really need to reach out to the new generation that is coming up if there is to be any hope of the future. To do that, they need to make the training fun and exciting and not just sitting there listening to another sermon. So we believe that it can have a very positive impact."

Sudan ranks 154 out of 169 on the United Nation's Human Development Index. South Sudan's challenges will be converting its vast natural resources into support that keeps its people alive.

Rouster explains that while the oil is in the South, there is little else right now. "Prices are very high in Southern Sudan. Living is very hard, and rain is needed too for the crops. If the rain does not come, the prices will be way too high for the average person."

South Sudan, or "New Sudan" as it's sometimes referenced, teeters on the edge of being the next failed state if the new government can't keep social, economic and political pressures under control. As if to acknowledge the formidability of its task, the ministers of the Southern Sudanese government--with hands on Bibles--were sworn in to their caretaker role for the new Republic of South Sudan.

Rouster commented, "I think it's a question of whether they can continue to develop the integrity in their new government in such a way that God can bless their country. That's what we're praying for, and that's what Christians are praying for in Sudan: not only that there'll be peace, but  [also] that their new government will really seek the Lord."

ECM is celebrating South Sudan's "new beginning" by sharing the Gospel with the next generation. Says Rouster, "We would like people to pray that people would use the teaching that we have given them and be effective in reaching the new generation. The techniques that we've given are good for large groups, so I think that's good for the influx of new children."

"Pray that the leaders will remain strong," says Rouster. The days ahead will be taxing, but exhilarating.  As ECM's Sudan presence grows, keep praying "that they'll be up to the challenge, that they will have great vision. The churches in Southern Sudan have been growing at a tremendous rate, but that also leaves a big leadership gap, so pray that strong leaders will rise up."