Working and praying for healing

 It was a last-minute idea to gather. Our facilitators have been busy with workshops across South Sudan and we are preparing for a big training in Juba. But in the midst of the busyness, we realized it was the right time to come together to pray and encourage each other. So on Sunday evening about 10 of us sat in the shade of a tree, recounting testimonies of people who experienced God through the workshops and praying together for God expand this work of healing in South Sudan.

Sharing testimonies this week with our facilitators

One of the workshops was held in Aweil, in the north-west corner of South Sudan. Michael recounted that one of the people who attended the workshop was a pastor whose wife had been killed by the wife of his brother last year. He was overcome with grief and anger, and had been unable to organize the final funeral prayers for his wife. He also did not want to take his sister-in-law to court for the murder even though he was angry at her, so he felt stuck. In the workshop he experienced God healing him from that wound in his heart and enabling him to forgive. The man shared that he felt able now to organize the final prayers for his wife to bring closure to the grieving.

The workshop in Aweil

Another team of facilitators went to Bentiu in the north and held a workshop inside the largest camp for displaced people in South Sudan. They shared that all the clans of that region were represented in the workshop, and that they were able to repent from the accusations that they had against each other and forgive each other. At the end the participants said that next time the workshop should be done in the town, with some representatives from the camp, so that they could resolve some of the conflicts and prejudice between people in the camp and the town.

Passing a candle in Bentiu to demonstrate that God

has called us to be His lights in the world.

In January we also had a training for new facilitators in Yambio, in the Southwest corner of South Sudan. Lucia shared how moved she was by the women who walked 7 miles each way to attend the practicum workshop as part of that training. The women expressed how freeing it was to experience God's healing from their pain, but they lamented that there were many more people in their community who needed this message. We praise God for the twelve new facilitators in that region who are committed to going to remote villages to help people learn God's heart of love, forgiveness, and healing. 

Asking God to bring healing out of the ashes of our pain

In all these testimonies, we were reminded again that it is God who works in people's hearts. We communicate the message and try to create an environment where people are open to God's healing, but the information or our teaching can not change hearts. We prayed together that God would continue to bring healing and transformation and help us to be faithful to commuicate the message.

Some of the new facilitators in Yambio at their graduation

This week we begin a training of new facilitators in Juba. Please join us in praying for God to raise up people called to this ministry of healing and reconciliation in South Sudan, and pray that God enables our team to train them effectively. We pray that the new facilitators experience God's love and healing power and would be equipped to help others find healing. 

Some members of the facilitation team at our prayer gathering

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5:18-19