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Advent Prayer - Sudan and South Sudan

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Published: Saturday 17 December 2011

Advent Prayer - Sudan and South Sudan

Project(s): 48-344, 48-575

Country: Sudan, Africa, South Sudan

“You will be with child and give birth to a son... He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.” Luke 1:31-32

Assembly at a school in supported by Barnabas Fund

South Sudan became the world’s newest nation on 9 July, amid much hope and optimism among its mainly Christian population. They are looking forward to greater freedom and peace after the 21-year civil war that ravaged their region as the North fought to Islamise and Arabise it.

Yet the new country faces formidable challenges. Its basic infrastructure was destroyed in the war; millions of its people were killed or displaced, and many of those who remain live in acute poverty. Violence and insecurity continue: rebel fighting has caused the deaths of some 1,500 people this year.

Christians in Sudan (formerly the North of Sudan), which is predominantly Muslim, were under severe pressure even before the South became independent. Sharia is already in force there, and the churches endure discrimination and many restrictions. But the president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, has declared his intention to reinforce its hard-line Islamic and Arab character.

Some pastors have been warned not to conduct church services, on pain of death, while some churches are closing their schools and considering emigration to the South. The Sudanese military have also attacked the border regions of Abyei and South Kordofan in what some church leaders believe to be a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Churches have been burned down, Christians targeted and pastors tortured.

Barnabas Fund is supporting a women’s prison ministry that provides relief, medical care and encouragement for Christian women imprisoned in Sudan, mostly for breaking sharia. Our grant also paid for the release of 17 inmates, who were then able to leave for the South. We also help with schooling for displaced Christian children, microfinance projects in South Sudan and other needs.

Give thanks for the independence of South Sudan and for greater freedom for its Christian citizens, and pray that their hopes for their new nation will be fulfilled. Pray too for the establishing of a viable state in the South, for the relief of poverty and an end to the current bloodshed. Pray for the Christian minority that remains in Sudan, especially for those who have been brutally attacked in the border regions, asking the Lord to protect His people and turn the hearts of the Sudanese government to show them greater respect. Pray for peace between the two nations.