As my flight began its decent into Juba, South Sudan, and I once again saw the vast, dry, desolate land below me, my heart ached. “God, help this land,” I prayed. “Intervene in a way only You can. Bring peace and healing to this country that so needs You.”
I was travelling to South Sudan to visit a couple of humanitarian aid programs Samaritan’s Purse was implementing in the country. This was not my first trip to what still remains the world’s newest country, which only a year and half into its independence from Sudan, erupted into a bloody, tribal conflict in December 2013.
By Dorothy de Vuyst
As my flight began its decent into Juba, South Sudan, and I once again saw the vast, dry, desolate land below me, my heart ached. “God, help this land,” I prayed. “Intervene in a way only You can. Bring peace and healing to this country that so needs You.”
I was travelling to South Sudan to visit a couple of humanitarian aid programs Samaritan’s Purse was implementing in the country. This was not my first trip to what still remains the world’s newest country, which only a year and half into its independence from Sudan, erupted into a bloody, tribal conflict in December 2013.
South Sudanese women who are refugees in Uganda sort out their food allotment. You can read a story about the remarkable, difficult work happening in Uganda in the Sep/Oct Faith Today.
Now, four years later, the country which at one time had so much hope, was on the brink of imploding. Four million South Sudanese people are displaced, with over two million of those seeking refuge in neighbouring countries, most of those in Uganda. Millions more lack sufficient food with the recent harvest doing little to ease the hunger so many faced. Tropical disease and cholera outbreaks continue to claim lives.
As disturbing as those statistics are, perhaps the most heartbreaking are the stories of violence. Women and young girls raped and beaten. Young children forced to carry weapons and kill. Villages pillaged and burnt because they belong to a different tribe. Infants being drowned as their mothers hold them under water for fear of being seen by the enemy seeking to kill them. Such anguish, injustice, and brokenness that at times is so overwhelming.
Earlier in the year I had visited the refugee settlements in Uganda, a country that had opened their doors to over a million South Sudanese refugees. As I sat with women who shared their stories of trauma and loss, I desperately wanted justice and even revenge. I thought of the political leaders in South Sudan whose self-serving agendas have made life so difficult and painful for so many people. The hatred and anger of militant groups that rape and pillage innocent women and turn children into killers.
But as I reflected further I realized that being close to suffering and death and injustice doesn’t just reveal the brokenness of others, it also exposes my own brokenness. My own need for mercy because of choices I have made, the people I have hurt.
This is the world that Jesus came into. This is the world for which Jesus had so much compassion. This is the brokenness that broke the heart of God. And not only the brokenness I see in countries like South Sudan and Uganda. Jesus has compassion on my brokenness as well. And knowing that in turn allows me to extend grace and compassion.
So I continue to pray. I pray for a stop to the conflict. I pray for courage and resiliency for those suffering. I pray for tenacity in the midst of this fragile and complicated country.
But most of all I pray for God’s healing touch in the hearts and minds of this beautiful nation; that they will experience His mercy and forgiveness. Because only when that happens will this country begin to see genuine and lasting change.
Dorothy de Vuyst is the Regional Director, Africa, for Samaritan’s Purse Canada. The Sep/Oct Faith Today has a story about this refugee crisis.