November 24, 1999
Persecution growing the church in Sudan
___By Tammy Dunkum
___SBC International Mission Board
___KHARTOUM, Sudan (BP) --Against the backdrop of ongoing persecution of Christians in Sudan, Christian workers are reaching people there with the gospel.
___Persecution of Christians in Sudan stems from political events in the country, which, geographically, is a crossroads between the Arab world and black Africa. The Muslim Sudanese Arabs of the north and the black Christian Sudanese of the south have been engaged in a civil war since 1983, when Arabs gained control of the government. Then the new Islamic government commissioned Sudan's military to fight a "holy war"--for the cause of Islam--against Christians in southern Sudan.
IN SUDAN, a Muslim bows for prayer. Sudan is one of the most-frequently cited places in the world where Christians face persecution but also one of the places where Christianity is growing. (IMB photo)
___About 2 million people have died in the war, according to the U.S. Committee for Refugees. The fighting also has displaced millions of Sudanese people, creating more than 5 million internal refugees, said Brad Phillips, director of The Persecution Project, a private religious liberty organization.
___The Persecution Project reports that the "holy war" against Sudanese Christians includes atrocities such as poisoning wells and burning crops, causing famine. That organization claims the Sudanese military has bulldozed entire towns and buried people alive. Some of these soldiers reportedly are volunteers who don't get paid by the government but live off what they steal from villages they raid. Sometimes, during such raids, they reportedly kidnap children and later sell them into slavery.
___Meanwhile, God is working to bring the Sudanese Arabs to faith in Jesus Christ and to strengthen Sudanese Christian churches, according to Baptist workers.
___Translations of the "Jesus" film have been completed and are being distributed among the Sudanese; an audio version currently is being translated into 12 Sudanese languages. Christian human needs projects also are under way to help starving and sick people. Sports and English-as-a-second-language classes also provide opportunities to reach the Sudanese.
___At the same time, Southern Baptist workers among the Sudanese are seeking to change attitudes in the United States about Sudan and to strengthen and encourage the existing Christian churches there.
___These workers are trying to get U.S. Christians to have "just as much of a passion for Sudanese Arabs as they do for the persecuted Christians" in Sudan, said a representative of the Southern Baptist International Mission Board who cannot be identified for security reasons.
___This worker wants Southern Baptists to look beyond the politics and persecution in Sudan and focus instead on the people. In the 10/40 Window--the area sweeping from North Africa through the Middle East and much of Asia, where people have had little or no access to the gospel--"what we are discovering is that a lot of the reasons the lost are lost are because of our attitudes and our unwillingness to go to them," she said.
___During November and December, many Southern Baptists will learn more about the Sudanese Arabs, an unreached people group featured in the denomination's 1999 international missions study.
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