BGC PRAYER PARTNERS UPDATE

Dear Prayer Partners.

Thank you for your continued prayer for Bishop Gwynne College and South Sudan. There are a number of things to add to your prayer list.

Students

• Our principal Samuel Galuak has recently been to St Paul's University in Limuru to which we are affiliated. He attended the Board of Examiners' meeting and reports that our students have done well. There are some in the first year and one in the third year which will need to resit a subject, but otherwise the pass rate has been high. Give thanks for a successful semester: August – December 2013. (The exams were completed before the onset of hostilities 0n 15^th December.)
• We still do not have all the students on site. Please pray for those prevented from attending and pray that the way may be open for them to return.

Finances

• Finances this semester are not easy. There is a shortfall in local income. Please pray that suitable tenants can be found for the vacant BGC properties in Juba.
• We give thanks for the wonderful overseas response to the on-going needs of the college. Grants have been received from Britain, the United Arab Emirates, the United States of America, Canada and elsewhere.

Vacation Course

• The college is planning to bring thirty local pastors and evangelists together for a month course on Reconciliation and Peace-building in July this year. We are currently waiting on news from the USA that we have a grant to finance the initiative. Please pray that we are awarded the grant.

Administration

• Owing to our personal family situation we are unable to travel to Juba at present. However, the college has managed to send the relevant documents to me in the UK and I am now in the process of computerising the college bookkeeping and producing the 2013 accounts that will be published in due course. This is a lengthy task.
• Please pray for Esparanza Emil who is currently working hard to take on the full administration duties. We pray that when things improve in South Sudan she will have the opportunity to study for a professional qualification in administration.

National Issues

• The town of Malakal which had a population of 250,000 has now been completely abandoned by the local residents.

http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/whole-diocese-in-south-sudan-abandoned

• Peace talks between the Government and rebels are due to resume on 20^th March

http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article50289

Blessings,

Trevor

Please Pray for Malakal and the Rest of South Sudan

Dear BGC Prayer Partners,
The situation in Malakal is horrific. The rebel White Army have again taken control and the rapes, murders, looting and destruction continue. They have taken no notice at all of the agreement to cease hostilities signed in Addis Ababa. We are told over and over again that they do not respect the church, aid workers or the UN. In fact churches have been targeted and women raped and murdered in them.

• Please keep praying for Malakal and the whole of the country. The tensions are high. Things are not improving, rather the reverse.
• Please pray for the over 700,000 displaced people and those seeking to help them.
• Please pray for Christians and Christian ministers of all denominations trying to care for people and teach the message of love.
• Please pray for the international community which, in seeking to try and remain neutral, earning the disapproval of both sides.
• Please pray for expatriates in the country working to help the humanitarian efforts who are put at risk by the negativity felt towards the international community.
• Please continue to pray for the staff and students at BGC struggling to keep the college alive despite the tensions and lack of sufficient resources.

• Give thanks for those who are hear about daily who care deeply and keep themselves informed, irrespective of insufficient reporting.
• Give thanks for those who have and are giving generously to BGC, and the support of the work of the churches with IDPs and in the area of reconciliation.
• Give thanks for the courage and dedication of the Christian leadership in South Sudan.
• Give thanks for the way God speaks to us so powerfully through the Scriptures and the example of Christ's people in the face of such suffering. God is with us. Never has Romans 8:31-39 felt so true.

Dear Prayer Partners, thank you!!
Trevor Stubbs

http://www.aljazeera.com/video/africa/2014/02/rebels-recapture-south-sudan-oil-town-2014227165614154656.html

https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/02/26/south-sudan-war-crimes-both-sides (This report contains a video clip).

Information for Prayer Partners

Dear Prayer Partners,
Thank you everyone for your prayers,
1. This article from Anglican News provides more information on the devastation in Bor (Jonglei State - 100 k north of Juba) and the murders in the cathedral compound. It also gives us some figures of the extent of the problem. Even before this devastation things were extremely hard with sparse medical resources, little safe water and hardly any passable roads in Jonglei. Even then, each community had to manage on their own resources with little or no national structure. Now we read:

The United Nations said on Wednesday (7th Feb.) that up to 7 million people, nearly two-thirds of the country’s population, were at risk of some level of food insecurity, with 3.7 million facing emergency or acute levels. About 900,000 people have fled their homes since December.

http://www.anglicannews.org/news/2014/02/female-church-workers-raped,-killed-in-south-sudan.aspx

2. The fighting has continued in Upper Nile around Malakal with disregard to the Cessation of Hostilities agreement even as a second round of talks gets under way in Addis Ababa.

3. The Revd. Simon Lual has had a successful first semester in his MA studies in Africa International University in Nairobi and is now in his second semester.  He has received a grant of $5000 for one year. To complete the two year course he needs a second grant of $5000 from new sources. Can anyone help here? He has been working most recently for the college based in Malakal and our hope is that on completion of his course he will return there to help with rebuilding of that community. Prayers needed.

Blessings,
Trevor

Dear BGC Prayer Partners,

• A short update.  We now have 15 students who have returned. Some are giving excuses but Samuel is trying to be patient with them.

• Esparanza has not yet returned so there is only Samuel and Benjamin in the administration. They certainly need our prayers. However there is a slow but sure recovery for which to give thanks.

• We are still critically low on funds - but are so grateful to you all. Today we have received $500 from Canada and over £800 from the UK. Sadly this doesn't happen everyday! 15 students doesn't sound much but the overheads are high. Juba is no cheap place to live and food is now even higher priced.

• The US are having a day of prayer for South Sudan on 16th February. Contact me for a prayer sheet from the Diocese of Camino Real which you might find useful.

Many thanks,
Trevor

PS. Some of you have asked about my new novel, The Kicking Tree. It is to be published on 28th May (paperback and ebook). It isn't based in South Sudan but some of it was written there - mostly when I was waiting for people to arrive for meetings! It attempts to tackle the problem of believing in God when suffering happens. There are some accounts of suffering in the book, but nothing like that on the scale of South Sudan. There are lots of nice bits too! I have a young adult audience in mind, but it may appeal to a wider age group of Christians. More information on http://www.trevorstubbs.co.uk

Prayer Partners Update

Dear Prayer Partners,

Thank you so much for your continued prayer throughout the crisis in South Sudan since 15^th December.

Nation

The reports are that things have now stabilized somewhat in the south. Juba is quiet with the fighting going on around Bor and Jonglei State, Bentiu in Unity State and Malakal in Upper Nile. The shooting in Yei and Mundri involving soldiers there have now come to end. There is no trouble among the local people. There is still much to pray about in the troubled areas however.

Please pray for:

• Peace and the stalled talks in Addis Ababa;
• The continued efforts of the Archbishop and the ECSSS to bring peace and reconciliation to people who have known little but violence in their lives;
• The hundreds of thousands displaced from their homes and living in IDP camps;
• The United Nations as they seek to bring security and protection for these people;
• Those living in fear of criminals engaging in looting, vandalism and tribal violence;
• The expatriates returning to the country to assist with the healing process.

Bishop Gwynne College

Give thanks that the staff and site are secure and safe. None of the students were present as the semester ended the previous week, and the college is not due to open again until the end of this month (January 2014).

Give thanks that the book shipment coming overland from Mombasa from the Theological Book Network in the US has arrived today. There many books for distribution around colleges in South Sudan. The boxes have now all been off-loaded and are available for collection by the various colleges. The list is as follows:

South Sudan Book Shipment

School Total

Bishop Gwynne College (host) 112

First Baptist Theological College 6

Gideon Theological College (SLI) 36

Canon Benaiah Poggo College 15

Giffen Institute of Theology 9

Episcopal Lay Training Centre 12

Chaima Christian Institute 9

St. John's Theological College 27

Catholic University 12

St. Paul's National Seminary 24

Christ Mission to the World 6

RECONCILE Peace Institute 30

Bishop Alison Theological College 15

Bishop Nglamu Theological College 15

Bishop Joseph Garang 6

ALARM South Sudan 6

Niles Theological College 6

Christ Mission to the World,

(for BGC to distribute as desired) 73

For urgent prayer. The bad news for BGC is that the crisis means that the very significant local income that BGC has enjoyed for the past few years has now dried up. We hope the situation is temporary but it all depends on the stability of the capital and the confidence that investors have in the country. BGC has been dependent on local income rather than overseas giving, which we have used to get the college into a form in which we could carry out quality education. With no local income we are having to construct a completely new budget and modify our activities accordingly. Please keep in your prayers the Board of Governors and the Principal as they engage in this process.

Our Students

Please pray for our students in their home dioceses. I have reports that those in the south, west and in Aweil are are safe and well. I have heard nothing from Unity State, Yirol, Awerial, Jonglei or Eastern Equatoria. If anyone can tell us about our students past and present in these areas I would be most grateful to know.

Trevor Stubbs

International Consultant.

10^th January 2014

BGC Principal Reaches Kampala

Dear BGC Prayer Partners,

Our Principal
Our principal, Samuel Galuak, was reunited with his wife in Kampala just before Christmas. They have been apart for many months as Stella continues her studies in the Netherlands. It is very good that they are together and safe.  Samuel's intention is to take a well earned annual leave (he didn't manage any in June or July) and remain for some weeks in Uganda.



The Situation in Juba
The general situation in South Sudan has now commanded a slot in the main BBC news broadcasts in the UK, CNN in the USA, France 24 in France and Al Jazeera and their worldwide audiences. Although these reports are accurate they cannot fully describe what it must feel like to live in a place that at one moment was a great hive of development with millions of dollars of investments and thousands of expats from around the world, to one in which everything is quiet except the stories of death, sporadic sound of gunfire, the break down of law and order and the rumours and dread of what might yet be. Our reports from Juba are not good although apparently there is some food to be had in Konjakonja market and coordination between the aid agencies that remain to try and protect the most vulnerable.
The introduction of more UN troops to police the IDP camps around the UN bases creates some stability.



Books Delivery
We have heard that, remarkably, the delivery of books from the Theological Book Network which had reached the Uganda/South Sudan border is now being attempted. The BGC college site is not in the worst hit area. Please pray that the books and transport team arrive safely. Pray for those who will be called upon to unload and deal with the shipment on the BGC New Site.



The Future
The immediate future of the college is, of course, uncertain in the circumstances. It would not be easy, even if advisable, for students to travel unless things improve considerably. Those at home in the states of Jonglei, Unity and Upper Nile in particular will not be able to make the journey. However, the college is not due to reconvene until the beginning of February in any case. So there is time for things to change. Please pray that things change for the better between now and then.
The breakdown of security and commerce in Juba is bound to have an effect on the local income which has secured the colleges re-development since 2009. All that is also 'in the air'. We will depend on foreign gifts even more then we have done before.



Hope
What ever happens the impetus we all had from the new beginning of the CPA and the euphoria of the independence only two and a half years ago has now completely gone. BGC has indeed made hay while the sun shone - we now have to be patient as darkness has again covered the land. But this has happened so often that the traumatised South Sudanese know how to pick themselves up and knock off the dust and begin again. Nothing is secure or permanent in this world. Hope can only lie in the presence of God who lives in and among us. Even in the rejoicing of the birth of the Messiah is immediately followed by the slaughter of the children of Bethlehem by someone who was crazy to bolster his own political power. God does not abandon people who are killed, driven from their homes and subjected to unspeakable horrors but is born right in the middle of them. God comes to his people in love, and in peace. One day we will know that peace - even if we have to wait until we enter the next world. Sometimes, as in the case of South Sudan, all we are left with is the knowledge that God loves us and that “nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8.35). Our hope is in God that is present even when nothing or no-one else is. Please pray that those in the greatest sufferings will hear and know this.
Above all, pray that those who can stop this – those who have to power to rein in the terror - will do so without conditions. Nothing can justify another war – this time between peoples who have everything to lose and everything to gain if peace prevailed, as the vast majority of them know.


Trevor
 

Call to prayer from Bishop of Wau

Dear Prayer Partners, 

1. Bishop Moses of Wau has sent a letter urging us to pray (See below). The main areas of conflict seem to be in Jonglei  and Unity States. These have been areas of unrest for years and the present emergency has fanned the flames.
2. Juba appears to be relatively calm and the airport is open for scheduled flights to Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda.  The American and European governments are encouraging all their nationals to leave the country and have advised that no-one should travel into the country.  This is painful for expats dedicated to working in South Sudan, many of whom have been there for years and whose home it has become. Please pray them and all those forced to leave there homes just before Christmas.
3. BGC is closed for Christmas.  The principal, Samuel Galuak, hopes to travel on Monday and meet his wife in Uganda as she arrives from Holland where she is studying. Them being together for Christmas has long been planned but the earlier disruption to scheduled flights means he is only on stand-by. Pray that he may get to Kampala to join his wife in time for Christmas after many months apart.

Blessings,
Trevor

ECSSS Diocese of Wau

You may know that very sad things are happening here in South Sudan
and many people fear for the future. This should be a time of peace,
we should not be fighting and killing each other. My brother in faith,
Bishop Abraham has put out a message asking for prayers, I want to
share this with you and encourage you support his request.

" Please may you, your family, and your Church join us on this coming
Sunday on December 22 to pray for peace, wisdom to our leaders, those
who lost their lives, and families affected who to be comforted by
God. Please keep me in your prayers and all the Bishops so that we can
deliver God's message to His people at this time. Thank you all for
your prayers. God bless you all and Merry Christmas."

We thank you all for your kind care and support for us in Wau and for
all of South Sudan. Our nation needs your prayers at this difficult
time, please keep us in your hearts and join with us in prayer on
Sunday. If you are able please pray for us that God may guide us back
to peace this Christmas, it would be a present worth having.

Blessings for Christmas  +Moses