Let me share with you some of the challenges faced by
pastors in refugee camps in northern Uganda and South Sudan. Most South
Sudanese are less educated and do not work in refugee camps. They were forced
to leave their land where they grew their food. The civil war in the country
made economic development impossible. Recently, the government of South Sudan
declared complete bankruptcy, including the central bank. They lost the inability
to control the pricing market in the country. Now the prices of the most
essential foodstuffs rise daily.
Now, due to quarantine, many families cannot feed
themselves. This week alone, I received over a hundred calls from refugee camps
asking for help with food and other basic necessities. One pastor named Godfrey
Lozo from Nimule in South Sudan said: “Listen, Pastor Dima, cornmeal is the
only thing I have left is, my family is starving to death.”
I don’t know what to do in such a situation. Many times, I
tried to hide, not to answer phone calls, so as not to hear stories about hunger
and death. But as soon as I turn on the phone, thousands of people call me
asking for help. As a pastor, I decided not to turn off the phone anymore,
because these are my brothers and sisters. Pray with me for this daily struggle
so that I can be steadfast. Pray that God will provide us during this difficult
time. Pray for refugees from South Sudan and others who have the same need for
their daily bread. Pray for peace for the people of South Sudan. We have
suffered enough and are tired of wandering. Help us!
I would like to thank New Fields Ministries and all the
Slavic Baptist churches in the United States for supporting our churches in the
refugee camps. We bought several tons of food for $8,000. We delivered the food
to the camps in the Ajumani district in northern Uganda at the end of August.
From there the food and other goods will be distributed to 22 local churches.
Praise the Lord for your love and support!
The Lord blessed our family with three biological children and one adopted boy, Kennedy 20, Joel 13, carol 9 and Kayla 6. The lord has been merciful to us since our wedding in 2005.
Together with my wife rose and the children, we fled to Uganda in January 2017. At that time, troops were already stationed in our city of Kajo-Keji. Technically, Uganda has been our home since birth, because the military conflicts in South Sudan have not stopped. The first time I fled to Uganda was with my parents when I was a child, and then we returned in 1977. We fled to Uganda again in 1983 and lived there until 2005.
The quarantine announced on March 19, 2020, took us by surprise. Rose and I were in northern Uganda when the school called us and asked to pick up the children. We had to travel 11 hours to Kampala driving the bus which took us all night. On March 20, we took our children, and the country was locked up. Unfortunately, we had no money to buy food and no coal to cook our meals. The stores were all closed, and we did not leave the house for a whole month.
When we ran out of food, we gathered all remaining funds and I went to the market in Kampala. I had to walk 7 hours to buy at least something for the children. When new fields heard about our situation, they purchased a motorcycle. Thank you for your help in purchasing it. A motorcycle is the only vehicle allowed during the quarantine. When we received funds to support the family, it was a day of jubilation. We bought chicken and Irish potatoes, and the children sang joyful songs to the Lord. Thank you for being our friends!
On 14-16 July 2020, a fierce fight broke out between
numerous tribes in the South Sudan refugee camps in the Obongi area. As a
result of the fights, three people were killed, and several dozen people were
injured.
The cause of the conflict was the lack of food. A Nuer woman
was caught with stolen corn from the Kuku farm and brought before the chairman
of the refugee committee for disciplinary action. She was warned and whipped four
times. The Nuer tribe then united and beat the chairman of the refugee
committee. He was taken to a hospital, and the men began to set fire to houses
and wounded a man from the Kuku tribe with a knife. Then the Kuku youth
mobilized a group of people when the heard of this incident.
The conflict between the two factions lasted two days; in
total, over a hundred houses were burned down and 3 people killed. Two
communities were also affected. They are left homeless and without food. Today,
peace has returned to the refugee camp. We have one church in the area, and we
pray that God will touch the hearts of the refugees so that the victims can be
reconciled with each other. We pray that
God will provide shelter for the congregation and that everyone will have
plenty of food for their families! Thank you for your participation in our
grief during this difficult time.
I am writing to you because from the first day until now you have not stopped praying for refugee camps in northern Uganda and in South Sudan. In connection with the coronavirus epidemic, life in refugee camps has become even harder. Especially due to food shortages. We see that the best way to eradicate hunger in camps is to encourage refugees to cultivate fields and grow their own food.
If there will be enough rain and tools for farming, I am
sure that refugees will be able to provide for themselves. We plan to lease 3
large pieces of land located near the camps, which will allow impoverished and
desperate people to cultivate the land and feed their families.
We plan to rent 30 acres of land in northern Uganda in the areas of Moyo, Obongi, and Ajumani. The cost of 30 acres is $ 800 per year. The land must be cleared and plowed by tractors. We want to purchase seeds and tools for cultivating the land. We ask you to participate in this project. Given the unforeseen costs, we need to collect from 1700 – 2000 dollars for each of the three camps.
Our goal is to give refugees the opportunity to work in groups or associations. Work in families and communities. Thus, they will no longer wait to be fed but will be able to process and eat from their fields themselves. We ask you to pray for rain and the blessings of this project!
Despite the Covid-19 Lockdown in the refugee camps, the two evangelists Jackson Alikanga & Doru Alex reached out to the neighborhood at the Morobi camp, a refugee’s settlement in the Obongi district. God has put into the hearts of these men a desire to share the Gospel with the community. One morning, the two evangelists went with their Bibles to reach out to their first home, they were welcomed, and both were given chairs to sit and share the Gospel with four people and two of them gave their lives to Jesus Christ.
The next home they went to was in the Morobi settlement camp. As the family welcomed them the police showed up and told them that they are under arrest. There were two charges against them. The first was that they illegally gathered people in the community during a time when the government had issued an order for churches and big gatherings to stop operating. The second charge was that they were resisting against the president’s orders for churches to close.
They were tied up quickly and taken to the police and were given a chance to write a statement to explain what exactly happened. They stated that they were sharing the Gospel in the refugee camps and with their neighborhood and suddenly the police arrested them and now they are here. The police officer warned them not to gather people again.
After they were released, they immediately started preaching to the police officers, and one of them accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and savior. Pray for these new friends who come to faith. Pray that they grow in the knowledge of God and pray for the two evangelists to continue to be bold in sharing their faith with lost people in the refugee camps.
