The first and only time I have visited South Sudan was in early 2012. As the newest nation in the world, it was a country full of hope. People were migrating from the North back to the South with a hope that they hadn’t had for years. This was their country and they were going to build this new nation up.
Sadly, less than two years later civil war broke out. It was devastating listening to our partners, hearing the stories of what was happening, and seeing pictures of buildings and homes that I had visited now lying in ruin or burnt to the ground. It was difficult to comprehend that Malakal, the town our church partners had been based in and the town I had spent time in, was now a ghost town.
What could we do to help? The Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of South Sudan visited our General Assembly in 2014 and told us how he stood at the entrance of the church compound in front of rebels with guns, and refused them entry. He had a duty to protect those in his care. The rebels listened and lives were spared.
It was on this visit that he invited our then Moderator, the Right Rev John Chalmers to visit Juba in 2015. During this visit John spent a morning with around 80 or so church members delivering a session on mediation. John told me how people had arrived at the session and met friends that they believed had been killed. It was a meeting at which emotions were raw.
After this session, our partner asked us to do more, and not to forget. So, we as a Church have embarked on a journey with the Presbyterian Church of South Sudan. We have begun working with them to deliver mediation skills and also touch on trauma healing. We have had two workshops, both in Nairobi due to security issues, at which we have begun to develop a deeper relationship with these church leaders and hear their stories first hand.
We are now looking forward to welcoming nine of these leaders to Scotland on 5th March for a two and a half week programme, which will focus on peace building, mediation and trauma healing, and will end with a retreat. We had hoped to bring 11 leaders, but two have had their visas rejected, something we are currently fighting and hoping the home secretary will overturn.
It is a privilege to work with these men and women who have experienced and seen a level of suffering that we can only imagine. They want to share their stories. They don’t want the world to forget about South Sudan. We hope that in some small way we can help them to do this.