As the January date of the upcoming vote on the question of partition nears, Christians across the United States are being asked to support the people of Sudan with their prayers. This focus of prayer began in earnest this week with an event at the Episcopal Church Center in NYC which brought together representatives of a number of denominations.
“‘The first line of defense for Christians is prayer,’ the Rev. Petero Sabune, the Episcopal Church’s program officer for Africa, said during the vigil. ‘Right now people are praying in Nzara, Renk, Torit and Mundri. Prayer is a powerful thing; it can go through space and time.’
Throughout the season of Advent and leading up to the referendum people are invited to pray for peace in Sudan on Fridays at noon eastern time. People throughout the 31-diocese Episcopal Church of Sudan have committed to praying at noon local time in solidarity with people worldwide.
The referendum is the final provision of Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), signed in 2005 by the two warring parties — Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in the south and the north’s Khartoum-based Government of Sudan. The CPA ended a 21-year civil war — fought by the Arab and Muslim north and rebels in the Christian-animist south — that killed more than 2 million people and displaced an estimated 7 million more.”
Read the full Episcopal News Service article here.
Some background information on the partition vote previously posted on the Lead can be found here and here.