Anglican Journal of Canada reports from Rumbek, Sudan. Editor Leanne Larmondin reports on worship and church growth in the midst of cultural and political challenges.
It is mid-morning on a Sunday in late March. The hot, equatorial sun is already warming up the day and still, an hour before the church service begins, the songs of praise are already rising above the enormous tree that provides shade to the hundreds of worshippers gathered below.
Seating is limited to wooden benches and plastic chairs – a boy of about five years of age even brings his own to guarantee a good seat. Generally, the women sit together in one section with many of them dressed in white dresses and headscarves (the uniform of the Mothers’ Union), shaking bells and other handheld instruments along to the lively hymns in the local Dinka language. The children gather in another section, the smaller ones occasionally wandering around hand-in-hand looking for family members. The men, the smallest group at this service, are on the margins of the gathering of about 1,400. Many of the adults hold distinctive long, wooden crosses through the service (see related story, p. 11).
Despite the challenges of everyday life in Sudan, the church – as it is in many parts of Africa – is growing. But churches in Sudan say they must contend not only with a nation that is rebuilding after two decades of civil war, but also with the presence (and growth) of Islam.
Read it all here.