Exciting Follow-Up Stories From Juba Mission 2010

Juba youth with mission follow-up materials

More than 100,000 people in Southern Sudan heard the Good News of Jesus Christ proclaimed during AE’s evangelistic mission to the city of Juba in September 2010. Seventy-thousand of these came to one or more of the 200 evangelistic meetings organized throughout Juba during the mission week. Evangelists preached the Gospel in marketplaces, offices, hospitals, prisons, schools and in evening stadium rallies. Another 30,000 listened to the proclamations via radio. In all, 3,000 Sudanese made first-time commitments to Jesus Christ and are now being discipled in local churches.

AE’s outreach was especially strategic, coming as it did just four months before the Southern Sudanese referendum on whether the southern portion of the country should secede from the north. Decades of cruel harassment by the Arab and Muslim Northern Sudanese army raids have left thousands of Southern Sudanese dead and have contributed to a shattered economy. The South, comprised of Africans who are mostly either Christian or adherents of traditional animist religions, has just elected to secede, with Southern Sudan set to become an independent country on 9th July, 2011. AE’s mission contributed to the so far relatively peaceful transitional process to independence now underway.

Searing hot weather, punctuated by disruptive wind and rain storms did not prevent the AE team from ensuring that as many people as possible had a chance to respond to the numerous offers of salvation during the mission week. One of these was Andira Sebe, a 25-year-old woman with three children. When she was a child, her father converted to Islam, something she refused to do, even if it meant death. Though she did not have a relationship with Christ, she did believe in God in general. When her first child died as a baby from yellow fever, however, she despaired, choosing to believe that God did not care for her. She turned her back on him completely.

Andira Sebe

Not being involved in any church, she found herself strangely drawn to one of AE’s outreaches in the part of Juba where she lived. The message touched her heart deeply and she gave her life to Christ that day. She now feels a peace with God which she never knew before and senses a deep joy that he is helping her, even to find healing from the loss of her baby. She is also growing in her newfound faith through her involvement in a discipleship course at a local church. This has helped her to feel that she can give up her business of selling beer, something associated with a drunken and illegal lifestyle in Sudan, since she now trusts God to guide and provide for her.


Many in Southern Sudan are beholden to evil spirits, which keep them in constant torment. Alice Musama, who doesn’t know how old she is, began consulting witch doctors for assistance. One of them made a permanent mark on her hand, which was supposed to indicate when she would die. This mark caused her constant pain. She also struggled to earn a living, as her husband was of little help. With five children to feed, she turned to selling alcohol so she could provide for them.

Alice Musama

But during the mission week, she saw the AE Foxfire youth evangelists in action and was drawn to watch them. The preacher assured the crowd that Jesus would help them if they gave their life to him. So Alice went forward and received him as her Lord and Savior. Then, a few minutes later, she realised that the mark on her hand, put there by the witch doctors, was gone. She had no more pain and was completely healed. Furthermore, her husband found a job and she is rejoicing at how Christ is blessing her and her family.

While thousands come to Christ as new believers in AE missions, it is vital that local churches welcome these Christians in and ensure that they receive the discipling they need.

Jamil Daoud put his life in Christ’s hands during the Juba mission and has been taken under the wing of Rev. Joshua Aggery, a local Sudanese pastor. Because Jamil’s father rejected his mother, he grew up with his uncle, feeling unwanted and sad and had to drop out of school in the fourth grade.

When he heard a testimony during the Juba mission given by a man who had also been abandoned by his parents at a young age, Jamil felt understood. This man had found healing and meaning in his faith in Christ. Jamil decided to put his own life in Jesus’ hands and was amazed at the change that occurred deep in his heart. He had previously been such a selfish person. But now he is filled with a desire to pray for others. He even wakes several times a night and uses these opportunities to pray to his new Savior.

Reverend Aggery and his new disciple Jamil Daoud

As a new Christian, Jamil is finding valuable guidance from Rev. Aggery, who is teaching Jamil and other new believers about what is involved in being a committed follower of Jesus. The pastor believes that Jamil will develop in to a leader in his local church.

As a church leader Jamil will become equipped to minister to people like Gildar Bona, a 43-year-old mother of eight children who works in the Army barracks in Juba. She came to the evangelistic meeting deeply burdened and sorrowful, ready to give up on her family. That’s because, while she married a man she thought was a Christian, he recently decided to take a second wife. Deprived of intimacy with her own husband, she became angry and distressed and was planning to leave the family home. But she heard a preacher speak on forgiveness, emphasizing that bitterness in our hearts actually hurts us. He explained that Jesus could take this bitterness and bring change to desperate situations.

Gildar went forward to receive Christ into her heart, asking him to help her forgive her husband and his new wife. Upon praying and surrendering herself, she experienced a deep sense of peace and felt like a very heavy burden was lifted from her shoulders. She has decided to stay with her family for the sake of her children, trusting that God will show her a way forward. Most of all, she now feels hope for the future.

Gildar Bona

Thousands more like Andira, Alice, Jamil and Gildar put their lives in Christ’s hands during AE’s mission to Juba last September, during a fragile time in the country’s history. Politicians were eager for AE to do another mission to Juba in 2011 and many would like to see a prayer breakfast to minister to government leaders. As the local mission chairman, Charles Lumori, said, “The mission has really made an impact in many ways. Churches have experienced a big increase in the number of believers in their congregations. Many people’s behavior has changed and this has manifested itself in more godly wives, husbands and children.”

Juba – a strategic city impacted by the Gospel, prepared in new ways to trust in God as it enters into an uncertain future.