Dec. 7, 2001

Pastor Paul Yugusu is a man on the move. The people he gives pastoral leadership to are scattered in about a 100-mile radius in south Sudan.

On a recent trip to war torn Sudan I met a pastor who leaves his family for weeks on end to shepherd a widely scattered flock of neglected people. They are spread out over a large area in the southern part of the country. His love for his people is obvious and the cost to serve them is great.

Pastor Paul Yugusu is a man on the move. The people he gives pastoral leadership to are scattered in about a 100-mile radius in south Sudan. He faithfully goes from village to village and to refugee camps on his motorcycle, to bring hope and encouragement from Gods' word.

"People are facing a lot of problems especially in this Nimule corridor. Displacement--we receive people from all tribes, from all locations, so we have over 50,000 displaced in this corridor here. So the work is very hard, the laborers are few," said Yugusu.

From the Episcopal Church of Sudan, Paul sees his ministry more as a mission because there are so few pastors in south Sudan. Many were murdered or killed in the war, others have fled the country.

He is busy trying to be a pastor to thousands of people, people who have suffered greatly under a radical Islamic government.

"These people are really traumatized especially when you lose your dear ones, father and mother," said Yugusu. "Most of them are orphans and then also those who have been abducted, people have been abducted, taken to the government control area and even killed; they abduct and they kill them. So some of them even they don't know where their families (are), and so they have really, they need counseling, and we are encouraging counseling. We even thought of training counselors though we have not yet implemented that one," said Yugusu.

"We have few churches because we don't have pastors," continued Yugusu. "So what we do, we go out for evangelism. We have realized that there is great need to train evangelists so that they go and do evangelistic campaign house to house or door to door, open air, and that is the need now, we want to train evangelists from various churches so that together they can go and preach the word of God."

Paul grew up in south Sudan. He later trained for the ministry at a Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada Bible College in Kenya and has had to make great personal sacrifices to minister to his people.

His family, which includes two small children and a wife, live in Nairobi. He sees them only a few times a year.

Pastor Paul said "It's only because of health, her health, but I am able to visit them from time to time, though I spend all of my time, most of my time in the field."

In the midst of war, persecution and death Paul preaches a message of love, God's love through his son Jesus Christ. He tells his people to not only love their enemies, but each other.

"We have also tribal kind of clashes among our own people and we also talk of forgiveness. We have hurt ourselves, some of the killings is done by relatives so we talk forgiveness. We have to humble ourselves, we have to come down ask for forgiveness for one another, even to God for what we have (done) or grievance that we have done to each other," said the pastor.

Paul said it's essential that the churches of south Sudan be in unity, to lay down their differences and focus on Jesus.

"We have to be one, because if we are one we will not be divided, we'll be together. We'll pray to God and when we pray together for sure God will listen to our prayers and that actually will bring us to peace. We have problem with the peace which are what the politicians are talking about. They rush to a peace but for us we don't talk of peace. Peace is there as long as we love one another, we forgive, we are reconciled and then we have unity," said Yugusu.

According to Paul the church in south Sudan has been encouraged and strengthened because Christians in other parts of the world, like Canada and the U.S., have come to be with them in their time of great need.

"We don't consider you foreigners, we consider you brothers and when you come you are like giving us a push, you are encouraging us and so this is how we are really encouraged, this is how we are built, we stand firm. It's only because of the Word of God, nothing can separate us from the love of God," Yugusu proclaimed.

Pastor Paul will continue to labor for the gospel, but is praying others will help carry his burden.

An estimated one and a half million Sudanese people have lost their lives, largely as a result of civil war the jihad declared against the south by the Muslim regime in Khartoum.

Church sources continue to report government bombing raids on civilian targets in the south, including schools and clinics.

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