Options seem limited when you’re faced with war. Almost 20 years in refugee camps through the 80s, return to Sudan in 2006 after the war only to be displaced again 5 short years later in resumed fighting in Blue Nile state. What can you do in such a situation?
One by one, they prayed quietly. Without show and pomp or with a preacher’s inflections. They prayed just loud enough for a person sitting in front of them to hear. As though the person they were talking to was a whisper’s distance away. They were intimate conversations.
SIM’s motto has always been ‘By prayer’ but we have sure learned what it is to pray and seek the Lord from our brothers and sisters from Sudan.
What is prayer? Is it ‘giving up’ or a ‘last ditch effort?’ Is it throwing up our hands in despair and giving in? Or is it more than that: is it an intimate conversation with our loving Father? Is it lowly man talking to Almighty God who knows all things and orchestrates all things? Prayer displays not only trust in God but a deep love for brother and sister. Only after visiting with the church did we come to know that they were praying for us by name during our time in Ktm when we were being kicked out. Is this ‘giving up’ or is it love for their brothers and trust in God?
Oh, Lord, help us to have a faith that endures and that acknowledges you as infinitely aware, infinitely wise and infinitely involved in all that is happening in your world. Help us to pray and seek you because we love you and love our brothers and sisters.
(March 2013)
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