SOUTH SUDAN (BP) – The Muslim Sudanese refugee said he was the richest man in his village before he lost all he owned.
“I’ve lost everything, but I know it was good because now I found God,” he told Zach Potts of Empower One, a Send Relief partner serving Sudanese refugees.
“And three days later he went to a church service in South Sudan and made a profession of faith and gave his life to the Lord,” Potts, Empower One’s South Sudan Liaison, told Baptist Press. “It’s a horrible situation, but there are a lot of people that are meeting Jesus.”
The flood of refugees from Sudan’s civil war has created the untold blessing of bringing a Gospel witness into mosques.
“We’re distributing the food at the local mosque,” Potts said. “The mosques have invited our pastors to serve food there, because many of the refugees are sleeping on their compound.”
Empower One, a church planting and humanitarian ministry with several locations in Africa, reported at least 103 salvations through work Send Relief supported June through August, and at least 27 baptisms.
“The people of the Sudan have suffered unimaginable tragedy,” said Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, a member of a UN fact-finding mission. “A sustainable ceasefire must be prioritized to halt the fighting in which the civilian population is caught and enable the effective delivery of badly needed humanitarian assistance to all those in need, regardless of their location.”
Send Relief’s outreach this summer included four locations operated by Empower One, providing food, blankets, mosquito nets, tarps and other items for 5,000 refugees and internally displaced persons, including distributions at one undisclosed location in Sudan, Potts said.
The salvations came after 2,880 people heard the Gospel, he said. And as a lasting outreach, Empower One planted three churches among the refugees.
The wealthy villager who preferred Christ to earthly goods made a profession of faith in February when Potts was teaching an evangelism class at Empower One’s Bible School Extension Center on a short-term mission trip with a small team from the U.S.
Empower One built the center in 2020 with the idea of training men to send into Sudan to plant churches. But the war put those plans on hold.
“Now, Muslims are coming to these regions and being met by Christians who have a little bit of biblical training and are able to provide support,” Potts said, “and they’re telling our guys, ‘We had no idea that Christians were nice. We’ve been told our whole life that they’re evil.’”
Many Sudanese have never encountered Christians in the nation that is 91 percent Muslim, according to 2020 statistics from Pew Research Center. Only about 5.4 percent are Christians, with the remainder identifying with Indigenous religions or unaffiliated.
Potts, his wife Callie and their five children spent June and July of 2023 in South Sudan, when his children ranged in ages one through 11.
Despite the U.S. State Department’s current Level 4 Do Not Travel advisory for South Sudan, Potts said he has a network of trusted friends and partners that made the trip feasible.
His family’s presence was a valuable witness in opening doors to share the Gospel, Potts told Baptist Press.
“Over and over again we were stopped on the street, we were told in churches, we’ve seen some Western adults. Nobody ever brings their children and it shows us that you trust us,” Potts said. “That impacted me, because it’s not easy to take your family over there.”
Spending time with those living in poverty and listening to their needs is a valuable ministry tool, Potts said.
“It’s a boost to their person,” he said, “and who they are as an image-bearer of God.
“The encouragement that someone in that situation feels when a visitor shows up and listens to their story and shows them that they’re valuable,” Potts said. “You can’t replicate that from 8,000 miles away.”
