God’s Kingdom Advances Despite Armed Conflict

Although forgotten by the media for the most part, the war in South Sudan continues to end people’s lives, separate families, force citizens to flee as refugees, and bring unimaginable suffering to all. So it was amazing to receive an upbeat report from the Scripture Union National Director of South Sudan. He reported that between April and September, Scripture Union had impacted more than 9,000 children in South Sudan and Refugee Camps in northern Uganda.  Most of the children were in schools!

Of added interest to us, were reports that about 81 volunteers were trained to teach the Biblical Values curriculum in schools and seemingly all of them are now using that training to share God’s truth with children/teens, either in schools or churches!

Here’s excerpts of a few testimonies that were included in the report:

A certain William wrote: “In my Primary 6 class of 53 pupils, I have seen a lot of changes. I began with the Truth book and in the midst pupils begin to speak the truth. Most of children learned to speak the truth among themselves and to everyone in the school compound. I have seen God is doing amazing work in the lives of children in school through SU program. I also taught both the Truth and Honesty books in a Sunday School. Most of the children don’t lie to me or their parents."

From a refugee named Rose – “In the school I’m teaching, students like fighting but thank God after teaching VOICE for six weeks, they stopped fighting. Some said they hated the [enemy tribe] but now they have forgiven them because of VOICE program which encouraged them to forgive through the songs and the scriptures from the Bible.”