Mong, Mong, Mong (Hello, Hello, Hello)
I’ve recently taken a part
time staff position with Empower Sudan. I’m
in the process of raising monthly support for this position and wanted to give
you an idea of what Empower Sudan does, how I fit into all of that, and what my funding will look like.
THE GOAL
Empower
Sudan’s (empowersudan.org) goal is to reach the 20 million people in South
Sudan and Sudan who have never heard the good news of Jesus. We do this by providing support to
South Sudanese nationals to plant churches, disciple others, and create
positive change in their communities. The reason we are called “Empower” Sudan
is because our goal is to provide knowledge and resources to South Sudanese
pastors so that they can do evangelism and discipleship in their communities.
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| This map shows Sudan and South Sudan |
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| Can you find Torit on this map of South Sudan? That's where I go every year. |
THE METHOD
Our organization is made up equally of
Americans who provide support and South Sudanese who live and minister in their
local villages and towns. We do
not have any Americans on staff who live full time in South Sudan. The reason for this is that we do not
want to the South Sudanese to be dependent on us for leadership. We empower them to lead and then we
step out of the way and let them do so.
As
a result of this model most of our work from the American side is done through
short-term trips. Teams of three
to six will go and do a myriad of different trainings in everything from
theology to community development to education to evangelism. We have knowledge and resources that
the pastor’s there do not have but they are more equipped to minister to the
people in their country than we will ever be.
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| These pictures were take at our community development training in Torit last October. |
If you visit the invest section of the website (http://empowersudan.org/home/invest/) you can see that we do a lot of things on top of training church leaders. We operate a Bible School that provides theological training. We provide physical resources to help pastors like bicycles and motor-bikes. We even have staff who focus on educator training for church leaders who have started schools in their communities.
WHO IS EMPOWER SUDAN
To
help you understand a little bit more about how the organization works I’ll
tell you about some of our key leadership.
Mike Congrove is the head of
Empower Sudan from the American side.
He takes frequent training trips and oversees all operations and
fundraising.
Pastor David Kaya is the
head of Empower Sudan on the South Sudan side. He’s been church planting in South Sudan for at least ten
years. He and Mike equally share
all decision making for the organization.
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| David Kaya (left) and Mike Congrove (right) |
Brian Bain is the Regional
Strategy coordinator for the Eastern Equatoria State (There are ten states in
South Sudan). He takes four to
five trips to South Sudan each year to train pastors and teach at the Bible
School.
Dominic Africa is the South
Sudanese pastor of the church in Torit where I have visited the last two years. He partners with Brian in the planting
of churches in the Eastern Equatoria state.
Then there is Me.
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| Brian (left) Dominic (middle) Me (right) |
MY ROLE
I
will work directly under Brian leading one trip a year to support Dominic and
the churches he has planted. Each
year we have four to five specific trainings that we plan to do with each of
our South Sudanese pastors. These
trainings are designed to give the church leaders a solid theological
foundation, leadership skills, and vision for planting churches.
A
typical trip will have three to six people visiting from Monday to Friday. Each day our mornings and early
afternoons we do training with church leaders. In the late afternoons we usually invite all the church
members and people in the community to larger bible teaching. We have a lot of children attend these
teachings. The well being of the
children in South Sudan will have a major impact on the future of the country
so ministry to the younger generations is a key part of our what we do. My next trip is scheduled for the end
of May this year and I'm still looking for people to go with me so let me know if you're interested.
In
addition to leading one trip a year I also take part in strategy development
with the American team here in Dallas.
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| Nothing is cuter than kids in suits........... so read on |
