Santino Back is one of the recent graduate pastors from our Bible school. He is pastoring a church in the village of Maloney.

He has been living in the village now for over 6 months.

A few days ago, as he shared the gospel with a group of Dinka men in the village (elders), the men became so upset with him because he was sharing the gospel message. The men of the village started to tell him he is not from their village they don’t have to listen to him, and they don’t like his message, the message of the gospel, because it is contradicting to the Dinka way of life and their tradition. They’d like to stay in the worship of idols and ancestral spirits.

They started to insult him and tried to provoke him. Santino remained calm, even though they were threatening that if he doesn’t leave the village, they might harm him.

That happened while Dr. Tom was seeing patients. When they came back, during devotions they asked all of us in the compound to pray for Santino; he is facing a big opposition and we don’t know if the men are going to attack him as they have threatened him.

The whole staff at our devotion prayed earnestly for Santino. Pastor Judah, who is the chaplain at the clinic, shared a story of how he had faced the same opposition in the past. When they were evangelizing a certain village, they were marching, singing songs, praying and proclaiming the gospel message; then one man was furiously opposed them, threatening to spear them if they stepped on his property.

Then the Lord rebuked that man in his heart that night and he couldn’t sleep for the next few nights. It bothered him until he had to return to the pastors who were doing the evangelism and beg them to come and visit his house, apologizing and saying that God rebuked him in his heart that night and showed him he was mean against God Himself. The pastors went and shared the gospel in his house and he was saved along with his household. Everyone at the devotion was very encouraged by that real story.

Some of our staff started to come with suggestion on how to win the village over to Christ, one person suggested for Santino to do a house-to-house prayer walk and every house that accepts them they bless the house with the word of God and the seedlings of a mango tree. Like a tree grow by care from the owner, so is the faith they have put in Jesus like a tree; if they keep Jesus commandments and stay in fellowship with God and the brethren, they will grow and be fruitful like a mango tree. That was so neat because there are two blessings for the village here, the first is the Word and the second a physical one, a Mango tree.

I called Santino to encourage him and see if he is in any danger, but Santino was quick to say he was very happy to be opposed like His Lord Jesus who was opposed and persecuted. “It’s my joy to be insulted and threatened for His name’s sake”, Santino added. He felt the Lord was still leading him to stay even with the difficulty that he is facing.

This week I had the honor to visit Santino to encourage him and also to encourage the church he has started in Malony. I was encouraged very much when I saw how the church, what the Lord is doing among the members, the love they have for each other, the way they worshiped in a beautiful Dinka worship song. Some of the church members are teachers of the primary school and some are the students, some young mothers of the community and even one elderly person that gave his life to Christ recently.

I had the opportunity to celebrate a baptism with them, the first baptism since the church was started. An incredible group of young mothers and teenagers declaring publicly their faith in the Lord Jesus and committed themselves to the new way of life that Jesus offers to them.

Please continue to pray for Santino safety as he continue to pastor the Church in Malony. Pray for the upcoming prayer walk in the coming weeks for the strong hold walls of Malony to be brought down like the walls of Jericho.

Pray for the church to continue to grow and be fruitful, especially as they start CHE in the village.

Pastor Santino (left) , Mary being baptized (center) and Sabet (right)

CHE TOT 3 (Training Of Trainers) marked the end of the first year of teaching the CHE program  this year. This time we were blessed to have Dr. Philip and Dr. Rick both from WGM leading the training.

We have enjoyed and learn a lot.  The inspiring teaching of Dr. Phillip, for sure made the participants challenged and inspired as they were being commissioned to select the committees in their areas for the trainings that they will lead themselves.

The CHE Trainers were given more tools in these sessions, to enable them to start this great work in the villages. Some of the tools are how to put the messages in Songs and use stories to deliver the messages, leading the teaching of some of the topics themselves and many other tools.

One thing was a clear great blessing is to hear the testimonies that they brought back from the seed projects they have done in their home villages.

This time I heard story from this quite lady from the Kulu villages her name is Mary. Mary doesn’t say a lot, most likely because of the language barrier; She is a lou tribe from Western Baher ELgazal State.  Most of the participants are Dinka except her groups of 4 people.

The Seed project they have done this time was to go and clean the Market from the Plastic bottles and plastic bags, and make a Trash pit, while they were doing that they have also brought a Tipy Tap for washing hands and they were showing the use of it and the importance  of wash hands. People start gathering around them to see why  they were cleaning the market, others joined in because they were inspired by the CHE group imitative.

In one occasion the market traders contributed free drinks of Soda and water to the 4 CHE Trainers. At the End of it Mary says, this guy who used to be part of the church and a believer was touched by what he saw, he shared with them that how he felt God’s convictions in his heart, because of the cleaning work they have done in the market, he continue to say, now I have to go back to the Church and be part of Gods family again.

To Hear this from quite Mary is a testimony in itself, I never expected her to understand or to put in right way I had little faith in her, but I was proved wrong and God works in amaising ways. That from the testimony she shared she has shown she got what is CHE is all about and it wasn’t just about community cleaning project but it was sharing the gospel through these simple seed projects and I told myself if Mary gets it then there is a huge hope in the horizon for the whole group, Mary got the holistic approach. My prayer is that CHE will work transforming people lives physically and spiritually and we will be hearing awesome testimonies in the near future.