The last 6 years he has been visiting the country many times a year,
teaching, equipping and training many hundreds of preachers and
Christian leaders both from this movement and from the whole range of
evangelical churches in the country. After the cease-fire between the
north and south took place, Gabrielsen travelled to the capital of
Sudan, Khartoum, in order to meet some of the leaders of Sudan
Pentecostal Churches. He met many that he had known from the time before
the civil war started, and many who came there afterwards. The seed
that had been planted had brought rich fruit! Darfur calls! The
civil war in Darfur started more than 4 years ago, and this war was not
a fight between Christians and Muslims. Here it was African Muslims who
saw that the south of Sudan was negotiating with the regime in Khartoum
about having partly a self-government, and they had experienced
themselves being oppressed and exploited for many years. They rebelled
and the authorities struck back in a cruel way. Together with militant
groups from Arabian tribes - the so-called Janjaweed – one village after
another got attacked, burned and destroyed. The inhabitants became
exposed to cruel treatment with tortures, murder, rape and humiliation.
The African tribes became exterminated from large areas, and today more
than 2 million of these African Muslims live in refugee camps. They are
kept alive by about 16,000 aid workers from numerous humanitarian
organizations that work there together with the UN.
Fervent prayer and inauguration together with strong spiritual experiences
strengthen the ministry.
Christian refugees preach Jesus Traditionally
Darfur has not had any Christians and has been very Muslim. In the
meantime, during the civil war that lasted for more than 20 years, there
came some refugees from the south of Sudan. Over 5 million people fled
from the south during those years, and more than 4 million settled
around the capital, Khartoum. Thousands of others fled to neighbouring
countries and other parts of the world, but some also came to Darfur,
which lies in the north. Many of these refugees came from the churches
we had started in the south before the war! Some of them started
smaller "refugee churches" in Darfur, as well as around Khartoum, but
did not have any big breakthrough among local tribes in Darfur.
When the civil war began in Darfur and thousands from African tribes
were killed and tortured in the most cruel ways by their Muslim
brothers from the Arabic tribes, many began also to ask questions about
their religion. Many came to the Christian refugees there and said, "We
have made a big mistake that has placed us under the Arabic leaders and
their religion! Now we would like to hear about Jesus from the Bible!"
Even chiefs and Muslim leaders ask for help and want to hear about God
from these Christian refugees.
First Christian leader seminars in Darfur When
Gabrielsen visited Khartoum 3 years ago, many Christians came from
Darfur and asked for help with getting teaching and leader training
there as well. It resulted in the first Christian leader seminar in the
history of Darfur, and 80 leaders came from all the Christian
denominations. It turned out that many of them did not even understand
what salvation is, and only a few had Bibles. After that seminar the
Gospel experienced a fantastic breakthrough there. Thousands of Bibles
were distributed and many experienced, Spirit-filled Christians from
other parts of Sudan have devoted 3 months each to help the new
Christians in Darfur! A big group of evangelists and Sudanese
missionaries have been part of starting many new churches in this large
region, which is just as big as the whole of France and where there
live 10 - 12 million people.
Preachers and leaders received teaching with open hearts when Jan Ernst Gabrielsen was teaching in Nyala, Darfur.
The province of Darfur has about 50 various tribes and people groups,
some with African and some with Arabic roots. All of them have been
completely non-evangelized, and what gives perspective to the work is
that this is more than a half of the 94 unreached people groups in
Sudan. No other nation in Africa has so many unreached tribes, and if we
can reach Darfur tribes, we will have reached over a half of the
unreached people groups in this country!
The Gospel transforms the hearts! It
is a historic occasion to bring the Gospel of peace to this war-struck
province! There is great need for the humanitarian contribution in the
province, but food does not remove the hate - those people need new
hearts. Future will be built for Darfur, and we are absolutely convinced
that the Gospel about Jesus is what can give the province hope and
progress! It is absolutely an unbelievable experience to see those
hundreds of born-again people singing and praising Jesus!
They are lifting the whole local community, hate is being replaced
with love and forgiveness, even towards their enemies, just like Jesus
said!
Now we have a possibility to create a future for Darfur – do YOU want to help to send messengers of peace to the war-struck Darfur?