“Cush will submit to God” (Ps. 68:31). The ancient people of Cush (Kush), at times called Ethiopia, once stretched out their hands in worship to the LORD of hosts. In the midst of a devastating war, they brought gifts of homage to Mount Zion (Isa. 18). Today, their legacy stands as an example to the “tall and dark” (v. 7) people of Sudan who are groping for purpose in their suffering.

As the LORD of hosts is summoning the people of Sudan to submission, I hear God summoning me to stretch out my hands and to say: “Here am I, send me…to Sudan.”

It began in spring 1999 with a favor done for Pastor Matt Kingswood—picking up a Sudanese family at the Ottawa train station. My involvement with this family (from the Dinka tribe and an area in Southern Sudan called Aweil) was the spark that ignited a love for the Sudanese people. The flames grew stronger as I traveled through Kenya that summer.

On my first day in Kenya I met a young Sudanese named David Makwach Kuol. Over the next two years our friendship endured through hard times. While working here as a physical therapist and studying at Ottawa Theological Hall, the Holy Spirit gripped me with an irresistible desire to lay myself down for the people of Sudan. With the encouragement from my elders. I came under care of the St. Lawrence Presbytery. It was during that time that I started to use the name Cush4Christ to represent the vision that God had given me in bringing restoration to the people of Sudan through the gospel ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Last summer, I set about on an “Africa Safari” from Cape Town to Kenya to Cairo in preparation for a life in Sudan. The Lord was my Shepherd as he led me through the springs of restoration with David and brought us to the heights of joy as the Lord showed us a wide-open door of opportunity to minister to his Aweil people living in a Kakuma Refugee Camp m Northwest Kenya. Many of the tribal elders met with us under a tree, where they pleaded with us to bring them the Word of God.

“No one here will reject the Word of God,” they said. “Many churches came and never came back. We also look at you—whether you will come back or not come back¬—this is the only thing we are afraid of. Please don’t cheat us like the people who came before you; we need you to be very committed and serious.”

As we knelt down together under that tree, we beseeched the God of armies to raise up a host of soldiers for Christ. That tree has since been named Tim Athon, which means “The tree of promise” in the Dinka language. Though David and I have made a promise to return with the Word of God, it is the promise of life in Christ that this tree symbolizes. Word of this meeting spread so rapidly throughout the Aweil community that 1,200 young people came to register for our “program.” We did not have a program at the time, yet, whatever we had for them, they were signing up for it!

David was able to return a month later to interview the students and leaders to form the Aweil Discipleship Training Centre (ADTC). The most prominent elders of the community have been overseeing the ongoing work, and, when opposition has arisen, they have stood firmly defending the Lord’s work.

This January the Lord opened the way for me to return to Kakuma. This time I was joined by the teaching elder of Cornerstone RPC (Bancroft. Ont.), who was commissioned by the Ottawa RPC session to assess the work. Andrew Stringer had left part of his heart in Africa when he spent one year studying missiology over 10 years ago. He found what he had left behind as soon as he breathed the African air. For three weeks, he threw himself into the work and passionately poured his heart out to these people in his prayers and preaching. As David says, “He was very useful to us.”

Our involvement had begun with the Aweil people, while pressing onward with the vision of saturating the land of Cush with healthy churches in union with Christ. Resistance from within is inevitable, and also from without as the Christian church stands as the primary target in Islamic Jihad (holy war). The radical Islamic government of Sudan based in the North has been waging cruel and relentless war against the infidels of the South. Once called the “Breadbasket of North Africa” for its wealth in natural resources, Southern Sudan faces one man-made famine after another. Since 1983, this war has claimed over 2 million people, while 5 million have been displaced. The National Islamic Front is the hotbed of Islamic fanaticism that is set on Jihad in its determination to force the Arab culture and Islam upon the Black non-Muslims in the South.

Christians in Sudan have faced cruelties beyond imagination, and the survivors bear the scars from the flames of religious hatred. Their experiences are filled with molestation, starvation, enslavement, and death. Christians who have refused to convert to Islam have been mutilated, hanged, stoned, nailed to trees, and set on fire. Church buildings and leaders as particularly targeted for destruction.

Though bombs keep raining on what the government calls “legitimate targets” (including schools, hospitals, and churches), the cross of Christ stands without shame in the hearts of many. I am told that in some areas, a cross is erected over every establishment to openly proclaim where their hope rests.

We believe that Cush4Christ has been born for that purpose—to proclaim Christ to be the hope of Sudan. Many ministries are running to help the suffering Christians in Sudan. However, one area that appears to be tragically neglected is the land of Aweil. To quote Paul in light of the absence of a gospel witness in Aweil: “I aspired to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named, so that I would not build on another man’s foundation; but as it is written, They who had no news of Him shall see, and they who have not heard shall understand” (Rom. 15:20-21).

Among the Dinka tribe, the Aweil people (Dinka Malual) are the least evangelized. Many of them still hold to traditional and animistic worship with a syncretistic blend of Roman Catholicism or Islam. Even in Kakuma, Kenya, very few have been introduced to the pure and free grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The people of Aweil are strategically located below the Darfur, a people group who are among the least evangelized on the face of the earth (Operation World, Patrick Johnstone). While the Islamic government perceives Aweil as the strategic beachhead to break through and conquer the rest of Africa, we envision the Aweil people as the gospel gateway to Northern Sudan and beyond.

The training of an army of God has begun in Kakuma. Since our January trip, David has also brought the gospel to many hungry Aweil youth in a refugee camp in Northern Uganda called Ajumani. During that mission he was able to initiate another ADTC among his people. His recent visit to his homeland in Southern Sudan was the first opportunity for Cush4Christ to bring the word of salvation to the people living in Aweil.

Above all aspirations for Sudan, my greatest passion, after the Lord, is my beloved Julie. Our covenant union is dated for June 29, after which we will step onto African soil to begin a lifelong honeymoon, whether it be on the beaches of the Indian Ocean or in a war zone. Our time among the people will only be for the summer, since we are devoting the next year to study (including my Presbytery examinations). As the Lord continues to confirm His calling, we will be preparing to make our home in Kenya/Sudan in spring 2003.

We are loved by these people. They are calling upon us to live among them. In their eyes we are one of them: Deng Garang and Abuk (Adam and Eve). They are also calling on the RPCNA to come and help them establish the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Sudan.

As most of you will never visit these “tall and dark” people from Cush, we may never be able to visit some of you. Our constant prayer is that the Lord of hosts would raise up an army of intercessors for the ministry. Your time and faith in praying for the people of Sudan and Cush4Christ’s work is the most valuable gift you can bring to this ministry.

Join with us as we are moving forward in faith alongside the Foreign Mission Board of the RPCNA and as we seek to establish a biblical structure for fulfilling this vision of Cush4Christ.

Vince Ward is a student of Ottawa Theological Hall under care of the St. Lawrence Presbytery.