Cush4Christ is a ministry of Reformed Presbyterian Global Missions (RPGM) and is based in Aweil, South Sudan. Our mission is to make disciples toward the vision of “a gospel-centered church for every community in Aweil and beyond.”

Vince and Julie Ward, along with their three children, Samuel (8), Zakari (6), and Amina (4), have been serving with Cush4Christ for nearly seven years. Vince leads the mission and mentors a group of pastors that are being trained to minister to the local church. The pastors are grateful for the oversight and training, but they are eager to spread their wings. “Our pastors want to be independent, but they’re not quite there yet,” Vince says. “We don’t want to squelch that desire, but instead feed it with the vision they need to become self-reliant.”

From the beginning, the Cush4Christ team has encouraged the pastors to take ownership of their church and assume a leadership role. Vince and other mentors take a back-row seat but are always there to counsel and guide. However, he explains, the pastors can’t help but compare themselves to other churches in the region that are operating without on-site assistance. Those churches may appear to be independent, but they are still receiving external support. Cush4Christ wants to see the Aweil church reach a point that is truly self-reliant, dependent not on outside assistance but on God.

This goal of self-reliance is central to a philosophy of missions popularized by John Nevius. A 19th Century Presbyterian missionary to China, Nevius held that churches should be 1) self-governing, 2) self-propagating, 3) self-supporting. Nevius’ method was applied in the establishment of the Presbyterian Church of Korea—now the second largest Presbyterian denomination in the world.

Despite the Aweil church’s impatience for independence, Vince and the RPGM Board are committed to walking alongside them until they’re ready to stand on their own. “The way I’ve described it to our pastors is that we’re on a road to the City of Self-Reliance,” Vince says. “That’s our objective—where we want them to be in the years to come. There are milestones along the way that we want to cross, but there are certain pitfalls that could derail us, and those are the things we have to be mindful of.”

Enhancing their desire for independence is the fierce pride of the Dinka men. The Dinka word shieng refers to an innate sense of dignity that belongs to the “men of men,” as they call themselves. While these Dinka pastors have experienced the transforming power of the gospel, the lens of their cultural experience makes it difficult for them to acknowledge that they need a bit more equipping and training to truly be self-reliant. “I think they have seen us as being patronizing at times, and maybe we have been,” Vince says. “That is the last thing we want to be to them. We want to come and serve them.”

Socioeconomic differences complicate this mentor-mentoree relationship further. “The biggest challenge is that we are considered the richest of the rich and they are the poorest of the poor,” Ward says. “But it’s not just a give-receive relationship, it’s an interdependence that we want to have—an equal partnership where we are both being blessed in giving. We aren’t there yet, but that’s our objective.”

One of the biggest challenges Vince faces in his efforts to lead the church to independence is wrapped up in the idea of self-support. Economically, Sudan is one of the poorest nations in the world, but the land itself is rich in resources. Why aren’t those resources being tapped?

“It’s hard to get statistics on this, but South Sudan is likely one of the most dependent countries in the world because they’ve been receiving aid for the last 30 years,” says Ward. “There are people who don’t cultivate because they are expecting food to come. Why cultivate when you get a big bag for free without any effort? You see a lot of that kind of idleness. A lot of youth are in the marketplace playing dominoes and not working because they’re just depending on their moms to get food from the United Nations. Many people operate under the mindset that if they work, they won’t receive aid. It’s a disease that’s killing Africa.”

The prayer of the Cush4Christ team is that the Dinka people will see and understand that God can and will meet their every need, and that they can rely on His provision. Just like the rest of us, the Dinka people are simply not seeing the resources God has given them as being sufficient for them. They are subsistence farmers, but their crops are not feeding them throughout the year. But with acres of virgin soil and great potential for agriculture and animal husbandry, the land could meet their needs and then some.

“It really needs to be a change in how they see their lives,” Vince says. “An animistic worldview is fatalistic. You don’t have a hopeful future; you don’t see that you can live beyond just the curse of this world. The idea of redemption and the Lordship of Christ has penetrated the church but hasn’t fully changed the worldview yet.”

This fatalistic mindset of the Sudanese extends to more than agriculture. Disease is rampant among children in the community, in large part occurring from completely preventable causes: malnutrition and poor sanitation. According to Vince, more of these children die from dehydration related to preventable illnesses than from anything else.

The typical Sudanese child doesn’t have a balanced diet, weakening his/her immune system that may seem strong to visiting Westerners. “The water many people drink would kill us in one day,” Ward says. “It comes from a pit that just sits there all year. Cows defecate in it, children swim in it. It’s awful, yet for most their immune systems can resist it. But there’s only so much their bodies can take.” There is also the problem of personal hygiene. Fecal-oral disease is a greater menace in these villages than malaria or tuberculosis.

The team’s goal is to see that every family in the church is healthy, both physically and spiritually. “We want them to see God’s gifts to them and to use them for their physical and spiritual health; and also to minister to those on the outside who are still living in spiritual and physical poverty.” Cleanliness and good nutrition are important parts of God’s plan for our lives, and so the Cush4Christ team has been training church members on hand washing, drinking clean water, and treating diarrhea with Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS), a simple solution of water, salt and sugar.

The people, especially the women, are soaking up this information like sponges. Team member Jan Buchanan teaches a weekly health class, and her students stand up during announcements the following Sunday and share exactly what they learned with the congregation. The response is tremendous, with other women in the congregation shouting out, “We’re in school!” and “We’re learning so much!” “Hallelujah!”

“They never would have responded like this if we were an NGO (Non-Governmental Organization)—never,” Vince says. “It’s because the gospel has begun to transform their worldview. They’re looking to be healthy in every way. They want to be a healthy community before God. You can teach this in a health workshop or from the steps of a hospital and they’d say, ‘Oh yeah, yeah, that’s how Westerners do it.’ But this is a Dinka church, and we have built a trust level with the people where the knowledge is flowing freely.”

In terms of plants, the team is excited about the potential of Moringa, or “the miracle tree” as it’s called in Africa. “It’s a tree with small leaves that is packed with vitamins, protein and calcium (see Moringa chart),” Vince says. “It’s an incredible gift from God but people just don’t know about it, and it grows really well in South Sudan.”

The team showed the pastors an informational video about the benefits of Moringa, which has been used in Senegal to strengthen pregnant mothers and prevent infant mortality. Now the pastors are spreading their excitement to the church. “Moringa is just a simple way of getting people to start being more healthy,” Ward says. “If every household in our neighborhood would take hold of it, this would be such a ministry to the unbelievers in our community. It would solve a lot of malnutrition—they would be able to meet their own needs and share pods and powder with their neighbors.”

As the Aweil church continues on the road to the City of Self-Reliance, another major hurdle is that of tithes and offerings. Not unlike Christians around the globe, the “rich” in the Aweil churches have not yet “tested” God in bringing in their tithe. And since the wealth of the Dinka is in their cattle, that means they should be bringing from the increase of their cattle as part of their tithes and offerings. Sadly this has never happened in all the churches of all the denominations in the state.

But tithes and offerings will be a major step in leading the church to self-reliance. If the church members faithfully tithe, that will support a pastor, build a permanent building, and meet needs in the congregation and community. “It’s just a mindset,” Vince says. “Many are blessed with wealth. But once they see that God is going to fulfill his promise that their vats will overflow—I believe that that’s going to be the tipping point for the church. We want to see self-supporting churches where pastors are supported, where widows and orphans are ministered to, and where people are living healthy lives, all through tithes and offerings. That’s the biblical model.”

Achieving this vision for a self-supporting church will not only empower believers and transform the community, but also protect the church in Aweil from negative outside influence. Matt Filbert, director of RP Missions and an advisor to the Cush4Christ team, says “Our brothers and sisters in Sudan don’t have a lot of glowing examples of true independence, and yet they are on the road to being a truly indigenous church.”

Please Pray For

A transformation in people’s worldview through the gospel, applied to all areas of life.

Champions in the community who will be bearers of this good news of healthy living.

The pastors, that they would be passionate about leading the church toward biblical self-reliance and dependence on God, not external aid.

Church members to realize God’s blessing on faithful giving.

The rich, that they would bring a tithe of their cows to the church.

Vince Ward is an RPCNA founding missionary with Cush4Christ in Sudan. An RP Global Missions feature appears semiannually in the Witness.