A Lament for South Sudan

! sudan camp 1
By Rebecca Erickson

Agony!

Bodies hacked, shot, mutilated.

Cries of mothers, fathers, children, and babies are heard like the cries of the birds waiting to feed on the carnage.

Destruction and devastation of people and places, shattered by raw hatred.

Everyone, everywhere in fear while no one seems to care.

Flight and fright drive people from the hostile land to yet more hostile places.

God seems to have hidden his face, from him comes only silence.

Hate: taught, caught, sought to drive guerilla fighters forward.

Injury—the terrible, soul-rending, body-ripping injury of rape happening to women, children, the hapless, and the helpless.

Justice has fled, fled so far it seems impossible it could ever be found again.

! sudan camp 2

Killing of bodies almost seems a mercy—there are so many things worse than death.

“Lord, Lord,” cry the Christians who have so faithfully partaken of his body and blood, whose own blood is now shed.

Many are the Christians around the world who could be raising pleas to heaven and to governments for South Sudan, yet we remain apathetic, uninvolved as though it was not a part of our very own body, the body of Christ being bloodied.

No one, it seems, cares when your life is taken if your skin is black, even though your blood runs red like every human’s.

Open mouths cry out to heaven but only a few….

Plans for a day of mourning are made in the Covenant denomination—a call to all Christians to lament for South Sudan, but will it be heard? Will it be heeded?

Quiet, O God, please—quiet.

Rest—Sabbath rest for a torn, tossed people.

! sudan church sign
Shalom—will these ever return?

Turn your face once again to our sisters and brothers of South Sudan.

Understand, please God, understand—although there can be no understanding for our apathy as we live so far away in such relative safety.

Very God, we beg your forgiveness for we sin against both you and our fellow Christians—our fellow human beings—when we do not care, we do not cry, we do not come to you in prayer for them.

Wipe away every tear from their eyes and from ours as you heal their land and break our uncaring hearts.

(e)Xamine your hearts and lives, O believers.

Yield them over to sorrow for those who are beyond sorrow—be…

Zealous in lament this day.

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Comments

  • What a “beautiful” song of lament. God bless you.
    It is so tragic that after fighting so long for freedom from the Muslim north, now the peoples of the south murder each other! May God help them to see the insanity of it, and to seek reconciliation with each other.

  • Thank you, Rebecca . Thank you for your faith and heart. Do not give up.

    For twelve years I have documented the horrific stories of slaves returning home to South Sudan from jihadi slavery in Sudan. They seem forgotten to the world but not to God who seeks all of His children be free…. so we continue…until each one is FREE!

  • Beautifully and sorrowfully written! I’ll take this with me to my prayer group in the morning so we can pray for our brothers and sisters.

  • Truly worth sharing with the broader community. So glad you did that. Your words are powerful. Oh that there would be no more need for such lament!

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