Sudan: Hungry for God's move
Biblical times alive and well in a nation recovering from nearly 50 years of war
Evangelist Bill Smith was overwhelmed himself at the response of people seeking to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior in the city of Yei, Southern Sudan.
By John Butterworth
Bill Smith still carries the chains with him now and then to remind him of what he saw God do in the Southern Sudan city of Yei. The chains came from a demon-possessed woman who had been so violent for more than 15 years that she ended up chained to a tree and fed like a dog. She was set free one night at the Worldwide Crusades evangelistic outreach held during July. The same thing happened with a man brought in chains the night before in the midst of a crowd estimated by local pastors to reach 60,000 people.
“Those are my greatest memories from this trip,” Smith said a month after returning to his home in Alsea, Oregon. “What really impressed me was how easily they were delivered. The gal was a fighter, standing up out in the crowd. They were laying hands on her and praying, pouring water on her, but once she got to the platform, she was delivered. They were both that way.”
Once set free from demons, they sat there in shock, according to Smith. They had been in that condition for so long, at first it was like there was just an emptiness in them.
But that was only for a few moments. “She became so full of rejoicing. It had to be a very powerful witness to the people,” concluded Smith. “It so changed their lives. It was a tremendous miracle. It was just like New Testament times.”
The joy that Smith and the WWC team traveling with him from Kenya and Uganda soaked up in that intense environment in Sudan came after enduring numerous days of discomfort as they made their way through numerous delayed flights, border crossings, across rough roads traversing Uganda, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, into Sudan and then back to Kampala. At one point they had to wait while military staff cleared the area of land mines.
Besides the costs of the crusades and all the traveling expenses, a last minute catch by one of the brothers probably saved the Sudan crusades from disaster and cost Worldwide Crusades the expense of reprinting 90,000 posters. The first poster mistakenly read in Arabic that the Worldwide Crusades team was coming to make war in Sudan.
“That could have been disastrous,” agreed Smith.
“I was afraid people were going to get hurt as they were pressing forward,” Smith says. “The police couldn’t keep them back. Then the military police tried, and they couldn’t hold them back either.”
“They all just gave up and got saved,” he says with a laugh. “That’s just how it worked.”
Alsea resident John Titman traveled with Smith to Sudan and the DRC, and he remembers vividly his times there. It still brings tears to his eyes when he talks about it.
“The response to the gospel, they just ran to the altar, and when they were asked in their tongue to accept Christ, the hands went up by the thousands,” he said thoughtfully. “To stand there and see that just took the air right out of me.”
Smith describes the scene of the altar services as chaotic. Everyone flocked to the stage hoping to receive personal prayer from Smith or others on the WWC. He still laughs when he thinks of all the soldiers and police officers who ended up at the altar surrendering their lives to the lordship of Jesus Christ. The final night in Yei he figured the only way he could safely get away from the crowd was to empty his coat pockets, take it off and throw the coat into the crowd. It was torn into pieces as many sought to touch it, much as people sought to touch cloth touched by the apostles in the New Testament Book of Acts in order to receive healing.
“The pastors say the first night at Yei had 60,000 people show up and probably 15,000 to 20,000 of them surrendered their lives to Christ.”
Smith and the team had seen similar results just a few days earlier during crusade work in the Southern Sudan capital of Juba.
“The intensity of the crowds at Juba, they were desperate to receive something from God. They have such an intense hunger for God,” Smith said.
Like other parts of the four-city, two-country outreach effort, just getting to Juba became difficult. At Kampala, Smith and the team went to board the plane they had tickets for and were told they couldn’t board because it was full. They met the same problem the following day, the day in which they were to arrive in Juba. After checking with another airline, they spent the money for tickets and arrived in Juba just hours before the start of the crusade.
“That was cutting it pretty close,” Smith said.
Juba is a huge city spread out over miles. Drake Kanaabo, the Worldwide Crusade coordinator in Uganda, says that the city is so big and spread out, and so full of hunger to know God that 10 crusades the size of the one they held could have been held at the same time.
Juba has seen some smaller evangelistic outreaches since finally seeing peace after nearly 50 years of struggle, but none reported to be the size of what WWC brought to them in July. With as little gospel work as there is in Juba and the multitude of people who committed their lives to the lordship of Jesus Christ, Smith felt led to do something WWC had not yet done.
“I think the most memorable thing in Juba was when we realized there was no place to put all these people, so we rented a building to start discipling them,” he said. “Thousands came to Christ and they just overflowed whatever churches were there. Plans were made to try and take care of these new Christians.”
As far as Smith is concerned, the outreaches held in July were probably the most successful he’s been involved with. But there is so much more work to be done, he said.
“Sudan desperately needs the gospel. There’s 150 cities just like Juba and Yei who have never had the gospel. It makes me wonder how many more men and women are chained to trees,” he said. “It’s open to the gospel. A year and a half ago you’d have been killed for carrying a Bible.
“Anybody who knows how to preach could go there and have a great crusade.”