A kingdom not shaken

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming next: A nation already scarred by war edges toward another.

Sudan has been in chaos for nearly 3 years. That’s when a power struggle between the country’s military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, erupted into civil war.

EICHER: The UN says more than 40,000 people have been killed, some 14 million displaced—the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world. Meanwhile, disease and famine are spreading.

REICHARD: And now, many worry that its neighbor South Sudan is teetering on the edge of renewed conflict. That country split off from Sudan 15 years ago, but instability has grown in recent years.

Last year we told you about Christian chaplains in the South Sudanese military—armed for battle, but also carrying the peace of the Gospel.

Men like this chaplain, Lino Emmanuel:

LINO: Yeah, we are preaching.

RAMIREZ: While the bullets are flying?

LINO: Yeah! Yeah, we pray, and we go. 

RAMIREZ: While the bullets are coming?

LINO: Yeah, bullet is coming. Mmhm, yes. And when bullet is coming, we pray, and we go.

EICHER: For an update, WORLD’s Doubletake host Les Sillars checked back in with Wes Bentley, he is founder of Far Reaching Ministries, that's the organization that trains these chaplains.

LES SILLARS: South Sudan is a mess. A December U.N. report said the country was staggering toward another civil war. Its countryside is wracked by a simmering conflict between its two top leaders. 

Suspended vice president Riek Machar is on trial for treason and murder. He was allegedly involved in a rebel attack on government troops. 

South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir, has been accused of violating power sharing principles he agreed to in 2018.

Both men helped lead the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement that won the country’s independence from Sudan 20 years ago. But they’re from rival ethnic groups: They could not share power, and in 2013 the country fell into a civil war that killed 400,000 people. 

It lasted until 2018 when Kiir and Marchar signed a peace deal.

That agreement more or less held until recently. In January, the government announced a major operation to take back territory rebels had seized in recent months. It gave civilians and aid organizations 48 hours to leave those areas. 

Audio from CGTN Africa:

CGTN AFRICA: So fighting has been going on for some time, since December, and the government troops have been withdrawing from many of these places. And with this order now, the government says it wants now to retake those places that opposition forces took from them, so this is...

Now the U.S. has threatened to withdraw aid to South Sudan. It accuses Kiir’s government of imposing excessive fees on humanitarian groups and hampering their operations.

Wes Bentley of Far Reaching Ministries says two years ago he noticed the situation was deteriorating.

BENTLEY: When I was there, the week before I'd arrived, there had been like a dozen ambushes on the road within a week, and about 26 people killed, and even three nuns were killed during that time.

Government forces have been conducting what the UN calls “relatively indiscriminate” aerial bombing attacks. Armed rebel militia prowl the highways.

BENTLEY: Where our base is, to the Capitol it's 110 miles. You cannot travel there safely unless you take soldiers with you, because there's rebels on the road. And when I say rebels, more like criminals, you know. I think these are people that are just see it as opportunistic to rob. They don't really have an agenda, they're just looking for something to get. But they kill a lot of people …

About 7.7 million people in South Sudan face “crisis” levels of food insecurity. That’s more than half the population. And the U.N reports there are pockets where it’s worse: famine in some communities most affected by renewed fighting.

BENTLEY: And there's other conflicts going on tribally all across the country. There's tribes that have been fighting each other for a millennium, and I don't think they even know all the reasons they're fighting anymore, they've just been doing it forever, so they continue.

The chaplains’ job is to minister to soldiers and their families despite the conflict. They lead churches across South Sudan. But the chaplains have seen much worse than the current situation. And Bentley says they’re not going anywhere.

BENTLEY: They believe in God. They trust in God. And you know, I tell the guys, "guys, we're not all supposed to live long lives. You know, some of us will die in our 70s and 80s, but some of us will go in our 20s and 30s. And you know, a race has a beginning and it has an end, and when the race is over, it's time to go home and be with the Lord." And so the guys are very much committed to laying down their lives if they have to, to protect others.

REICHARD: You can hear an in-depth report on the South Sudanese chaplains tomorrow. That’s when we’re releasing a new episode of Doubletake, hosted by Les Sillars. 

And get a load of this headline: The legendary, castle-dwelling, gun-toting, Bible-quoting military chaplains of the African wilderness. We hope you’ll join us!

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