The good fight

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LES SILLARS, HOST: From WORLD Radio, this is Doubletake. I’m Les Sillars.

We’re working hard on our next full season. It’ll be out this summer and we’re really excited about it. We’ve got some great stories in the works. In the meantime, we decided to bring you an episode that’s ready now.

A quick warning: this episode contains brief accounts of war violence. It’s probably not for small kids.

SOUND: [AK-47 fire]

Does what you believe affect how you live? Most people would say, yeah, of course.

SOUND: [AK-47 fire]

So it makes sense, then, that you can tell what you believe by how you live. Not just what you say you believe, but what you actually believe.

SOUND: [AK-47 fire]

It was only 8 a.m, and already bullets were ripping through the air over Peter Akesh’s head. He was the chaplain for a contingent of Christian soldiers from southern Sudan.

PETER AKESH: I became a chaplain in 1999. In June.

Unlike the chaplains in most militaries, he was armed. His unit was trying to recapture a base that had been taken by rival troops from the north. Mostly Arab Muslims.

This was many years ago, somewhere in what is now South Sudan. It’s actually a little tricky trying to nail Akesh down on things like dates and locations. In Africa these kinds of details are less important. But Akesh remembers it very clearly.

Anyway, the order was simple enough. Capture the base. The problem? The Arabs had two tanks and the South Sudanese just one. Outgunned, the unit hunkered down for another long day of fighting. But Akesh was not worried. He was the chaplain, and he had prayed. Naturally, he began to sing.

SOUND: [Peter singing]

His song floated over the gunfire.

He figured that if he sang, his Lord could not ignore their situation. Suddenly Akesh stood up and started to dance. In the middle of the battle. If Jesus can command the wind and the rain, can’t he also command the bullet’s path?

AKESH: Jesus can command, “Those are mine, bullet!” And the bullet will obey the voice of the Lord.

And then he leapt toward the enemy lines. Holding a little wooden cross he always carries and screaming at the top of his lungs. Akesh rushed onto the base. Somehow he wasn’t shot.

His boldness rallied the troops. Everyone followed crazy Pete’s lead. As they rushed forward, the anti-tank and antipersonnel mines scattered around the base failed to trigger. By the end of the day, the South Sudanese contingent had recaptured the base and one enemy tank. The other tank they destroyed.

Akesh is just one of hundreds of military chaplains trained by a group called Far Reaching Ministries. A former American Marine named Wes Bentley founded the organization almost 30 years ago. I first heard about these armed South Sudanese chaplains from Clay Ramirez. He’s one of my former journalism students at Patrick Henry College.

The stories Clay told were amazing. So last winter we sent him to South Sudan to meet some of these chaplains. Really, I wanted to know–were these guys for real?

Just to be clear: We’re talking about South Sudan. Not Sudan. South Sudan became its own country in 2011. That followed decades of violence between the Muslim government and militia in the northern half of the country and the mostly Christian groups in the south.

Sudan has been in the news a lot lately. It plunged into chaos in April 2023 when a power struggle between the military and the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces exploded. There were mass killings and rapes, and ethnically motivated violence. From the BBC.

BBC: The World Health Organization says it’s received reports that more than 450 civilians have been killed in a hospital in the Sudanese city of El-Fashar …

The current war has killed more than 40,000 people, according to United Nations figures. It’s the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. Over 14 million people have been displaced while disease and famine are spreading.

A bit of that chaos is leaking over the border into South Sudan. That’s where Clay went. He wanted to interview military chaplains who are serving in South Sudan’s military. It’s calmer there, but a long way from peaceful and in the last year the situation has been deteriorating.

So today, a story about–and this is going to sound weird– pastor-warriors. They’re called chaplains. But they’re not like chaplains in Western militaries. These guys are ready to rush into battle. They take “fight the good fight” to a whole new level. They preach the gospel while protecting the vulnerable. And in facing death, they find life.

Here’s Clay.

CLAY RAMIREZ: I’d heard about these chaplains growing up as a missionary kid in Kenya. Bumping along in the back of a crowded van in South Sudan, I couldn’t be more excited. I was going to meet the legendary, castle-dwelling, gun-toting chaplains of the African wilderness.

Our caravan had just crossed the dusty Ugandan border into South Sudan, driving through a national park full of wild animals. They told us this base would stick out. But by the time we arrived in the city of Nimule I’d seen nothing remarkable. The roads, more pothole than street, were lined with murky water and run-down shops. Even the hotels were little metal shacks.

As I looked out at the poverty, part of me wondered if the stories about the chaplains were, well, exaggerated. I was on a mission of my own. I needed to find out if these stories are true. And what compels these men to sing and dance through brutal civil wars?

Either way, I was about to meet the men I had heard so much about.

SOUND: [Chaplain greeting at castle arrival]

Suddenly, our car was surrounded by women ululating and singing worship songs in Juba Arabic. As we moved forward, a massive castle came into view. Its blue two-story high stone walls towered over the shacks that surrounded it. As we approached the castle gates, we began to hear the deep voices of the chaplains.

Some men ran along with the van. Hundreds of others lined up along the castle wall, singing, waving, and dancing. All the chaplains who could make it had returned to the castle at Nimule for a training conference.

Their celebration was in part for me and the American pastors. But they were most excited to see Wes Bentley. He was finally coming back to the base after two whole years.

Inside the walled castle, the celebration continued to ramp up. We were surrounded as we exited the vehicles. Men were eagerly hugging us, shaking our hands, and inviting us deeper into the crowd.

A lot of these men were really tall. The Dinka tribe of South Sudan is the second-tallest people in the world, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise. I’m six feet, and they towered over me.

Some were young and others old. Some were bearded, others clean shaven. Almost all were thin yet muscular and dressed in military uniforms. While some were more stoic than others, all were clearly excited for this week of Bible teaching and relaxation.

That night, they celebrated with song and dance.

Bonfires lit up the castle courtyard as the men bunched off into groups. There were two crocodiles in the corner. The older men lounged in chairs while others danced and played soccer. They looked joyful, even boyish. It was hard to see them as warriors.

BENTLEY: When I go, I go fully armed. I take about three vehicles, you know, 20 machine guns, and you know, we are ready for war …

Wes Bentley has a pastor’s heart but he thinks like a Marine.

In 1998 Bentley was providing security for missionaries in Sudan. They needed it. They were serving amid one of the world’s longest-running conflicts, and it was nasty.

Here’s the background:

Northern Sudan is mostly Arab and Muslim. Southern Sudan is mostly black and Christian. Tensions between the two date back to the 1950s. After gaining its independence from the British Empire, Sudan’s ethnic and religious divides bubbled to the surface. News media often painted the conflict as an ethnic battle for control of grazing land and oil fields. But it was clearly driven by Muslim attempts to impose Islam on Christians in the South. In 1983 a vicious civil war broke out.

That conflict lasted until a 2005 peace agreement. In 2011, those in the south officially formed their own country, South Sudan. From the BBC:

BBC: … The party has begun. They’ve come out with their South Sudan flags. There’s an air of jubilation in Juba. People banging homemade drums to celebrate the independence of South Sudan …

Chaplain Peter Akesh remembers the war, though. While it raged, the southern Sudanese people deeply resented–no, they hated the Arabs.

AKESH: They can spit into your eye and tell you, slave!

He said, “They can spit into your eye and tell you, slave!” He told me that kind of treatment made him annoyed. So when the revolution started, he went to get his gun and go fight.

Many Sudanese, including the chaplains, grew up surrounded by air raids and death. Amid the chaos in the mid 1990s, Bentley would patrol the area, making sure the missionaries could continue their work without worrying about the rebels or other militants.

Both sides were stuck in a vicious cycle. The North would brutalize the South, and the South would return in kind. One day a Sudanese soldier walked into Bentley’s camp.

BENTLEY: Before he said anything to me, I could tell this guy was a killer. I could see in his face. And he said, “I need to talk to you because I've done something in my life. I can’t live with it.” What did you do? And he said, “First of all,” he goes, “I want, you know, the Islamic Army killed my entire family. They wiped everybody out. My mother, my father, my brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, he said. I have no relatives. I'm the last of my family.”

He goes, “But I did something I shouldn't have done,” I said, “What did you do?” He said, “We recaptured a village from the Islamic north, and when we did, I captured a pregnant Islamic woman.”

The woman was pregnant with twins. The soldier said he cut them out of her with a bayonet. And then shot the woman.

BENTLEY: And of course, it was quite shocking to hear. And I had to think for a moment. I said all I can tell you is that Jesus Christ offers forgiveness in hope. And he said, Will you come and share with my soldiers? And I said yes.

That was the beginning. Bentley realized then that the only way to stop this war was if these men were taught a better way. He started by sharing Christ with the soldier and his platoon. Then Bentley established the chaplaincy school. The idea was to teach the Sudanese army and people how to win the spiritual battle as well as the physical war.

In 1998 Bentley started Far-Reaching Ministries, or FRM. Today it works in dozens of countries, and includes a variety of relief efforts. But its chaplain training program is focused in South Sudan from this castle base in Nimule.

Training in the chaplaincy school is pretty brutal.

BENTLEY: It's a very intense school. Get the guys at five o'clock in the morning, right, Monday through Friday. We run them anywhere from three to nine miles a day, and then they get two meals a day. …

Rice and beans.

BENTLEY:… And the reason we do that is because if we don't train them hard, they won't survive. South Sudan army doesn't feed their soldiers. When you go to the front line, you have to hunt, you have to cultivate, and if you give them too much, then they'll get up there and they're too used to having a lot of food, and they just don't survive.

After training, they have hours of Bible class time, followed by two hours of study time. They also learn practical ministry, including home visitations, evangelism, and church work.

And they learn to fight.

BENTLEY: And we have a reputation as being a very hard fighting force.

The South Sudanese military deploys the chaplains with units spread around the country. Their main task is to pastor various congregations throughout South Sudan. To share the gospel with troops and their families. But they’re also there to protect the innocent. Bentley says that criminals and various armed factions make South Sudan a very dangerous place. So the chaplains go fully armed.

BENTLEY: You know we're not there to be soldiers. I went there to be a pastor, but the rebels started coming down and killing all the women and children. …

Bentley says that “turning the other cheek” does not mean you let people murder your family. He says the verse is talking about enduring offense for the sake of the Gospel.

BENTLEY: … So when that happened, I realized that we needed to train these men to be able to defend those who cannot defend themselves and protect those who cannot protect themselves.

Over the next week, I spoke with dozens of chaplains and heard some incredible stories. Lino Manyuol was one of the first chaplains I met.

MANYOUL: [Laughs] People become very happy about me.

Lino is a tall, dark man in his 50s with a soft voice. He moves slowly but with purpose. He never seemed to break his easygoing demeanor but he still commanded respect from the other chaplains.

For Lino, fighting makes the most sense even for Christians.

MANYOUL: Why you are carrying gun is for your protection. You have your gun and your Bible. When you fell into ambush you can put to defend yourself. To defend yourself and your people. I come to you and I say I am going to kill your father and your brother your children, are you going to allow it?

RAMIREZ: No.

MANYOUL: Yes, that is what we are doing. We defend our country, we defend our people, we defend our wife and our children. When enemies come you defend yourselves. When you caught them you preach to them. That is what we do.

Lino said, “When the enemies come you defend yourselves, when you capture an enemy, you preach to them.”

Lino had shot and killed a lion when he was a kid. And about ten years ago, he fought off four armed thieves who were trying to break into a guest house. And during the Sudanese civil war, he had been shot in the head.

MANYOUL: They wound me my head, and they wound me hand, and my leg.
RAMIREZ: They shot you in the head?
MANYOUL: Yes. He, he, yeah, but God is good.
RAMIREZ: Where? How?

He showed me a scar on his temple.

His nonchalance caught me off guard. Lino was not boasting but simply relaying a fact. Most of the chaplains I talked to were like this. As calmly as if telling me what they’d done last Tuesday, they’d describe being shot, stabbed, or blown up. They had gone through the trenches of war and were still smiling and dancing.

I didn’t understand it.

One of the first nights, I found a part of my answer. I was asking around for crazy war stories, and they pointed me to Senior Chaplain William Tong. He had been shot 18 times, they said.

RAMIREZ: 18 bullets in your body?
WILLIAM TONG: Yes…
RAMIREZ: Ok, how did that happen?

Tong received his first injury when he was just 14 years old in 1986. Many of the chaplains I talked to had joined the military when they were children. Tong sustained his eighteenth bullet wound well after the end of the war in 2005.

TONG: The metal are still inside now …

Many of the bullets are still inside him.

I asked Tong if he had ever been scared he was going to die. After thinking for a bit, he said there were a few times, but nothing stood out.

I learned later that he had been cut open and left for dead. When I asked Tong about this, he said he must have forgotten.

And I believed him.

Later he told me the story. Back in 1992, the South Sudanese military was fighting to take back the city of Juba, South Sudan’s current capital. Tong was supposed to spy out the location of the enemy’s mortar launchers. Tong and a team climbed a hill and camped out on top of it. Behind enemy lines.

TONG: Our shelling was very effective, the Arab become annoyed for three consecutive days. They send troops outside. They knew we were on top of Mount Magic. They knew.

So the Arab forces attacked. At first, the high ground gave Tong’s unit the advantage. However, the enemy soon realized that Tong’s company had limited resources. So, they waited them out.

After seven days of small skirmishes, Tong and his men ran out of ammo. Their food was long gone by then. They were surviving on leaves and water.

TONG: What we did we gather all the stones, this was a big stone we gathered, like three or four big one. When they came near the mountain, we kick all the stones at one.

He said they tried to fight back by throwing and rolling stones down the hill at them. But it was no match.

After reaching the top, the Arabs killed most of the men in Tong’s unit and mutilated others. They captured Tong and offered to spare his life if he would help them intercept South Sudanese radio messages. He refused. So they tied him to a tree, arms behind his back, and cut his torso open with a bayonet.

TONG: I did not even feel any pain because we have several days of no food or water so I was not feeling pain. I just heard something making a *crunch noise* there.

They left him for dead after he fainted. When he woke up, he managed to free himself and then walk a few days to the next village to get help. He took a month to recover, then returned to his unit.

Tong showed me his scar stretching from his lower abdomen up to his chest. He now makes do with one lung. As Tong told his story, I realized this was one I’d heard as a kid. It hadn’t been exaggerated. It had been undersold.

When I had first asked Tong if he had ever been scared he would die, he seemed confused.

TONG: We will not worry you know from the very beginning you are going to the war you know that from the very beginning it is off and on. Its is a game, either you or him. That is why we leave it to the Lord… You will be killed or kill.

For Tong and all the chaplains I spoke with, it was kill or be killed.

It was a simple calculation for chaplain Lino.

MANYOUL: You know, in the military when they train you, you train you are going to die, or some people enemy come they are going to die also. You are going to win or you are going to lose …

That’s just how it is. When one of your friends dies next to you in battle …

MANYOUL: When your brother, your friend dies, OK, you are going to make your friend like a, like a fence.

… you turn him into a fence. A barrier. To stop the bullets from reaching you.

MANYOUL: You know when someone died and you put in your friend in the front of you here, the bullet cannot get you. You hide yourself like a shield, and you fight.

SOUND: [Cow slaughter]

On my second day in Nimule we rushed out of the chapel to see men tying up a cow. By the time the chaplains had wrestled the cow down to the ground, a crowd had gathered. Not, of course, to see the killing itself.

This meant that we were having meat for lunch. One of the American pastors covered his coffee as a blood mist sprayed into the air.

AUDIO: Sir? I’ve never done a cow before …

It reminded me how death surrounds these men. How does anyone live like this?

As I talked to them, I realized their ambivalence toward death did not end in apathy. War had certainly hardened them, but it also trained them to be men of faith. Peter Akesh remembers being blown up.

AKESH: So the shrapnel of that bomb fell into us.

Even before he was a chaplain, Akesh had been an Anglican evangelist for the military. During one battle, a stray grenade caught on a tree branch, falling and exploding right in front of him. Shrapnel sprayed in every direction. It wounded his wrist and ripped through his military uniform.

But then he took off his uniform and realized that the shrapnel that WOULD have wounded him in the stomach had stopped at the Anglican clerical garments he wore underneath.

AKESH: The shrapnel come out with the garment of the collar.

One of the soldiers said, “It’s a good thing your clerical garments are bulletproof!” Akesh agreed.

AKESH: And I tell them, Yeah!

He was doing the Lord’s work. So he was bullet proof. After that, all the soldiers with Akesh wanted Bibles.

Wes Bentley has been collecting these kinds of stories for years.

WES BENTLEY: We have one chaplain. He's considered the best shot in his unit, and he was out washing in a river or something like that. …

This was years ago.

BENTLEY: … and all of a sudden he heard gunfire, and so he starts running back towards his base. Well, one of the enemy units had come in, and they had hit the base, killed several people, grabbed some children, grabbed some women, and took off, and they got hit by two or 300 soldiers, like I said, I'd have to reread it to remember. And this one chaplain said, We've got to pursue them. And they said, Well, you know, they got, you know, 2-300 guys. We got 30 guys. And he goes, we've got to do it. So they pursued them.

And what will happen to those women at night? You know, they'll make them cook for them, and then they'll start raping them, and the children will be made child soldiers. Well, they caught up to them in the evening, just as they were getting ready to eat, and they hit them with all all 30 men hit, hit the force at once, and and they killed quite a few. And a bunch of them ran off, and the rest of them surrendered. And they caught some officers and some generals doing this time. So they freed all their people and they sent them back. But this guy, this chaplain, said, Let's not stop here. And they went to the next unit and did the same. And another one and another one, they hit like four different bases, and news went out to the to the rebels that a large force of South Sudani soldiers had invaded the area. And so they took their, whatever it was, a division, and they pulled out of the area. It was like 16,000 soldiers left, and they were only attacked by 30 guys. And this is we see a lot of this over there, this faith in these guys. They believe in God, they trust in God.

Lino recalls one battle in 1991. The firefight had lasted through the night when the enemy started dropping bombs on them. One exploded right on Lino’s position. All of his fellow soldiers were convinced he must be dead. But he wasn’t there anymore. All Lino remembers is being suddenly aware that he was somewhere else. Somewhere far from the blast. Like he was teleported.

MANYOUL: The bomb came, wanting to hit me and something took me and put me there.

When Lino walked into base later that night, his buddies were astounded.

MANYOUL: It was God that protect me.

Convinced they are doing God’s work, the chaplains feel that they have supernatural protection. So they preach.

MANYOUL: Yeah, we are preaching.
RAMIREZ: While the bullets are flying?
MANYOUL: Yeah! We pray, and we go. Even bullets are coming, we pray, and we go.
RAMIREZ : People are shooting and you talk to them?
MANYOUL: Yeah, we talk with them.

Lino explained how the chaplains can have such calm in the middle of chaos.

MANYOUL: It is God that can protect you, when bullet getting you it can getting you, when it never gets you, you say thank you God for what you have done to me.

I realized these men weren’t just not scared of dying. They live expecting miracles.

Oh, I thought, so that’s how they do it.

SOUND: [Chaplains worship - training]

Here, I realized, were seemingly fearless warriors. Armed, equipped with military training, and, as far as they are concerned, invincible as long as God was using them. For the uninitiated, that’s called power.

So what do the chaplains do with all this power?

Preach the gospel. Defend the weak. And help their countrymen forgive and move on from their war-torn past.

RICHARD LOGRANBENSON: I will continue working I will continue, I will make sure my people knows Christ.

For his devotion to Christ, Chaplain Richard Logranbenson had been shot at a few months before I talked to him. I thought of him as “Richard the Massive” because he’s a little over five feet tall amongst some of the tallest people on the planet .

His smiling demeanor and thin build make him anything but imposing. But what he lacks in height, he makes up for in courage.

Hearing that a rebel group was looting an area near him, Richard went to confront them.

LOGRANBENSON: I said, you guys! You are not allowed to touch your people!

These were South Sudanese who had rebelled against the government in Juba.

LOGRANBENSON: One of the captains said, let them shoot me, let me be killed.

One of the rebels came over. Pulled out his gun and fired several shots at Richard.

LOGRANBENSON: The bullet missed me.

He missed. So he reloaded and tried again. This time the gun jammed.

LOGRANBENSON: It is stuck! The bullet refused to go.

The rebel dropped his gun and ran away.

Richard explained that at first, the chaplains and the South Sudanese had fought with guns to liberate their people. But now, things have changed. They’re less often in the middle of firefights.

LOGRANBENSON: But now there is a war of preaching the word of God against ...

He said, “There is a war of preaching the word of God against Satan.”

I got to witness a different example of this battle when I went out with some chaplains and an American pastor to the surrounding city.

I watched as an American pastor gave an altar call to a group of around 12 women, many more children, and a few men. They were circled by huts and sitting in the dirt.

The pastor was ecstatic when almost all the women came forward and began kneeling with folded hands. They were waiting to be led in the sinner's prayer. As the pastor began to pray through a translator, one of the women fell to the floor, thrashing violently. The pastor stopped. What’s going on? he asked. But the chaplains reprimanded him and told him to continue the prayer. As he prayed, a few of the chaplains calmly lifted the women out of the circle and laid her down a few feet away. They prayed against what they believed was a demon in her.

By the time the American pastor finished his prayer, the woman was sitting up and speaking coherently.

I could tell the pastor was taken aback. I certainly was. But the other chaplains barely noticed the incident.

EMMANUEL DICHIEK: I have been a soldier for something like … 18 years.

Emmanuel Dichiek is 28. He’s served with the chaplaincy corps for just under a decade. Dichieck also oversees various congregations all over Sudan.

To this day he feels as if the Northern Arabs had taken everything from him.

DICHIEK: Before that time, my father was a soldier, and at that time, he was killed by Arab Muslims. South Sudan and those of Khartoum were fighting … And my mother also dead.

He hated them.

DICHIEK: Muslims are my enemy Because they killed my father, my uncles, and many peoples.

But once he became a Christian and joined the Chaplaincy Corps, he began to see things differently.

DICHIEK: I try to forgive them. But when I see my life now, a life without family. It is very pain in my heart to forgive the Muslim. Yeah…

Tears seemed to well up in his eyes.

DICHIEK: But I need to forgive … but for the sake of the gospel, I can forgive them. By the Word of God.

They took me to a second castle. Hours South of Nimule, across the border in Uganda. Its walls keep enemies out, but it invites in all those who are peaceful. It’s a type of boarding school where many of the chaplains send their children.

It seems like a kind of promised land nestled in the back country of the lush Ugandan countryside. It’s what the chaplains are fighting to create in South Sudan.

They see themselves in the plight of Israel. They too are a war-torn nation. Surrounded by enemies. Struggling to survive. And looking for the promised land.

And they’re even in the Bible. Peter Akesh pointed out what the Bible refers to as the land of Kush is today’s Sudan.

AKESH: God says that Israel and Kush are people, are my people. God say like that in the Bible, God talk about Kush more than 40 time in the Bible.

And the chaplains liken themselves to David’s mighty men of valor. They’re fighting for their country, and doing it for the God of Israel. For Christ.

DICHIEK: I am a young David in Africa bro.

Chaplain Emanuel, not Dichieck, told me how like David he was transformed from a bloodthirsty soldier into a worship leader.

DICHIEK: I play guitar like David. When they come in the time of war I fight in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He said, I play guitar like David. When they come in the time of war I fight in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Emanuel says that he doesn’t want Muslims to use his people the way the Egyptians used the children of Israel

DICHIEK: I don’t want Islam to come use our people like they would use the children of Israel in Egypt, the same thing they are doing to us.

Here’s Peter Akesh again.

AKESH: It is my time to fight, to liberate my people from the physical and spiritual enemy.

He said: It was his time to liberate his people from the physical and spiritual enemy.

AKESH: And I am going to beat them all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ because all powers are given to us by Jesus Christ.

Akesh says he’ll retire when he is physically unable to go out on the field.

RAMIREZ: You said when you get old. How old are you?
AKESH: Now I am 58 years.
RAMIREZ: 58 years.
AKESH: Yes. If God increases my days, I have the morale to serve.

He said, If God increases his days, he has the morale to serve.

SOUND: [Chaplains singing “Jesus Loves Me”]

Out of 560 or so chaplains Far Reaching Ministries has trained in the last 25 years, 78 have lost their lives in service to date. There’s no turning back. That’s what they believe.

SILLARS: Clay Ramirez went to Sudan to report this story just over a year ago. So we decided to call up Wes Bentley and see what’s been happening since then in South Sudan.

BENTLEY: Well, it's pretty much been the same for almost the last 10 years. Generally, there's insecurity.

South Sudan is a mess. A U.N report from December said the country was staggering toward another civil war.

South Sudan’s first civil war broke out in 2013 between its two main rival ethnic groups, the Dinka and the Nuer. That was two years after they won independence from Sudan. That civil war lasted until 2018 when the two groups came to a power sharing agreement. The Dinka got the presidency and the Nuer got the vice presidency. But Wes Bentley says you could tell that deal has been falling apart for a while now.

BENTLEY: about probably two years ago, 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.

Now the Nuer vice president is on trial for treason and murder. The Dinka president’s 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 seated 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. report says there are pockets of famine in some communities most affected by renewed fighting.

Through it all, though, the chaplains are sticking it out. In fact, most of them have lived through much worse.

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 that they have to, to protect others.

Clay Ramirez reported and wrote this story. I edited and produced it. I’m Les Sillars.

Please don’t forget to rate and review Doubletake on your podcast app, and we’d love to hear from you. Write to us at editor@wng.org. That’s editor@wng.org And if you enjoyed this episode, the best way to help ensure that we’re able to tell more stories like this is to share it with someone. Thanks!

We’ve got one more episode coming out soon. It’s by WORLD reporter Grace Snell, and it’s really good. After that, we’ll continue working on our next full season of Doubletake. Watch for it–it’s coming this summer.

We’ll see you next time.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.