People have asked us if we are reaching any Muslims with the Good News? Read the story and be amazed with us…

Recently at a military base near the Congo border, in a location remote even for South Sudan standards of remoteness, 1,200 people, mainly soldiers, prayed to receive Christ. One of our ministers, an HIV/Aids awareness officer in the SPLA, said “It was an area where because of a water shortage we could not baptize the converts. But 60 of them were Muslim men and we were really determined to at least baptize them, so we began baptizing and somehow baptized 52 of them before we completely ran out of water.” It is because of you that we can share testimonies like this!

I want to ask all of you to make South Sudan a part of your regular prayers and to ask your churches and prayer groups to be praying for this new nation. They face tremendous challenges as they attempt to develop a fully functioning nation. Challenges include: corruption, a lack of systems and experience, few jobs, women still treated with great inequity and an impending AIDS epidemic. The radical Islamic government of Northern Sudan according to some experts is on the verge of a military take over that will make it even more radical. Reports say that genocide is underway in the Nuba Mountains and there is unrest all along the north south border. That’s a lot to pray for, but prayer is greatly needed!

God is at work through Hope For The Future, and I am still amazed when I think that over 130,000 people have prayed to receive Christ since the signing of the Peace Accords. We are now hoping to expand our ministry into some of the larger communities. We are planning to start church planting in Bor sometime in 2012 and we are praying and preparing to move into other large communities. We are hoping that you can help us with these outreaches.

Steve Thompson, senior pastor of Victory Foursquare Church and a Hope for the Future board members is going to get more directly involved in the ministry for a season. We are excited to see greater involvement as Steve has been a part of the ministry from the beginning and has been a great blessing to us. Aaron Thompson, pastor of New Life church is joining the board and coming again with us to Sudan in early October ministering to our leaders. I am expecting that God is going to use this team in some special ways to reach the harvest and raise up leaders.

We are asking for your financial help in putting on a pastors and leaders conference in early October, and give our emerging leaders the ability to reach out in church planting efforts in new areas, especially to new people groups, the youth and Muslim populations this Fall in the brand new nation of South Sudan. As you are probably very aware, due to the economy people are cutting back on optional spending and giving, we need your help now more than ever.

Some items beyond our normal budget that we need immediate help with include: increasing ministry to Muslims in the military, clearing a van through South Sudan customs to be used in transporting ministry teams, helping a hospitalized pastor, and preparing for an upcoming leadership development training event, and an advanced training event for children’s workers. There is a growing crisis in the region because in many cases food and fuel prices have doubled in the last few months. If you have not given to this ministry before please we could use your help. Thank you to our faithful donors for your continued support, please consider helping meet one of these extra needs.

Partner with us as we are nation building—raising up hope and godly leaders!

In the Harvest,

Louise

The signing of the Peace Accords in 2005, between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army, that would end 25 years of fighting, was fast approaching and we were praying about what our future role in Southern Sudan should be after peace comes. We felt like God gave us a goal of leading 100,000 Southern Sudanese people to Christ between the implementing of the Peace Accords and the Referendum of separation. At the time it seemed like an impossible task for our small ministry. We did not base this goal on what we thought we had the ability and resources to achieve, but on what we felt we were hearing from God.

Celebrate with us. We are extremely blessed to be able to announce what God has done; between the signing of the peace in 2005 and now Hope for the Future has witnessed over 100,000 people pray to surrender their lives to Christ. We have had many partners along the way from our team of westerners and Ugandans who have done so much hard work to make it happen, to all our individual donors, churches and organizations who have generously given to make it possible, and to those who have prayed that God would protect, provide and guide us in all we do.

We are so blessed to have a wonderful corps of Sudanese leaders working with us most of who came to know the Lord through the ministry of Hope For The Future. These people have worked tirelessly in crusades and school evangelism. We also have a dedicated group of Ugandans who serve beside us as missionaries to the nation of Southern Sudan. With out these wonderful people we certainly would never have achieved this milestone!

Hope For The Future, its founders, board of directors and staff are deeply grateful to everyone who has helped make it possible to hear 130,412 voices pray aloud to ask Jesus to forgive their sins and become their Savior and Lord, and find freedom in Christ!

God has given us a fresh vision and again it is totally impossible to achieve unless God makes the way. Our goal, by the grace and enabling of God, is to plant 1,000 churches and see 500,000 people make decisions for Christ by 2020 in this region. Please pray for the Hope For the Future team as they reach out more in Southern Sudan—the newest nation on earth!

In the coming year we hope to impact places such as Bor, Torit, Kapoeta and Rumbek. Please consider helping us, each outreach costs thousands of dollars. Our teams are primed and ready to go; you really can make a difference.

Along the way God has given us ten core ministries, and at this point we do some of these better than others. We are asking God for the funding and wisdom to do them all with excellence. They are: 1. Church Planting, 2. Jesus Film Outreaches, 3. School Assemblies, 4. Leadership Development, 5. Children’s Ministry, 6. Meeting Basic Human Needs, 7. HIV/AIDS Awareness, 8. Women’s Justice Issues,  9. Short Term Teams and 10. Clean Water. Our passion is to take the love of the Father into the world’s most broken places.

We’re asking for your continued partnership to reach these new goals. You can give now by scrolling to the top of this page, click on give, and then follow the directions.  You can use a visa or master-card credit or debit card. You can also send a check to Hope For The Future, PO Box 755, Anacortes WA 98221

Thank you for your support, we can only do this ministry as you partner with us.

The Board of Directors
Hope For The Future International

He was running as fast as his nine year old legs could carry him. He could hear the gunfire. He was sure there was a soldier right behind him about to grab his shoulder but was afraid to look back. He just kept running until his legs would no longer move. Hiding in the bushes, his heart was pounding so loud that he was afraid one of the invaders would hear him and shoot him like he had seen them do to others. It all happened so quickly it seemed that no one else in his family had made it out of the village. He was all alone.

It was 1998; the civil war in Sudan was still going strong, the rebel forces, the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army, were not doing well, things looked bleak. It was our first time into Southern Sudan. We were going in under the protection of the SPLA, armed guards were with us every where we went. On our way in we had to pull our land cruiser under a huge mango tree to evade detection by the Russian made Antinov bomber that was flying overhead looking for targets of opportunity to terrorize the civilian population. That experience plus the remains of battles and twisted carcasses of vehicles blown up by land mines was a stark reminder that we were in an active war zone. As it turned out, because of the war, we were the first Evangelicals to come to that area for many years. And as it happened, we were there on the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted which was focusing on Sudan that year. Sunday afternoon we called a meeting of all the church leaders in the area to tell them about the event and that on this very day Christians from all over the world were focusing their prayers on Sudan. While we were talking it began to dawn on these people that they were not forgotten, that other believers knew about their plight, and cared. As this reality sunk in they began to weep, I think it was the emotional relief, knowing that they were not alone. Soon we were all weeping together, it was good!

We were there to do an “encouragement conference” for church leaders from all denominations. There were mainly Anglicans and Pentecostals and a few Catholics. Ray Barnett, the founder of the African Children’s Choir had asked us if we would find a way to strengthen these beleaguered believers.

As different members of the team were speaking, we all kept noticing this tall young man from the Dinka tribe sitting in the back, looking very bored and completely disinterested. But no one seemed to get the opportunity to engage him. Soon it was time for us to return home. We had a great time with the people there. Southern Sudan had captured our hearts. From that first encounter Hope For The Future, a ministry committed to taking the love of the Father into the worlds most broken places, was born. In less than a year we where back leading another “encouragement conference” for Christian leaders.

This time the young man that we had noticed the time before seemed to have a completely different attitude, he was enthusiastic and involved — he even wanted to interpret for us. We all said, “We have to find out why this young guy is so different this time.” It was part of an amazing story about the boy who would not die….

His name is Garang Daniel,(last names come first in Sudan) and the first time we saw him he wasn’t bored— he was extremely ill and had been told that he had a parasite would kill him if he didn’t get medical treatment for it. The problem was that no medicine was available in Southern Sudan. It had been suggested he go to Uganda to obtain the needed care but, in his mind, they might as well have told him to go to America. Garang decided his only hope was to turn to God. So, during that first conference he had asked someone (we are not sure who, we all prayed for so many people) to pray for his sickness, and he was healed. At that conference Garang also gained an understanding of sinfulness and salvation and had surrendered his life to Christ. Garang Daniel indeed was a new person on our second visit to Southern Sudan.

Daniel’s story continued, God connected our hearts and he became a spiritual son to us. He interpreted for all our meetings. There was a displaced persons camp near where we were ministering that at one point during the war had 27,000 Dinkas living in it. Daniel was the first convert impacted by our ministry there. (The Dinka, a tribe of very tall, lean people suffered so much during the war. Traditionally, nomadic cattle herders, many lost their entire herds to the war. They have a reputation for being fierce warriors, John Gerang founder of the SPLA was from the Dinka tribe. Hundreds of thousands were displaced from their home areas or killed, it is fair to say that they were probably the backbone of the fighting force during the war and lost the most.)

When the war ripped through Daniel’s village his family ran in all directions, it seemed that he was the only survivor. In an instant he became a homeless orphan. At the age of 9 the boy who narrowly escaped his war-ravaged village, ended up as one of the “lost boys” of Sudan who walked all the way from Bor to Ethiopia with wild animals following along picking off the ones who fell behind. They were turned out of Ethiopia and ended up in Kenya. Finally he was transferred to a camp filled with people from his home area. It was in Sudan, near the Ugandan border, over 100 miles south of his village. While at the camp he was sent to a nearby SPLA training base where he became one of thousands of boy soldiers helping to fight the war against the radical Islamic government of the North.

When we met him he was around 20 years old. It was exciting to watch and impact his spiritual and emotional growth for those first few years. We got him sponsored in a teachers’ training college, after he graduated from there we sponsored him in a Bible College in Uganda. He worked as a part of our ministry team for a couple of years after Bible College.

Following the signing of the Peace Accords in 2005 like many other Sudanese he began feeling drawn back to his home area. One day he received word that some of his family had survived that raid on his village so many years before. That was the final push needed to get him to return to his home. He headed back to Bor to a reunion with his family, almost all of them, as it turned out, had survived. He was not an orphan after all!

It is very difficult for a Christian young man to find a wife in Southern Sudan. The non-Christians just begin living together, and never actually get married, because it is impossible for most young people to meet the dowry demands. Daniel found a young woman in the camp. They very much wanted to marry. Unfortunately a majority of Southern Sudan parents see the marriage of their daughters as primarily a financial opportunity. The mother of Daniel’s young friend gave her to an old man who had many cows to trade for her. Disappointed he went another five years as a single man. But God, in time, gave him a beautiful young wife, and now he is also the father of a lovely baby daughter.

Two years ago Daniel was on his way to attend one of our conferences when tragedy struck. He was on a night time ferry crossing of the Nile when a smoker thru his cigarette down, it landed in leaking fuel. Fire quickly engulfed the ferry and it began sinking. With flames lapping all around him, Daniel who does not know how to swim, thought he was going to die. He cried out, “Jesus, here I come” and jumped into the darkness of the crocodile dotted river expecting to drown. Miraculously he ended up on the shore where he spent the night. He is not sure how he got to the river’s bank, many others lost their lives. God sovereignly spared Daniel again after living through that night of terror on the Nile.

Daniel has continued to represent Hope For The Future’s ministry in Bor. He has led over 1,000 students to Christ in the last year doing school evangelism. He contacted us a few weeks ago anxious to come see us with his wife and new baby. But there was also another reason he wanted to see us in person; as we visited he told us his vision to start planting churches in Bor, and was hoping we would come there to help him plant our first church in Jongoli state. We are excited to go and see what God will do in Bor! We are also anticipating how God is going to use Daniel in the future; in his young life Daniel has had so many brushes with death, yet it seems that God has spared him for a purpose!

Our goal by the grace and enabling of God, is to plant 1,000 churches and see 500,000 people make decisions for Christ by 2020.
Give now by scrolling to the top of this page, click on give, and then follow the directions. You can use a visa or master-card credit or debit card. You can also send a check to Hope For The Future, PO Box 755, Anacortes WA 98221

Our Core Ministries: 1. Church Planting 2. Jesus Film Outreaches 3. School Assemblies
4. Leadership Development 5. Children’s Ministry 6. Meeting Basic Human Needs
7. HIV/AIDS Awareness 8. Women’s Justice Issues 9. Short Term Teams 10. Clean Water

Thanks
Gary Short

From boy soldier to emerging leader

“Joy To The World!”—The people of Southern Sudan are hearing this message for the first time. We are thankful for the prayer and financial support that you have given to Hope For The Future that allows us to carry this great anthem to these hurting people. Without you we would not be able to do what we have been doing in Southern Sudan since 1998.

This is a critical time for Southern Sudan. The Referendum Vote in which the people of Southern Sudan will decide whether to remain united with the Arab North or secede to form their own fully independent nation takes place on January 9th 2011, just a month from now. We urge you to please pray for a peaceful outcome!

Over the years our Hope For The Future team has focused on 10 core ministries in Southern Sudan:

Our ministry has mingled preaching the Gospel with meeting human needs because we believe the two are intertwined and that you can’t truly preach the Gospel if you are blind to the humanitarian needs of the people around you.

In the five years since the signing of the Peace Accords, we have been privileged to see over 80,000 people pray to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. At the same time we have given out food, clothing, medical attention, eye glasses, worked on women’s and children’s justice issues and distributed over 20,000 pieces of HIV/Aids awareness literature to students and young adults. Thank you for making this possible.

The last two years have been very difficult for nonprofit organizations. We also have struggled to continue doing the things that have blessed so many in Southern Sudan.

Operating safely in this difficult nation continues to be more and more costly. God has called us to continue to do more rather than cutback in the face of rising expenses. In 2011 it is our desire to feed and clothe more children and take the Good News to new and farther out places.

To do this we need your continued partnership. As you consider your end of the year giving we would be honored and blessed if you partner with us in helping children and adults in this broken place that has just this year been labeled the “hungriest nation in Africa”. Your monthly pledge or special offering to Hope For The Future is greatly appreciated, whether large or small. God bless you and your entire family during this Christmas Season and in the New Year.

Please help us impact Southern Sudan, which is most likely to become the ‘newest nation on earth’ with the love of God! Let’s make history together in Sudan!

Joy to the world, Let earth receive her King!

Gary and Louise Short

To give now, click here and then follow the directions. You can use a visa or master-card credit or debit card. You can also send a check to Hope For The Future, PO Box 755, Anacortes WA 98221

HOPE FOR THE FUTURE
“Taking the Love of the Father to the world’s most broken places”
P.O. BOX 755
Anacortes, WA 98221
email: gsprayforsudan@gmail.com
web: PrayForSudan.org

In the first team meeting after the group had arrived at our compound, held to confirm the role of each person, I suggested to Alyssa that she could read a passage of Scripture in any meeting that she desired, and if she felt comfortable doing so, she could give a short exhortation related to it.

After the first time Alyssa shared she in a Sunday service she turned to go back to her seat, I was so impressed with excellent salvation message that she had given, I whispered to her, “Give an altar call.” Without hesitation, she turned back to the audience and made a salvation appeal in which seven people responded. This so emboldened Alyssa that at another meeting, an outdoor crusade, she spoke again with 20 people responding.

Here are Alyssa’s own words. “Coming to the Sudan has been a great experience. I could not have come on my own, the Lord provided the way. I’m so glad I could come, the land and the people are so beautiful, and they have such simple faith in Christ. It was a good first experience as an evangelist; everyone was very interested on what a little muzungu (white person) had to say. I mostly used parables of Jesus when I spoke to the people because the stories were simple and understandable. God was able to use me in many other ways as well such as loving on kids in ways an adult couldn’t do. These people don’t have a lot, but they are more grateful than people in America, who do have a lot; this touches me. I will never forget this beautiful land and people. Someday I hope to come back.” We hope you come back too, Alyssa!

Drive through any little village center in Southern Sudan and you will see a group of men setting around with seemingly nothing to do but socialize, often they have been drinking.  The traditional work of men is to “dig” i.e. tend their garden.  But large numbers of them prefer to dawdle away their days over a pot of home brew, or if they have any money, sipping cold beers at the local bar; a shack with a generator, a refrigerator and a loud boom-box. Men and boys have easy access to alcohol.  The women brew beer because they know they can always sell it; and now cheap Uganda beer is available many places throughout the land. 

 In the past when the Arabs were in charge Sharia law, which forbids drinking, was enforced to a degree in cities, but didn’t have much impact on animistic village life.  The country hasn’t had enough education concerning the devastating effects of unbridled alcohol consumption; so now people of any age can drink anywhere any time of day with little repercussion other than the devastation of the act itself.  Drinking on the job is quite common, even high risk jobs such as truck driving and logging.

 The impact on families is devastating especially for the women who are left to do all the work, keeping a garden, hauling water and fire wood, tending the children and on and on.  The work load of a Sudanese woman is astounding and she has no modern conveniences to help, not even running water.  The social devastation of alcohol is also staggering with violence, incest and often absent fathers.  The cycle of addiction has been passed on, father to sons for generations — it’s how the people expect things to be.

 It seems to me that the high rate of alcoholism among men here is because they are powerless and wounded.  Powerless because there are no jobs and the cultural doesn’t teach them how or even encourage them to be strong loving husbands and fathers.  They are wounded because as much as any country in the world this is a fatherless nation.  Fathers have been fighting a war for 25 years, men regulary desert their familes and men often die young.  It creates a never ending cycle.  Also men are left tramatized by war with no mental health system to help them.  All these things together create an extremely severe alcohol crisis. 

Emmykwa a southern Sudanese Journalist in Juba writes about the growing alcohol problem, “The population of Southern Sudan is so addicted to alcohol forcing them not to go to the school, work, and ending up engaged in sexual intercourse either through force or not knowingly, thus leading to the spread of HIV/AIDS in our communities.” 

 We see the same drunken behavior everywhere we go.  Drunkenness was so pervasive in one village where our team planted a church that they felt like almost every man there was under the influence the first several times they visited. There are always drunks at our public meetings.   Out here, it seems that every denomination and church group  has had to deal with the issue of pastors and leaders relapsing back into drunkenness.  One of the first leaders in this church, I’ll call him Peter, also relapsed back into drinking.  We removed him from his leadership position but continued working with him in hopes of getting him free again and restoring him to God’s calling.  During this time, our Baptist friends were doing a crusade in another town and this man showed up there shouting out in the meeting that he was the pastor of the Safe Harbor church in his village.  The Baptists graciously took him back to their compound, away from the crusade, and their students prayed for him for hours and kept him with them till the next morning.  I was tempted to be embarrassed, but the Lord reminded me that it wasn’t about me but about these men who need freedom.  We are continuing to work with him; he hasn’t completely turned the corner yet.

 There is a lot of talk in Southern Sudan about what to do about the Alcohol problem; one legislator has suggested some laws that deal with drinking age, public drunkenness, and the sell of alcohol, all of which would be good.  Education about the devastating effects of uncontrolled alcohol consumption would certainly help.  Another prominent Sudanese suggest the need to develop counseling programs.  But do these programs work?  “Even the most ardent true believers who will be honest about it recognize that most recovery groups have huge failure rates. Some say that the real success numbers in self help recovery organizations are 3-5%.  A 5% success rate is almost the same rate of spontaneous remission in alcoholics and drug addicts. That is, out of any given group of alcoholics or drug addicts, approximately 5% per year will just wise up, and quit killing themselves.”[i]  That said, I know several people who have stopped drinking and drugging through the help of a 12 step program.  My point is, if recovery program effectiveness is limited in the developed world, it faces even more challenges in a place like Southern Sudan. 

What then is the answer to deal with Southern Sudan’s alcohol problem?  It has certainly been exacerbated by; war trauma and unemployment, but God is bigger than all these things.  We did not go to Sudan with an Alcohol recovery program but God is setting drunks free.  Two of our pastors are former alcoholics and for both of them they got completely set free when they received Christ as their Savior.  On another occasion a young man came into a meeting with trouble on his mind.  Being very drunk, his plan was to disrupt and breakup the service. As he came into the room he reeked of alcohol, alerting a group of young men to his drunken condition. They surrounded him and began praying for him, I know a little unorthodox.  However, as they prayed he completely sobered up, they could no longer even smell alcohol on him. 

Just as in the western world alcohol abuse causes much grief, family abuse, marital failure, poverty, job instability, fighting among young men, indiscriminate sexuality and therefore unwanted pregnancy and HIV/AIDS.  These testimonies of deliverance are a great source of hope to both women and children. And it is certainly a message of hope to those who are bound.  Isn’t God so great and merciful that He would move in a place with no social infrastructure and begin setting alcoholics free.

Our goal by the grace and enabling of God, is to plant 1,000 churches and see 500,000 people make decisions for Christ by 2020.

Give now by scrolling to the top of this page, click on give, and then follow the directions.  You can use a visa or master-card credit or debit card.  You can also send a check to Hope For The Future, PO Box 755, Anacortes WA 98221 

Our Core Ministries:  1. Church Planting  2. Jesus Film Outreaches  3. School Assemblies 

4. Leadership Development 5. Children’s Ministry  6. Meeting Basic Human Needs 

7. HIV/AIDS Awareness  8. Women’s Justice Issues  9. Short Term Teams 10. Clean Water

If you would like a Hope for the Future representative to come to your church, small group or event, or if you would like to explore being on a short term team, contact Louise Short at 360-333-0371.    www.facebook.com/glshort, gsPrayForSudan@gmail.com, www.PrayForSudan.org

I first ‘heard’ Abe (ah-bay) Patrick before I saw him, and his voice was so big and full of enthusiasm I had to open my eyes during worship to see who was leading. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be an eleven year old boy! Abe was holding the microphone like a pro, dancing and singing with his big smile alongside his mentor, Mansuk leading the worship in our Wudu Safe Harbor Church in South Sudan. In a church of a couple hundred, the children outnumber the adults and their voices are louder still. Abe is starting to grow and looks a bit like a stretched out beanpole, skinny all legs and arms. But he dresses in clean pants and dress shirt, looking sharp, modeled after the young men serving in the church.　

Abe is a refugee who has returned home to Sudan with his family from one of the refugee camps in Uganda last year. His Father is a doctor at the only hospital in this whole region and his mother a tailor. Although Abe’s family is better off than most in the community here in South Sudan, they are still poor by all Western standards. Abe has three brothers and two sisters, all who have become Christians through our Wudu Safe Harbor church, since their return to Sudan. Abe was the first in his family to respond to Christ in March 2009. He became a believer through the children’s ministry. Soon he was water baptized in the river nearby and now he says he tries to let the Holy Spirit shine through his life every day.

One thing you always notice about Abe-he is right up front, sitting on the edge of his chair, listening intently to the message. That is if he is fortunate enough to get a chair, every chair is usually full, then he has to sit on a papyrus mat where children usually sit. If there is any dancing in worship, he jumps the highest. His best friend, Murye, is another boy in church, and I’ve noticed they like to compare who has the best jump. Another thing about Abe is he always has a big smile on his face, and that makes me feel good after his sad life in a refugee camp.

Mansuk, the children’s minister said that just a few weeks ago he had Abe and his friend Murye, teach the younger children’s class. Abe taught on the “prodigal son” from the Bible in English (the language taught in school) and Murye, his friend interpreted into their tribal language, Bari. Mansuk was so pleased that his young ‘disciples’ were already ministering to other children! By the way, if you ask Abe what he wants to be when he grows up-He says, “I want to be a pastor”. Mansuk asked him “A children’s pastor?” but Abe said “No a pastor of a church and all the people!”

Abe says his favorite things right now are singing and football (soccer-the big sport in Sudan). Last year many children came back home to our area in Sudan having been in a foreign country for years as refugees (living in camps with very limited crowded tents). When they came home each family had to build their own grass roofed huts made from mud and sticks or homemade bricks, these are called ‘tukuls’. The families also had to plant crops so they would have food to eat; there are no grocery stores here. They grow things like beans, corn, and sorghum and sweet potatoes. Some families had very little to eat until the food they were growing could be harvested. Because of this, most of the children missed at least a year of school and Abe did as well. But now he is in a school and since he is a sharp boy, he is doing well. For the year that he could not go to school, our church had activities for these refugee children and helped their families where we could with food and clothes. So almost every day last year our children’s ministry team was reaching out to Abe’s family—Now we just want to see the parents find Jesus also-and that is Abe’s prayer request! Will you pray with us for Abe Patrick’s parents to find Christ!!!

Our goal by the grace and enabling of God, is to plant 1,000 churches and see 500,000 people make decisions for Christ by 2020.

Give now  by scrolling to the top of this page,　click on give, and then follow the directions.　 You can use a visa or master-card credit or debit card. You can also send a check to Hope For The Future, PO Box 755, Anacortes WA 98221

Our Core Ministries: 1. Church Planting 2. Jesus Film Outreaches 3. School Assemblies　4. Leadership Development 5. Children’s Ministry 6. Meeting Basic Human Needs 7. HIV/AIDS Awareness 8. Women’s Justice Issues  9. Short Term Teams 10. Clean Water.

If you would like someone to come to your chuch, small group or event please contact Louise short at 360-333-0371

It was one of those “mothers instinct” times, Joseph’s mom felt uneasy about her son’s safety because not only did young boys his age have to fear the northern raiders, they had to fear their own rebel army, who were known to pull up to a primary school and kidnap every boy from eleven up to do forced military service. Since they lived within 20 kilometers of the border his mom made the decision to flee to Uganda with her son for his protection. They had made it to within a few kilometers of the border when they ran right into a band of SPLA soldiers. These half crazed, drunken warriors severely beat his mom, leaving her bleeding and alone in the bush. They took Joseph to seven months of military training; he ended up serving in the SPLA for twelve years. You can imagine how severely this traumatized this 12 year old, for months he cried every night agonizing over what may have happened to his mother and younger brother and sister.  But, soon these fears ebbed, as he faced the hard realities of his situation and determined to do his best as a soldier.

Joseph quickly took on the habits of the soldiers in his poorly disciplined unit; he was plunged from innocence to fighting, drunkenness and sexual wantonness. During these years there was a great deal of anger rising in him like the hidden activity of a volcano before it blows. The war had made him virtually fatherless; it had separated him from his mother, robbed him of an education and immersed him in a world of violence. He channeled his anger toward developing his military skills and before he was 20 years old he was in charge of a squad of 36 men.

In 2005 after the signing of the peace accords his unit was in Juba, the fighting was over and he and his men spent a lot of time drinking to ease the boredom and the pain of their memories.  There was a civilian who they had met in a bar on one of their drinking sprees. He began coming to their barracks but, they all found him very annoying so Joseph told his men that if he came and caused trouble again they should “cane” him, that is beat him with bamboo rods. He came, and they beat him.  He knew that it was Joseph who had ordered the beating so he swore that he was going to kill him. The man made 3 attempts on Joseph’s life. The third time Joseph was drunk, something snapped inside him and he grabbed his 50 caliber machine gun and an AK47 and went after the man, determined to end this feud once and for all.

This began a 5 hour ordeal that changed Joseph’s life forever. He went to the village area where the man was known to stay. When he got there he could not find the man so he began randomly shooting up the area, deliberately avoiding shooting anyone else. People, however, were running and screaming and diving for cover. There was another military barracks nearby and soon 4 trucks full of soldiers showed up and began chasing him and shooting at him.  Joseph hijacked a military officer who was driving by in a Land Cruiser, stuck a gun to the man’s head and demanded that he drive him out of the area. The officer had a pistol hidden beside his seat and tried to pull it on Joseph who knocked it out of the man’s hand. At that time the officer jumped out of the vehicle and ran away and the other soldiers opening fire riddled it with bullets, then it exploded into flames and burned up, just like in the movies. The soldiers thought that Joseph had burned up in the fire. However he also had jumped from the vehicle and was hiding in a nearby ditch.

One of the soldiers spotted him, as he began to run away and they once again began chasing and firing at him.  Joseph ran into a nearby building that turned out to be a place where they were holding military prisoners. The soldiers quickly surrounded the building and opened fire. The bullets were flying throughout the room, Joseph dove out a back window, but, there were soldiers there who caught him and beat him until he was unconscious. The soldiers from his own unit by this time had heard what was happening and made the threat that if the other soldiers killed him there would be fighting in Juba that day.

Hearing this, those soldiers that had beaten him then took him to the hospital, but it was too late the doctor who examined him pronounced him dead and he was taken into the morgue with the other dead bodies. What a sad ending—there was the lifeless body of this 20 year old young man who had been forced into the fighting like most other boy soldiers.  How many young men are destroyed this way, that in another time or another place would have grown up to an all together different life? In the darkness of the morgue, suddenly a glimmer rose up in his subconscious, something from within kicked him in the side and told him to get up. He sat up and to his horror he was surrounded by dead bodies; he remembered nothing from the last several hours. He kicked the body next to him as if that person would get up too, but they were truly dead. It was all too much, he began to emotionally melt down, launching himself off the gurney toward the corner of the room he slumped down and began to cry.

About that time two orderlies were bringing another body into morgue, and when they opened the door they saw the dead man slumped in the corner crying; they dropped the body that they were delivering and ran out of the room. Soon another doctor rushed into the morgue and examined him.  This time he was pronounced alive and they rushed him to the emergency room and began treating him.

In the end, because no one was killed or seriously injured he only spent 2 years in prison, and had to pay for the vehicle which was destroyed. But, God is so good! While in prison, people came and preached the gospel and Joseph surrendered his life to the Lord.  Shortly after he had turned to Christ he was released from prison. His first week home he visited the church that we had recently planted in his village. Jonathan the leader of the church began ministering to him. The first big event that we had after he had returned home was a Safe Harbor women’s conference. There he was, among all the women, seeking God with his whole heart. He testified later that all in one day at this women’s conference his life was catapulted into a whole new level of walking in the reality of the Holy Spirit. He was also water baptized there and went home with a new sense of purpose for his life.

Today, two years later, you would never think that he was ever capable of such violence.  He is full of joy and has a continual smile plastered on his face, and his heart is bubbling over with worship. He loves the Word of God and is working on becoming a better reader so that he can gain even more from it. He ministers to children in two different churches. He now confesses a call in his heart to be a pastor. Joseph is now in our ministry training program and is a joy to be around.  The opportunity to reach thousands of young SPLA veterans like Joseph is here now. We are hoping that many people will decide to make a difference in Southern Sudan.

The outcome for children in armed conflict whether they are soldiers or civilian victims is often far less fortunate than Joseph!       

Our goal by the grace and enabling of God, is to plant 1,000 churches and see 500,000 people make decisions for Christ by 2020.

Give now by scrolling to the top of this page, click on give, and then follow the directions.  You can use a visa or master-card credit or debit card. You can also send a check to Hope For The Future, PO Box 755, Anacortes WA 98221 

Our Core Ministries: 1. Church Planting 2. Jesus Film Outreaches  3. School Assemblies 
4. Leadership Development 5. Children’s Ministry  6. Meeting Basic Human Needs
7. HIV/AIDS Awareness 8. Women’s Justice Issues  9. Short Term Teams 10. Clean Water

If you would like a Hope for the Future representative to come to your church, small group or event, or if you would like to explore being on a short term team, contact Louise Short at 360-333-0371.    www.facebook.com/glshort, gsPrayForSudan@gmail.com, www.PrayForSudan.org

Blessings!
Gary Short

The peace agreement was signed when Simon was just 14 years old. Soon after the fighting stopped people began looking for pleasure, and dance bars began springing up in almost every village of any size. Simon and his friends began drinking and going to bars when he was in his mid teens. There were no regulations to keep teenagers out of such places. They also started stealing and robbing in order to buy beer. At one point, earlier in his life, he had been sponsored for a couple years in a primary school in Kinyiba through the African Children’s Choir. But that seemed so long ago by the time he reached his late teens. Simon was out of control and headed toward the life of a criminal.

About 3 AM one morning, after a night of fighting and drinking, he staggered to his older brother’s home and fell asleep on the bed without even taking his shoes off. His brother who had become a Christian allowed him to stay in his home sometimes. Even though his brother was living for God, Simon had never once gone to church in his whole life. But shortly after falling asleep that morning he began to dream; in the dream something hard slammed into him and he was startled to attention. He heard a voice that began telling him that if he continued to live this way that he was going to die! It seemed so real that he became frightened. The dream suddenly changed and a man was preaching to him from John chapter 3 telling him that he needed to be born again. Then another voice told him to wake up and go read John chapter there. Because he was at his brother’s house he was able to find a Bible and as he began reading he realized that it was the same passage that the man in the dream had been preaching from.
It was Sunday morning, and for the first time in his life Simon got up early and went out to find a church. Safe Harbor had recently planted a church in his village of Limi that was meeting in a primary school. So he came there and Asili, our leader in that area was visiting that church and he choose Simon to interpret for him. As he was interpreting Simon was getting more and more convicted about his life and knew that as soon as he had the opportunity he needed to surrender control to Christ.

Somehow he did not get saved that morning but the next evening our team was having a crusade in the nearby village of Nyaco, still determined to act on the dream, he came there and gave his life to Christ. Since that time he has been living wholeheartedly for God and has felt a call to take the Gospel to others. Simon is now a member of our crusade team and an intern in our Leadership training program. Last Friday evening Simon gave his testimony at a crusade to over 800 people-quiet a change for the once angry, lonely young man whose life was on a collision course with disaster. You could see other young men in the crowd listening with rapt attention as Simon confidently shared. You can help us reach other young men like LeJu
Our goal by the grace and enabling of God, is to plant 1,000 churches and see 500,000 people make decisions for Christ by 2020.

Give now by scrolling to the top of this page, click on give, and then follow the directions.  You can use a visa or master-card credit or debit card. You can also send a check to Hope For The Future, PO Box 755, Anacortes WA 98221 

Our Core Ministries: 1. Church Planting 2. Jesus Film Outreaches  3. School Assemblies 
4. Leadership Development 5. Children’s Ministry  6. Meeting Basic Human Needs
7. HIV/AIDS Awareness 8. Women’s Justice Issues  9. Short Term Teams 10. Clean Water

If you would like a Hope for the Future representative to come to your church, small group or event, or if you would like to explore being on a short term team, contact Louise Short at 360-333-0371.    www.facebook.com/glshort, gsPrayForSudan@gmail.com, www.PrayForSudan.org