With the grace of God and the blessing of His Beatitude Pope and Patriarch Theodore II of Alexandria, I began a tour of the inaccessible region of southern Sudan at the beginning of the year. For decades a fierce civil war had been raging with unabated intensity, creating constant frustration and despair among the natives. I set off without knowing where I was going, my destination was unclear as all the information and instructions were confusing and confused me more than clarifying the already blurred landscape. In any case, the constant recommendation was “be careful”. In those moments I remembered what I had read in the Bible and did not fully understand. In Hebrews chapter 11: Abraham went forth to the place which he was about to inherit, and went out not knowing where he was going.
The personal experience of accessing the unknown place showed me how difficult it is humanly difficult to set off somewhere and not know where you are going. And in this case even the best information about the South was discouraging.
However, the miracle of faith took place there and everything went very well, we opened the churches that had been closed for many years, for many people for the first time and for others nostalgically the “blessed is the kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” was heard, all those who remained like heroes in the region of the capital of southern Sudan literally at the risk of their lives, holding the light of Hellenism and Orthodoxy, came together. The next day we cut the Agioβασilopita for the New Year and then sat in the church yard with relief and mental stimulation painted on the faces of the participants. We laid the foundation of the new St. Mark’s Missionary Centre in the Mogala area at the eastern end of the capital Juba.
There, for the consecration ceremony, we had no incense burner to incense at the time of the ceremony and so looking for a makeshift solution of the moment, all I could find was a magazine for bullets from a Kalashnikov gun. I lit the charcoals on the tip of the magazine, I put the incense and held the magazine at the other end and I angrily looked at the people who were accompanying me and I reflected in my mind that with this death-spreading Kalashnikov magazine I was going to burn incense in the holy water for the foundation stone of the first missionary center of St. Mark’s and I prayed in my heart that these instruments of war and destruction would be transformed into vessels of worship of God. Only then will peace and unity of the people reign in this country. The second trip the day after was my move to the western tropics to the town of Wau, South Sudan. It was a real revelation that there I found people who were pure, unapologetic, genuine, and sadly utterly poor without electricity and water. And when we say without electricity, you can imagine how many things are non-existent, while in the Western world they are scandalously taken for granted. A pleasant discovery, however, was the fact that for them, the lack of electricity has a good thing… You can see the stars at night and feel spacious.
By the grace of God, we baptized ten children and liturgized the church of Prophet Elijah that the Greeks had built near the beginning of the last century. The bell rang again, after many decades, I read them the forgiveness blessing and they all fellowshipped. There one evening, at the poor dinner that was nobly offered to me, where we all ate with our hands from the same large plate on the table, they told me around the fire jug, stories of how they lived in the days of the civil war… They would tear the tin from the roofs of their houses to cook something to eat on them, while food was scarce and illnesses were treated without the basics, neither medicines nor doctors. Meanwhile, malaria has mowed down half the population. There is no one who is not sick with malaria. The strongest organisms endure, the weakest end up, especially children. Everyone’s life is on a knife edge and at any moment they could die. Life is not certain, death is a daily occurrence whether it comes from cholera, malaria or ebola and, if you escape all of this, civil war awaits you around the corner. Whoever survives there is the champion of life. Our Greek community in Wau are descendants of Greeks who arrived there in the early 1910s. It was a great thrill for me when I got there and had not yet had time to get my things in order.
Their first concern was to take me to read a service to their Greek fathers and ancestors in the Greek cemetery. I put on my vestments, lit the incense burner and, while I was chanting the service, I reflected in my mind on the bravery of these people to be forced to leave their homeland, the Greek islands of Mytilene, Lemnos and others, to come here to the end of the world, to live, to raise families, to work under unfavourable living conditions, outside of civilisation and comforts. At a rough estimate we would say that this region of the world has always been 100 years behind. That is why it was a great achievement then, in 1910, that they created a community, a Greek club, a school, built a church, in other words they created a small Greece outside of Greece to live in and for it to live in them. I noticed: on their graves they had elaborately engraved on the marble words of nostalgia for their homeland, which, if you were made of stone, would make you cry. They were real men that you bowed down before them. May the memory of their example be eternal.
Finally, the day came to return to the capital Juba, as there was a scheduled meeting with the country’s Foreign Minister. At the airport I felt that I didn’t want to leave and when I had to say goodbye to the people and head for the plane I felt my heart bleeding and not wanting to be separated from them. But I was comforted as this little death, this separation, will bring its resurrection as my return there is a given. Dear missionary friends, because sorrow, when shared, diminishes and joy, when shared, multiplies, that is why I have the joy of communicating with you and making you partakers of our missionary efforts in Africa. We sow, you water, God grows, and I hope that these common efforts of ours will find the expected result, so that the holy name of God may be glorified in all times and places. Good strength
Nouvia Narcissus (Gammoh)
