“OUR HOPE COMES FROM GOD”: FAITH NARRATIVES AND RESILIENCE IN SOUTHERN SUDAN

Abstract

The world is not the same place anymore! This has become a popular refrain in the past decade. Indeed, it seems true. We have been increasingly confronted with stunning violence, tragedy, and despair, the magnitude of which is usually designated to places far away from our daily lives. We can argue about whether the world has really changed or merely our perception of it. Regardless of the answer, it has become clear that building strategies for helping our communities, particularly communities of faith, cope when tragedy befalls them is an important task of the church. To this end, I have turned to what, at first glance, may seem an unlikely source for a case study, that is, a group of refugees from the Abang community of the Dinka tribe in southern Sudan. True, the sociocultural differences between this African community and our own are immense. Life in a refugee camp or after repatriation to Sudan seems to have little in common with life in the United States or its own challenges. But after more than twenty years of enduring civil war, they do know a great deal about surviving incomprehensible violence, astounding loss, and the process of trying to make sense out of the senseless. They know about being a Christian community of faithful people who must live out a life of prayer and hope when all seems lost. It is from these people and for these reasons that I believe we can learn something about how to cope as a community of faith in very difficult times.