The Dinka are the largest people group in Southern Sudan. They are known for being leaders in the war attempting to gain separation from Sudan, to create their own country. Walking through the villages and meeting many of them, you quickly find that they all take pride in being fighters. Male and female of all ages would take the opportunity of having their picture taken, striking a pose as a soldier, a fighter. They would salute or take on a stance that would look as if they were about to take on Rocky. While comical a bit, this was their pride. They fight, and they are strong, but they are not strong enough and they cannot fight long enough to gain the peace for which they look. They do not realize that true peace and comfort come from knowing the Lord personally. Pray with us that the Dinka people will take their tenacious spirit for a peace and come to a point of belief personally, turning it towards the Gospel.

Looking into the eyes of many Dinka brings to mind the saying “the eyes are the window to the soul”. Gazing into their eyes and then doing so again in our pictures, I am grieved by the hardness and lack of trust and innocence that is so easily read there. Their eyes are bloodshot and squinted and have seen things that I can’t even imagine. I have never seen what these eyes have seen. While I know the Lord is my strength in all situations, I can’t imagine surviving what the Dinka have been through. War, genocide, starvation and disease in mammoth proportions are what they know; it is their life as it has been. Lack of education and suspicion of anyone new slows progress while war threatens in the near future again. As human eyes look at the situation, there is no hope. We know, however, that there is indeed hope through our Redeemer! Pray that the Dinka people will each have the opportunity to hear the Gospel, the story of true hope and redemption available to them through Christ. Pray that the Dinka believers would be strengthened and encouraged and equipped to boldly share their faith with their fellow Dinka.