News updates from South Sudan, November 21, 2017

Dear brothers and sisters in the Great Commission,

Shalom! We have been in South Sudan for almost a week, and the Lord has been so good to us here at Operation Nehemiah! For the past four years, South Sudan has been engulfed by a senseless war of her own making, after gaining independence from Khartoum's Islamic regime in 2011.

We have been actively involved in rebuilding the country from the bottom up by bringing the message of Salvation, only found in Yeshua, to a people who have survived exile, and who have returned to rebuild this infant country. We have been taking one person, one family, one church, and one community at a time for Yeshua.

We believe, when a nation has a strong family in Yeshua, that will translate into a strong church, and strong church will make strong country. So, when a people and a nation seek first after the Kingdom of God, then the eyes of their hearts will be opened to the blessings God has bestowed upon their land.

There is a lesson to learn from the lives of the children of Israel. When God took them out of the land of Egypt, he warned them not grow fat and forget Him, who had brought them out of Egypt. When they forgot God, and followed other gods, their sins separated them from the Glory of God. They suffered famine and defeat in the hands of their captors. But, when they cried out to God and repented from their ways, God looked upon them with compassion, forgave their sins, and healed their land.

So, for the past 14 years, this has been our focus… Even amid such a chaotic situation, By God’s grace we stayed the course, and maintained the vision of Operation Nehemiah by planting churches, raising South Sudanese pastors, and training families to work with their own hands.

One of Operation Nehemiah's main goals is to create sustainable development in the areas of food, etc. One of the many problems that face South Sudan is famine, another type of war that is not talked about... The UN has stated that over three million children in South Sudan will die of starvation due to famine.

The thing about South Sudan though is that it is not a desert... South Sudan is very lush and green; you can pretty much drop a seed on the ground and it will grow! The main reason why South Sudanese starve is because they don't work to get their food. Ninety -nine percent of all the food in South Sudan is imported.

Why is this? Well, for over fifty years, South Sudanese have been refugees in other countries where they were provided with food, etc. without having to work for these things, because they were in refugee camps. Because of this, many South Sudanese young people have grown up without a work ethic, and therefore have relief dependency syndrome. The UN fuels this attitude by perpetuating the cycle of war, poverty, and refugee camps in order to fill their pockets!

The only way that South Sudanese will ever break free from this problem is to come to the full, freeing knowledge of Jesus Christ... Without the Lord, South Sudanese will continue to starve in a self-inflicted famine.

This is our burden here at Operation Nehemiah; to bring people the Gospel and to help them realize the full potential of their home land!

Right now, in the Beth Israel farmland, we are about to harvest an est. 500 bags of sorghum, simsim (the South Sudanese name for sesame), and beans, all South Sudanese staple foods. The oranges will be really ready for harvest next month, and the passion fruit will be ripe soon as well! We have pumpkins, sweet- potatoes, and flowering mango trees.

Since we have come here, there has been incredible developments in our ministry in the area of food production…The harvest is ready, but we don’t have enough man power to help us harvest all this produce! We are racing against time and we need twenty people, not including our staff that are already working in the farmland, to come into our fields to help us harvest this food before the dry season sets in. The budget for this stands at $5,000 USD.

The dry season is almost here, and this year has been full of rain, which has led to a rather large production of savanna grasslands, which will cause massive wild fires. So, we are in quite a hurry to get our crops harvested before they get destroyed by wild fire. The budget for this is $2,500 dollars.

Most of you have been asking and praying about when the South Sudanese people will return home. As we speak the governor of Eastern Equatoria has come to stay in our county of Pageri, with the sole purpose of setting an example for the people to return home. This is a huge encouragement to us, and we are looking forward to seeing how the Lord will use this move to turn the hearts of the South Sudanese people back home!

Wedding of Katherine Saunders and Isaac Tombe bound for November 25

We are preparing seriously for the wedding of our Assistant county director, Isaac Tombe to Katherine Saunders… We are so excited for them and are looking forward to the arrival of Katherine’s father Joseph Saunders, on Wednesday.

The house that has been built to house them has been completed, but they need electricity. The budget for this is $2,500. Thank you for helping us achieve these goals. If you feel that the Lord is leading you to give to our cause, you can give a tax deductible gift to Operation Nehemiah online, or send your tax deductible contribution to

Operation Nehemiah Missions PO Box 563 Lanesborough MA 01237

Prayer Needs:

1- Success of our Mission trip to South Sudan.

2- Staff support $6500

3- The house need electricity. The budget for this is $2,500

4- Wild fire. The budget for this is $2,500 dollars.

5- fields to help us harvest this food, storage, The budget for this stands at $5,000 USD.

Total : $16,500

All this food will go to our staff and to the market, God willing!