The 40 ft. container full of rice meal sent from the USA to help the people of South Sudan has safel

Shalom. On behalf Operation Nehemiah and Staff here on the ground, our appreciation goes to William Levi, our founder and Overseer of Operation Nehemiah Missions and to Kristi Scott of World Emergency Relief for coordinating the transportation and the logistics of the arrival of the 40ft rice meal container from USA to South Sudan. For two months we have been waiting for this effort and now it is here. The 40 ft. container full of rice meal sent from the USA to help the people of South Sudan has safely arrived. This food supply is overdue for the people of Pageri County. The distribution of this 40ft container full of rice meal to the people of Borongole, Nimule and Mugali is like drop in the bucket. Since July 2016, people have been trapped here as IDPs without the hope of returning to their villages to cultivate and raise their own food for months. Our ministry cannot continue to sustain the community like this on relief emergency.

For 12 years since 2004 our ministry has been involved in setting the right course of examples needed to rebuild this country from ground up after South Sudan from free from Islamic persecution in 2005. Our approach has been taking one person, one family one church and one community at time. We have educated the community to be good steward of the family and the land God has given them, working with their own hands to support their families in this new nation. But the crisis in the country that had started in 2013, has threatened to destroy our effort in this approach to rebuild South Sudan from ground up after 50 years of Islamic war of persecution. We are praying for a permanent peace and a lasting solution to the crisis in South Sudan so that people can return to their homes from exile and raise their own food from their own farmland. We are pleading to President Donald Trump of USA to work with government of President Salva Kiir of South Sudan to end this war quickly. We can’t wait another day to see this crisis drag on.

Back ground: This emergency food relief came six months at the back drop of the July 8, 2016 crisis which took place in Juba, Central Equatoria, and South Sudan sending a ripple effect throughout the country. This had resulted to an all-out displacement of our people including those from Pageri County where Operation Nehemiah Mission Headquarters is based. Tens of thousands of people fled the country into Ugandan exile. With the UN giving them the promise of sanctuaries and a hope in the refugee camps in northern Uganda, they left in droves, but only to find themselves in a worse situation than in their own homes back in the South Sudan.

Prospect of returning home grows dimmer and dimmer

The prospect of going back home grew dimmer and dimmer as the prospect of national unity, peace, and stability back in their home country of South Sudan grows smaller. In the midst of this escalating situation, Operation Nehemiah Missions continues to remain optimistic, keeping our operation in South Sudan functional. For the past six months since July, our ministry found itself confronted with the reality of what the people are facing both in the refugee camps in Uganda and in the South Sudan and they are looking to Operation Nehemiah Missions (the only indigenous Christian organization that is based both in the USA and South Sudan) for a solution.

South Sudan’s IPD in desperation in Pageri county Eastern Equatoria:

Thousands of South Sudanese are living as internal displaced persons in their own country in places like the border town of Nimule and Mugali in Pageri County. People are fear stricken and destitute. Many of them are afraid to go back to their villages to continue farming and grow their own food. Subsequently hunger and hopelessness have caught up with them. Many International NGOs are afraid to bring their services to the people inside South Sudan. Many of them are UN proxy organizations which have opted to operate in the refugee camps in Uganda across the border rather than inside South Sudan. Even there, they effort is not what the people need.

We are the only Christian organization operating in Pageri county region of Eastern Equatoria. This county is the most strategic county in the whole country. It does not have oil fields like in other states but because South Sudan is a land lock country, Pageri County and the city of Nimule holds the key to the entrance into South Sudan from all developed countries in East Africa and major Ports from where South Sudan receives everything ranging from food, government consignments, to commercial goods entering the country.

South Sudanese living in desperation in Ugandan refugees camps

When the container arrived at Nimule Custom authorities in South Sudan yesterday, I found myself sweating seriously. There were demands on both sides for the goods inside the container. These are my people in need but we are only limited by what we can give them. There is a request that the rice meal must be split 50% and 50 % between the South Sudanese in Ugandan refugee’s camps and those South Sudanese IDP who are inside the country. Hunger is facing the people on both sides of the countries. But the container was officially consigned for South Sudan ,where our ministry is based, and one forty feet container full of rice meal is not enough to meet the needs of tens and thousands of refugees and IDP in both countries. After serious consideration, the chief of customs officer wanted 100 % of the content of the container to stay in the South Sudan.

Our future challenge and your prayers

We have been given the challenge by the community on both sides to ship at least 10 containers of rice meals in the future to meet the demand for food supplies from the USA.

However, 10 forty foot containers full of rice meal from USA will never solve the problem and the crisis of the people of South Sudan. What is needed is a complete overhaul to the crisis in South Sudan. This is the only solution that will help resolve this crisis. People will confidently return to their villages, settle down and begin to raise their own food and sustain themselves for a long term based on their own productivity.

USA needs to support South Sudan government to end this senseless war is urgently needed.

There is an urgent need right now to bring a swift and decisive end to South Sudan’s senseless war. United States has invested a lot of resources during President George W. Bush’s administration for 5 years 2001-2005 which eventually gave us our own independent country free from Islamic Oppression in 2011. The last US administration under President Obama took a different policy in South Sudan. Eight years later, as he left office, we are now engulfed in the middle of a civil war tearing the country a part.

However we thank God for the new administration in the USA under President Donald Trump. We are praying for him for wisdom and kindness from God for the of South Sudan. The US Government under President Donald Trump can help the South Sudanese government in sponsoring a comprehensive conflict resolution, directly working with President Kiir, our governors across the 32 states, our county Commissioners, Pa-yam chiefs, the church leaders and those who are in IO without involving the UN to resolve the conflict in the country. Road ambushes and sectarian killing must stop.

To donate fund for Operation Nehemiah Mission South Sudan effort you can go to the donation Link below

Thank you for your faithful support through your prayers and support. We Christians in South Sudan are indebted to God on your account.

God bless

Timothy Levi, Country Director

Operation Nehemiah Missions, South Sudan

For all contact, donation and information

Contact

William Levi, Founder & Overseer Operation Nehemiah Missions

Operation Nehemiah Missions

PO Box 563

Lanesborough MA 01237 USA

www.operationsnehemiah.org