In the midst of a six-year truce between north and south Sudan, I was privileged to spend 44 days in the Upper Nile region of eastern South Sudan. Many sights and sounds new to me made an impression.

Twenty-some years of horrific gunfire, looting and destruction in southern Sudan has ceased since 2005, allowing thousands of surviving refugees to return home aboard U.N.-sponsored open trucks. They are given tents, tarps, seeds and a few months’ supply of food before making it on their own again.

Though the oil flows through a pipeline from south to north, much of the promised revenue does not enter communities. Consequently, the ruined infrastructure remains mostly so, but for a poorly graveled road, and makeshift shops manned largely by Arab merchants.

I worked among the Mabaan tribe people and befriended many who invited me back, especially to teach Bible to other villages.

The mostly Christian South frequent their grass churches on Sunday mornings, colorfully dressed folks walk the grassy trails and reddish-graveled highway for worship. They sit on poles laid upon crotched acacia stumps in the ground, singing heartily to the accompaniment of a goat-skin drum and flattened can cymbal filled with small rocks. An enthusiastic song-leader waves his body and arms, encouraging praise to God.

After the sermon, the people duck out under the very low doorway to form a long greeting line.

Various non-government organizations like Serving In Mission have responded to support these distressed people. SIM provides basic education, local medical service and training to selected health aide workers from the villages in the Upper Nile region. Volunteers like Lloyd Benton and I recently worked there to improve SIM’s basic facilities, serviced only by chartered mission-owned aircraft.

We will give a brief pictorial report Aug. 3, at Kodiak Bible Chapel at 6 p.m. Everyone is welcome.