Sudan: Caught in the Civil War
Sudan gained independence from Britain in 1956. In the 49 years since then there have been a grand total of 11 years of peace. It was during that 11 year peace window - from 1973 to 1983 - that the work of Wycliffe Bible Translators in Sudan (including the Mündü Project) was begun and established. But tensions between the Arabs of the Muslim North and the African peoples in the South did not go away during that period, so no-one was greatly surprised when Civil War broke out again in 1983.
In Maridi, the far southwest corner of Sudan, we were at first not much affected by the war. By this time my co-worker, Linda, had returned to her home in America. My new co-worker was Alice van Bergen, from the Netherlands. Alice had already been in Maridi for some years, working on Literacy in the neighbouring Zande language. Now that program had reached a stage where the Zandes could run it themselves, and so Alice was free to work on Mündü Literacy. Her helper was a young Mündü teacher called Dominic Tabaan.
The newly formed Mündü Language Committee had appointed John Kamingara, a teacher, to work on the translation. John was very good at translation, but he had a lot of other irons in the fire, and I seemed to spend a lot of time and energy just getting him to do a chapter a week. However we did eventually finish Mark's Gospel and get it into print. Then we started on Genesis - which is a good deal easier to translate even than Mark - but very, very long.
Fairly early on I had discovered that there were Mündüs across the border in Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) as well as Sudan. The border runs right through the Mündü area. Of course when the British and the Belgians drew that border they didn't ask the Mündüs where it should be! We started making regular trips into Zaire, first to check that the Zairean Mündüs really did speak the same language (they did) and then to test our translation and our reading books etc. to make sure that the Zairean Mündüs could use them too. We used to stay with friends who worked with the Africa Inland Mission in the town of Aba. They always made us very welcome.
As time went on, insecurity gradually spread across southern Sudan. One by one the translation projects to the North and East of us had to leave their village locations and move to our main centre in the provincial capital, Juba.
At this stage the Sudan People's Liberation Army were employing classic guerrilla tactics. A small group would make a swift and unexpected attack on an army base - then disappear back into the bush again. Expatriate missionaries or relief workers found in their path were not harmed, but kidnapped to get publicity for the cause and often forced to walk hundreds of miles to the SPLA base in Ethiopia before being released. We were all advised to keep a small rucksack handy containing useful supplies, which we could (hopefully) grab as we were marched off at gun-point. We used to call them our "Ethiopia kits". Mine contained malaria medicine, aspirins, elastoplast, a sweater, a pair of scissors, some string, a torch and a cigarette lighter. The problem was that when hurriedly searching for an aspirin or scissors, there was a great temptation to "borrow" from the Ethiopia kit, and then forget to replace the item. Fortunately we never needed to use the kits.
Eventually the only projects still in place were the Maridi Literacy Centre and the three neighbouring translation projects (including Mündü). Everyone else was in Juba - apart from a small group in Yei, 50 miles to the East of us, very close to the border with Zaire. They had decided that Yei was even safer than Juba, since, in case of trouble, it would be easier to drive out of Yei (in theory anyway).
At the beginning of July 1987 the SPLA kidnapped four young Christian relief workers in the town of Mundri, about 30 miles northeast of Maridi. There were three main roads out of Maridi, two of which went east to Juba - one to the southeast via Yei and one to the northeast via Mundri. The attack on Mundri meant that the Mundri road was closed by the Government army - considered unsafe to travel. There was great discussion in Maridi as to whether the closure of the northern road and the nearness of the SPLA meant that we should all evacuate to Juba. But while we were still talking about it, the SPLA attacked some villages on the Maridi-Yei road and kidnapped three expatriate catholic priests. So that road too was closed. At this stage the Wycliffe folk in and around Maridi used to meet every morning to hear the latest news, discuss the situation and, more important, to pray. Prayer becomes very important to you, when the wrong decision can result in driving into an armed ambush - or over a land-mine. It concentrates the mind wonderfully! We also used to enjoy singing the chorus, "You are my hiding place." The possibility of airlifting everyone out of Maridi was considered, but in fact the government were very reluctant to give permission for our little plane to land in Maridi. They were afraid that it might be shot down, or captured by the SPLA. Eventually it was decided that we should all drive out by the one remaining road - which went west to Yambio.
- Testing: Genesis 16:14 says, "So that well was called Beer-lahai-roi." When I read this verse to some of my Mündü friends, nobody could remember what well we were talking about, as it had not been mentioned since verse 7. So we changed 16:14 to read "So the well that Hagar ran to was called..."
- Checking: the translation consultant passed this as exegetically correct. The change in wording does not change the meaning, but only makes it more clear.
- Revision: but when the Review Committee read it, they pointed out that we had used the wrong preposition. It now sounded as if Hagar ended up sitting in the well! We had to correct it to say, "The well which Hagar ran to beside was called..."
While I was working away at Genesis, Alice was busily sorting out our possessions, and giving most of them to our Mündü friends. On 24th July we finally packed all our remaining possessions (including out two cats) into our little Suzuki jeep and joined all the other Maridi expats in their procession to Yambio. It was very hard saying good-bye to Gbandi and his family who had been such good friends to us for so many years, but the fact that we now had Genesis ready for printing was some consolation to me.
Yambio was the only place we could go, but it was really the wrong direction. We had an idea that we might be able to cross the border into Zaire and go South around the problem, crossing back into Sudan at Yei or Bazi. It didn't work out quite like that, but if you want to know what happened next, you will have to buy next month's Irish Baptist Life!
P.S. The Civil War in southern Sudan finally came to an end in January 2005 when peace agreement was signed between the Islamic Government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Army. Pray that this fragile peace will hold.
To next part.
To Mundu-land stories.