The seldom-told story of Anglicans and refugees in Ethiopia

The world has focused on refugees arriving in the European Union from the Middle East, but there is a story seldom told about refugees in Ethiopia and how God is moving through them. Missionary couple Bishop Grant and Dr. Wendy LeMarquand visited the Church Mission Society (CMS) offices in Oxford, England, this summer and provided an inside view of what’s happening in the Gambella region, in the far west of Ethiopia near the South Sudan border.

“Gambella is a two-day drive from [the Ethiopian capital] Addis Ababa,” explained Grant, area bishop for the Horn of Africa, adding, “Everything from cars and roads to clothing and money is new there. This is the first generation that’s had any of those things. People live in houses made with mud and sticks and thatched roofs. The temperatures are harsh; it can be easily up to 40s, 50s, or even 60s Celsius in the dry season—it’s one of the hottest places on Earth. The power goes off most days, water supply is not constant, and the Internet only works sometimes.”

Most people live by subsistence farming. Healthcare is minimal. Ethnic violence and squabbles over land and local politics present frequent challenges.

Yet against this backdrop, the Anglican Church in Gambella is growing rapidly, thanks in large part to the influx of Sudanese refugees. For a long time, there was only one Anglican Church in Ethiopia, in Addis Ababa. When the LeMarquands first arrived in Gambella in 2012, there were 53 Anglican churches, which were mostly set up by refugees who fled conflict between Sudan and South Sudan in the 1980s and 1990s and shared their faith among other refugees and local Ethiopians.

Today, with a further 300,000 South Sudanese refugees who have crossed into Gambella since December 2013 (doubling the population), there are about 90 Anglican churches, including 35 to 40 in refugee camps throughout the area, while others are in villages and towns.

As the area bishop for the Horn of Africa, Grant is responsible for the Anglican churches in Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, and Ethiopia. Most of the area’s churches are in Ethiopia, and a majority of those are in Gambella, where currently over half the population consists of refugees. Many of the congregations are based in large refugee camps. Several new camps have been built to accommodate the most recent influx of refugees, each hosting about 40,000 people.

“Wendy and I are quite aware of the fact that migration, emigration, and refugees are getting a huge amount of press around the world,” Grant said. “We are a little disturbed that our refugees don’t get much press.”

He traced the background to the refugees’ arrival. “Sudan’s civil war between the north and south began in the 1950s. There was a break in the 1970s, but until South Sudan became independent [July 9, 2011] there was a war going on in the southern part of Sudan for decades. When that war ended in 2005 and South Sudan formed, there was a short period of peace. Then in December 2013, a civil war began in South Sudan which quickly became ethnically charged. The Nuer and Dinka people were fighting for control and power. Many Nuer people fled into Gambella in Ethiopia, while some of the Dinka [from other parts of South Sudan] had to leave and flee into Kenya or Uganda.”

Most of the refugees are Nuer people. There are also Anuak, Opo, some Dinka, Mezhenger, Murle, and Mabaan people among the displaced.

“We hear people’s stories of having to flee from the bullets, grasping whatever they can,” Wendy said. “We ask them, ‘What can you carry?’ They tell us, ‘It’s mainly our children.’”

Rapid church growth through refugees
The rapid growth of the Anglican Church in Gambella is thanks largely to the Sudanese refugees who fled Sudan and South Sudan and brought their faith into the refugee camps in the Gambella region. As the Sudanese Christian refugees started evangelizing in the area, the local Ethiopians of traditional African religion became interested in the gospel, which spread from the camps to the surrounding villages and more churches were planted.

Grant elaborated: “People in this part of Africa have believed in one God but have always thought that God was distant from them; now they hear about a God who has come to them in Jesus. The story of Jesus fits into their faith in God, and they see that as a completion of what they have known before.

“Church draws people into community and also draws people together across ethnic divisions. Whereas traditional African religion is ethnically based, the church is not ethnically based. It’s a global family of people from every tribe, people, and language.”

The need for theological training
CMS has, until recently, had one mission partner in Ethiopia: Rosemary Burke, secretary-general of the Anglican Church of Ethiopia, based in Gambella and Addis. But in recognition of this growing mission field, and at the invitation of the diocese, CMS has recently appointed Chris and Suzy Wilson to work in theological training at St. Frumentius.

The churches in Gambella are currently served by just 17 clergy, only one of whom has a theological degree. The congregations worship in a variety of languages  including Anuak, Dinka, Nuer, Mabaan, Jum-Jum, and Opo. The need for theological training for the current and next generation is something that Grant and Wendy are passionate about; it is what led them to take up the post four years ago.

Wendy explains. “This is one of the few areas in the world where there has been almost no opportunity for people to access education. The church is growing rapidly. The pastors have said that they know how to plant churches, they know how to bring people to Christ, but they don’t know how to make disciples, [and] they don’t know the Bible.

“When Bishop Mouneer Hanna Anis, the bishop of Egypt with North Africa and the Horn of Africa, travelled to Gambella in 2011 and asked the Gambella clergy what they wanted in a new area bishop, they asked for someone who could teach theology and empower people. This helped us to say, ‘Yes, we would like to be part of that process of empowerment.’”

Grant says: “When we got here four years ago we had a group of clergy who were keen to lead their churches but had virtually no training [the previous bishop had started a program of theological education by extension, which served the area well, but the clergy needed to go deeper]. So our priority has been to do this.”

It was a great answer to prayer when, with the help of many people around the world, St. Frumentius Anglican Theological College began its first year of operation in September 2015. Frumentius was the first missionary and bishop in Ethiopia in the early fourth century. Nine full-time students at the college have just completed their first academic year and will go on to do another two years. Another 11 students joined at the beginning of this academic year. The dean of the college is Johann Vanderbijl from Namibia.

The Call to Action
Pray for the church to continue to flourish in Gambella despite all the challenges.

Pray for St. Frumentius College that more church leaders will be equipped to make disciples inside refugee camps and in the wider communities.

Originally posted at www.anglicannews.org.