There are some phone calls that you love to receive. A week and a half ago I got the call that our daughter was in labor and ready to deliver our first granddaughter. Good call! There are calls that you never want to get. This morning I received one of those calls. “…Pastor Justin is in [Sudanese] prison.”
The call was from Jahim Buli, a dear pastor that ITMI’s Timothy Keller, Vicky Waraka and I partnered with in April of this year to disciple 45 chaplains for the SPLA, Sudanese People’s Liberation Army.
Steve (middle), Jahim (far left red shirt) and Vicky Waraka (far right) with military officers on base near Juba, South Sudan.
Another of our partners on this unique missionary trip was Pastor Justin Amadi, a young man of about 30 years old, single and who had been taken to Uganda as a child when his parents fled to a Uganda refugee camp from the occupied and civil war consumed southern Sudan.
Justin was the pastor that stood in for me at the SPLA Chaplains training when I got close to a heat stroke. Justin was able to give the plan of salvation to the training attendees and all 45 of the chaplains accepted Christ’s wonderful gift of salvation.
Justin, Steve and Jahim.
Jahim from Juba, the capital of the new South Sudan, told me this morning that Justin has been put in a Sudanese prison. He was falsely accused by a jealous co-worker in a ministry when the American leader was leaving Sudan and wanted to put Justin in a place of authority above the jealous co-worker.
Justin teaching (a time other than the Chaplains training).
Due to the squalor conditions in a Sudanese prison (maybe it is just a jail) they have caused a noticeable decline in Justin’s health. We have already committed to Pastor Jahim that we would cover the cost of petrol so he could ride his motor bike to the prison, and the cost of some food and medicine that Pastor Justin is not getting in the Sudanese prison system.
Please keep Justin in your prayers!
- Please pray for Pastor Justin to rest in the fact that God is in control and He has a plan for Justin and this situation.
- Pray that Justin would use this opportunity to be a missionary while God has allowed him to be locked up.
- Pray for Pastor Jahim and I as we navigate the challenging path to get Justin out of prison so that he can officially deal with the lies of this jealous co-worker.
You can read the whole story about Justin, Jahim and their ministry in the June 2012 issue of In Touch Mission International Monthly, I am Not God.
In His Service,
