First an 18-year-old Sudanese Muslim became a refugee from Sudan’s war-torn South Kordofan state; then he received Christ and became a refugee from his family.
Kuku (full name withheld) and his family, ethnic Nuba from the Kauda area, arrived at Yida refugee camp in South Sudan in 2011, shortly after military conflict broke out in South Kordofan. The Sudanese Air Force has routinely bombed civilian targets in its battle with area rebels.
‘All new to me’
About seven miles from the Sudanese border at the Yida settlement, where tens of thousands of refugees have set up homes, an evangelist going door-to-door managed to gain an audience with Kuku’s family in December 2014. He obtained permission to speak of Jesus with the family in their home.
‘What I heard was all new to me – I could feel the power of the words of the gospel I was hearing. It was as if a new thing had come into my life’, said Kuku. He kept quiet.
Trusting Christ
Shortly thereafter, however, he met with the evangelist’s church and put his trust in Christ. At home, he remained quiet. In February, after two months of sneaking away to worship with the church, he revealed his faith to his family.
His father told him he would never forgive him for leaving Islam. Warning that he should leave before they did ‘something bad’ to him, his father said: ‘You cannot stay with us anymore, because you have become an infidel.’
Kuku told his angry family that he was truly convinced he had found ‘the true way and true life’.
His resolute faith, however, did not mean he was without fear.
‘When they asked me to leave the house, I was terribly afraid’, he said. ‘I did not expect my family to treat me in such a harsh way.’
Yida community leaders tried to persuade the family to allow Kuku to remain with them even though he had left Islam. The family rejected all such attempts, a church leader said.
Into hiding
The evangelist who proclaimed Christ to Kuku and his family encouraged him in his new faith and helped arrange for him to go into hiding.
Kuku witnesses to his Muslim friends about Jesus. He believes that one day his family will be brought to faith in Jesus.
