A report of violence in South Sudan, a 5-year-old country in Southeast Africa, means little to most Americans unless they have invested time and treasure there.
However, at a time when we often feel helpless to quell the violence in our country, we should feel gratified that many Chattanoogans are among those who have been trying to make life a little easier for people in the country more than 7,000 miles away.
The Holston Conference of the United Methodist Church, which covers 900 churches in East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia and North Georgia, began a relationship with Sudan in 2005 and in 2008 signed a covenant with the denomination's East Africa Conference, which includes Sudan. Since then, seven churches have been built or supported, nine school blocks built at three schools, two orphanages built, 36 wells dug, 23 pastors trained, 42 mission teams sent and more than $2.6 million raised.
Yei, where much of the United Methodist work is centered, is 81 miles southwest of the capital of Juba, where four days of recent fighting killed more than 300 people and forced about 40,000 to flee their homes before a shaky ceasefire was signed last week.
Two Chattanoogans, Dr. Fred and Libby Dearing, missionaries there since 2011, are expected to arrive back in the United States today.
"It is simply not safe for them or any expatriates to be in Yei right now," the Rev. Mike Sluder, director of connectional ministries for the conference, wrote on Dearing's Facebook page.
Sluder later told the Times Free Press the country's economy is nearing collapse because of a civil war that began in 2013 and, despite a peace deal signed in August 2015, threatens to break out again. The country's economy is highly dependent on revenue from oil, but the war has kept any from being refined, he added. Without oil revenues, nobody is being paid, the streets are not safe and "anybody who is deemed to have resources" is threatened.
In wake of the fighting, he said, nobody can stay long enough to plant crops, so 3 million people are reported to be on the verge of starvation. However, the children in the United Methodist orphanages are being protected, he said.
The Dearings were appointed to serve South Sudan in 2011. Before going to South Sudan, Fred Dearing served as superintendent of the denomination's Chattanooga District from 2009 to 2011. He also had served as pastor of the former Trinity-Woodmore congregation from 1992 to 1996 and as pastor of First UMC in Cleveland from 1996 to 1999.
Sluder said officials in the country warned missionaries not to return there until four months of calm.
But, he said, "Holston isn't staying away. We're in for the long haul."
Those are the kind of boots on the ground we can appreciate.