I was unsure how to begin this, but I feel an urging from the Lord to tell you about man considered a hero to thousands in South Sudan.
As some of you may know, I recently returned from the field where I spent a couple of weeks showing The Jesus Film and delivering medicine to a nomadic group, known as the Janjaweed, in Darfur. This trip was extremely successful. One night after showing The Jesus Film, an Imam (respected Muslim leader) came to our Dinka contact and requested a copy of the film so that he could show it to people even further north in the region. He also came to our team and asked that we pray in the name of Jesus for healing over physical sickness that had plagued him and his family. He allowed us to lay hands on him and pray that the Lord would heal them. This is a man that previously slayed Christians in the name of his god. Such vulnerability is uncommon for the culture and was clearly a direct work of the Lord.
Right about this time, I felt like I could start to “puff out my chest” and feel pretty good about myself. One absolutely amazing thing about the Lord is how gentle He is in the way He corrects us. He is never harsh in His correction. Often, He simply corrects our thinking. Needless to say, the Lord was about to correct my thinking.
I told you I was going to tell you about a hero in South Sudan. This man would never sit down and share all he has done—not even with me, his son. David Fuller is a very humble man. I learned a great amount about him—not from him—but from the people of South Sudan. When I arrived in the area, I was instantly welcomed and given a platform. I heard countless stories about how my father sat with these men talking about Jesus while bombs exploded two miles away. No matter how much gunfire fell or how many bombs erupted, he was with them.
They shared about how, after the war, he wanted to reach out to the people groups that had been bombing them to tell them about Jesus too. He has dedicated his life to serving these people. Even when that meant potential death. Every village I entered, the people would shake my hand and move on, until the interpreter spoke. Every time I heard, “Marweldit” (the Dinka name given to my father). They looked at me with huge grins and vigorously shook my hand again. To the South Sudanese, he was and still is a hero. The best part is, zero percent of this went to my father’s head.
The Lord showed me some things on this trip. First, to put that chest back down because we are building His name not mine. And second, bombs and gunfire are not reasons to stop sharing the Gospel. In fact, there is no reason to stop. There is no line. God told us go. That’s it. He didn’t say, “If it is safe…”, “If you feel healthy…”, or add any caveat. He simply said we must go. My dad, hero to the Dinka, has demonstrated my entire life what that means. I never fully understood it and truthfully, I still do not fully, but this trip revealed that he never quit. His tenacity and willingness to die for his faith slapped me in the face and left me with one question: am I willing to die for my faith? Even as I type that, it sounds so surreal. Of course, I want to say yes, but I have never been in the middle of a bombing, survived, and decided to return. So, for now my answer is, I can’t wait to find out. Should the opportunity arise, I can’t wait to stand in the middle of where the enemy appears to be prevailing and say, “No, my God is bigger and better.” I can’t wait to stand near the bombs with my brothers and sisters in Christ, loving them the way Jesus would. I can’t wait to find out what my faith is made of and have the Lord push me and grow me—just like he did with the hero of South Sudan, Marweldit.