MEET PASTOR PHILEMON

“I currently serve as the pastor of a Baptist church in Khartoum and as president of the Evangelical Baptist Churches Alliance in Sudan. Believing in the importance of leadership development and discipleship, I recently founded a ministry dedicated to training Christian leaders, building disciples, and promoting biblical education.

In addition to this spiritual and educational ministry, we are committed to community service through humanitarian and development initiatives. Our aim is to build bridges of love and trust with the community and to practically embody the message of Jesus Christ by serving people and addressing their needs.

My journey with the Lord began at the age of thirteen when I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. I was then baptized at seventeen. As time passed, I grew to understand that faith in Christ is not simply about accepting salvation but about dedicating one’s entire life to His service. In response to this calling, I attended the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary in Lebanon, where I studied from 2000 to 2004. After graduating, my wife and I returned to Sudan with a vision to serve the church and the community. Since then, we have dedicated our lives to serving the Lord in pastoral care, education, discipleship, church planting, and leadership training, and we continue this mission to this day.

For me, the Church means embodying Christ’s living presence in society, serving people with love and without discrimination, and responding to their spiritual and physical needs. The Church is not merely a place of worship, but a community of believers working for the common good, supporting those in need, promoting peace and reconciliation, and offering hope to society through practical actions and witnessing to the Gospel.

We started working with MERATH in 2023, as a response to the devastating war which has been ravaging the country. We first received training from the MERATH team to build our capacity and learn from their experience of church-based relief work in war-torn contexts. They then helped us implement a first joint food assistance project and helped us with an agriculture project. Last year, we scaled up our partnership and provided food parcels to 1,745 war-affected families across four different regions in Sudan. It was the first time we had undertaken such a large project.

This project contributed to improving the living conditions of the participants by meeting some of their basic needs, thus alleviating their suffering and financial burden in the difficult humanitarian conditions they were in. It truly made a big difference in people’s lives. Some people told us that the assistance arrived at a time when they had nothing and didn’t know what they would eat the next day. They literally had no money in their hands and no one else helping or supporting them, so the food truly arrived at the perfect time.

The families appreciated the contents of the food parcels, which were very substantial and included commonly consumed foods in Sudan like flour, rice, oil, sugar, and more. We conducted our distributions in four locations through local teams of five to seven people on the ground. People were very pleased and touched by the fact that although it was churches responding, there was no favoritism and the assistance was given based on need alone, regardless of religious background.

Besides the immediate humanitarian impact, the food assistance project strengthened the church’s presence and reputation within the community. It opened new avenues to reach out to families in need with whom we had no prior connection, and to build relationships with them based on love and trust. This positively influenced the community’s perception of the church as an institution that is close to the people, understands their needs, and is willing to step up to serve and respond concretely.

The project also encouraged some families to seek prayer and counsel and opened the way for pastoral follow-up and discipleship, hence allowing us to provide a holistic witness to Christ’s love by meeting basic needs alongside spiritual ones when requested.

Today, enormous needs remain, which weighs on us because we can’t help everyone who shows up and must put their names on a long waiting list. Many Sudanese people are still displaced, either internally or into neighboring countries. Some have been displaced for over three years now. Although safety has returned to certain areas, other locations remain very dangerous. The war has not stopped and people are still scared, while inflation is skyrocketing and prices continue to change from month to month.

Many Christians left the country because of the war and might not return. Christians tend to emigrate for good when something like this happens, and this is a long-term challenge for Sudan. But the church has remained present and will continue to do so, as much as God allows us to continue serving Him in our country.”