race with joy: South Sudan Flood Mitigation Project

In November last year, I traveled to Malakal, South Sudan with an EMI volunteer to lend technical support to Food for the Hungry (FH) for their Community Resilience Initiative. The project is designed to assist farmers living along the Sobat and Nile Rivers. Many South Sudanese make their homes in the flood plain because this land is the most fertile. I am told that if you move just a few hundred meters away from the river in some places, the earth is so dry and cracked that it is impossible to cultivate. But the source of life is also the source of destruction, as the river floods its banks annually to varying degrees. People can loose homes, crops, livelihoods, and livestock-- cattle and goats-- and some even lose their lives.

There are many goals of the project, mostly related to agriculture, but also community education and disaster risk reduction (DRR) through flood mitigation.

River travel looked basically the same the entire time.

We met many beautiful people along the way, traveling by air from the capital of Juba to Malakal, and then by river to several communities that are only accessible by boat during the rainy season. Our work focused on gathering information for the DRR portion of the project by observing the steps the communities were already taking to protect themselves from the flooding. We then made recommendations on how to improve on these methods. Food for the Hungry had already set up committees in each payam (a group of about 5 villages) to begin the process of training communities. We visited 2 of the 9 payams that FH works in to meet with government and tribal leaders and the committee members. They showed us around their villages and answered our questions about past floods through an interpreter. We were welcomed warmly and honored that they even slaughtered a goat for us to eat in Doma payam.

A few weeks after we left, conflict broke out in South Sudan.

At the FH office in Malakal.

We have just finalized and published the project report and drawings. FH and their funding organization (USAID) are pleased with the proposed flood mitigation strategies in the report. Under normal circumstances, you could look at EMI project #9148 and declare it a success. In most cases EMI projects are implemented in some form. But the future of this project is uncertain as FH has suspended work in these areas due to the fighting. I struggle knowing that our recommendations may never be implemented after giving so much energy to the project. It calls into question the hundreds of hours and dollars “wasted”, not only on this project, but by so many organizations serving in South Sudan.

Communities build many kilometers of small berms to try to protect themselves from rising flood waters.

But I am certain that God is sovereign. He has a plan and a purpose for this project, and more importantly, these people. I know that there’s a reason we went, even if it’s not clear now. We should not be discouraged. Man’s failures do not frustrate the purposes of God. Jesus has overcome. Victory is His.

Please pray with me for the people of South Sudan. Pray for the church there. Pray for the missionaries and aid workers who have returned in the midst of the danger and that God will send more workers to minister there. Pray for the many lost and hurting to know Jesus Christ and His love.

Romans 11

³³Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!