In particular, Bishop Elias Taban, of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Sudan, has made an appeal for funds to aid the reconstruction work required in the African country.
Sudan, a country that has a whole generation of its inhabitants that have never experienced surroundings where there has not been war, is looking to the future with hope after the 21-year civil war.
The civil war in the country has accounted for an estimated 1.5 million lives, as the war continued for more than two decades between the mainly Muslim north and the Christian south.
Peace was brought to the region after an accord was signed in January 2005, and since then there has been a huge rush to rebuild the country’s crumbling infrastructure.
Bishop Elias Taban has spent the last two-week visiting the UK, looking to raise the £65,000 needed to complete building and equipping a desperately needed new hospital in the remote village of Goli, in southern Sudan.
Last week Bishop Taban visited the Evangelical Alliance offices in London where he appealed to Christians to offer money to help his country establish many more Christian-run schools and hospitals, which are a vital foundation if the country is ever to regenerate itself.
It is hoped that a majority of the funding required, at least for the Goli hospital, will come from interested doctors and businessmen.
Bishop Taban, who has been extremely instrumental in re-forming the Sudanese Evangelical Alliance just 18 months ago said, “We have no schools, no health services, no roads, no infrastructure. In the district where I live, Yei, one doctor has to serve 300,000 people.”
The Evangelical Alliance UK reports that the hospital in Goli should be completed by the end of 2006 and will have 50 beds, and will serve a population of 300,000 people, with funding being organised by Medic Assist International.
Daniel Blake
Christian Today Correspondent
