Ecumenical Visit Focus of Retreat for Members of Christian Women Entity in South Sudan

Christian Women in South Sudan who are members of the Sudan Council of Churches National Women Coordination desk (SSCC) are taking part in a three-day spiritual retreat with a focus on the planned ecumenical visit to the East-Central African nation.

In an interview with ACI Africa, the SSCC National Women Coordinator, Jackline Salathiel Ebere said the spiritual retreat that was to begin on Friday, May 27 would see the women fast and pray “in a closed room” for the successful visit of the church leaders set to visit South Sudan in July.

Christian women in South Sudan have agreed to prepare “spiritually by going on three-day fasting and prayer in a closed room to call upon God to give us the strength, spirit of reconciliation, forgiveness, love, and unity,” Mrs. Ebere told ACI Africa during the Wednesday, May 25 interview.

“We need prayers to enable God to give us the right way forward to pray for the church leaders as they come so that everything will be peaceful,” she said in reference to Pope Francis, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, Jim Wallace.

Archbishop Welby and Rev. Wallace are to join Pope Francis in the final leg of his two-African-nation pastoral trip that is to begin in the capital city of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kinshasa, on July 2, and then to the city of Goma, the capital of North Kivu Province in Eastern DRC.

If realized, Pope Francis will become the first Pope to visit South Sudan, which became the world’s newest nation after gaining independence from the Republic of the Sudan on 9 July 2011.

“We will continue with the prayers until the day the Pope will come,” the SSCC National Women Coordinator said about the three-day ecumenical visit that is to begin on July 5.

In the May 25 interview, Mrs. Ebere told ACI Africa that SSCC member had agreed to form a committee that would have the mandate to write to church leaders in South Sudan to share their thoughts about the envisaged ecumenical trip.

“The Communique will express the women’s desire asking for peace, reconciliation, revitalization of the peace agreement and other things that will move the country forward;” the Coordinator of the Christian women entity in South Sudan said.

She added, “We are still going to agree on the venue and we shall let the community know because what we want to do needs to be passed to the women in the States for them to pray, the same with those in Juba.”

“It’s time to prepare for this ecumenical pilgrimage because the coming of the three religious leaders can only be equated to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” Mrs. Ebere said, and added, “This is our time for peace because if we don’t get peace this time then I don’t know what else will happen to us.”

She further said, “We have faith and we believe that if we fast for three days, repenting and crying to God, a miracle could come.”

The SSCC Coordinator expressed confidence that their pleas to God will be answered “because when you pray with faith you will succeed.”

Recalling their deliberations in a recent meeting in preparation for the ecumenical trip, the SSCC Coordinator said, “We called together women from parliament, civil society, and those from the member churches that formed the South Sudan Council of Churches on how we want to welcome the Pope, what we want to do and how to welcome them.”

When realized, the July 2-7 pastoral trip to DRC and South Sudan will mark Pope Francis’ third visit to sub-Saharan Africa, and the third Papal visit to DRC, which is home to Africa’s largest Catholic population.

Credits to ACI AFRICA NEWS