Sunday, May 26, 2024

Juba Branch Reopens in South Sudan

Today, the Church reinstated the Juba Branch in South Sudan. The Juba Branch was initially organized in November of 2009, but the branch closed in 2013 due to civil war and political instability. A member group operated in Juba prior to the reinstatement of the new branch. The new branch is under the direct supervision of the Uganda Kampala Mission. The population of South Sudan is approximately 11-13 million people. So far, there do not appear to be plans to assign full-time missionaries to South Sudan.

Prospects for rapid growth appeared favorable in the late 2000s prior to independence. At the time, the Church operated the Juba Branch with groups in additional cities such as Akobo and Nyamlel. There were groups of several thousand who requested baptism but were not baptized due to a lack of church infrastructure in the country, most notably in remote Nyamlel. Official church operations ceased by the mid-2010s due to war. Nevertheless, progress has been made with outreach among South Sudanese living abroad. A senior missionary couple began South Sudanese-specific outreach in Salt Lake City in 2019, and a Dinka/Nuer-speaking branch opened in 2021. The Church has had many South Sudanese converts join the Church in the United States, Uganda, Kenya, and Australia in particular. The first South Sudanese branch operated in Omaha, Nebraska in the mid-2000s, but the branch closed by the late 2000s.

11 comments:

John Pack Lambert said...

What is the conflict situation like in South Sudan currently. With the Uganda mission no longer having to cover Rwanda, it will be able to focus any resources not dedicated to Uganda to South Sudan.

I met a man from Sudan, but quite likely from what is now South Sudan, getting married in the Salt Lake Temple back in 2004. In theory he might have a child old enough to serve a mission now.

I think assigning people of South Sudanese descent as among the first missionaries to South Sudan could be beneficial.

I really wish I knew how to get more youth to serve mission. I know Church wide the numbers are up, which is why more new missions than new temples were announced last year. However in my branch we have had half a dozen youth or so complete high school over the last 2 years, and none have gone on missions. Three of them were men. One of whom is the son of our elders Quorum president. The other two come from single mother families.

My branch has never sent a man resident in Detroit on a mission and only once sent a woman raised in Detroit on a mission. In the entire 30 years my branch has existed. Our Grosse Pointe send out numbers I think are about 1 man and 1 woman, and even there they were fairly recent move ins.

Other wards and branches in metro Detroit have sent out Detroit resident youths on missions. The first person endowed in the Detroit Temple was a Detroit resident leaving on a mission.

I wish I had easier and quicker answers.

Craig said...

Craig Shuler asks,
I love this blog and all the work Matt M. and our other blogmaster and contributers put into it.

1. Is there any logic in how many days or posts are made before a new thread is started?
Is a new thread only started when Matt wants to write a comment?

One day and 12 posts (yesterday) seems too few. It doesn’t seem like a new one was needed for Juba Branch.

21 days (from May 5 to May 25) and 236 posts seem like too many.

May I suggest a new thread be started every week if there are more then a dozen or so posts?

2. When are the labels added? It seem like many more labels would be appropriate after the posts are made rather than before.

3. What is the criteria for adding new and discontinued stakes and districts?

New Salt Lake Utah Central (Tongan) Stake and West Jordan Utah Wasatch Meadows (Spanish)
stakes are in CDOL and were organizes May 19th, but are not in the blog yet (7 days is probably too soon to expect them to be added to the blog).

Would it be better to not list new stakes are added far in advance of organization based on rumors, some of which are never organized? Probably not, since many or most of the comments are speculation.

Any thoughts?
`

John Pack Lambert said...

Matt makes posts as he has information to post. Also it is limited by time to post. He does occasionally make comments, but if he has new information on a new subject he posts it as new topic.

The comments section ends up being a mix of follow up and postings on new developments.

Elder Perrella recently spoke at an inter-fsith conference in Qatar. He is 1st counselor in the Middle East/North Africa Area Presidency. 8t really should be called the Southwest Asia/North Africa Area Presidency. Middle East is a terribly Euro-Centric term, and is illogical to use if one lives in India, where one has South-west Asia to their East.

We no longer use the term "Far East" do I think we should jettison Midfle East as well.

Chris D. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
James G. Stokes said...

Craig, what do you mean by "our other blogmaster"? Matt runs this blog entirely on his own. He alone is responsible for posting new content and moderating comments here. If anyone (myself included) ever gave any other impression, let's set that record straight right here and now.

As JPL indicated, Matt said a while ago that he started a new job (no specifics provided there) and had a new calling (a counselor in his ward bishopric), so his time is more limited in terms of posting new content. Matt posts new updates as his time and situation allows, generally on Sunday, but sometimes during the week if he has some spare time. If there's nothing new he has time or desire to report here, why would he publish a new post just to open a new comment section?

Similarly, Matt updates his stake/district list as he has time. Some sources only add new stakes to their lists when their creation is officially confirmed on either the Church maps site or the CDOL, which is probably why Matt hasn't yet added the new units you mentioned. Also, for those like myself, who blog, it would be more correct to say that what Matt publishes here are new blog posts while the rest of us contribute comments to the threadsof each post. To be clear, I'm not trying to nitpick here at anyone who can use whatever terminology they choose. But since Blogger refers to such contributions and comments, it's less confusing (at least for me) to do the same. I don't mean to come across as nitpicky here, but I hope that differentiation is helpful to at least some who read it here.

James G. Stokes said...

JPL, I have some additional thoughts regarding your suggested area changes that were posted both in this comment thread and in the threads of the previous blog post. I don't necessarily think we'll see any additional nations transferred from the current Asia Area to the current Asia North Area. As Matt has previously indicated, the next most likely area change is for Nigeria to split off from Africa West into its' own area. That may or may not lead to a realignment of the other African areas as well. I also wouldn't be shocked if an Africa East Area forms at some point.

I don't think we'll see Canada form its own area either. In an earlier thread at some point, someone made a suggestion about how the North American areas could potentially be realigned to create one or two new areas. I liked one suggestion, but I can't seem to find any information on what it was, where it was made, or who suggested it. If whoever it was knows what I'm referring to, could they reenter that suggestion in a reply here? Utah is the North American area with the largest Church population and presence, so I don't think any other states or state portions would be added to it above and beyond what it already has. If anything, I could see Utah being split again into two or three separate areas again at some point, even if not in the same way that it formerly was (Utah North, Utah Salt Lake City, Utah South).

Could the other parts of North America be reconfigured into new areas? Probably. Like I said, there was that one suggested breakdown I really liked the sound of, and I hope it could be shared again here in this thread. At the end of the day, I'm just glad that despite all our theories here, the Lord is the Ultimate One who makes such decisions known to the prophet, who then puts them into practice as he receives such inspiration.

I will just mention one other thing here, then hop off my proverbial soapbox for now. This upcoming week should be interesting. Since Memorial Day is observed in the United States tomorrow, the next major temple construction announcement will be made on Tuesday at the earliest, if there is such an announcement this week after last week's hiatus. Then on Thursday, those first 12 hymns will be released. And Friday will mark President Henry B. Eyring's 91st birthday. I am somewhat surprised but gratified that, at least for the immediate future, my feeling last month that he might not be with us much longer has thus far been incorrect. I hope that continues to be the case, and that it will actually be a while before the next apostle is called home, whomever and whenever that may be. My thanks to all who waded through my lengthy pntifications, such as they are.

Jonathon F. said...

The reestablishment of official Church operations in South Sudan is no minor miracle. I've mentioned this before, but the end of the Juba Branch was very messy and involved the senior missionaries assigned to it facing considerable danger. South Sudan has a long way to go before it's even a stable state, so the Church won't have an easy time establishing proselyting there. But this is really exciting.

Johnathan Reese Whiting said...

A bit of a response to both the Tshiluba Translation announcement and the reinstated branch in South Sudan:

I met several Sudanese (and Somalian) refugees in one area of my mission (Louisville, Kentucky).

I remember one man specifically telling us he spoke Dinka and offering us a bible in Dinka. I liked gifting Books of Mormon/Bibles in different languages to the different immigrants I met (other than Spanish, I gave out a few in Arabic and a Croatian Doctrine & Covenants once), so I asked the mission APs if we had a Dinka Book of Mormon to give to the man. I was disappointed at the time to find that the translation didn't exist yet.

I hope someday to see a Dinka translation. It'll probably take another couple of decades. Looks like there are a few million Dinka speakers worldwide (multiple dialects), and that the Dinka people are the largest ethnic group in South Sudan.

It's nice to hear about the Juba branch's reinstatement.

John Pack Lambert said...

Keep in mind that Elder Kyungu started the DR Congo Mbuji-Maye mission when that area was in the midst of armed conflict. I also knew someone who served a mission in Guatemala when it was in the midst of armed conflict.

It is possible to do missionary work Amistad armed conflict. Although there are some conflicts that halt missionary work.

To be fair Elder Kyungu had mainly Congolese missionaries in his mission. The logistics of having local missionaries in a conflict area are different that missionaries from elsewhere. Although the missionaries who evacuated Liberia in 1991 in the midst of civil war were primarily Liberian, so conflicts can halt even local missionaries being able to serve.

Eduardo said...

I think that we (the Church, its members, the priesthood) could make a better plan, like a checklist, to be better priesthood holders, missionaries, productive followers of Christ. I think I will work on this. Since we got rid of Boy Scouting, I think that we lack some principles of organization that we could be better at putting together in order to help our youth be who they should become: missionaries of Jesus and followers of the Lord, i.e. salt of the earth and covenant people of God.

Yes, I will work on this. We need more missionaries! We lose too many youth to the vagaries of the world, the fallen, greedy, material realm.

David McFadden said...

It doesn't seem the church wants to add a lot more areas, but I could be wrong.

For North America, I could see reasoning to put Canada into the same area - Maybe a North America North Area that would span from Alaska to the US Northeast. The NA Southeast area boundaries would then span further north. This would allow a central point of contact for the entire nation as what's done with other countries. However, Canada has three distinct cultures; Western Canada, Quebec, and Eastern Canada. This maybe the reasoning between the split up into three north American areas.

For Africa, I could see a language-based division. Placing English Speaking countries in one area, French Speaking Countries in another area and another area that are neither. This will remove a potential language barrier for leaders. I could also see the Middle East-North Africa Area expand southward to capture other primarily-Muslim countries. I don't see Nigeria becoming it's own area. To me, a logical Africa West split as mentioned above would be an English/French Split.

The Asia Area contains a little more than 50% of the World's population, and is by far the most diverse area. Its two largest countries (India and China) are almost at war with each other (or about any of China's neighbors for that matter). The Asia Area has most of the worlds, Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims (yes, more Muslims here than the middle east/North Africa and the rest of the world).