Here’s a story from Make Way Partners, our partners on the ground in Sudan. Mocha Club helped build the girls’ orphanage in Nyamel, Sudan in 2007, and the boys’ orphanage was just completed! We are so thankful that children like Teresa can now live in love and safety!
Late one evening just before sunset, I sat in Sudan’s oppressive heat watching the fireball in the sky sink beneath the horizon with great anticipation for the immediate temperature drop this would bring.
In Sudan, everything seems to stop at this time each day. The harsh sand no longer stings your face as even the wind seems to wait in reverence for God’s great exhibition of sunset.
Just as the last breath of day was being drawn, hysterical screams pierced the rest. My head jerked around to see a young girl from our school running into the compound. James and I met her at the same time. It was Teresa Nyibol; she was about 10 years old. I wrapped my arms around Teresa Nyibol trying to calm her – and cover her at the same time for she was naked.
James went to collect a blanket to cover Teresa Nyibol. Her body was shaking, she was crying and trying to speak at the same time. Although her English was fairly fluent, her native tongue Dinka was what pushed forth her story.
Teresa Nyibol is one of the 400 orphans in our New Life school in Sudan. At this point, we did not have dormitories completed yet for the children to sleep in, so most of them sleep in the bush alone and unprotected. Some of the children, however, had been taken into community homes with the promise of having a roof over their heads at night.
The problem is that because even the community people are so poor, not just the orphans, everyone is desperate. So, most of our orphans who lived in a community home were made responsible for finding food for the family and forced into domestic or sexual slavery. The woman that Teresa Nyibol lived with was desperate. Her husband had been killed in the last attack upon her village; she had five children of her own. Teresa Nyibol became a commodity to this woman.
She was going to sell Teresa Nyibol to the slave traders from the North. She explained to Teresa Nyibol that at least Teresa Nyibol would have a roof over her head and would get good food everyday. Nyibol didn’t care; she refused to go. The woman had much riding on this transaction. Nyibol was only 10 and a virgin; she would bring enough money for the woman’s children to eat for many months to come.
The woman became violent; she ripped Teresa Nyibol’s clothes from her back and burned them. She thought that if Teresa Nyibol was naked she would be too afraid to leave the tukel until the morning when the sale would be completed.
Teresa Nyibol knew her one hope was help from Pastor James at New Life Ministry. Naked, she ran to our compound. Of course, we took Teresa Nyibol in.
After a year and a half of consistent care and protection, Teresa Nyibol has not only begun to reveal much healing but a true leader has burst forth. Teresa Nyibol, now about 12 years old, leads daily liturgical dance on the compound. A choir of young girls and boys meets her each day after school where Teresa Nyibol leads in creating beautiful dances that honor God and tell, through dance, His unrelenting love for mankind.
Teresa Nyibol says that when she grows up, she wants to be the Director of New Life where she can lead others to protect the innocent and raise up the next generation of peacemakers in Sudan.
