There has not been a comprehensive Bridge Report update published on Matthew and his ministry since the October 2019 issue, which you will find by clicking on SOUTH SUDAN under the COUNTRIES tab above. We start this report with great personal news:
October 2019: CHURCH CONFERENCE FOR SOUTH SUDANESE CHURCHES IN NAKOUWA SUBURCH IN KAMPALA, UGANDA
In 2013, two years after South Sudan was declared a separate new country, internal civil war broke out between the new President and the Vice President. Many who had returned from diaspora after living for decades in refugee camps in neighboring countries, left for fear of violence and fled back abroad. Matthew remained in the country and continued bringing the Gospel to his countrymen. There are now many small South Sudanese fellowships of believers in diaspora in Uganda. The Bridge helped sponsor Matthew and his team who visited Kampala and gathered these churches to a Praise and Peace Conference where thanksgiving and prayer were in focus. “We give glory to God for all He has done for us,” Matthew reports.
November 2019: A COUNTRY-WIDE CHURCH CONFERENCE TO DECLARE A NATIONAL DIALOGUE OF PEACE IN SOUTH SUDAN.
Matthew reports, “We had been prayer for this for a long time. All the churches of South Sudan came together to pray for repentance and reconciliation. It was unifying—peace will come!”
December 2019: GOSPEL OUTREACH TO THE PEOPLE OF ABYEI AND VISIT TO HIS HOME STATE OF TWIC
After Matthew had returned from living as refugee in Israel to resettle in his new homeland, he told me he was born in the very northern part of the country, the state of Twic, where he had family who owned land. It is located due south of Abyei, the most disputed and troubled region between Sudan proper and South Sudan. However, he was not ready to visit his family, as yet. His call was to settle in the capital of Juba and care for the believers who had returned with him from Israel.
Seven years later, after he was established and had planted two churches in Juba and done a number of conferences and Gospel outreaches, the Lord laid upon his heart that the timing was right to bring the Gospel to his home region. In December, he conducted a Gospel outreach in Abyei. 
After that, he traveled to the rural village where he was born and grew up. He had not been back for 36 years, since he at eight years old was abducted by Sudanese enemy soldiers and brought to Khartoum!
The reunion was cause for a great, joyous celebration! His father died when Matthew was young, but Matthew reconnected with his mother and two sisters. His uncle, his father’s brother, now more than 100 years old, expressed that he had been determined not to die before he would see his nephew, again. Matthew had told me his close family counts about 3,000 people and his Dinka family tribe in the region close to 30,000!
The Dinka tribe is traditionally a very tall nomadic people who support themselves largely from herding cattle. They live today the same subsistent lifestyle as they have for hundreds of years. I realized that for Matthew, who had for decades lived in large metropolitan cities abroad, visiting his family’s rural hometown was like stepping back in time several centuries to a simple lifestyle with no electricity, no roads, no infrastructure, no technology! “I have come home!” he expressed. His uncle took Matthew to the family property, a vast land area of rich, raw fertile soil with plenty of water available—an agricultural paradise. “All of this is yours, Matthew, I give it to you to manage this and lead our people.” And then, his uncle, being the local tribe leader, passed on the leadership to Matthew and appointed him Chief over their land and people! Before Matthew left for Juba, he promised to return three months later as he had a clear vision how he could help his people prosper by utilizing the rich land to grow their own food. When he returned in March 2020, he helped clear and plant a couple of acres with various seeds.
February 2020: TRAVEL TO SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA AS ONE OF 16 SOUTH SUDANESE REPRESENTATIVES AT AN INTERNATIONAL PEACE SUMMIT
The new Vice President is a committed Christian, and had noticed Matthew’s ardent pursuit and leadership in bringing believers in the country together to intercede for peace and reconciliation. He invited Matthew to meet him in Khartoum, Sudan, during which he appointed him to be one among 16 delegated representing South Sudan at the Interreligious and International Federation of World Peace (Matthew’s official name is Manyang Ayii). Upon his return, Matthew was offered a leadership position in the government, but declined. “I am called to be a Pastor and Evangelist, not a government worker.”
THEN—COVID-19 ARRIVED AND CURBED PUBLIC OUTREACHES AND ACTIVITIES Although the infection rate was extremely low (to date less than 11,000 infected and a total of 115 deaths among a population of close to 14 million) the government restricted most activities. The believers met in homes, and Matthew focused on strengthening the home base.
The Bridge helped finance a new Computer Training School by providing 2 desktops, 3 laptops, a printer, and a scanner, and we recently added 3 more laptops. 16 students have completed the three month course. 20 are presently attending classes, 3 groups per day for three days a week with two teachers. Today, a year later, the school is self financed.
Every one of the women’s cottage industries in which we initially invested are all thriving and able to support them and their families: sale of women’s clothing, a shop selling homemade tea and snacks, a restaurant serving home made food and beverages.
Matthew continues to do what he loves the most via different forums: preaching and teaching the Word of God. We help pay for his once a week Gospel hour on the largest FM radio station in Juba, which reaches most of the capitol’s half mill people.
SUMMARY REPORT FROM ELOHIM INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES by Matthew
Since I arrived with my church members in 2012 from Tel Aviv, Israel in Juba, South Sudan, we have been working very hard to fulfill the vision and mission the Lord gave us when we were refugees in Israel: to preach the Gospel, that the South Sudanese people will come to know Jesus Christ as their Savior. We have experienced God’s blessings and His provision and watched how He has used us to bring wonders and miracles to the people who have come to faith.
We have now two churches in Juba with about 300 believers in each, and many have been trained in leadership. The believers meet in Bible study groups, groups for teenagers and young adults, and groups for young mothers. We have Sunday school for younger children, and leadership meetings for the training of pastors and leaders. Once a month, we gather the two churches for a conference where we teach on specific topics, or we gather for worship and thanksgiving, where there is food and fellowship.
Every year I bring our leadership team to other regions in the country where we conduct crusades in unevangelized areas. In 2019, we were in Wau, capital of Western Bahr el Gazal State and in the Abyei area, near my home town, where we have planted a church in each place. In 2020 because of Covid-19, we could not preach the Gospel publicly, but God was still in control! Now, South Sudan is free from Corona, and the country has opened up, so we will continue our outreaches! I am planning to devote my time between Juba and my home area in the North. We have ordained a new local pastor for the Juba churches, Robert Simon Tombe, as I will be focusing on my new marriage and church planting, preaching and teaching. Thank you, Bridge partners who have helped us with finances and prayers!
FROM R.K.’s CORNER
You may have noticed that the May issue of The Bridge Report was not published, nor mailed to our contacts. The reason for skipping this report was that both Steve and I had contracted Covid-19. We felt that the best cause of action was to shut down the Stateside activities of The Bridge office while we quarantined in our home to give us time to heal, but also ensuring that we would not infect anyone else coming to the office or in contact with us. Fortunately, this did not affect any of the work or activities of our field partners overseas!
We had decided not to be vaccinated, but rather let nature take its course by allowing our natural immune system to do the fighting. We both had a mild to moderate case; I chose to stay at home, while Steve, due to precautions regarding a lowered immune system caused by the anti-cancer chemo therapy he is given, was admitted to the hospital for a few days. Today, six weeks later, we are both healed and back to life before Covid, with no lingering side effects, thanks to God’s grace and the prayer and intercession by brothers and sisters across the globe! THANK YOU!!
This is therefore a bit longer publication where I present an update on Matthew Deng Dut’s life and ministry in South Sudan from the fall of 2019 until now. There is some exciting news, and much fruit for God’s Kingdom!
In 2012, when Matthew arrived back in South Sudan after a lifetime as refugee in diaspora, he came to a scorched land, physically and spiritually. He returned empty-handed with a broken people to a broken land caused by a three decade long war perpetrated by Khartoum’s Muslim forces which had left 3 million dead and 5 million in refugee camps abroad.
The vision for 2019 was clear: The hearts of the South Sudanese people are like the dry bones in the valley mentioned in Ezekiel 37:1-7. Can these dry bones live? Yes, says the Lord, but only through revival of the power of the Word of God! So, throughout January, our church fasted and prayed for the Kingdom of God to be preached in our country. The theme for the year is Isaiah 11:9, “for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” This has set the tone for our outreaches and conferences this year.
In February, five of our leaders and I from our Elohim Shalom church in Juba and our affiliate church in Wau, conducted a five day crusade, and four day leadership conference in that city. Wau, pop. 150.000, is located 400 miles Northwest of Juba. It was an open air crusade in Freedom Square, a field located next to the city’s largest mosque.
When South Sudan gained independence from Sudan proper on July 9, 2011, a forty year old armed conflict which had raged between the Muslim-backed Arab government in Northern Sudan, and the predominantly Christian Africans in Southern Sudan, ended. During this war, approx. 2 million people had been killed and 5 million displaced as refugees into the neighboring countries. 
It set off a cycle of retaliatory killings which have split the poverty-stricken country along ethnic lines, causing hundreds of thousands to flee. A fragile peace agreement was finally established, for again to be broken in July 2016. Last year alone, some 489,000 South Sudanese refugees fled to Uganda. The refugee settlement Bidibidi in northern Uganda, opened less than six months ago, is already one of the world’s largest refugee camps. It currently houses over 270,000 South Sudanese.
South Sudan’s Catholic Archbishop Paulino Lokudu Loro presided over Friday’s National Day of Prayer. He declared the government must choose between peace, unity, reconciliation and justice over rapes, killings and arbitrary arrests. He urged President Salva Kiir to “go pray alone in a room for peace in the country”. 
The South Sudanese President, Kiir called delivered his own prayer before the crowd, asking for divine forgiveness.
“In light of the current Crisis in South Sudan, I’m counting on your support and networking for a time of National Prayer, Repentance and Forgiveness in Juba, South Sudan, March 26th-27th, 2017. This event will resonate with the National Peace and Reconciliation Initiative proposed by President Kiir.
I met Matthew Deng Dut for the first time in 2008 in Tel Aviv, Israel. He was among the 1100 South Sudanese who had fled atrocities in Sudan and Egypt to find refuge in Israel. I visited his church, Elohim Shalom Ministry, which he had established among his fellow refugees there.
After returning to South Sudan in 2012, Matthew and his fellowship settled in the outskirts of Juba where he continues to pastor his flock. He has survived three severe malaria attacks, was robbed of all his possessions, and keeps on serving his people through a four year brutal, internal civil war, during which many of his church members have fled. In spite of the insurmountable problems he and his people face daily, Matthew refuses to give up, he has remained faithful to his call to seek reconciliation, and stands on Jesus’ promise in Matthew 5:9, “Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called Children of God.” His message is clear: Lasting peace only comes through The Prince of Peace!
In May, Matthew and his fellowship, Elohim Shalom International Ministries, will also gather city– and region wide churches and church leaders and government officials to a Day of Prayer, Repentance, and Reconciliation on behalf od their country, government, and people. WOULD YOU PRAY AND HELP HIM FINANCE THIS EVENT? 
