Desert Rose
Hope Amidst Horror for the Peoples of Darfur

By Susan Sutton

When God planted His gardens around the world, He chose thorn trees and rocks for the Darfur region of Sudan and neighboring Chad. Painted in shades of yellows and browns, the landscape of this sun-baked region just below the Sahara has its own kind of harsh beauty. The peoples who live here deserve the world’s respect. Life is hard, yet they eke out a living from unpromising soil.

Welcome to the transition zone between northern and southern Africa. Most people are subsistence farmers who sell their produce on straw mats in the daily markets, or merchants who hawk their wares from cluttered shops. Years are remembered by a good rain or a devastating drought. Hopes are for a good harvest and for children to live and, if Allah wills, to get a good education.

That is, if Allah wills and the evil spirits don’t get their way. The peoples of the sub-Sahara straddling Chad and Sudan are Muslim, but theirs is a folk Islam in which superstition compromises religious orthodoxy. Small leather pouches containing Qur’anic verses are draped on the necks of children and animals, soldiers and young brides–their protection from evil. Muslim holy men write verses from the Qur’an on wooden boards, wash the ink into a bowl, and then sell the “drink” as a potion to guarantee anything from getting a wife to keeping bullets from penetrating the body.

Nine months of assef (dry weather) and three months of alharif (rains) make up the rhythm of life, and laughter is found in them all. Women meet and gossip at local wells. Children giggle over games played with dried goat pellets in the streets. Celebrations abound: births and marriages, circumcisions, and the return of friends after long journeys.

But laughter has died in Darfur, a region of western Sudan roughly the size of Texas. For two years, instead of gossiping, women whisper tales of rape and murdered husbands and sons. Instead of playing in the streets, children flee from aerial bombing and mysterious horsemen with guns. Nearly two million homeless, hungry, and traumatized people now huddle in Darfur and the neighboring provinces of Chad.

The world has taken notice, thanks largely to concerned Christians who persisted in bringing Darfur to the attention of influential politicians. No one wants another Rwanda. In fact, before the 2005 tsunami struck Asia, the United Nations had identified Darfur as “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis,” and Congress passed a resolution declaring the Darfur situation to be “genocide.” Though the tsunami crisis surpasses Darfur in the reported loss of life and destruction of property—meriting the tremendous response of aid—the Darfur crisis is dominated by a heart-wrenching difference: the enormous destruction comes from human hands rather than nature.

Making Sense of the Headlines

Questions persist for outsiders trying to make sense of the headlines emerging from this region. What exactly is going on? Are the accusations of “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” true?

The answers are as complex as Africa itself. To live and work in sub-Saharan Africa is to understand that woven into the fabric of daily life are age-old threads that weave this complexity.

Ethnic threads. The peoples of western Sudan and northeastern Chad are rich in ethnic diversity. Tribal names roll off the tongue: Abu Charib, Mimi, Maba, Masmaje, Assangori in Chad, and Fur, Zane, Mondari, Moru, Murie, Midob in Sudan. People groups spill across the porous border as if there were no border at all. Five predominant ethnic groups claim both eastern Chad and western Sudan as their common home: the Masalit, Zaghawa, Tama, Daju, and Arabs with their sub-clans. The Fur, a group distinctive to Sudan (Darfur literally means “country of the Fur”), could well join the list because refugees are settling among their neighbors in Chad.

Ethnic identities remain strong, but the various people groups mingle as good neighbors in marketplaces, mosques, and homes. They often intermarry. Farmers and merchants in rural villages share the common trade language of Arabic. Less sedentary nomads wander along the borders living in portable “tents” of woven mats and wood transported on the backs of camels. Some nomads settle in bush towns and plant fields of their own, blurring the ethnic lines even further.

In northeastern Chad the diversity normally works. Sudan, however, has chosen to write a different story. Over the last decades the central government of Sudan, located in Khartoum, has increasingly emphasized an ethnic line of distinction between the black African peoples and the lighter-skinned Arabs. Local Arabs have been politically favored over black Africans, even though the latter are more representative of the population. Grievances voiced by those who feel marginalized have not been addressed adequately, if at all. The message received from an Arab-dominated government is clear: all may be Muslim in Darfur, but not all are considered equal.

Economic threads. The age-old conflict over land has intensified. Farmers resent camel-riding nomads who trample fields as they migrate. Nomads resent herdsmen who make seasonal forays into their grazing areas. Increasing desertification heightens the conflict, as herdsmen must push further south to find land suitable for grazing, competing with farmers for survival. Tribes who share the same religion find it hard to share the same land.

Political threads. Sudan’s government has done a poor job of handling these conflicts, leaving grievances to simmer, then boil, then explode. While Sudan recently inched towards a resolution of its (separate) civil war between the North and South, two new rebel groups formed in western Darfur: the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). Not wanting these new rebel groups to inspire other regions of the country, Khartoum has struck back in force with the janjawid. These “demon horsemen” were originally recruited and sent south to attack regions held by the southern rebel army. Khartoum then armed more of them to help counter the rebels in Darfur. In the guise of subduing rebel soldiers, the government began a campaign of bombing villages from the air while the janjawid have run a ground campaign of burning and pillaging villages, murdering men and boys, and raping women and young girls. Government response to the rebels has morphed into a systematic terrorization and slaughter of innocent civilians.

Muslims are shocked and angered that other Muslims are threatening them. One worker in the region reports, “We hear story after story of these persecuted tribes scratching their heads and asking, 'What have our Muslim brothers ever done for us? What has our Muslim government ever done for us?' As a result, some are questioning Islam.”

Darfur Today

In just a few years, Darfur has evolved from a typical sub-Saharan region of Africa–where diverse ethnic groups generally live together in peace–to a region where fear reigns. The statistics are appalling. The UN and other organizations currently estimate the death toll between 200 – 300,000. Over two million people have fled villages under attack; they are officially “Internally Displaced Peoples,” living in their own country but unable to go home. Another 240,000 have fled across the border into Chad where they live in refugee camps.

Patrick Johnstone, author of the acclaimed prayer guide, Operation World, has characterized Darfur as one of the least evangelized areas on earth. Less than 50 disciples of Jesus are known among all Darfur’s peoples. Yet a millennium ago many Sudanese, including the Fur, were Christians – possibly spiritual heirs of the Ethiopian eunuch of Acts 8. (Some historians claim that the eunuch was Sudanese.) Is there hope for today?

Yet God Is At Work!

Yes, out of the pain and chaos, hope is emerging in Darfur. Christian aid and humanitarian organizations, along with churches are responding with determination to what Franklin Graham of Samaritan’s Purse has rightly called “a very difficult and dangerous mission.” Sudanese Christians are reaching out to the region, working with Christian aid organizations and sometimes working alongside concerned Muslims.

God is also at work across the border! Chad offers an open door to reach the peoples of this region. WEC International, along with other agencies, has been working in eastern Chad for decades, offering health, educational, development and social programs. Although workers from these regions cannot openly evangelize, God is using their presence to impart truth and increase interest in the gospel. Many believe that God’s time has come for northeastern Chad. In the last ten years small groups of Muslimbackground believers in Jesus have gathered in different towns.

[The southern Chadian church is growing in mission vision. In the past, southerners who worked in the North as civil servants saw their government transfer as “exile,” only to be endured until they could return South. Now many are recognizing God’s hand behind their assignment and want to be active witnesses for Christ.]

What You Can Do

There is a saying in Darfur: “The solution to the crisis requires three things: security, security, and more security.” The Church can just as strongly respond: “The solution is to pray, pray, and pray again.” Those who do not grow weary in prayer will usher in God’s time to move among the peoples of this region.

Churches and individuals can respond immediately by supporting Christian humanitarian organizations to enable the light of Christ to penetrate the area through compassionate care. Check the Internet to see what a variety of organizations are doing in Darfur.

Churches can adopt people groups of this region and begin praying for them. WEC teams have a goal to reach Assangori and Arabic-speaking nomads, the people groups of eastern Chad particularly urban Arabic speakers. Ask the Lord to thrust out laborers into this region to join the team. One worker in the region comments, “Once the eye of the world is off the region and some of the non-governmental organizations pack up and move on to the next CNN crisis, then we can build the long-term relationships required to change lives.”

Count the Cost of Pioneering

The door is open now in Chad for long-term commitment to developmental, social, educational and health projects in areas that border Sudan. Local authorities ask for missionaries to teach in their local schools, work in their hospitals, help them learn English, and develop health and social programs.

But even apart from the Darfur crisis, this region is not an easy place to live. Missionaries must be willing to persevere in hard conditions. Temperatures can reach 120ᴼF, harmattan winds blow dust everywhere, electricity is either erratic or nonexistent, travel is difficult, and poverty lingers at the door every day. To work effectively in Chad requires learning at least French and Arabic, and potentially a third (ethnic) language. A call to this region can’t be taken lightly.

Finding Hope Amidst the Horror

There’s more to the garden of Darfur and Chad than rocky soil and thorn trees. God has placed a remarkable plant in this region, the desert rose, which blooms in unlikely places, emerging from clumps of rock and dirt. The desert rose also blooms at unlikely times; during the rains its branches remain bare, but at some point during the dry season, when all other plants wither or die, the desert rose blossoms. It sprouts a bouquet of delicate pink flowers, displaying its glory in stark contrast to the bleak surroundings.

The desert rose is a symbol of hope in hard places. “The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom,” declares the prophet Isaiah (35:1). The parched land of Darfur and eastern Chad will bring forth fruit. But this will require faithful people committed to long-term praying. It will require persevering laborers who love these peoples with Christ’s love and serve them with His strength. Look to the desert rose as a bright reminder that the Living God can bring astonishing beauty out of great suffering.

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