Our Savior Lutheran Church supports the Sudanese ministry in Faribault, Minn., and in Sudan by:
•Welcoming the Sudanese to Nile Our Savior Lutheran Chapel and Our Savior, supporting Wal Reat as the community's part-time lay leader and helping him find additional daily work.
• Providing funding for Reat's continuing education in the ELCA candidacy process and Theological Education for Emerging Ministries program with ELCA and Southeastern Minnesota Synod financial assistance.
•Funding mission trips to Southern Sudan in 2006, 2007 and 2009 for Steven J. Delzer, pastor of Our Savior, and Reat. There Reat has started seven congregations, and Delzer has baptized hundreds. Forty-five leaders have been trained in the basics of Lutheranism.
•Funding training for six leaders of the Sudanese congregations Reat started in a three-year education program in Sudan ($1,650 each - each student funded by a family or group of people).
•Contributing $500 to the annual Unity Prayer gathering in Nasir, Sudan, that feeds 5,000.
• Supporting three free medical clinics in Sudan.
• Providing a car to help the Sudanese in Faribault secure work.
As Wal Reat walked past Our Savior Lutheran Church, Faribault, Minn., he heard a music group practicing. Reat asked if he and other Sudanese could worship there, and they were welcomed in.
Two years later in 2003, the Sudanese began holding worship at Our Savior in their Nuer language. Today between 25 and 30 gather for worship each Sunday afternoon as members of Nile Our Savior Lutheran Chapel.
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| Khan Bayek (left), Mary Kun, Elizabeth Kueth, Elizabeth Chol and Nyakhoach Dak lead music at Nile Our Savior Lutheran Chapel in Faribault, Minn., where many Sudanese have settled in the past 10 years. |
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