Today I leave South Sudan. I never thought I would pen down these words. Every international staff that comes here, knows this day will arrive. Now that it has arrived for me, I’m not entirely certain how to process it.

It has been more than three and a half years of living in, and loving South Sudan. This nation, though devastatingly broken brought me incredible life, joy and laughter. I’ve made friendships that will last me a lifetime, and I get to call them family.

People often say to me, “How will you find love if you’re in a place like South Sudan?” Oh I wish they could see me now. I wish they could see that I did find love. I found love in the South Sudanese people, in the South Africans, Americans, Ugandans, Kenyans, Ethiopians, Nepalese, fellow Indians, Australians, Canadians, and Brits. I found love in the food distribution sites of Ajoung Thok and Yida. I found love at the rehabilitated borehole of Maiwut. I found love in the back of a shady canoe in the swamps of Mayendit. I found love in the crooked smile of a kid with a cleft lip and in the hen so lovingly offered by a beneficiary. I found love in the salute of our guard, in the “I know how Rachel likes her eggs” of our chef, in the “Kaif Rachel? Tamam?” of our housekeeping ladies. I found love in the life-giving hugs, numerous mugs of chai, coffee tastings, girls nights, therapy sessions, movie nights, cooking-up-a-storm nights, the many birthdays celebrations… the list can go on. I found love in friends that so quickly became family.

My time in South Sudan has been gut-wrenching, yet life-giving. I have grieved here and I have loved here. I have experienced loss and have experienced gain. I have seen beauty birth out of great pain – beauty from ashes. And in all of it, I know this with all my heart – God is in South Sudan. His hand of favor rests firmly upon this nation and upon its people.

This I know with all my heart, that God so loved South Sudan that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him, will have eternal life (John 3:16).

To anyone who says, “Rachel, there’s so much war and conflict and corruption here. How can you say God’s favor is on South Sudan?” To you I say from Romans 8:

He who did not spare His only Son, but delivered Him over for us all, will He not with Him, give us all good things? (Vs. 32). Who then will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or trouble, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? (Vs. 35). But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor demons, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the C love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Vs. 37-39).

As I bid this beautiful nation adieu, my prayer for it is this: Our Father, who art in Heaven. Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done in South Sudan, as it is in Heaven. Amen.

I lift my eyes up, my help comes from the Lord.