Juba Sends Out New Workers

The first week, while staying in a , after with his new wife hotel and searching for a place to live, Pastor Wes Neary wasted no time and began outreaching right away. During that first week he prayed with several people, and two of those men (Abraham Majok and Benjamin Mageu) are still faithfully attending our church and becoming amazing disciples!

We had an incredible miracle happen about two months after arriving. Pastor Wes accidently left his backpack in a taxi one day and the driver drove off before we could get any of the information. This backpack contained passports, phones, and tablets, and for several weeks it seemed that we would never see those items again.

After some time, Pastor Wes went to the police station to fill out a report and ended up being able to preach to many of the inmates in the jail. Many people prayed prayers of repentance and some were healed, and this became a weekly outreach event for Pastor Wes.

On that first day at the jail, he met two men who had also come to speak to the inmates about Jesus. Pastor Wes befriended these men and found that one of them ran a construction company. This man, Paul Lado, and his crew ended up creating our entire church building from the ground up, as well as most of the furniture in our home.

The other man was named Aligo Cosmas. He had been searching for a church and praying for God to show him how He could use him. When he heard Pastor Wes preach, he said, “I’ve never seen anything like this! You don’t just tell people what they want to hear, you really preach the truth!” and realized that God had answered his prayer.

Aligo (along with his wife, Anna, and their baby boy) has been serving God with us ever since that day, and has become our interpreter and keyboard player. And not only that, but the police were eventually able to locate the backpack and return it to us with everything intact! We are so grateful to God and in awe of how amazing He is! After our church was finished being built, we had our grand opening on Sunday, January 1st, 2023. We had 21 people in service that day, and since then we have continued to see the numbers increase.

In June, we outreached for a fellowship we were having after service, and we had over 70 people in attendance that morning, and most of them even showed up early for Sunday School! Thirty-five people gave their lives to Christ at the altar that day, and some of those visitors have started coming regularly.

Every Sunday we have many visitors attend service and answer the call to give their lives to Jesus. One notable testimony is of a young man named James Deng. Pastor Wes met James one day when he was street-preaching 21 to a group of teenagers. James was involved with a gang and spent most of his time washing cars for money to buy alcohol. When James heard Pastor Wes preach, he realized that he needed to change his life. James has been coming to our church since the beginning and spends a lot of time with our family. God has been helping him to stay sober and find work. He has brought many of his family and friends to church.

We are so grateful to God for all He is doing, and for Pastors Gary Marsh and Greg Mitchell and their congregations for their amazing support. Please pray for us in Juba, South Sudan!