Editor's Note: On Sunday, September 24, 2006, the Rev. Jerry Drino shared with us the history of the present crisis in the Sudan and in the Darfur Region. Generously, St. A's members, that Sunday, donated $1800 for relief, which was wired to the Sudan and used to buy critically needed medicines. We received this update from Jerry on October 22nd.

Dear Friends:

Zacharia Biar Atem 1970-2006

It is with great sadness that I tell you of the death of Abuna Zacharia Biar Atem, priest and prophet of the Diocese of Bor. He was killed by the Lord's Resistance Army the week of October 8 along with forty others who were in a convoy from Juba to Kenya.

He related to me that as a young boy he received a vision while caring for the cattle. A great wind entered him and he began to sing in a language he did not know. He then had a vision of a great disaster falling upon southern Sudan and that everything was destroyed including the Church. He went back to his village to tell the people that these things would come to pass.

This was 1980

Joel 2:28 "It will happen afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; and your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams. Your young men will see visions."

When the second civil war came (1983) he said that he could not run in the bush, but had to be in the front lines of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army. God continued to stir prophe-cies within him and he advised chiefs and commanders and bishops of what God was directing them to do.

During some of the fiercest fighting in Bor Town God told him to go into the center of the town and nail three flags on a tree in order to stop the fighting. He told me that his whole body was filled with fear but he did it any way. As bullets flew by him he prayed that he would be killed outright rather than having to suffer. He was stopped by a soldier who told him he would kill him if he did not leave. Zacharia responded, "If you kill me God will strike you dead." The man ran screaming away. He nailed the flags to the tree and the fighting stopped.

He was in Ethiopia with the so-called Lost Boys and Girls. He had a dream that they would all have to flee back into the Sudan and eventually to Kenya. In the dream he was running and a pregnant woman fell in front of him and began to give birth. There were no other women around to be midwives and so he had to help deliver twins.

The Ethiopian army in fact started to raid the refugee camps in 1991. Everyone fled back to the Sudan. As he was running a pregnant woman did fall before him and started to give birth, just as his dream had told him. He helped her two sons come into the world.

In November 2004 he had a vision that he must find a crippled priest to tell him that what he was doing to help rebuild the communities in the Diocese of Bor would be blessed by God. He was also told that he would find a man with this priest. He would come from another country and did not speak Dinka. He would bring a shirt with a particular design on it and this would be the sign that this was the one to whom he was directed. He would tell this man what God wanted him to do in the Sudan.

He walked over a thousand miles, first to Uganda and then to Kenya in search of these two men whom he did not know. Canon Mark Atem Thuc was told by other Sudanese in Nairobi that Zacharia was looking for him but that he was kind of crazy and shouldn't be trusted. Mark said, "No, he is a child of God and we will not turn him away."

Zachariah was waiting for me in 2005, living with Mark and his family in a tiny two room space. I had brought t-shirts from my former parish of St. Philip's with the shield-design of the parish on them. Three days later in Kakuma Refugee Camp he took me aside with an interpreter. Through the next four hours he related his story and what God had told him to tell me. He told me of the vision three months earlier, how he had found Mark Atem and how he knew he must talk to me when he saw the shirt.

At the end he said, "You remember the woman that I dreamed of and that actually gave birth to twins? I met her recently. She was so happy to see me and told me that her sons were strong and well. She said that she wanted to give me two cattle in thanksgiving for what I did. I must now give you one of these cattle because I have told you want God wanted me to deliver and my burden has been lifted. The cattle are in the Sudan but here is the halter which carries the soul of the cattle. Ask the boys back in San Jose and they will tell you what it means. I have now told you want you must do. I am free. You are now my father."

Zacharia was a man of profound faith, filled with contrasting qualities. At one moment he could be youthful, filled with jokes and laughter, singing the hymns that carried the faith of his people. At other times he could be absolutely ancient, delivering the Word of God with an intense passion and little doubt of what the message meant. He would sometime go into the bush and fast and pray for days. People said he was crazy to be alone with wild beasts and snakes. He said that when he was hungry he would just raise his hands to God and become filled with milk.

Pray for his wife and children in Kakuma. Pray for all the Sudanese who mourn his death.