A declaration of faith: Brick by brick, South Sudan’s Christians rebuild churches and restore hope after war
After war destroyed their sanctuaries, South Sudan’s Christians rebuild with faith – and their own hands. TONNY ONYULO reports…
Nairobi, Kenya
For four years, Evangelist Mayol Kuot had no church to welcome his congregation.
The sanctuary where members of Christ Ministry Church once worshipped in Malakal had been reduced to rubble during fighting that engulfed the northern South Sudanese town. Kuot said rebels used the church as a hideout and launching point for attacks against government forces, leaving it vulnerable during the battle. When the dust settled, the building was gone.
Local residents construct a church in south-western South Sudan to replace one destroyed during the civil war. The reconstruction was funded by Samaritan’s Purse. PICTURE: Courtesy of Samaritan’s Purse.
Without a sanctuary, worship did not stop.
Instead, Kuot travelled from home to home and from one displacement camp to another, praying with families, encouraging believers and preaching wherever his congregation had scattered.
“I visited our congregants in their homes and refugee camps to share the Gospel and encourage them. We remained without a church for four years.”
– Evangelist Mayol Kuot
“I visited our congregants in their homes and refugee camps to share the Gospel and encourage them,” Kuot said in a telephone interview. “We remained without a church for four years.”
Today, a modest structure built from wooden poles and corrugated iron sheets stands where the destroyed church once served the community. It is neither grand nor complete, but to the congregation it represents something far greater than bricks and roofing sheets.
It represents survival.
The church was not rebuilt through a major international reconstruction project. Instead, Kuot and his congregation began raising money themselves in early 2025. After months of collecting small donations, they raised about $US650 – enough to purchase iron sheets and wooden poles. Church members volunteered their labour, erecting the structure themselves before the end of the year.
Their story reflects a broader transformation unfolding across South Sudan.
Years after decades of conflict destroyed thousands of churches, Christian communities are entering a new phase of rebuilding -one driven increasingly by local initiative rather than dependence on foreign organisations. Congregations are organising fundraising campaigns, molding bricks by hand, collecting sand, cutting timber, transporting water and volunteering their labor to restore places of worship that once lay in ruins.
For many church leaders, rebuilding has become more than a construction project. It is a declaration that faith has endured despite decades of violence.
Worshippers sing during a church service in South Sudan after their church was rebuilt with support from Samaritan’s Purse. PICTURE: Courtesy of Samaritan’s Purse.
South Sudan’s churches have lived through successive conflicts.
During the Second Sudanese Civil War, which lasted from 1983 until the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005, thousands of churches were destroyed as Christian communities became targets of violence. International Christian organisations, including Samaritan’s Purse, later partnered with local churches to rebuild more than 500 church buildings across Sudan and what is now South Sudan.
But years after South Sudan gained independence in 2011, the country descended into another devastating civil war when political tensions between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar erupted into armed conflict in December, 2013.
The war, which formally ended with the 2018 Revitalized Peace Agreement establishing a unity government, left nearly 400,000 people dead and displaced more than four million others, including about 2.3 million who fled to neighbouring countries. Churches again found themselves caught in the violence, with many damaged, occupied by armed groups or abandoned as frightened congregations fled their homes.
Although the peace agreement significantly reduced nationwide fighting, localised violence, political tensions and insecurity continue in parts of South Sudan, making reconstruction difficult and slowing the return of many displaced families.
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James Deng, an evangelist who ministers in the Bentiu region of northern South Sudan, said the destruction of churches left deep spiritual wounds that remain visible today.
“The civil war left hundreds of thousands of people displaced, thousands of homes destroyed and hundreds of churches destroyed,” Deng said.
The destruction, he said, did more than eliminate physical buildings.
Pastors suddenly found themselves trying to shepherd congregations scattered across internally displaced persons camps and refugee settlements, often without knowing where many of their members had gone.
“It has been difficult because most of our congregants are scattered in different refugee camps,” Deng said. “Many no longer identify with their own church because it was destroyed.”
Without permanent places of worship, some believers have joined churches of other denominations simply because they have nowhere else to gather.
“The lack of worship places has affected the faith of many residents,” he said.
Yet amid those challenges, Deng sees signs of renewal.
Across the Bentiu region, congregations have begun organising local fundraising drives to rebuild destroyed churches, although progress remains slow because of widespread poverty.
“We are fundraising to build churches that were destroyed, though it is moving very slowly because of lack of funds,” he said.
Local residents construct the metal frame of a church in south-western South Sudan as part of a rebuilding project funded by Samaritan’s Purse. Photo courtesy of Samaritan’s Purse
Unlike previous decades, when much of the rebuilding depended on foreign ministries and humanitarian organisations, many churches are now relying primarily on their own members.
Congregants contribute small weekly offerings, organise community fundraising events and donate whatever materials or labour they can provide. In many villages, volunteers make bricks by hand, gather stones and sand, transport water for construction and spend weekends building walls together.
Church leaders say the process itself has become an act of worship.
Every brick moulded by hand and every roof sheet purchased through local giving represents ownership of a future that communities are determined to shape themselves.
Catechist Peter Deng Chol said Catholic communities have experienced a similar journey.
Many Catholic churches destroyed during the civil war, he said, have gradually been rebuilt through fundraising by parishioners combined with donations from partners outside the country.
“The rebuilding has been possible because local Christians have contributed what they have, while friends and supporters from outside South Sudan have also stood with us,” he said.
Catholic Bishop Alex Lodiong Sakor Eyobo of the Diocese of Yei said rebuilding churches remains one of the priorities for Catholic dioceses across South Sudan.
“Our diocese and others across the country have prioritised rebuilding churches that were destroyed during the conflict,” Eyobo said.
He said churches, parish halls and other church infrastructure are being rebuilt through contributions from congregants alongside support from donors and people of goodwill.
The Africa Inland Church in Yei, south-western South Sudan, is among the churches rebuilt with support from Samaritan’s Purse after being destroyed during the civil war. PICTURE: Courtesy of Samaritan’s Purse.
While international partnerships remain important, Eyobo said local Catholics have increasingly embraced responsibility for restoring their own places of worship through parish collections and community participation.
For Kuot, that sense of ownership is what makes his rebuilt church special.
After years of preaching beneath trees, inside homes and in refugee camps, hearing songs of worship once again inside a church – even a modest one – has restored hope among believers.
“It is our church because we built it ourselves,” he said.
Still, the need remains enormous.
Many congregations across South Sudan continue worshipping outdoors or inside temporary shelters because they lack the resources to rebuild permanent sanctuaries. Others share buildings with neighbouring churches or meet in overcrowded structures unable to accommodate growing congregations.
Church leaders say rebuilding churches is not simply about replacing structures destroyed by war.
For communities fractured by displacement, trauma and years of violence, churches are places where families reunite, children learn their faith, neighbours reconcile and hope begins to return.
Deng believes that while South Sudan’s Christians are increasingly taking responsibility for rebuilding their churches, they cannot do it entirely alone.
He appealed to international partners and people of goodwill to continue supporting church reconstruction in South Sudan and neighboring Sudan, where conflict has also destroyed or damaged many places of worship.
“Our people are doing what they can,” he said. “But there are still many churches that need help so that believers can have a place to worship.”
Across South Sudan, however, the rebuilding effort has already begun to tell a different story from the wars that once defined the country’s churches.
Years ago, conflict scattered congregations and reduced sanctuaries to ashes.
Today, the same communities are returning with shovels instead of guns, bricks instead of bullets and faith strong enough to rebuild what violence tried to erase.
One church at a time, South Sudan’s Christians are reclaiming not only their places of worship but also their future.