>Six weeks after a Sudanese court jailed an Episcopal priest for
refusing to tear down his own church, the Rev. Samuel Dobai Amum has been set
free, with the legal process set in motion for his Khartoum North parish to
obtain official ownership of its land.
Amum was sent to Soba Prison on April 7 for an indefinite sentence until he
either demolished St. Matthew’s Parish in Takamol on the outskirts of Khartoum
North or paid 7 million Sudanese dinars (about $2,700) to purchase the land on
which he had built it 11 years ago. The priest said he did not have such a huge
sum of money, and he could not personally destroy a house built in God’s name.
He was released on the afternoon of May 21, just after the Bahri East Harasic
Court in Khartoum accepted full payment for the plot of land on which his
congregation has worshipped since 1987.
The day before Amum’s release, a small Christian delegation making a five-day
visit to Sudan from the United States asked their government hosts if they
could meet the jailed priest. Local officials agreed to escort their visitors
to the Soba Prison, where Amum was brought from his cell to meet them.
We were able to talk freely with him, said Gary Kusunoki, the senior pastor
of Calvary Chapel Rancho Santa Margarita in Southern California. When they
first arrived, the director of the prison admitted that he did not really know
why Amum had been jailed or even that he was a priest.
In response to specific questioning, Amum told his visitors that he had been
beaten while in prison. But I am being treated like every other prisoner, he
said. They beat everyone. So it’s not because I’m Christian or pastor a church.
They tried to stop me from translating some things he said, the Sudanese
Christian translating for the Calvary Chapel group told Compass. But I told
them I can’t do that, because I am a pastor, and I have to be honest.
Through the translator, Kusunoki said he asked the priest whether he wanted
them to ask the Sudanese authorities to drop the case against him so he could
be released.
Absolutely not! Amum told him. Rather, Amum explained, the only way he could
guarantee a place for his church to continue to worship was to pay in court for
the land it was built on, and then have that purchase registered officially in
the name of the church.
Even if I have to be here 10 years, Amum told Kusunoki, I’ll stay until I
get it paid off.
During Amum’s first six weeks in prison, local Sudanese Christians had raised a
total of 2.6 million dinars ($1,000) towards the 7 million dinar purchase price
of the land demanded by the court.
The Calvary Chapel delegation promptly declared they would cover the remaining
4.4 million dinars. When they raised Amum’s case later that night with Sudanese
government officials, just hours before they left the country, they were given
a firm promise: If the 7 million dinars was paid in full to the court the
following morning, Amum would be released the same day.
By 6 p.m. on May 21, Amum was walking through the door of his home, where he
said his wife and children couldn’t stop crying and hugging him.
My children told me that because I was not with them for all this time, they
had wanted to go stay in the prison, to be with me there! Amum said when
reached by telephone yesterday in Khartoum.
Amum said that his congregation packed into the mudbrick St. Matthew’s Parish
in Takamol for the first Friday worship service after his release. Normally we
are just over 100 people, starting at 10:30 and finishing about 12:30, Amum
said. But last Friday there were several hundred people and the church was
packed, and they stayed until 3:30 in the afternoon to see me and hear my
testimony.
The Calvary Chapel delegation’s direct intervention on Amum’s behalf is
believed to have been a key factor in his prompt release. Kusunoki took the
opportunity of a personal audience already arranged with Sudanese President
Omar al-Bashir to inquire about the priest’s case.
But Amum himself declared, God heard the prayers everywhere, and He got me out
of prison.
According to an Episcopal leader in Khartoum, the church’s lawyers have been
working steadily since Amum’s release to secure the legal transition of the
land ownership papers into the name of St. Matthew’s Parish. I think that
things are going in the right direction, he said, and perhaps within another
week we will have finally acquired our lands.