Priest-in-Charge,
Glory Parish, Renk
Deborah Akon Wei, who grew up in a family with a Muslim father, decided to become a Christian in 1973. Growing up in Malakal, a major city along the White Nile in South Sudan, she lived near a Christian cemetery, and remembers hearing the songs of hope being sung and the Bible being read at funerals.
"I would hear the Old Testament - ‘My Lord, my Lord' - and hearing the songs, (and thinking) I want to go to church," she says. The Christian stories she heard being read appealed to her. She began going to church in 1973, at the age of 11, and in 1980, she was accepted as a woman's worker in the Mothers' Union and received her first badge.
Deborah married her husband, John Bul Atem, in 1978, in Malakal. Both are from the Dinka tribe. They continued to live there until 1991 when her husband, now a major in the police, was transferred to Renk Town. She and John Bul have 11 children; the first three, born in 1978, 1979 and 1980, respectively, all died within a year of birth. All died of the same unnamed illness relating to problems with their mother's milk.
Since 1982, Deborah and John Bul have had eight more children: Mary, 24; Atem, 22; Adair, 21; Sarah, 18; Ajang, 16; Athieng, 14; Alier, 12; and Adau, a girl, aged 9.
When her first three children died, Deborah admits she was very bitter. People wanted, she says, to do magic to celebrate their deaths, but she said no. When her fourth and following children lived, she gave great thanks to God.
Her journey to priesthood actually began in Malakal, when in 1991 Archdeacon Francis recommended her for ordination. Deborah brought his letter with her when she moved to Renk, but nothing happened for 13 years because there were no women priests in Sudan, although the issue was under discussion throughout the Province. His letter said that when women were considered for priesthood, she should be ordained.
Like all of the women priests in Renk, Deborah began her priesthood serving at St. Matthew's Cathedral. She soon was transferred to Glory Parish on the northern edge of town, where many Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) were settling after leaving the North on their way home to the South. At Glory Parish, Deborah served as assistant to The Rev. Peter Atem Jok, priest-in-charge, helping the parish to grow. She was instrumental in beginning a school for the children of IDPs at Glory. The school now has two classes, a kindergarten with 18 children and a first grade with 35 children. Its future is uncertain, since so many of the IDPs are now moving farther south.
In July 2006, Deborah became priest-in-charge of Glory Parish when Rev. Atem was transferred to Renk Bible College as a lecturer and financial officer.
"When I became a Christian," Deborah says, "my character changed completely. (After my children died) I had a bitter heart. I was a fighter. Now I have left all these things and become a new person."
