Bishop Elias Taban

The Bishop visited us today (November 22nd 2008) and spoke to a small congregation about his life and work in Southern Sudan. Many of us were deeply moved. I would like to think that the church could develop this link. To be going on with, here is a brief overview of the Bishop's life.

Born 10 May 1955; the day war began, triggered by the assassination of 50 unarmed southern policemen in Yei, ordered by a new northern Police Chief. Elias was taken by his mother and hidden with her in the bush for three days, within ten minutes of his birth, to avoid the fighting. His Christian parents wanted him to be literate and when mission schools were turned into Islamic schools by the Sudanese President in the sixties, Elias was renamed Muhammad Ali Mahnsoor.

He was then forcibly taken as a child soldier at the age of 12 by the southern Freedom Fighters. After a year, his father obtained his release and he completed his secondary education in a refugee camp in Uganda.

He studied as a building engineer. During the second phase of the 40 year long war, he undertook logistics planning, acquisition and implementation on behalf of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army. During this time, he was held in the Congo for several days, until his negotiated release – in exchange for 7 cows! However, he realised his primary goal in life as a church leader while helping to train chaplains for the SPLA

With the slowing of the violence, alongside his preaching he began job creation and income generating projects. With small amounts of seed funding from a British NGO, he established a building company that provides training and jobs producing timber, mud bricks and concrete blocks. Buying these products, he has built three orphanages, a multi-purpose training institute and guest house accommodation. This accommodation is of outstanding quality, such that the British Council has used it on several occasions for their training of the senior Southern Sudanese finance officers and police chiefs. This accommodation generates profits that support a women’s empowerment programme with a revolving micro enterprise fund overseen by his wife.

He officiated when the body of President John Garang was brought to Yei. He is a personal friend to the new President, Salva Kiir and an official, but unpaid, advisor to him on the country’s religious affairs.

He is the Bishop of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Sudan, an indigenous church with congregations around the country. As Bishop, he is elected by the General Assembly of his denomination for an initial term of five years. He is the inaugural President of the Evangelical Alliance of Sudan. He is married to Anne Grace. Their only child died of malaria at the age of one; they have adopted three war orphans from different