Sudanese Family in an American Church

By my friend Stan Friedman:

By Stan Friedman

MANCHESTER, NH (July 25, 2014) — The Evangelical Covenant Church will help resettle Meriam Ibrahim, the Sudanese woman once sentenced to death by the Sudanese government when she would not renounce her Christian faith.

Ibrahim, along with her husband, Daniel Wani, and their two children, was secretly flown out of Sudan to Italy on Thursday. They had been living at the American Embassy in Khartoum for the past month after she was released from prison. When Ibrahim tried to return to the United States, she was prevented by the Sudanese.

Wani, a Sudanese-American, has attended the Sudanese Covenant Church in Manchester since it started. He met Ibrahim while traveling in Sudan. For a previous Covenant News Service story, clickhere.

The State Department will arrange for the family to fly back to the United States next week.

A transition team is being pulled together to help the family when they return. “We are scrambling to find a nice apartment for them, doctors to attend to their children, and more,” Joel Kruggel, pastor at Bethany Covenant Church in Manchester, said today.

Superintendent Howard Burgoyne said arrangements are being made for the East Coast Conference to accept financial gifts to help the family.

Just hours after landing in Rome, the family met with Pope Francis. American officials told Kruggel that the family is being kept in a “secure place” because there continue to be threats against Ibrahim’s life from people angered by her release.