by Frank Lee
news@thenewsleaders.com
It isn’t easy being the first.
But Vicar John O. Bakou hopes to make a difference when he’s ordained at 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 7 as the first Anyuak pastor in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
“I came to this country because of the civil war,” said Bakou, a husband and father of four who came to the United States in 1998. “I lost my brother in South Sudan.”
The 45-year-old native of Pochalla, South Sudan, has been serving the Anyuak at Trinity Lutheran Church on Mayhew Lake Road Northeast in Sauk Rapids since 2008.
The Anyuak are herdsmen and farmers who hail from Southeastern Sudan and Western Ethiopia, and they number about 300,000 worldwide and about 3,000 in Minnesota.
Anyuak service
Bakou leads the Anyuak worship service at noon Sundays at Trinity Lutheran for the African immigrants. Worship is conducted in their language with drums in the music room.
“The civil war was a long war in Africa – 21 years – in Sudan between the North and the South, so I came here to get away from the persecution and to get a better life,” he said.
Bakou has completed the Ethnic Immigrant Institute of Theology program from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Mo., and will be ordained as a pastor in the synod.
“I was an evangelist back home at a Presbyterian church in South Sudan,” he said. “I went to Bible school in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan.”
The Anyuak herd sheep and goats and grow their own food by keeping small gardens near their homes, only moving to cultivate new soil once it is depleted by the village.
They are divided into clans, and their African villages are “up to 20 miles apart, often with swamps and rivers between them, as stated in information provided from Bethany Church.
“According to the Bible, God needs all people to believe in him,” Bakou said of the Anyuak who have been worshipping at Trinity Lutheran since 2008.
An Anyuak student from St. Cloud State University who came to Trinity Lutheran in 2002 was confirmed and had the vision to have the Anyuak worship service in Sauk Rapids.
“Because of that student, a lot of Anyuak come to this church,” Bakou said of the Anyuak members, who have grown from about 20 since its start in 2008 to 50 people.
Trinity Lutheran
Craig Cooper is the director of Christian outreach at Trinity Lutheran and said Bakou’s ordination as a pastor in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod is momentous.
“I think it’s significant because he will be the first pastor who will be preaching to that group of people in Anyuak in the world,” Cooper said. “There are other Sudanese pastors who preach in a different language to their tribes, like the Nuer and the Dinka.”
There are about 5,770 parish pastors in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, with about 2.2 million baptized members nationwide in 2011.
Cooper said about the congregation, “It was the people at Trinity who said to the Anyuak, ‘We know you are from another country, another culture, but you’re welcomed here.’”
Bakou also ministers to Anyuak refugees worldwide in countries like Australia, Kenya and Norway via conference calls in addition to his work in Sauk Rapids.
“I’m very happy,” Bakou said of becoming an ordained pastor and doing things like communion, baptism and weddings for the Anyuak community at Trinity Lutheran.
The synod’s congregations accept and preach the Bible-based teachings of Martin Luther that inspired the reformation of the Christian Church in the 16th century.
“When I came here to Minnesota, I get this big, wide open-door opportunity to ministry to a congregation as a Lutheran,” Bakou said.
Vicar John O. Bakou of Trinity Lutheran Church in Sauk Rapids will be the first Anyuak pastor in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
Vicar John O. Bakou, who will be an ordained pastor, moves a drum used Sundays during the Anyuak worship service at Trinity Lutheran Church in Sauk Rapids.
Vicar John O. Bakou, a native of South Sudan in Africa, stands next to Craig Cooper, director of Christian outreach at Trinity Lutheran Church in Sauk Rapids.
Vicar John O. Bakou, a native of South Sudan in Africa, stands next to Craig Cooper, director of Christian outreach at Trinity Lutheran Church in Sauk Rapids.
Trinity Lutheran Church is located at 2163 Mayhew Lake Road NE in Sauk Rapids and is part of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
The Anyuak are herdsmen and farmers who hail from Southeastern Sudan and Western Ethiopia, and they number about 300,000 worldwide and about 3,000 in Minnesota.
The Anyuak worship service takes place at noon Sundays at Trinity Lutheran Church in Sauk Rapids.
