As a church, our initial contact with Ruth was through working with her at the "Boulder Gang" children's group at the New WIne Summer Conference.

Ruth is now a CMS mission partner working in Southern Sudan with Across, a Christian NGO whose vision is the "Christ-centred transformation of Southern Sudanese communities." She is working in the children's ministry department.

Over the years, Ruth had felt a deep compassion developing within her for children, both within England and around the world. She originally trained as a sick children's nurse, working in Nottingham and latterly at a church in Canterbury as the Children's Ministry Co-coordinator. This work further cemented her deep desire to see children treated fairly and justly, and to be able to take their rightful place in God's kingdom. During her time in Canterbury, she also completed a diploma in Children's Evangelism and Nurture from Cliff College.

Across views the strategic importance of working with children and young people in churches and other organisations as an integral part of its mission. Each department in Across is looking at ways to integrate with other departments, seeking ways of children's ministry being incorporated into other (family and community) programmes.

During her first term with Across, Ruth was asked to write a child protection policy and train its workers within this area. This has led to other similar opportunities for Ruth to share the need to protect children - training student teachers, Sunday school teachers, and others as well.

The needs of children in Sudan can sometimes be overwhelming but it seems that at least half the Sudanese Church is made up of children. This presents huge opportunities and many blessings for the church to embrace. Still emerging from many years of war, working towards elections and a referendum and with some areas still eperiencing violence through tribal conflicts, Southern Sudan is grappling with some very difficult issues.

We now have a video interview of Ruth when she visited St Matts back in June 2010. You can watch this here. She has also started keeping a blog, which you can read here.

For further information, please contact Sarah Johnson.