Bishop Elias Taban, who leads the indigenous Evangelical Presbyterian Church and is President of the Sudan Evangelical Alliance, will be in the town on Tuesday, 27 May.

Elias Taban has lived all his life under war. Born on the day fighting commenced, his mother hid him in the bush for the first three days of his life: a modern Moses!

Believing God has preserved him for a purpose, Elias trained Chaplains for the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Now, in peace, the SPLA leaders govern the South and have given Elias unique opportunities to serve his people.

Besides planting churches and projecting the Jesus film from the back of lorries, Bishop Taban has used his training as an engineer to build an orphanage and a tertiary training college and Bible school. He also runs employment projects, and, with his wife, a woman’s empowerment scheme.

He is visiting Ballymena as part of a UK tour with Medic Assist International, a charity, which is helping him to build, equip and staff a 50-bed hospital.

Remarkably, the centre is built and the medical equipment has arrived. The next phase, with the Out Patient Department recently opened, is to complete the maternity and surgery wards and staff two clinics in villages that have no healthcare provision.

Come and hear more about Bishop Elias Taban and his amazing life and work at West Presbyterian Church on Tuesday, 27 May at 8pm.