The first woman dean of an African cathedral has been appointed by the Church of the Sudan. The Very Rev Martha Deng Nhial was installed as dean of St Matthew’s Cathedral in Renk on Aug 17.The Rev Lauren Stanley, a missionary in the diocese of Renk from the Episcopal Church, reports the dean was born in Renk Town in 1959, and trained as a nurse and worked in the diocese’s clinic before her ordination. A member of the Dinka Bor tribe, Dean Deng converted to Christianity as an adult.
“I heard good news being given to me, salvation and forgiveness,” the dean said. “I thought about it, and it made sense, and I decided that is what I would be.”
Dean Deng’s husband, Abraham Yak, was a member of the Sudanese national police but was jailed at the outbreak of the civil war by the Khartoum government on suspicion of being a collaborator with the Sudan People’s Liberation Army.
After his release from prison he worked as a community organizer for the Dinka Bor, and following the cessation of hostilities was reinstated in the police force with the rank of lieutenant colonel and is currently in command of a training battalion of 6,000 new police recruits.
The mother of six, Martha’s oldest daughter died in 2006 of cholera.
In 2000 the Church of the Sudan permitted women to be ordained to the deaconate, and as a leader of the Mothers’ Union, she was asked to be part of the first class of women deacons.
She was ordained deacon in 2003 and priest in 2005.
“The Bible says to go and preach the Gospel,” the new dean said. “When you start to evangelize people you want to go forward with the work. You don’t want to go back again.”
“When God calls you, you cannot stop,” she said.
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(Source: RI)