During Sudan’s long civil war between the predominantly Muslim north and Christian and animist south, thousands of Sudanese fled to refugee camps in neighboring countries — Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya. African evangelists established Churches of Christ in the camps, and now their converts are coming home. Christian Chronicle assistant managing editor Erik Tryggestad reports from Juba, Sudan — soon-to-be South Sudan.

I received an update from friends at the Church of Christ (Ghanaian Congregation) that meets in the building of the University Park Church of Christ in Hyattsville, Md. I visited the church earlier this year — during a reporting trip to the Washington area with Bobby Ross — and reported on Ghanaian congregation as part of our ongoing Global South series. Recently, the church celebrated its fifth anniversary.

During my southern Africa reporting trip, I pulled out my video camera just in time to catch the final moments of a Women’s Day conference in Johannesburg, South Africa. (Here’s the story I wrote about the conference, attended by more than 500 Christian women in the Johannesburg area.)

Church members in Ghana say their prayers were answered after three Christians, accused of playing a role in the death of a minister, were exonerated. After days of prayer and court appearances, the charges were dropped on Monday. As they emerged from the courtroom in Swedru, Ghana, family members “poured talcum powder on the freed Christians to signify victory,” said Noah Mends, an evangelist in the Swedru region.

Christians in Africa and the U.S. seek prayers for three members of a Church of Christ in Ghana who were arrested in connection with a July 4 drowning following a baptism there. The drowning happened July 4, said Christopher Arthur, minister for a Church of Christ in Swedru, a city west of the capital, Accra. Derick Ayensu, a church member in Swedru, was visiting a congregation in the nearby village of Mensakrom. After the worship service, two men asked to be baptized. Church members took them to the edge of a river. High rainfall in late June caused flooding in Swedru and knocked out bridges in the city. It also made the rivers that flow through the region dangerous.

The Huntsville (Ala.) Times reports today on the death of Peggy Good, a schoolteacher who made regular mission trips to Ghana. She was a member of The Light, a Church of Christ in Huntsville. A memorial service is scheduled Aug. 7 at 2 p.m. at Monrovia Church of Christ in Madison, Ala. She made regular trips to Eugemot Orphanage in Hohoe, a town in eastern Ghana near the Togo border.

The D.C. metro area seems an unlikely place for me to be gathering stories for our ongoing Global South series. But the Global South is here — alive and growing in our nation’s capital.

The Amsterdam Church of Christ, the largest congregation in the Netherlands, is composed almost entirely of immigrants from the African nation of Ghana. They worship in their native language, twi, and English.