St. Luke's Church, in the North Park area of San Diego, Calif., has long had a healing ministry. In 1996, the congregation initiated the Refugee Network to assist the Sudanese people who found their way to San Diego after escaping their homeland's horrific civil war. While these two facets of the church operate separately, their goals have much in common.

"We're traditional Episcopalian, not way out," said John Wedemeyer, "but a little charismatic about the healing aspect of prayer." The historic healing service takes place every Wednesday noon, and the lay team offers healing prayer at Sunday Eucharists. The rector, the Rev. David Montzingo, came with a background in healing and said it was "a natural here."

At a 1992 clericus, he held a healing Eucharist for clergy. Priests and deacons were reluctant to help, he said, but they came to the rail, where lay helpers performed the laying on of hands. Later, members of the lay team joined the international Order of St. Luke, and the parish now has its own chapter. The John and Ethel Banks Chapter, named for a former vicar, is "an ecumenical cluster of people with a sense for spiritual healing," Mr. Wedemeyer said. The Order of St. Luke trains members in Bible study, intercessory prayer, and pastoral care duties, Fr. Montzingo said. This year, the ministry will focus on healing in relationships between people, domestic violence and other situations, and hospice care, in addition to individual physical needs.

And the refugees who came to California, often after years enduring war, camps or prisons, and arduous travel, surely arrived in need of healing.

Majur Samuel is from Phar el Gazel in southern Sudan. While northern Sudan tends to be largely Muslim, the southern part of the country has a large Christian population - Presbyterian, Anglican and Roman Catholic. When he was a student in Khartoum and teaching Christianity to younger students, "the government came up with the policy of Islamization, Arabization." He said quietly, "I was detained for two months ... and tortured. When we were released, we were still pursued." His escape route wound through Eritrea, Ethiopia and Kenya. "In 1995, I was interviewed for resettlement. I came to California June 20."

In San Diego, he said, "I was confused by lots of Anglican churches. I learned that St. Luke's was close to a Sudanese neighborhood." At St. Luke's, the International Refugee Network was formed, with the aid of a $25,500 grant from United Thank Offering.

The principal need at first, Mr. Samuel said, was jobs. This is complicated, of course, by language problems, lack of training and culture shock. The network teaches new arrivals about such things as shopping, banking and driving that most people take for granted. After two or three months working, usually in factory jobs, "they want to buy a car. But they had no license, no insurance. There were lots of accidents."

Youth activities are critical. "During the war, we lost schools, people moved from place to place. Here, the children are placed in school by age, but they don't know the ABCs." And they are recovering from the traumas they have endured. Many families are separated; Mr. Samuel has not seen his family since 1983. St. Luke's offers tutoring, summer camps and choirs to "keep in contact with God."

Peter Duku tells a similar story. When he was in jail for defying the government's ban on Christianity, "a soldier opened the jail door and said, 'Peter, just run!' I ran and walked 75 miles to my village. Muslims were burning the village. We were praying under a tree when we heard gunshots. We just continued to run for 10 days." Mr. Duku and his fellow Christians "ate only wild fruit. We dug water in the sand."

He spent two years in a United Nations refugee camp in Kenya, At that time, he said, in 1988, "the world was ignoring Sudan." When he at last was able to come to the United States, he made his way to Seattle, where "A good Christian family sponsored me, and taught me to drive." Eventually the climate drove him south, where he met and married a Ugandan woman. "In San Diego, there are lots of Sudanese, not only my tribe. One invited me to church. Everything at St. Luke's reminded me of my church in Sudan. The service is just alike. And the rector is a very perfect man for us." Mr. Duku has had several jobs and is presently working with the county as a mentor for abused and neglected children and teens. "I'm really good with teenagers," he said. "They want to know about Africa, about animals."

Now that the earliest and most critical resettlement needs are met, and the neighborhood has a group of Sudanese and American residents who assist new refugees, St. Luke's goal is "ongoing spiritual development," said parishioner Diane Nichols. "We've moved the church to them and them to the church. We try to adapt to their schedules — working nights, maybe two jobs," Ms. Nichols said. No one wants separate services and services are in English with the gospel sometimes read in Arabic by a Sudanese parishioner. Fr. Montzingo has his sights set on a Sudanese priest, the Rev. Alex Kenyi, presently shivering in Fargo, N.D., where only 100 or so Sudanese brave the prairie winters. She emphasized, "They're not here to lose their culture and 'become like us.' They have so much to teach us about faith."

Ms. Nichols said the best part of the experience is "getting to know them as people." She visits people in their homes in the Mid-City area, "a neighborhood of immigrants, colorful, diverse, crime-ridden, with low-rent apartments and low maintenance by the owners." She said the Sudanese parishioners love to have people drop in unannounced. "They love birthdays and cake. It's always a party for the whole community. People just open up their homes."

The parish has another, unrelated, link to Africa, Fr. Montzingo said. "We sponsor a couple who run a vocational training school in Kisoro, Uganda." Dick and Mary Mendenhall and their three sons serve in San Diego's companion diocese of Muhabura, where, in 1994, they built the training center. Mary is a nurse; "Dick knew carpentry and plumbing," Fr. Montzingo said. "Their aim is to make the center self supporting." Church secretary Pat Ward said Fr. Montzingo had visited Uganda in December. "It was a wonderful experience," she said.

St. Luke's itself has been, he said, "very stretching." He was previously a "not very good" United Church of Christ pastor in Boston. "I wanted more ritual in the worship. It was easier to change myself than the congregation." The global reach of the Anglican Communion was appealing, too. His ministry at St. Luke's has "stretched" him to learn new history and culture; "it's not what I planned to do in seminary."

The comment echoes one of Mr. Wedemeyer's on the beginning of the refugee program. He said, "Some external force was guiding us. We didn't know [then] what our mission was. We started hearing refugee stories —some had raised their entire families in camps. Their own internal strengths were all they had." Perhaps the healing nature of St. Luke's drew people. Ms. Nichols said as much. "God has given me the opportunity to share, especially with the Sudanese children. It is the reason I was led to St. Luke's. And they were sent here."

Mr. Duku said it very simply. "St. Luke's is doing a great job. We were sent here for St. Luke's

"God put his hand in it."