Marc Nikkel, 'Apostle' to Sudan's Oppressed, Loses Battle with Cancer
Episcopal News Service. September 14, 2000 [2000-133]
Jerry Hames, Editor of Episcopal Life
(Episcopal Life) The Rev. Marc Nikkel, the Episcopal Church's first missionary to Sudan in 1981, died September 3 in Reedley, California, at the home of his sister, Mavis, after a long battle with stomach cancer. His 94-year-old father, Reuben, visited him the day before he died.
Nicknamed thon akon, or "bull elephant," by thousands of refugees throughout the Episcopal Church in Sudan because of his hulking frame, Nikkel, who died at the age of 50, was a one-man seminary who trained hundreds of Sudanese pastors and evangelists, several of whom are now bishops.
"Hard work, isolation, physical suffering -- challenges which mission candidates find daunting and debilitating -- were integral to Marc's sense of call," said the Rev. Canon Patrick Mauney, director of Anglican and global relations at the Episcopal Church Center. "Marc served the church as teacher and poet, translator, scholar and theologian."
Mauney credited photographs of murals painted by Nikkel at Bishop Gwynne College in Mundri for bringing to life the rich traditions and spirituality of Sudanese believers for many Episcopalians in the U.S. Throughout his ministry, Nikkel held up the hymnody, poetry, and visual arts of the people to whom he had dedicated his life.
In 1998, he underwent surgery at London's Royal Marsden Hospital for advanced cancer, after which doctors gave him only a few weeks to live. A trip to see his father in California was interrupted in New York, where he received blood transfusions and received hospital treatment for pneumonia. A front-page story in Episcopal Life in November 1998 said he had "left [Sudan] forever."
But in California, where he constructed and painted his own coffin, his health improved with chemotherapy and prayer and he insisted upon returning to Sudan, where a crowd of thousands greeted his arrival.
During his absence, he was told, the people of the Kakuma refugee camp had crammed into his mud brick house, laying hands on his bed, praying that he would return to sleep there once again. The women of Kakuma gathered in the early mornings and prayed: "God of widows and orphans, the God of the weak, the suffering and dying, heal Marc Nikkel."
"He found himself suddenly transformed in those days into a symbol of resurrection for the marginalized people," said the Rev. Canon Patrick Augustine of the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia, Nikkel's home diocese. He visited Nikkel's ministry in the refugee camp for 54,000 people and inside the war zone in southern Sudan.
In February 1999, Nikkel was instrumental in bringing together 2,000 Dinka and Nuer tribal leaders for a peace conference in an attempt to end decades of war.
He recorded on his laptop computer every conversation regarding the peace conference and, at the end of several weeks of sharing their stories of pain and suffering, the 400 tribal leaders signed a peace accord.
"Marc was an apostle to the oppressed and persecuted church," said Augustine, chair of the diocesan Companions for World Mission. "He understood his mission to Sudan through the eyes of Jesus. The theme of God's liberation of the poor and oppressed was always heard in his messages."
Nikkel's ministry was a shared appointment between the Episcopal Church and the Church Mission Society (CMS) of England.
"Marc's ministry was one of complete dedication to the Sudanese people whom he loved," said Timothy Dakin, CMS general secretary. "He was a man of deep faith and many gifts."
In 1987, Nikkel was one of four expatriates abducted while trekking 150 miles, often mingling with the destitute and displaced. He was held captive for two months by the Sudanese People's Liberation Army.
"During those traumatic months... Marc's ability to transform suffering into compassion and even joy was unmatched," said Mauney. "He was compelled by a quiet passion that proved itself, both in his time as hostage and during his long illness, to be fired by a deep love of God and unshakable confidence in the Resurrection."
Nikkel surprised many people when, despite his weakness, he appeared at General Convention in Denver this past July. During a presentation by overseas guests, he held up for the audience a cross he wore over his heart -- a piece of metal transformed by a Dinka artist from a weapon of war into the preeminent symbol of self-giving and new life.
Nikkel played a major role behind the scenes as the Episcopal Church developed a strong partnership with the Sudanese church. Through the United Thank Offering, Episcopal Relief and Development and Episcopal Migration Ministries, churches have been built, land and communities developed, and refugees aided.