SUDAN:
At the request of the popular former president of Sudan, Jafaar al-Nimeiri, Compassion Radio was able to help organize and participate in two “institutes” involving scholarly exchanges between American and Sudanese academics in Khartoum. The American contributors included faculty members from such universities as Rutgers, Northeastern, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Mercer, and the University of Jos in Nigeria. Among the attendees (and expressing approval of the endeavor), was Sudan’s Vice President, Ali Osman Muhamad Taha. This University project grew out of a friendship between Norm Nelson and a leading Sudanese economist that began in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Both Norm and the economist, a devout Muslim, described their meeting as “providential.”