Makuach, South Sudan

Zion
Dhion
Religion
District	Makuach
Location
State	Jonglei State
Country	South Sudan
Zion's location in South Sudan
Geographic coordinates	6°18′50.9″N 31°40′20.8″E / 6.314139°N 31.672444°E / 6.314139; 31.672444
Architecture
Groundbreaking	1992
Completed	1996
Materials	Wattle and daub, Thatch

A huge church called Dhion (Zion), which is often cited as the largest grass-roofed structure ever built in South Sudan,^[5] is located at Pakayo (or Pakeo), a site between the Werekok and Kapat boma centers. Construction of the church was begun in 1992 by participants in a popular Christian-conversion movement led by Paul Kon Adjith, who is buried in the church compound.^[6] Marc Nikkel visited the site in 1994 and described it like this:

I was astonished by the sight of Zion, more substantial than I had envisioned, with its numerous outbuildings and fenced compounds, all of mud and thatch. Certainly the church is the largest and most impressive building of local construction I have seen in Sudan, the labor of thousands of committed souls. Beautifully thatched, it rises to perhaps thirty feet at is center. Amid a forest of supporting poles, like a primitive cathedral, the congregation (numbering some four thousand on our visit) fills the arms of the cross, all facing toward a central octagonal dais.
— Marc Nikkel, Why Haven't You Left? Letters from the Sudan, Church Publishing^[6]