LuiNotes

Bishop Bullen Dolli, R.I.P.

2010-12-12T16:28:00.002-06:00

Bishop Bullen Dolli, bishop of Lui Diocese in the Episcopal Church of Sudan, died early on December 11. Lui has been our companion diocese for nearly 5 years, and many of us knew Bishop Bullen from our trips to Lui and from his visits here in Missouri.

Bishop Bullen was taken ill on October 23 and was sent to hospital in Juba for treatment. On his return home he underwent surgery at Lui Hospital. Following this he was again treated in Juba on November 16, where he was referred to hospital in Nairobi for tests. He underwent further surgery in Nairobi in November 24. By November 26, we learned that he had a cancer diagnosis, was in intensive care, and was not doing well. By December 6, with no improvement, the Bishop’s family had decided to arrange for his transport home to Lui, since further surgery or treatment did not seem likely to help. Our diocese worked with our friends in Lui to try to arrange the transportation. As you may recall, there is no such thing as commercial transportation into the Lui area; it requires a special charter flight, which we were seeking to arrange with MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship), the organization the flies our missioners into and out of southern Sudan. The next flight we could arrange was on Monday, December 13. However, Bishop Bullen died early on December 11.

Bishop Bullen leaves behind his young (second) wife Lorna and his infant son, Silvan (shown at right in the arms of the Bishop's niece Tabitha), as well as the people of his diocese.

Upon the news of Bishop Bullen’s death, our Bishop Wayne Smith wrote: “Bishop Bullen was a friend and colleague who repeatedly showed great courage, facing difficulties and dangers during his episcopate and before, for the sake of the Moru people.” And further: “His lively faith took root in the gospel of Jesus. May he rest in peace, and rise in the glory of Christ.”

Bullen was consecrated bishop in 1999, since when he has led the Diocese of Lui. He led that faithful Episcopal community through years of bitter civil war, during which many people hid in the bush. During that time, the Cathedral was bombed twice and rebuilt twice – in an awesome gesture of faith, hope, and brash persistence.

I have no doubt that Bishop Bullen was ready for death. When I learned that he died in Nairobi, my greatest grief was that he was not able to return to Lui before his death. The affection for him was great, and I grieve that he was not able to spend some time with the people of his diocese.

I have spent a fair bit of time with Bishop Bullen. Much is made of the “crisis” in the Anglican Communion over LGBT issues. This much I know: After my time in Lui in 2006, Bishop Bullen was informed that I was gay. The next time I saw him, I expected him to shun me. He did not. He greeted me with the same embraces we had shared when I was in Lui.

I don’t know precisely … though I can guess … what kind of theological views Bishop Bullen may have held about “homosexuality” in the abstract. But I also know this: He related to me as a sister in Christ, as I honored him as a brave minister of the Gospel in a difficult place. And he was willing to establish a “companion diocese” relationship with the Diocese of Missouri, where gay people are ordained and same-sex blessings are performed.

I deeply grieve the death of my brother Bullen.

May he rest in peace and rise in glory. And may the people of Lui find comfort and be gifted with new leadership.

Further resources:
Follow the Lui Network – a partnership among Lui, the Diocese of Missouri (U.S.). Blackmore Vale (CofE), and Lund (Sweden) here: http://luinetwork.ning.com/
A brief biography of Bishop Bullen appears at http://www.lui.anglican.org/index.php?PageID=bpbullen … though I think some of the facts are wrong.
My blog about Lui is here: http://luinotes.blogspot.com/. My reflections about my February-March time in Lui appear in blog entries from March 8 through July 2006.

Episcopal Church of Sudan in the News

2010-11-17T21:11:00.005-06:00

Several news items appeared recently which are worth noting. Many of these are sparked by this Nov. 5-7 meeting in Juba, where the Sudanese Church and its partners met in Juba. Our own Debbie Smith was an active participant in the meeting and was one of the few quoted in the ENS article.

Episcopal News Service reported on that meeting here. They also provide videos from the Rev. Canon Petero Sabune (TEC's Africa Partnership Officer) and Robin Denney (agriculture consultant from TEC for the Episcopal Church of Sudan )

With luck, those videos will play here:

The Rev. Sabune:

Ms. Denney:

ENS also carried an essay by Robin Denney here about daily life in Juba, Sudan.

And continue to watch the Lui Network site for news about the work of TEC's Missouri, England's Blackmore Vale, and Sweden's Lund diocese in Lui.

News from Lui ... and upcoming mission trip

2010-10-27T19:56:00.005-05:00

I am grateful to Beth Felice and the Diocese of Missouri for this information.

There is worrisome news here about Bishop Bullen ... and a call to prayer for the next mission trip from the Diocese of Missouri to the Diocese of Lui (Sudan).

News from Lui Diocese and the upcoming mission trip, prayers requested

With preparation for the next mission trip to Lui which departs in a week, there is sad news about Bishop Bullen Dolli. This weekend Bishop Bullen was not feeling well and was unable to speak, although he was trying to communicate in other ways. There was no medical officer on duty at Lui Hospital. The diocesan staff took him to Juba for medical help. Bishop Bullen is currently resting at a relative's house in Munuki. Diocesan Secretary the Rev. Stephen Dokolo and the Rt. Rev. Bismark Monday, bishop of neighboring Mundri diocese ask us to join them with prayers for the bishop, his family, and the people of Lui diocese.

On Monday, November 1, the Missouri missioners will leave for Lui. Traveling are Rick Kuhn, Emily Bloemker, and Debbie Smith. This trip is about our partnerships and partners. Meeting for one day of preparation in Kampala and 9 days in Lui, teams from Blackmore Vale Deanery of Salisbury Diocese in the Church of England (Anne, Shirley, and Jeannie) and Lund Diocese in the Church of Sweden (Marie and Göran) will join the Missourians.

We're going to track all missioner posts and news through one site at luinetwork.ning.com during this trip. One-stop shopping! So if you haven't yet visited, travel over. The site is set up that anyone in the public can read posts, but you have to register to add your own posts or comments.

Debbie Smith has outlined the rough itinerary and goals for this trip on her blog LuLuLui. Do you have questions for mission team members? Come join the community at LuiNetwork.

Now in Sudan

2010-09-28T20:49:00.002-05:00

Thanks to Lauren Stanley, I have learned about this important Newsweek article about Sudan. Read it! The article talks about the ill effects that do-gooder American efforts have in Sudan. It also speaks to the dangers that our next mission team may be facing.

In the world of serendipity, I also found Episcopal Café’s story about the distinction between charity and justice.

Those stories remind me of what we in the Diocese of Missouri are trying to do with our partners in the Diocese of Lui (in the Episcopal Church of Sudan). We are trying to do development work. Not just charity handouts. We are striving to support efforts that will provide long-term development. And we are doing it in a place where Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul spurns people like me and all the other generous gay/lesbian Christians in our diocese. And people like me continue to support the work of that diocese in Sudan. I support the Diocese of Lui. The Archbishop would call me an unrepentant sinner, while I call myself a Christian. So be it. I will do what the Gospel of Jesus Christ tells me to do. And he shall have his reward.

Rhode Island is In

2010-06-21T21:11:00.003-05:00

I was delighted to read today from the Episcopal News Service that the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island has entered into a companion relationship with the Diocese of Ezo in the Sudan. Welcome, Rhode Island!

I hope we can soon enter into substantive meetings with all the U.S. dioceses who are engaged in Sudan.

June 8 News from AFRECS

2010-06-14T21:31:00.005-05:00

I am deeply grateful that AFRECS has begun issuing regular news reports. However, as far as I can tell, they are not maintaining these reports on any website or blog. So I am reprinting their news report here.

Their news report is in blue. I'll occasionally add my remarks in black.

This the AFRECS news-blast for June 8.

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News

ECS and Agricultural Development: Robin Denney, the Episcopal Church missionary working with the Episcopal Church of Sudan on agriculture, reports that the new ECS tractor has arrived in Juba! The ECS demonstration garden, which she uses with ag students at Bishop Gwynne College, is in the hands of volunteers while the college's students are on break. And the start date of the three-month agricultural training course in Yei that Robin has planned has been postponed until August due to logistical issues. The later date may be better for the 13 farmers slated to participate as they need to get their crops in the ground at home. Robin's work is challenged by the mechanical breakdowns and wire-transfer glitches that characterize so much of life in Sudan, but she continues to visit and consult on the many diocesan agricultural projects and to partner with other organizations on behalf of ECS. For full details, email Robin for her monthly report at agriculture@sudan.anglican.org and see the ECS Agriculture Assessment and visioning document on the ECS website under the Archbishop's page: http://sudan.anglican.org/. For Robin's blog: http://robin-mission.blogspot.com/

I am not in the inner circle, so I'm not sure what's going on with this tractor. But I can give you my perspective.

When Sudan's Archbishop Daniel came to Missouri, he begged us to provide a tractor for our friends in the Diocese of Lui. We didn't do it. We probably will not, because of the feedback we got from the women of Lui.

Consider: We give the men of Lui a tractor to plow their fields. Whom do you suppose will then have to plant, weed, water, tend, and eventually harvest those fields? In the culture of Lui, it's the women of Lui who would be responsible for all that work after the guys use their tractors to plow ever-larger fields with their tractors.

As one woman said: If you want to kill all the women, just give the men a tractor.

So the Diocese of Missouri has intentionally declined to raise funds for a tractor, despite the fact that Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul requested one. .

I assume that Robin Denney, our missioner in Sudan, has found other ways to work with the farmers and farming families so that they will not grind the women into dust. She's working with an agricultural college, so I trust she is finding a way to use the tractor productively, in a way that will work in the communities of Sudan. I hope we can learn something from her work.

Hunger: The European Commission has pledged ?46 million to the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) for relief in Darfur and Southern Sudan: http://www.di-ve.com/Default.aspx?ID=43&Action=1&NewsId=73338. Robin Denney reports widespread food shortages, which have led to seed shortages in the new planting season, and inconsistent arrival of the needed rain.

Thank God for this gift from the European Commission!!

Mind you, my friends, the harvest in Sudan is wholly dependent on rains that come at the right time and in the right amounts. When the rains don't cooperate, our friends in Lui can easily be thrown into drought.

The Use of Sudanese Crop Lands: Sudan is leasing vast plots of its agricultural land to foreign investors, especially Middle Eastern countries. For some background on this growing issue in sub-Saharan Africa: www.oecd.org/dataoecd/30/39/44231828.pdf and in Sudan: http://www.africanagricultureblog.com/2010/01/sudan-seeks-middle-east-farmland.html

I have no idea about how/whether this has any effect on our friends in Lui.

Rumbek Peace Conference: The Episcopal Church of Sudan (ECS) held a peace conference in Rumbek June 1-3, 2010 between the people of Western Equatoria and Greater Bahr al Ghazal, who have recently experienced considerable conflict centered around the grazing of cattle vs. the protection of crop lands. Trinity parish, Wall Street, New York, sponsored the conference. Documents detailing the discussions have been sent to ECS bishops and others.

I know nothing about this conference, but I know that our Lui friends are in the state of Western Equatoria. If I hear anything, I will let you know.

Manute Bol: According to the Facebook group "Manute Bol, get well soon!" as of Monday, June 6th, "Manute is still in the hospital in Virginia, and the focus of his treatment is to treat an infection. Please continue to pray for his speedy and full recovery."

Vice-President Biden: "Biden's Africa trip is all about Sudan": http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/07/biden_s_africa_trip_is_all_about_sudan
Pray for the farmers of Sudan, pray for the hungry; pray that the rains come and the crops prosper. Pray for healing for Manute. Pray for Robin and her ministry in Sudan. Pray for wisdom and commitment on the part of the US government and others as Sudan continues to live under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in this critical period before the referendum.
Pray for peace in Sudan.

Teach: There is a new map of the South Sudan dioceses of the Episcopal Church of Sudan: http://sudan.anglican.org/files/sudanmap.pdf.

Partner: Have you joined the American Friends of the Episcopal Church of Sudan? It's a great time to do that, as the organization welcomes its second president, the Rt. Rev. David Jones, Suffragan Bishop of Virginia, and thanks its first and founding president, now president emeritus, the Rev. Dr. Richard Jones: http://www.afrecs.org/.

Urge: The Sudan Council of Churches has issued a statement called Choose Life: A Vision for a Peaceful Sudan which sets forth requirements for implementing the January referenda successfully and transitioning to a peaceful future for what is likely to become two Sudans: http://washingtonmemo.org/2010/06/08/choose-life-a-vision-for-a-peaceful-sudan/. It's an excellent reference for talking with policy makers about Sudan's future.

Give: To help the Episcopal Church of Sudan with its many ministries and projects: http://www.afrecs.org/.

I would add that Missourians can support the Diocese of Lui by donating here.

Coming Soon: Highlights of the 5th AFRECS conference, held last weekend in Alexandria, Virginia.

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If you wish to subscribe to the weekly Sudan update from AFRECS, send an e-mail to AFRECS_E-Blasts@afrecs.org with "SUBSCRIBE" in the subject line.

AFRECS conference looks to January 2011 referendum

2010-06-09T12:35:00.002-05:00

AFRECS held its fourth annual conference over the weekend. Episcopal News Service yesterday posted a fine article on the conference, the political situation in Sudan, and partnerships between Sudanese and U.S. Episcopalians. I'm including it here in full.

AFRECS conference looks to January 2011 referendum, anticipates outcome
By Lynette Wilson, June 08, 2010

[Episcopal News Service – Alexandria, Virginia] In January 2011 the people of South Sudan are expected to vote in a referendum that will determine the future of Africa's largest country, a country with a long history of civil war, and rich in oil and other natural resources.

Most experts believe the south will vote for independence.

"I think the south is going to become an independent power in January, one way or another; I hope it's not through a unilateral declaration of independence. I hope it is through a formal referendum," said Georgetown University Professor Andrew S. Natsios, who has years of experience working for the U.S. government on development and humanitarian aid issues in Sudan.

Natsios spoke to more than 50 people gathered June 5 at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Alexandria, Virginia, for the fourth annual American Friends of the Episcopal Church of Sudan conference: "Sudan in Crisis: How Can We help?"

With 31-dioceses, 26 of them in the south, and an estimated 4 million members, the Episcopal Church of Sudan is one of the largest non-government organizations in southern Sudan. Diplomats, former ambassadors, Episcopal bishops, advocates, humanitarian and development workers, a southern Sudan government official and others interested in preserving peace and facilitating a peaceful path to southern Sudan's independence -- should it come to pass -- attended the June 4-6 conference.

"This year's conference comes at a time of particular importance given the upcoming election," said Richard Parkins, AFRECS' executive director. "The stakes are very high and there is a tremendous amount of work to be done between now and January."

The January referendum is a provision of Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement, signed in 2005 by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement in the south and the north's Khartoum-based Government of Sudan headed by President Omar al-Bashir. The CPA ended a 21-year civil war -- fought by the Arab and Muslim north and rebels in the Christian-animist south -- that killed more than 2 million people and displaced an estimated 7 million more.

Al-Bashir, a Sunni Muslim, was re-elected in an April election -- the country's first multi-party election in 24 years -- which has been characterized as fraudulent by many in the international community. Al-Bashir is the first head of state to be re-elected while facing war crimes charges.

In March 2009, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir on seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Darfur region of western Sudan, where government-backed militia continue to attack civilians and raid refugee camps.

During a June 5 workshop/panel discussion to address the prognosis of the CPA, former British Ambassador to Sudan Alan Goulty, now a senior fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, advised listeners against choosing sides.

"When you look at the talk of the independence of the south … we are not campaigning on one side or the other. It is very important, as it is in the Darfur context, that we don’t lead the southern Sudanese to expect that if they can't do a deal on oil revenues and the money stops flowing, that the United States is going to write checks [to cover the income of southern Sudan], to keep the country going three, four, five years until it can export oil directly by Kenya," he said.

Oil revenues account for 95 percent of Sudanese export revenues and 65 percent of government revenues: in the south it accounts for 98 percent of total revenues; in the north its 65 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund.

The CPA calls for equal oil revenue sharing between north and south; the south has the oil reserves, which it transports to the north through pipelines to port on the Red Sea. Should the south secede from the north, the CPA calls for six months of separation negotiations to demarcate the north-south boundary, issues of citizenship -- there are 2 million southern Sudanese living in the capital Khartoum -- and sharing of the country's estimated $35 billion debt.

Experts predict a massive southern migration to follow a secession vote, and, if that happens, the church could play an important part in reconciliation.

"I think churches are well placed to do whatever they can to encourage reconciliation and agreement among Sudanese, and to do so without taking sides because that is going to be necessary whatever the outcome of the referendum," Goulty said. "Southern Sudanese and northern Sudanese are condemned to live as neighbors."

The Central Intelligence Agency estimates the population of Sudan at 42 million people -- 70 percent Sunni Muslim and 5 percent Christian, with most Christians living in the south. Indigenous beliefs account for the majority of the remaining percentage.

Formed in 2005, AFRECS is a 200-member network of individuals, churches, dioceses and other organizations that seeks to focus attention on the priorities of the Episcopal Church of Sudan and enable American friends to assist the church in meeting the needs of the Sudanese people.

"We are very much interested in the future of Sudan, whether it be as a divided country or as a united country. Particularly we have a concern for the protection of the Christian community for whom we have advocated for so many years," Parkins said, in an interview the ENS. "If there is not peace in Sudan, and if the referendum results in conflict and violence, this could have a destabilizing effect on the region. The stakes are not only high for the Sudanese people, but for East Africa."

To help, Parkins suggests that people first become aware of Sudan and its history of crisis, educating themselves, others, and church communities, and by asking elected officials and the Obama administration for a "robust" U.S. policy that holds the CPA's partners to "its faithful implementation." Otherwise, Parkins said, he fears that "peace will unravel and violence will become even more severe than it is already."

Bul Garang Mabil, 26, of Jackson, Mississippi, represented the Diocese of Mississippi's Sudanese Ministry Committee at the conference.

In the CPA workshop, Mabil stood up and asked Deng Deng Nhial, deputy head of mission and finance and trade investment officer for the Government of Southern Sudan Mission in the USA, and one of the panelists: "What is the opportunity for the lost boys?"

[Addendum from Lisa: For those not familiar with the "lost boys," this Wikipedia article provides a general explanation.]

Nhial spoke of south Sudanern [sic] in the context of a "failed state," and acknowledged the lack of educated and trained people necessary to run the country, the predicted southern migration, boundary and citizenship issues, an insufficient banking system, and the difficulty in organizing the referendum itself.

Sudan's two back-to-back civil wars left its institutions destroyed, and people with skills and means left the country. In negotiating a separation agreement, Nhial said, the north and south will need expert help.

"No one wants a return to war," he said.

One of the "Lost Boys of Sudan" Mabil arrived in Jackson in December 2000, after living in a refugee camp in Kenya. He went on to graduate from high school and earn a degree from Millsaps College, a private liberal arts school in Jackson. He now works from the Mississippi Department of Health.

"I hope that the peace will prevail in our country because our people have suffered so much. Right after the CPA was signed, we were very happy to see peace come our country … We hope that if this peace is maintained, development will come to our country," he said in an interview after the workshop.

Many of the lost boys navigated the refugee camps and eventually landed in the United States. Some of them, like Mabil, and John Juarwel, a student at the University of Mississippi who also attended the conference, have gone on to higher education.

"They have the know-how, but the problem is how to take that back and be productive members of society," Mabil said.

Institutions

In his experience, Natsios, the professor and Sudan expert, said the most important thing people can do to help Sudan is focus their efforts on building private institutions, including primary and secondary schools and colleges, with connections to funding sources outside Sudan.

At right: Jennifer Ernst, co-founder of Hope for Humanity, Inc. and coordinator for partnerships for the Episcopal Church of Sudan, and Virginia Suffragan Bishop David Jones, president-elect of the American Friends of the Episcopal Church of Sudan, during the AFRECS conference.
Photo Credit:Constance Wilson

In 1999, Jennifer and Darryl Ernst, members of Christ Church in Glen Allen in the Diocese of Virginia, became involved with efforts by St. Bartholomew's Church in Richmond to resettle Sudanese refugees. Later they came to know Maker Mabor Marial, a lost boy who eventually became like a son to them, Jennifer Ernst said.

In December 2004, the Ernsts and Marial founded Hope for Humanity, Inc., an organization dedicated to educating future leaders in Sudan. Their efforts resulted in Hope and Resurrection School, an Episcopal secondary school now in its third year serving 137 students, 33 of them girls, in grades 9, 10 and 11 (one new class has been added every year).

Located in the village of Atiaba, in the Diocese of Akot, Hope and Resurrection has an open admittance policy and is run by a Sudanese headmaster with 30 years' education experience, Ernst said.

The Ernsts raised money for the school by telling the Hope for Humanity story in churches throughout the diocese, garnering support mostly one small donation at a time, Jennifer Ernst said.

In another example, Carol Francis-Rinehart, co-founder and director, and Daniel Majok Gai, board member, explained in an interview with ENS, how Denver, Colorado-based Project Education Sudan is working with local populations to build schools and create a framework for education in four Jonglei State communities, including the Marc Nikkel Cathedral Primary School, a project undertaken in partnership with the Diocese of Southwest Virginia and Christ Church Cathedral in the Diocese of Indianapolis.

Gai will move back to Sudan next year to work with Project Education Sudan in country, to help communities create micro-economies to support their schools.

To learn more about Project Education Sudan's other projects, teacher training, financial literacy, water wells, etc., click here.

Companion relationships

The Episcopal Church's long-standing support for Sudan is manifested through its partnerships and companion diocese relationships, programs supported by Episcopal Relief & Development, and advocacy work of the Office of Government Relations.

Last July, the Episcopal Church's General Convention passed legislation in support of a lasting peace in Sudan. Through the companion relationships, Episcopal dioceses in the U.S. have supported critical social services including schools, clinics, water wells and church construction.

Ernst also serves as partnerships coordinator for the Episcopal Church of Sudan. During a workshop focused on companion diocese relationships, Ernst said that many of the church's 31 dioceses are looking for partners: from prayer partnerships, friendships, to buying desks or other education materials, to building schools and cathedrals.

"It's really important to have partnerships when we step out of our comfort zone and share a friendship with people from another country and another culture," Ernst said.

Forming a companion relationship with the Diocese of Kajo Keji transformed the Diocese of Bethlehem in northeast Pennsylvania.

"We have churches where there aren't towns anymore," said Bethlehem Bishop Paul Marshall, explaining the impact of coal mining on the region.

The diocese's relationship with Sudan started with a Sudanese seminarian from Virginia Theological Seminary sharing his story about growing up in civil war-torn Sudan. A few visits to refugee camps in Uganda, and eventually, a trip to Sudan, the diocese with a $1.2 million annual budget, set out to raise $3.2 million for its New Hope Campaign and has raised more than $4.4 million to date, Marshall said.

"Leadership has to have a vision. The group itself will not exceed the passion of the leadership. I think that is the key point. If you are in a partner relationship and haven't gotten your bishop over there, this would be the time," he said.

The New Hope Campaign is dedicated to rebuilding a college destroyed by war and building a primary and a secondary school in Kajo Keji. Recognizing that it is a small organization set on rebuilding a college in another country, the diocese sought outside professional consultation to teach leaders how to ask for money. Marshall, himself, has pledged enough money to the project that he has had to extend his work life by two years, he said.

"This a theological enterprise," Marshall said. "The congregations that are functioning are the ones whose focus is on mission … Eventually it became clear that what we were doing was inviting people to enter into a kind of unity with Christ that they hadn't experienced … as a group."

-- Lynette Wilson is a staff writer and editor for Episcopal News Service.

Parkins on Sudan

2010-05-16T20:35:00.003-05:00

Episcopal News Service has posted an op-ed piece by Richard Parkins, Executive Director of the American Friends of the Episcopal Church of Sudan (AFRECS). I am personally fond of Mr. Parkins and I greatly respect his work for AFRECS. However, some parts of his essay give me pause.

I encourage you to read his essay and offer your comments. These are mine.

He describes the April parliamentary elections as "seriously flawed." In my view, the most serious flaw was that the candidates in southern Sudan bowed out of the elections at the last minute, thereby reducing the options of our friends in southern Sudan. I believe he is wrong to lay the blame on the Khartoum government and its President, Omar al-Bashir.

Richard Parkins doesn't hammer home the point, but I will remind you that Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir has been declared a war criminal, because of the genocide he has perpetrated in Darfar. There is an international warrant for his arrest. There is no doubt (in my mind) that he is a Very Bad Guy.

Parkins rightly points out that many elements of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement have not been pursued. I join him in hoping that progress will be made, as well as dismay that little time remains to do so.

I am a bit dismayed that Parkins seems to cast all the southern Sudanese as the "Good Guys" and all the northern Sudanese as the "Bad Guys." I don't believe it's that simple. Remember, for example, that there are many Christians and Episcopalians living in the northern portions of Sudan. Further, as Parkins observes, Sudanese Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul is in a position to advocate on behalf of all the Sudanese Christians.

Despite my quibbles, I am grateful to Richard Parkins for trying to get the Sudan situation on the radar of the Episcopal Church. Our brothers and sisters in Sudan have made great strides during the peace agreement, and I fervently pray that peace endures in Sudan.

AFRECS National Conference

2010-05-13T21:42:00.004-05:00

Debbie Smith to Lead Session

Episcopal News Service has a fine story about the upcoming conference of AFRECS (the American Friends of the Episcopal Church of Sudan). Promoting peace and stability in Sudan's dramatically changing political landscape and making that country's peace an American foreign policy priority will top the agenda for the fifth annual conference.

Some of you will remember that we hosted AFRECS’s 2nd annual conference at Christ Church Cathedral in St. Louis.

Who/What is AFRECS? As ENS reports: “AFRECS is a 200-member network of individuals, churches, dioceses and other organizations that seeks to focus attention on the priorities of the Episcopal Church of Sudan and enable American friends to assist the church in meeting the needs of the Sudanese people.”

This year’s AFRECS conference will be held June 4-6 at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Alexandria, Virginia. Click here for registration information. Through workshops and speakers, the conference will address the role of U.S. and global partners in Sudan's future, advocacy on behalf of peace in Sudan, church building, partners in ministry and development.

Among the plenary sessions and workshops, one on June 5 will address the life cycle of companion diocese relationships. It will be led by Debbie Morris Smith, a member of St. Timothy’s and mission coordinator of our Companion Diocese Relationship Committee.

The ENS report includes this:

Debbie Morris Smith's first introduction to Sudan came 10 years ago while teaching English as a second language to refugees in Des Moines, Iowa.
"There were a lot of Sudanese women," Smith explained in a telephone interview, and as a result, "I became interested in Sudan, the different tribes … before that I had no clue."
Later, after her husband Wayne Smith, was elected bishop of the Diocese of Missouri, Morris Smith traveled to Sudan with a group from the Church of St. Michael and St. George in Clayton.
What started as an informal visit by a church group grew into a formal companion relationship between the Diocese of Missouri and the Diocese of Lui, Smith said, adding that the diocese is working to raise money to build a diocesan center in Lui. .
Today Smith serves on the board of the American Friends of the Episcopal Church of Sudan and as the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri's mission coordinator and liaison to the Diocese of Lui. She will lead the companion diocese workshop.

I do not know who (besides Debbie Morris Smith) will be attending the AFRECS conference from the Diocese of Missouri. But anyone can register. Just go to this page to register.

Walk for Water at St. Martin’s

2010-05-13T20:44:00.003-05:00

For the third year, on May 8 St. Martin’s Episcopal Church (Ellisville) hosted a “Walk for Water” to benefit water projects in our companion diocese with Lui in the Episcopal Church of Sudan. In fact, participants had the option of walking, jogging, running or biking over a course of 1, 3, or 5 miles.

Beth Buehler, a member of St. Martin’s and member of the Companion Diocese Relationship Committee, was a driving force in the organization of the event.

Beth Felice (Communications Director, Episcopal Diocese of Missouri) has posted a delightful video of St. Martin’s “Walk for Water” here. Or view it here.

St. Martin's Church: Walk for Water for Sudan from Episcopal Diocese of Missouri on Vimeo.

You can read the story from the St. Martin’s website here.

The event raised over $6,500. Donations are still being accepted at St. Martin’s.

Sudan Election Extended by 2 Days

2010-04-12T19:47:00.003-05:00

There have been stories about delays in getting the Sudan election going – stories of glitches in erecting polling places, mistaken deliveries of ballots, foul-ups with voter registration lists, and so on. By the way, none of that surprises me, given that it’s been over two decades since Sudan last held an election.

It was widely reported that some southern Sudan leaders were calling for the election period to be extended. I didn’t expect that to happen.

While I was hunting for news sources today, “BREAKING NEWS” began to crop up on site after site. To my surprise, it appears that Sudan has agreed to that extension. The voting period will be extended by two days. You can read the story at the Times, among other places.

The polling places will now stay open into Thursday.

Getting News from Sudan

2010-04-12T19:25:00.003-05:00

I was pleased this weekend that NPR had a few stories about the elections in Sudan. But I wanted more detailed, local news, so I was still frustrated. So today I went on a news-hunt. Here I will share some of the sources I have found. I beg you readers to share other sources here in the comments.

Sudan Tribune: First and most basic is the Sudan Tribune. Everyone seems to cite this as one of the core news sources. Right now, their front page is all about the elections.

New Sudan Vision: The New Sudan Vision is a more recently-born source of journalism. Their front page, too, is almost entirely devoted to the elections.

Voice of America is carrying a great deal of coverage, too. I’m not sure how to interpret their journalistic perspective. But if you click here, you can get a digest of all their news about east Africa – most of which (today) is about Sudan’s elections.

VOA “Special Report”: Voice of America has compiled a single page that seeks to compile all the news about the Sudan elections. Click here to find it. In particular, I appreciated a section near the bottom of that page, that has over a dozen links to other news sources. I've just begun checking out a few of them.

Sudan Votes has articles and several interviews in English – so far all focused in Juba. I enjoyed the “man on the street” interviews that their journalists are doing. This site felt more “first person” than any of the other sites I found. [Debbie, they also have some stories in Arabic; perhaps you can explore those.] They are doing first-person interviews and reporting, unlike most of the "national" sources I found.

I also discovered South Sudan Nation, which is another online newspaper. I found it rather more extreme, negative, and polemical than the Sudan Tribune and New Sudan Vision. I'm not quite sure what to make of it. If it the "Fox News" of Sudan? I can't tell.

All of these sources are providing more “on the ground” reporting than I’ve seen in U.S. sources.

I’ll share other sources if I find them. Likewise, if you find other good sources, please let me know.

More on Sudan Elections ... Keep Praying

2010-04-10T21:59:00.003-05:00

We are now well into the prayer vigil for Sudan and the elections.

Episcopal News Service has a good story on the Sudan elections here. It begins:

As Sudan heads to the polls this weekend to hold its first democratic elections in 24 years, Episcopalians in the U.S. have been ramping up advocacy and raising awareness of the issues that confront Africa's largest and most war-torn nation amid fears that it could plunge back into civil war.
Richard Parkins and Russ Randle, two leading Episcopal Church advocates for Sudan, have continued to pursue the U.S. Congress and Obama administration pressing them to make the African country's peace agreement a priority and to ensure that fair elections are conducted.

Read the entire story from ENS.

The Political Situation in Sudan

2010-04-08T21:21:00.003-05:00

[This text is copied from the e-newsletter of the Diocese of Missouri, dated April 8]

If you are following current events in Sudan, you will note the increasing rhetoric and stridency in statements from most participants approaching the upcoming elections. The pronouncements are unwavering and dire, they hold no room for negotiation, and this is not a two sided conflict, but a complex situation.

Bishop Wayne Smith has often reminded us that the on-the-ground situation in Lui is fluid. We do not know as we are planning each mission trip, if some event will change the possibility of travel: political, weather, health. We do not know, we will not know. We open our hearts to understanding what that not-knowing might feel like for our brothers and sisters in the Diocese of Lui, and we also learn from their deep faith in Christ which triumphs over this not-knowingness. And we pray.

The new chairperson of the diocesan Companion Relationship Committee, the Rev. Emily Bloemker, articulates this clearly, “We’re the church, we’re not an NGO.” Our initial work with Lui diocese focused on our relationship with them, and an immediate need for available water. As our last deep water well is being completed, our common work is refocusing on supporting the ministry of the Lui diocese. “It’s about establishing a permanent home for the diocese, a place to carry out ministry with dignity.” Make no mistake, there are a lot of needs: the hospital, ongoing support of the Mothers Union, education, Lui diocese infrastructure, among others. Last year the missioners asked Bishop Bullen outright, “It takes money to make these mission trips happen, would you rather use the money spent for our travel on some of these identified needs.?” And he said no, the most important thing is that you come here, that you share worship and fellowship and relationship.

In the fluid process that is Sudan elections, it is possible for the Carter Center to be uninvited from election process oversight on April 1, receive close to an apology and re-invitation on April 3, to announce today that ex-president Carter will be in Sudan during the elections; possible for a party to threaten complete countrywide boycott of elections, then to clarify only certain regions. In this back and forth, we pray alongside our brothers and sisters in Lui diocese.

Prayer Makes Community

2010-04-08T21:12:00.004-05:00

The Diocese of Missouri has posted a reflection by the Rev. Daniel Handschy, who has served as missioner and chaplain on a couple of mission trips to Lui. We reproduce it here.

Prayer makes community and community requires prayer

Watch with Me One Hour: excerpt from Church of the Advent’s newsletter, The Scroll (April 2010), by the Rev. Dan Handschy, rector of Advent, and chaplain to the missioners on our most recent trip to Lui in November 2009.

When Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, he asked Peter, James and John to stay awake with him while he prayed. Whenever a person is faced with a difficult situation, it helps to know that others are praying, too.

On our most recent trip to Lui, one of the missioners became very ill, most likely with giardia, (a parasite) which not only messes with a person’s digestion, it also makes a person feel depressed and anxious. The missioner felt not only physically miserable, but emotionally terrified. She had a long night ahead of her. We asked if she wanted us to pray with her. The bishop took the lead, and we all laid hands on her while he prayed. Then, I asked her if she would like someone to sit with her through the night. With tears, she said yes.

We quickly agreed to take an hour each during the night. We put a chair outside the door of her room, and put a candle on a table, so if she woke up, she would see the light of that candle. We made it through that night, and the medicines began to work. She felt a little better in the morning, although it would be weeks after we got home that she would feel back to par.

At a retreat we had in February, she remarked on how the whole event had changed her perspective on prayer. When the bishop had prayed for healing, and we all had laid our hands on her, she said she felt connected to the whole of Christian history.

Anointing and laying on of hands is a very ancient rite for healing. She said that before Lui she hadn’t understood what it meant—now, she knew that it meant others were with you in the crisis. She also said she would never go through the Maundy Thursday Vigil the same way again.
I know from my two trips to Lui, we are a people who think we can do things on our own. But, when it comes right down to it, none of us can get by alone. Sitting through a long, lonely night under African skies makes a person realize how connected we are to one another. The biggest discovery that we can make in mission, certainly the biggest discovery that any of the missioners has made in Lui, is that prayer makes community and community requires prayer. On this side of the ocean, we think we can do without either, but we cannot.

Developments in the Sudan Elections

2010-04-05T21:44:00.004-05:00

On April 1, our friends in the Save Darfur Coalition posted a message that read, in part:

Late last night, the largest opposition party in Sudan (the southern based Sudanese People's Liberation Movement) announced it was withdrawing its candidate for president of Sudan from the national elections scheduled for April 11-13. The leaders of SPLM did so reportedly because they were convinced that elections were too flawed to move forward and they did not want to legitimize a process that led to the re-election of President Omar-al Bashir, the architect of the Darfur genocide.
This morning, the remaining major opposition parties (with one exception) followed suit and withdrew their candidates from the presidential ballot. Save Darfur has long said that we do not believe free and fair elections are possible in Sudan given the oppressive political environment that has preceded them. And in the last two days, the decisions by the major opposition parties to withdraw underscore that fact.

LuiNotes is not an official blog of the Diocese of Missouri, nor has the Diocese of Missouri taken any position on these sudden developments. The blog-owners simply want our friends to be aware of these developments.

For more information, read the BBC’s coverage. They offered this headline on Friday, April 2: “US envoy to Sudan Scott Gration is holding a second day of crisis talks after a boycott threatens Sudan's first multi-party national poll in 24 years.”

The story reads:

Most major parties have withdrawn from the presidential elections and some groups have also pulled out of the parliamentary and municipal polls.
Several key parties in the north are also now considering a total boycott.
President Omar al-Bashir, wanted for alleged war crimes in Darfur, now faces only one major presidential challenger.
Veteran Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi has confirmed that candidates from his Popular Congress Party would contest all the polls.
But the BBC's James Copnall in Khartoum says if the other parties go for a total boycott, the credibility of the elections would be damaged almost beyond repair.
'On fire'
The southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) - which serves in a coalition at national level with President Bashir - first announced it was boycotting the presidential election over fraud and security fears on Wednesday.
Other parties in the north followed suit, saying they believed the electoral process had been rigged in favour of Mr Bashir's National Congress Party.
They said the registration process had been flawed and their access to state media and rights to hold rallies restricted.
Then on Thursday evening a loose alliance of parties opposed to President Bashir announced their total withdrawal.
Spokesman Farouk Abu Issa said to go ahead with presidential, parliamentary and municipal vote would risk putting the country "on fire".
"So we ask[ed] for a postponement until we can get a conducive atmosphere for a fair election. The government said no and Bashir said no," he said.
Mr Gration is now trying to convince one of the main northern opposition politicians, former Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi, his Umma party should contest at least some of the polls for parliament and regional governors' posts.
The party is currently debating whether to opt for a full boycott - if it does, all of the major opposition parties with the exception of Mr Turabi's are likely to follow suit.
Our reporter says it is believed Mr Mahdi will not return to the presidential race, but could let his party members contest the other elections.
Mr Gration said earlier that if the main opposition withdrew from the legislative elections it was not clear whether they would still be held.
Threat over referendum
SPLM presidential candidate Yassir Arman announced on Wednesday that he was pulling out of the election.
He also cited a lack of preparedness for the election in the Darfur region, where a rebellion has been taking place since 2003.
"The people of Darfur in the internally displaced people's camps asked the SPLM not to be involved in the election," he said.
The SPLM is still planning, however, to contest the parliamentary and municipal elections elsewhere in Sudan on the same day as the presidential poll.
President Bashir has threatened to cancel a promised referendum on independence for the south if the SPLM boycotts the poll.
However the SPLM and Western countries have said that the referendum and the election are separate issues, which should not be linked.
The SPLM joined the unity government in 2005 as part of a peace deal ending a two-decade civil war.
Some 1.5 million people died in the conflict between the mainly Muslim North and the South, where most people are Christian or follow traditional beliefs.

Prayer Vigil for Sudan & Lui

2010-03-24T19:13:00.003-05:00

The Diocese of Missouri has now organized a prayer vigil for the Sudan elections and our companions in Lui, thanks to Beth Felice (our Director of Communications). You can read the story here.

From the story:

Lui, Sudan, is eight hours ahead of Missouri; a prayer vigil is scheduled from 4:00 p.m. Saturday, April 10, through 4:00 p.m., Tuesday, April 13 (Central Time).
We have an online sign-up sheet for the vigil. Send an email for instructions/password, and please include your name/parish. Not online much and still want to sign up? Call 314-255-1387 with your name/parish/phone and we’ll add you to the sign-up sheet.

We will all have practice in watching and praying with Jesus next week, from Maundy Thursday into Good Friday. Then, after Easter, we can pray for our friends in Sudan from April 10-13, and sign up for an hour’s time slot. Follow Beth's instructions above.

I know some of the middle-of-the-night hours will be difficult for us in Missouri. I hope our friends in Blackmore Vale can cover those hours, since our dead-of-the-night is their morning.

There will also be a prayer service and Eucharist to kick off the prayer vigil at 12:00 noon, Saturday, April 10, at St. Timothy’s Church, Creve Coeur. Also from the diocesan news:

We hope to have our friends and new mission partners from Blackmore Vale, Diocese of Salisbury, UK join us by Skype. We’re also working on a simultaneous gathering at Lui Cathedral in Sudan.

When the Companion Diocese Relationship Committee held its day-long strategic planning meeting in February, the entire meeting was held via Skype with our partners in Blackmore Vale. It really is almost as good as being there.

Call to Prayer for Sudan

2010-03-17T20:36:00.001-05:00

A time of critical importance is approaching in the life of the Sudanese nation, the Episcopal Church of Sudan, and our companions in the Diocese of Lui. The Companion Diocese Relationship Committee is calling the Diocese of Missouri to three days of prayer (April 11-13) in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Sudan.

Background

When the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed in January 2005, it marked the end of 50 years of nearly-constant civil war between the Khartoum-based government in northern Sudan and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement in the south.

Besides ending the civil war, the CPA set out mechanisms to develop democratic governance through elections in April 2010, establish a firm boundary between northern and southern Sudan, share oil revenues equitably, and set a timetable by which southern Sudan would have a referendum in January 2011 on its independence.

For quick reference, you may want to consult the Wikipedia articles on the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the 2010 elections, and the 2011 independence referendum.

As discussed recently at LuiNotes, implementation of the CPA to date has not inspired confidence among our partners in Lui.

I remember when I was in Lui in early 2006, and people were so optimistic about southern Sudanese governance. I snapped this shot of one priest's t-shirt, which had the flag of southern Sudan on it.

Current Situation

The April 11-13 elections are of crucial importance, as the people of Sudan are supposed to elect a president and members of parliament. Our partners in Lui fear the election will be neither free nor fair. There is suspicion that the census conducted over the past couple of years has not been valid. There is fear that war could erupt in the aftermath of the elections, regardless of the outcome, even before the potentially tumultuous January 2011 referendum regarding independence for southern Sudan.

Prayer Vigil

Missouri’s Companion Diocese Relationship Committee is calling for a prayer vigil during the time of the election – from April 11 (Sunday) through April 13 (Tuesday). Because Lui is 8 hours ahead of Missouri, this translates to 4:00 p.m. on April 10 (Saturday) to 4:00 p.m. on April 13 (Tuesday).

The first visitors from Missouri traveled to Lui in 2003, while the civil war was still active. The constant refrain of the Moru people then was: “We thought you had forgotten us, but now you have come.” That has been the constant refrain through the establishment of the covenant between Lui and Missouri in 2006 until the present day.

Now, our friends in Lui are asking our prayers as they enter this anxious time in the life of their nation.

Let us pray:

for free and fair elections in Sudan
for peace in the aftermath of the elections
for the safety of our Episcopalian friends in the Diocese of Lui

As we pray, let us remember that the Episcopal Church of Sudan comprises the entire nation of Sudan – not just those in southern Sudan, but also those Episcopalians living in the Muslim-dominated states in northern Sudan. Let us remember all the other Christians in Sudan.

Mary Seager Lui Video

2010-03-08T22:54:00.001-06:00

Mary Seager was one of the missioners who traveled from Missouri to Lui in late 2009. I just recently discovered her video on our diocese’s website. I hope you will enjoy it.

If you have any questions, just post them here, and we’ll do our best to answer them.

Sudan on PBS

2010-03-06T18:27:00.001-06:00

There are many horrific stories today about suffering among the peoples of the world. Haiti and Chile are only the most recent and high-profile, as a result of the earthquakes here. The news media have a short attention span, and that’s not only their fault; it’s the fault of those of us who watch the news, read the newspapers, and listen to news programs … and our own short attention spans and our empathy overload.

Lane Denson posted a reflection Wednesday on this Sunday’s readings, in which we will hear the story of Moses encountering God in the burning bush. In one passage, he writes:

The church today seems often to find itself in a vocational wilderness, wondering just what is its ministry and to whom, waiting for a burning bush when the whole world is on fire.

Indeed, the world seems to be on fire with disaster, poverty, hunger, disease, and many other physical maladies, as well as the spiritual maladies of despair, cynicism, and hopelessness.

It has seemed that Sudan’s situation has fallen off the radar, as news media focus on more dramatic disasters. So I was pleased last evening to see that the PBS Newshour devoted a significant segment to the situation in southern Sudan. It addresses the humanitarian situation, as well as the complicating political situation. I encourage you to watch the 7-minute segment here.

If that doesn’t work, watch it (or view the transcript) on the PBS site here.

The PBS story highlights some issues that have commanded the attention of the Companion Diocese Relationship Committee as we work with the people of Lui.

Next month, the people of Sudan will hold elections to choose representatives of the government. There is a strong suspicion in southern Sudan that those elections will be neither free nor fair.

Then, next January, the people of southern Sudan will hold a referendum on whether to remain a semi-autonomous part of Sudan or become a separate country. Both options hold some severe dangers.

Somehow, between all this, there must be negotiations about the demarcation of the border, the equitable distribution of oil revenues (given that most of the oil comes from southern Sudan but most of the revenues have been reaped in northern Sudan), and whether southern Sudan is receiving fair support and resources of the government based in Khartoum.

The report observes, as has Daniel Deng Bul (Archbishop of the Episcopal Church of Sudan), that much of the current violence is not simply “northern Arab aggressors vs. southern African victims,” but is based on age-old tribal conflicts within southern Sudan. I have heard that overcoming tribal friction is one of the priorities of Sudan's Archbishop.

On the other hand, there is one point where the PBS story diverges from our experience with the people of Lui.

The journalist and interviewees talk about the desperate lack of water and the effects of that shortage. That may be true in the Jonglei province, where the PBS story was filmed. I perceive the situation is somewhat better in the diocese of Lui.
The Diocese of Missouri has funded the drilling of 9 deep-water wells in Lui, and other organizations (such as Oxfam and the World Bank) are now drilling in the Lui diocese. The larger villages, except in the far north, mostly have access to clean water. But there are still many people in some villages and in the bush who do not.
One of the observations of our last missioners (from their Nov.-Dec. trip) is that the availability of water has made a huge and positive difference in the lives of the people of Lui. Fewer children in Lui now exhibit the horrible symptoms of dehydration and bad water, and fewer exhibit the tell-tale signs such as distended bellies and red hair. Many more children are now wearing school uniforms because, now that they have water (and water is located near diocesan schools), they can attend school.

Some of you may wonder why Doctors without Borders, featured in this PBS story, is not working with us in Lui. I don’t know the answer exactly. But I do know these things.

Doctors without Borders works in the most dire venues. I understand they have worked with Lui hospital in the past. Perhaps Lui is no longer in the “most dire” category, due to clean water and some development.

The Italian group CUAMM [aka Doctors with Africa] is now providing some support to Lui hospital. But the conditions remain dire.

Missouri and Lui are now beginning to work together to implement a parish nursing program, so that primary needs can be addressed in the villages before illness progresses to the level that requires hospitalization in Lui. That was a primary topic of discussion in November, between our missioners Deb Goldfeder and Susan Naylor and the leaders of Lui diocese. A parish nursing model mirrors the vision that Dr. Fraser brought to Lui in the 1920s, and it seems still promising now. We hope that initiative will reduce the number of people who need hospitalization due to preventable illnesses.

I have one last, personal observation after watching the PBS segment last evening. I was struck by the video footage which showed all the flies circling and landing on the Sudanese people. It took me back to this reflection I wrote after my February 2006 time in Lui. My chief reservation about the PBS piece is that it made the Sudanese appear helpless victims. To be sure, many are in dire straits. But they are not merely victims. The people we know are faithful Christians, working to do their best in a miserable situation. Don't let the late-night-television images govern your perceptions of our friends in Sudan. They are much more than that.

I am glad PBS put Sudan back on the "front page" this week. I hope some of you will view the footage.

Our English Friends

2009-12-08T00:46:00.003-06:00

We wrote before that two English partners would join the mission to Lui. Both are from the Blackmore Vale Deanery, in Salisbury Diocese (Church ofEngland). Anne Powell and Warren Ingham-Barrow blogged their experiences here. Do read their reflections!

Resuming at last

2009-12-07T16:10:00.002-06:00

The past two weeks have been wonderful, challenging, heart-breaking, and many times just incredible fun. The second half of our trip found me quite sick, which is why I didn't post anything. At one point as I lay there with a fever, staring up at the tin roof, in misery, I thought "Well, you signed up for this!" Susan and Deb were terrific nurses, and I was tenderly ministered to by the rest of the team. It was an immense comfort and blessing to be cared for, as well as humbling. Sadly, my illness meant that I couldn't present the art supplies to the school myself, or give the bishop the card with our pledge of three bicycles, but Dan took over and did the honors in my stead. He was also a great chaplain, and led us through a reflection piece at the end of each day.

On Saturday Ev, Sam, Marc and I strung cord around the pillars in the cathedral along the side aisles to hang the children's pictures. There were about 190 of them drawn and painted by the children of the diocese. As we were putting them up, the dean came in and said, "You are making my cathedral beautiful!" Sunday worship was awesome, with great singing and drumming and our bishop delivering a wonderful sermon of hope. The pictures attracted great attention - and at least two were snitched before we gathered them up! I'm looking forward to reviewing them at a more leisurely pace.

I have always loved the first Sunday of Advent with its beautiful collect and it's special because it's the anniversary of my first Sunday at Trinity. I'd been writing a hymn for our relationship with Lui and the last lines came to me as I listened to the sermon two weeks ago. The Laro tree is the symbol of the Diocese of Lui. It's a big tree standing outside the cathedral and was the place where slaves were bought and sold. When Dr. Kenneth Fraser began his ministry there he deliberately chose to begin classes in Christianity under this tree, transforming it from a symbol of oppression and death to one of resurrection and life in Christ. The tune is Forest Green which we in the U.S. know as the alternate to "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and in England is the one which is most familiar.

An Advent hymn for the people of Lui and Missouri

The Advent of God's love is near

and fills the world with grace;

Across the mountains high and low,

in every realm and place;

Where hymns of joy in every tongue

sound forth in glorious voice,

the pathway of the Lord is clear,

the desert shall rejoice.

Then heart to heart and hand in hand,

beneath the Laro tree,

We meet as children of one God,

a sign of unity.

The Spirit of the living Christ

has joined our hearts as one;

The dawn of love now breaks the sky,

the kingdom has begun.

29 November 2009

Loosing weight

2009-12-07T10:49:00.002-06:00

When the MAF airplane showed up at the Mundri Airstrip (the international airport!) on Thursday, Samuel, the pilot informed us that he had instructed MAF to notify us that our weight limit going out was only 10 kilograms each, instead of the 15 we had had coming in. Since we were all flying on the same plane (we had taken two planes in to get the extra 50 kgs of art supplies in to Lui), he was quite insistent on that limit. He used a spring scale to weigh all of our luggage and informed us that we were a total of 16 kgs above his limit. We quickly filled Marc's hard-sided cases with extra bibles (English), prayer books, a whole pharmacopia of extra drugs (anti-biotics, tylenol, and all the things travelers bring with them), books, clothes and things we were willing to leave behind. I gave my English bible and prayer book to Manyagugu to keep or give to whoever needed it. We quickly came up with 40 kgs to leave behind. When the pilot of a little plane like that tells you you need to travel with less stuff, you don't argue. Part of the lesson of the trip: just exactly what do we need, and what can we live without? The answer is surprising in a place like Lui.

Sitting Still at Last

2009-11-30T08:08:00.002-06:00

I am finally in Lui town and have not gotten into a vehicle today for the first time. We have ridden to many places driven by Manyagugu and have taken blood pressures of some 400 people and arm circumferences of over 300 children so we are currently drowning in data! Today I visited the hospital for the first time and I must say it looks a bit better. As for the container, I'm trying to photograph it but to no avail. We have given away several blood pressure kits and they are a huge hit. The people in Katabusi are going to keep data for the next year to show how they are doing.

Most of us are well mostly but heat, dust, bug bites and such are challenging. I just can't get the stupid grin off my face! The team is doing well and also doing good work. This is very satisfying to me. We are all happy. John is here from Kampala helping to take care us so we are doing well.

So far the people of Lui Diocese are running 40% hypertensive. The worst was 220/110 in a woman who had a fever of 102 and symptoms of typhoid. Good thing we are immune to most things! They are beginning to get vaccines now which is a good thing.

I am missing you all very much but as I watch the goat grazing outside this mud hut and chickens scratching with the scent of frangipani and mango blooms scenting the air, I know I could be very happy here for a long time.

Come and see!

Morning Light

2009-11-30T05:30:00.003-06:00

This morning I woke up early and so I decided to sit outside with my journal. I am not a poet but came up with some lines that I would like to share. If you've never been to Lui , they might be a little strange but if you have visited the Lui compound maybe you'll enjoy my morning observations.

Morning in Lui
Water pump lifting up pressing down
Heron bird honking above the huts.
Women's voices, baby crying
Rooster's greeting the morning light.
Woman sweeping, near the tukal
Dusty dirt swish, swish with the broom.
Rhythmic drums beating in the distance.
Uniform children some clean some not
With smiling faces walking to school.
A woman carries a heavy load on her head
A graceful gazelle busy at work.
Morning in Lui

Meeting Noel on the road

2009-11-30T05:08:00.007-06:00

Yesterday, a group of us packed up and left for Lozoh around 9:00 a.m., Lui time. Communications being what they are in Sudan, no one had been able to get word to Lozoh that we were coming, so we were traveling in faith that we would get there in time for Church. We stopped at Lanyi, to pick up Pastor Charles to come along with us, as he has friends at Lozoh. As we turned off the Good Road at Lanyi, Manyagugu began to navigate the dry creek bed that is the road to Lozoh. Anne Barrow (one of the missioners from Blackmore Vale) suggested elephants might be a better mode of trasportation that a twenty year old Toyota Land Cruiser. We came to the first bridge, and I remarked that this was about where we had high-centered coming back from Lozoh the last time, and broken the oil-pan. Deb and I both remembered thinking we might have to walk back to the Good Road from there. Manyagugu is a much more careful driver than the last fellow. It was getting on to about 10:30, so I figured we were in plenty of time to get to Lozoh by 11:00 for Church. We crossed the second bridge (Manyagugu had to get out of the car, and move several large rocks around to make a ramp from the road to the bridge deck), and we had just bounced down off the bridge, when we saw ahead of us three men walking towards us along the road. Deb said, "That's Noel Night!" Several other people said it couldn't be, because he was still in Nairobi. Manyagugu stopped the car, jumped out laughing, and began pounding Noel (who it really was) on the back in a great embrace, laughing and talking a mile a minute.

Noel had stayed behind in Nairobi to attend the graduation ceremony at the seminary, and people didn't think he had come home yet. But there he was. We stood in the road, and greeted one another. This was my first time to meet Noel, and as Deb had assured me, he is tall for a Moru man -- we are about the same height. He was on his way to Kadabusi, to celebrate the Harvest Festival at the little church there (one of the preaching stations associated with Lozoh). It was quickly decided that we should go on to see Lozoh, meet Noel's wife and children, walk to the river (one of the gardeners had come with us), and then come to Kadabusi for Church. They would wait for us. We drove on to Lozoh, walked to the river (where there were women doing their laundry, just as before), and then loaded back up into the Land Cruiser. Manyagugu drove about a half mile back up the road, got out of the car and folded the side view mirrors in, and then took a left turn into the bush. If there was a road there, I didn't see it. We drove about fifteen minutes through trees, grass, and burned fields, and came out into a clearing with a little church at one edge. Children had gathered and welcomed us with song.

After further introductions, we vested under a mango tree, and wooden chairs (made of woven sticks; much more comfortable than the standard plastic chairs) were arranged in the tiny chancel to accomodate all four white visitors, plus Noel, Alex (my translator), and one of the mamas. With great delight, Noel introduced the visitors (except me -- he quipped to me in an aside that I would introduce myself before preaching). Not only would it be church, but because it was the harvest festival, he said, we would have communion. I had to scramble a bit to rearrange my sermon, since we weren't at Lozoh, but you learn to do that sort of thing here. I took Isaiah 49:8-18 and Mark 1:1-8 for my texts, meaning to talk about God not forgetting the people of Lozoh, and how we could not forget each other either. I ended up having to talk a little bit about the road, and the surprises and joy one my find along it.

The local pastor of the preaching station got up for announcements afterwards and told everyone to stay. There would be a feast, and Deb would take blood pressures after the service. We had linya, some kind of yam (the best potato I've ever eaten), beef and okra, egg and sugar cane. Afterwards, very sweet hibiscus tea, and then it was time to get back in the car to head back to Lui. We left Kadabusi, around 4:00 p.m. What a day! Noel treated me like a friend of many years.

Noel is coming to Lui tomorrow to meet with the bishop, and ask to stay in Lozoh. He has many great ideas and plans for his community after two years in Seminary in Nairobi, but very little resources for the coming year. He has not been at home to farm, and so has nothing in the storehouse. You never know who you will meet heading down the road in the bush.

Sunday service

2009-11-30T05:08:00.006-06:00

Sunday was a great day of celebration. I took some awesome pictures of the Youth Choir and their joyful songs at the cathedral. It was amazing to see 2 Bishops and all the the clergy of Lui dressed in their robes in Sudan. The lessons and worship was in in Moru and I was able to follow along. The peace was exchanged by stepping outside and shaking hands with 250+ pe0ple.
We had drums , dancing and ululating. It was something I will never forget. Bishop Smith spoke about Isaiah 39 and the symbol of the crocus as a sign of promise and hope. We who are the church live in hope. Pray for the people of Sudan and for the team as we get ready to leave our brothers, sisters and children of Lui.

Children's Art Project

2009-11-28T20:30:00.002-06:00

from Episcopal Life

With apologies for interrupting the stories of our missioners, I want to alert you to a story I just found; it appeared a couple of weeks ago in Episcopal Life Online. Click here to read it. Like the story in our own diocesan newsletter, it provides some background on the Children's Art Project. In case the Episcopal Life story disappears from the Web, I'm copying it in full here.

Voicing the wordless
Sudan project to teach children the language of art
By Episcopal Life staff, November 12, 2009

[Episcopal News Service] When she first met Bishop Bullen Dolli at the Diocese of Missouri's convention in 2005 and told him politely that it would be nice to visit his diocese in the southern Sudan some day, the Rev. Anne Kelsey said she was not prepared for the response she got.

"When will you come?" she recalls the bishop saying. "I was the rector of Trinity, served on diocesan council and had much to keep me more than busy as it was. Southern Sudan was a world away, literally, and I did not think that I had anything much to offer on any kind of mission trip."

Then the following year her bishop, George Wayne Smith, called to ask her to join a diocesan delegation to the Diocese of Lui, where representatives from both dioceses would sign a covenant to establish a companion relationship. "How do you say 'no' to two bishops?" she asked. "You don't!" It was "a conversion experience," she said, describing that visit. "The Anglicans in Lui have survived a terrible civil war, suffer from hunger and disease as constant companions, and have seen their cathedral bombed three times. Under those circumstances, you might expect anger and bitterness and hostility towards those of us who have so much."

Yet, she said, she found only gracious and generous hospitality and tremendous faith. "Worship is fervent and joyful, thronging with children who learn to drum at an early age."

It was these children with whom Kelsey would connect and to whom she will return on Nov. 22 to lead the Lui Children's Art Project. She has plans for 10 workshops in four or five villages with about 150 children. "There could be more," she said.

Preparing for her first trip three years ago, Kelsey had thrown into her suitcase some colored pencils and a sketch pad. "I have an undergraduate degree in art and thought maybe there would be something of interest to inspire me," she said. "One afternoon, I pulled out a plastic chair and sat at the edge of the cathedral compound with my sketch book and pencils and began to draw one of the houses called tukals. "As I struggled with rusty drawing skills, a man came up to me, knelt down and admired the half-finished picture. Then he turned to me and said, 'Will you come and teach our children?'

"It was a beautiful, overwhelming and impossible request, and I didn't want to lie, so I said that I would love to come and teach the children. Going to Lui once had seemed more than improbable; returning looked impossible."

But it is happening now. "The Lui Children's Art Project grew out of that one simple question," she said. "The question remained in my heart until I developed it to present to the companion diocese committee." Kelsey leaves with eight other missioners, including two nurses, from the Diocese of Missouri and will be joined by two others from the Diocese of Blackpool. [sic. In fact, the partners are from the Blackmore Vale Deanery, Salisbury Diocese, Church of England.]

"We're excited about working with the folks from England," she said. When she returns home Dec. 5, she will plan the same workshops for Missouri's own children and then wants to exhibit both the Sudanese and American children's art in a special show in St. Louis in 2010. While she realizes development work is essential in Sudan, from providing clean water and medical supplies to irrigation plans and mosquito control, Kelsey said, "our relationship with Lui is more than raising money, as much as that is needed.

"It is about spending time with people and discovering the commonalities that bring us together as Christians.

"The opportunity for children to create art is an important experience, and one that we often take for granted," she said. "Our children have paper and crayons from an early age, and even when they are quite little they can express themselves vividly. I am eager to give children in Lui an opportunity to exercise creativity, even in such a limited way as a single workshop."

The language of art is universal and speaks without words across the world, Kelsey said. "The Lui Children's Art Project will give them a chance to express what they cannot say in words, both happy things and sad ones as well."

Now it's about 8:30 p.m. in Missouri and 5:30 a.m. in Lui; dawn will soon come in southern Sudan. I'm sure that, like me, you're looking forward to more stories from our friends in Lui.

Going to Lozoh!

2009-11-28T07:18:00.002-06:00

When we first got here, it didn't look like we would be able to get to Lozoh. The road is grown over with grass, and won't be cleared for a few more weeks. But Debbie Smith spoke with Vasco Daniel and Darius Manyugu. Manyugug says he can find Lozoh, even through the grass. So, Deb and I will be able to get to Lozoh for Church tomorrow. So, Adventers, hold Lozoh in your prayers tomorrow at church. We will bring them your greetings and carry theirs back to you.

One too many mangos

2009-11-28T05:13:00.004-06:00

Today we started the day in the chapel at Frazer Cathedral with the children and the art project. We had a lot more children but we were able to share supplies and accommodate the children we had. This afternoon we will be able to hang up all the pictures for Sunday worship. People will be amazed at what we were able to accomplish in such a short period of time and enjoy the art with pride.
Sam Christy and I met with teachers to discuss the education in Lui. Lots of good questions and hopefully we were able to share some of our knowledge with them.
Truly sad when teachers do not have the books and supplies they need to teach reading or math or give a written test without having pencils. Ann Kelsey continues to tell me how much better it is from her first visit in 2006.
Now to the mango. Well after the teacher's met. Sam and I went back to the tukul for some- thing to drink and eat. While pealing a mango with a Swiss army knife I nicked my thumb with the knife. Both nurses heard me cry out ##** and came to the rescue. I am bandaged and doing fine and even able to blog.
I am now wearing a thumb wrap. This evening I'll be looked at again. Lesson learned, don't play with sharp objects or stay away from the mangos.

150 Young Artists

2009-11-27T07:37:00.002-06:00

Wednesday morning was the first art workshop in Kediba, a very very long way from Lui! Darius was our intrepid driver, steering an old Toyota landcruiser over 35 miles of dirt road with potholes that made all of us gasp. We were greeted in Kediba, as at every school and church, with gracious Sudanese hospitality - tea, bread, mangoes, fish, chicken, and beef. The children sat in the church on benches of long poles, and balanced cardboard pieces which served as easels. They had never seen colored pencils, let alone colored pencils that turned into water color with a simple swipe of a brush. At first they didn't pick them up, but looked at them and counted them and wondered over them. Then they started drawing village life in Sudan - chickens, houses, the church, scorpions, flowers, and trees. In the days following we have seen images of a python, Adam and Eve, a bird eating millet, a fish swimming in a river, a man hunting with a bow and arrow, books, and mountains. The creativity is just astounding, and some of them are naturally gifted and talented.. It is truly a humbling experience to see them delight in their work, and heartbreaking when they look at me with big beautiful eyes and give me their finished pictures. Yet everyone we have met wants us to take their story back to the United States. It could not have happened without the team work of so many - Marc, who is documenting the whole project and each child, Sam who passes out supplies with the aplomb of a veteran school principal, and Evelyn, a gifted teacher. Our translator Stephen Dokolo was at one time the headmaster of a school and manages to encourage, keep order, and make children laugh in the process. It has been an exhausting five days, starting with an extra flight to Minneapolis instead of proceeding directly to Detroit, but so exhilarating! (After I typed the last sentence the computer said "hibernating", and shut off, much to my dismay - but thanks to Dan Handschy troubleshooting this has been saved. One among many things to be thankful for!) More later when I'm not falling over exhausted, and love to all.

Lui Art Project

2009-11-27T07:21:00.002-06:00

Today was another full day. We started out at Lunjini School. What a relief to have a classroom with DESKS!! The students were very attentive and very well behaved. We were able to see their creative and beautiful art work. All the students were able to talk about their art work in English. Some creative students wrote about what they drew. I was impressed with the care they took with supplies and for some of the of students it was the first time they ever used a colored pencil. I have learned that students all around the world have so much commonalities such as pride in what they are doing. I cannot wait to share the art with ST. Louis, Missouri. What a gift to be here. I am leaving a part of my heart with the children in Lui.

Computer Lessons

2009-11-27T05:47:00.002-06:00

Today, we are in the Cathedral, teaching pastors and the Mothers Union how to use the computer. They are going to send you a message. I am working with Esther, Violet, Laverrick, Charles, January, John, John K., Sylvia, Lexion, Cosimas. They would like to greet you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. They have come from Lakamadi, Mideh, Wandi, Lanyi, Mariba, Lakamdi, Minga, also Minga, another Minga, Mideh. They have bee staying at the Cathedral since Wednesday. We are having a very good conference.

A Full Day

2009-11-25T12:40:00.002-06:00

This morning, a car load departed for Kedibah and Wandi for various projects. Anne Kelsey took her art project on the road. Marc went along to provide logistical support (take photos, catalog artwork). Ev and Sam went to meet with teachers, principals and interact with kids. Deb G and Susan went to teach about parish nursing, and Debbie went to help keep things moving. The left about 9:15 or so this morning, and we didn't see them again until almost 8:00. Anne said the art project went really well in Kedibah -- kids got to do the artwork, display it, and had a great time. Deb and Susan said there was a veritable scrum around them to have their blood pressures taken. Lots of hypertension in Lui Diocese. Things didn't go so well in Wandi. They didn't arrive in Wandi until about 4:45, and then tried to rush through things. Around the table this evening, things were streamlined, and a better timetable set for tomorrow (Lanyi and Buagi). Time had to be included in the schedule for allowing our hosts to offer hospitality. Manyagugu drove, and all applauded him for the great job of driving back after dark.

Here in Lui town, things went a bit more slowly. Wayne and Dan opened the pastors' and Mothers' Union conference with a bit of theological framework for talking about Stewardship, Pastoral Counseling and the other topics sure to come up. Warren and Anne P. outlined what they would be talking about under the headings of leadership and management. The conferees were eager to learn the practical matters of management, and are looking forward to tomorrow when Warren and Ann will have more of the agenda. They plan to do a lot of sydicate work (we would call it small group), asking people to name someone they would identify as a great leader, and then what they saw in and felt from that leader. Then on to project planning and down to nuts and bolts. All were nodding and giving suggestions for what they wanted in the presentation.

In the afternoon, Wayne started out talking about Stewardship, and we were soon on to a completely different conversation than we had imagined. How is it possible for pastors to give to the church, when they have to work their own glebe land, and have little time left over? How can people give out of scarcity -- same conversation we have back home. Had an interesting and lively discussion about scarcity and abundance. How much is enough? How much is enough for God's work. The five loaves and two fish came up.

On pastor wondered about the government giving a tithe to the church. We talked a bit about the history of the Church in England, and the very high price the church paid for taxed support. We all agreed, amid much laughter, that it just wasn't worth it. We would have to make do with the gifts God has given us. A bit humbling to hear these people talking about scarcity, and makes me wonder how it is that we can say we don't have enough to give. Another full day planned tomorrow. We are grateful for all the prayers. Good night from Lui.

We made it!

2009-11-24T09:13:00.002-06:00

For all awaiting news from Lui, sorry to be so long posting. We had an eventful (never an adjective you want to read when it comes to travel) trip from St. Louis to Entebbe. Our flight to Detroit was canceled, and so we had to take a flight to Minneapolis that left an hour earlier. Fortunately, we had all come early to the airport. We flew from MN to Detroit, to Amsterdam, to Nairobi, to Entebbe. Anne P and Warren from England were delayed two hours on their flight from London. They were supposed to fly to Dubai and then Entebbe. They missed their connection, so they also flew to Nairobi. We met them there. Sunday and Monday all blurred into one long day. When we arrived in Entebbe, Susan's bag did not. Air Kenya is tracking it down, but she had to fly to Lui without it.

We got to the MAF Guesthouse at about 1 AM local time, Tuesday morning. After weighing and redistributing luggage, bathing and getting settled, we got to bed about 2:30 AM -- only to wake up for breakfast at 5:30 AM! The flight to Mundri went without a hitch. We arrived at the airstrip right on time at 11:30. Got to Lui about 12:30, had lunch arranged rooms, took a blessed nap, and then went to the market to buy school supplies.

It has been wonderful greeting old friends: Stephen Dokolo, Manyagugu, Loice, Scopus (! an unexpected treat). Today, the governor of Western Equatoria (a Zandi woman) was in Lui holding a voter registration rally, under the Laro tree. People here, despite much doom-saying in the West, are very optimistic about the registration and April elections. They think it will bring peace. After the governor finished speaking, an African pop band (I've heard it called Juju music -- as in King Sunny Ade and his Juju Beats) played for about an hour under the tree, with a generator for power. A troupe of young men and women performed dances to the music. People were watching from branches high up in the tree. After that, there was traditional Moru dancing across the road at the Secondary School. It's good to be back.

Tomorrow, we all start our conferences. The pastors and Mothers' Union leaders will be in Lui for four days. Bishop Wayne and Iwill take the lead on that conference, and Anne and Warren will do management with them. Deb is rounding up nurses for teaching about parish nursing. She's already met with Kenneth Barinwa (the chair of the hospital board). We met Silvio, an Italian internal medicine MD in the market. He is at the hospital for two weeks, and told us there is a local surgeon employed full time now. It will be interesting to see the hospital and supplies.

Everyone is safe. Pray for our first night in Lui, that all sleep well. Supper is in about half an hour. We'll blog more later, but just figure folks would want to know we are here. For now.

Ready for Lui

2009-11-21T18:44:00.002-06:00

Just got done with convention at Cape Girardeau and repacked my bags again and again. The only thing I still need to do is take my Malarone for the pesky little insects that bite. Thank you for all of you who said prayers and sent good wishes my way for my first trip to Lui.

Almost on the way

2009-11-19T09:26:00.002-06:00

Well it really is happening at last - after Diocesan Convention, of course. The bag with the art supplies only weighs about 18 lbs but I can hardly lift it. I've packed everything I can think of needing in addition to paper, watercolor pencils, brushes also scissors, tape, twine, needle and thread. Origami paper to make paper cranes for peace. I woke up the other morning in a panic remembering that I need paper clips. No Walgreen's in Lui! One of my daughters said to me last night, "Well you always said you wanted to go back, but I never thought you would actually do it." One of the added benefits of going to Sudan is that you appear cool in the eyes of your children, something you could work at for years and never achieve otherwise. I had a moving and wonderful sendoff from the parish on Sunday. Since I sit on a little stool for the children's sermon I was directed to remain sitting while the children stood and held out their hands over me in blessing. I almost lost it when the congregation stood too, and Harry Leip prayed a lovely prayer he had written. It's hard to keep going with tears in your eyes! I have had so much love and support - this morning before the Thursday morning Eucharist one of the faithful came in with a bag. "I thought you and your friends would need coffee" he said. In the bag were packets of instant coffee from Starbucks, a most thoughtful (and needed) gift.

Getting ready to go.

2009-11-17T22:02:00.002-06:00

We are learning more what we will be doing in Lui. The art project is scheduled to be in at least six different villages -- Anne Kelsey and the others will be moving a lot! The pastor's conference will be in Lui, so Bishop Wayne and I will be "compound bound." It does mean, though, that we will have more of a chance to go in depth with the pastors on the subjects they've asked us to teach (pastoral counseling and stewardship). Anne and Warren from England will probably be doing their administration conference in Lui, though they hope to get out to some of the villages. Deb and Susan will be doing parish nursing both at the pastor's conference and in the villages. Most importantly, they will try to meet with Kenneth Baringwa, the chair of the hospital board, about training nurses for parish nursing. Ev and Sam will be visiting schools in and around Lui. Marc will be photographing the art project, as well as meeting with the agricultural missionary for ECS. It's a full trip. The few days we will be there hardly seem like enough time.

Went to REI today to get things like mosquito net, fancy new (tiny) flashlight and other things. Feel like a kid waiting for Christmas.

Lui Mission Trip Plans

2009-10-01T00:42:00.002-05:00

The members of the mission team are excited about the next trip to Lui (Nov. 22-Dec. 4). The Missouri part of the team met last Wednesday for the first time and will meet all day Saturday, November 7, to prepare further. The Blackmore Vale Deanery [in the Diocese of Salisbury, Church of England] part of the team also plans to meet next week, and we hope they can join our team by live video chat on November 7th for a little while.

The Companion Diocese Relationship Committee has sought to emphasize that the Lui relationship is about relationship as much as – and perhaps more than – financial support. The next mission to Lui is all about relationship.

We have written before about the Rev. Anne Kelsey and the art project to children in Lunjini, Lanyi, Kediba, Buagyi, and Mideh. This is the keynote project of the mission, and we yearn for your support.

Evelyn Smith and Sam Christy are retired primary teachers (and Sam was a principal). Debbie Smith is an administrator for adult education and hopes to continue working with adult educators. Several of the missioners have gifts that can support the children and teachers.

Deb Goldfeder and Susan Naylor are nurses. They hope to pursue parish nursing at Lui Hospital, in parishes, with the Mothers’ Union, with the Episcopal Church of Sudan (ECS), and with the health ministry of the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS). Deb has been researching parish nursing in Africa, identified an international curriculum, and gotten credentials to teach it to people in Lui.

Dan Handschy, Anne Kelsey, Susan Naylor, and Bishop Wayne Smith are all ordained people. The clergy of Lui have asked our team to lead pastors’ conferences, and our clergy are working with the Lui clergy to shape these conferences.

Marc Vanacht is an international agriculture consultant. He hopes to consult on farming in Lui with Robin Denny (an American Episcopal missionary serving the Episcopal Church of Sudan who blogs at Growing in Mission), with the ECS agricultural team, and with GoSS.

Our tri-link partners from Salisbury Diocese bring additional skills. Anne Powell is a project administrator in a university social work department, and Warren Ingham-Barrow is a regional sales manager for a restaurant chain. They should both have very helpful administrative/managerial skills that can be put to good use in Lui.

All the missioners – both lay and ordained – have gifts that might contribute across several of these initiatives, as they are committed Christians, and many of them will work in a variety of contexts.

We expect that most of the missioners will travel to the schools in the five parishes where Anne Kelsey will be doing art with children between 6 and 12 years old. It is our hope that she may be assisted by the Rev. Stephen Dokolo, who spent two years in seminary in Missouri. While Anne carries out the art project, other missioners will meet with primary school teachers, local pastors, health care providers, and farmers.

In the course of the visit, some of our missioners will be conferring with the Lui leadership on matters of administration, management, and finance. We also hope to help Lui leaders develop the website the Diocese of Bradford created for Lui.

We are working closely with Lui’s diocesan leaders to shape and refine the plans for the November-December trip.

You can help support the mission trip. Go to the diocesan site. You can specify your gift or give it unrestricted.

next mission team forming

2009-09-28T20:21:00.010-05:00

Debra Smith (Mission Trip Coordinator) convened the first meeting of the next mission team to the Diocese of Lui (in the Episcopal Church of Sudan) on Wednesday, September 23. Marc Vanacht hosted the missioners. The team went over logistics, schedules, and the opportunities that we expect to pursue with our Lui friends in the next trip. The trip is scheduled for November 22 through December 4.

Our diocesan publication, iSeek, announced the names of the missioners:

Mr. Sam Christy of Holy Cross, Poplar Bluff
Ms. Deb Goldfeder of Advent, Crestwood
the Rev. Dan Handschy of Advent, Crestwood
the Rev. Anne Kelsey of Trinity, St. Louis
the Rev. Susan Naylor of Emmanuel, Webster Groves
Debbie Smith of St. Timothy’s, Creve Coeur, and Mission Team Leader
Mrs. Evelyn Smith of Christ Church Cathedral
Bishop George Wayne Smith
Mr. Marc Vanacht of St. Timothy’s, Creve Coeur

All were present at the September 23 meeting and appeared quite happy:

left to right: Marc Vanacht, Anne Kelsey, Dan Handschy (rear), Evelyn Smith (front), Deb Goldfeder, Susan Naylor, Sam Christy, and Bishop Wayne Smith. Not pictured: Debbie Smith, photographer

Although Debbie Smith sought to hide behind the camera at last week's meeting, we do have this photograph of her and Bishop Smith:

As noted in iSeek, the Dioceses of Missouri, Lui, and Blackmore Vale Deanery (Diocese of Salisbury, in the Church of England) have established a tri-link partnership.

The Missourians will be joined by two people from the Blackmore Vale Deanery in England's Salisbury Diocese: Warren Ingham-Barrow (St. Gregory's Parish Church in Marnhull Dorest) and (at left, below) Anne Powell of Shillingstone.

Life & Theft in Lui

2009-09-22T21:41:00.001-05:00

About 5:00 a.m. yesterday, we received a message from Bishop Bullen of Lui. He reported that a thief broke into the diocesan office and stole:

three digital cameras
the Thuraya (satellite) phone
one portable radio

He alerted us promptly to cancel the Thuraya phone service.

Of course, Debbie Smith and our staff at the diocese went into high gear and alerted our provider to cancel the Thuriya phone. That satellite phone costs about $4 per minute, so it was critical to cancel that number promptly.

Now we will consider what kind of phone to provide to Lui so that we can maintain good communications.

At the same time, our committee began talking about how we might prevent such thefts in the future. But we quickly realized we cannot prevent theft. Some of us are concerned about this development, as it may suggest a change in Lui.

When we first visited Lui, there was no risk of theft. The people of Lui took care of us. But things are changing in southern Sudan, and other forces are moving into Lui.

Our companions in Lui have taken all possible precautions. Debbie Smith, our mission coordinator, reports: “They had big padlocks on the gate, the door, and the windows to the office/compound, so I am concerned about what damage must have been done to the building unless someone managed to saw the padlocks or get in while the staff had left the place unlocked for a moment. They are so conscientious about locking up that I can't imagine how this happened.”

In the coming days, we will work to move beyond this theft. It is disheartening to know that this theft has occurred, and we will work with our Lui friends to assess their security.

The Children’s Art Project

2009-08-12T19:03:00.022-05:00

The following article appeared today on iSeek, the Diocese of Missouri’s online newsletter. The editor introduces the article:

One of the projects of the next diocesan mission trip to Lui involves art and the children of the dioceses of Lui and Missouri, and is the brainchild of the Rev. Anne Kelsey, Rector of Trinity Episcopal Church, Central West End, St. Louis. In this article she writes about her history with trips to Lui and how the idea for this project came about and developed.

Notes for the Journey
The Children’s Art Project
The Rev. Anne Kelsey, Rector, Trinity Episcopal Church, St. Louis

When I first met Bishop Bullen Dolli at the fall convention of the Diocese of Missouri in 2005 I told him, as much out of politeness as anything else, that I would like to go to Lui. His reaction wasn’t a conventional response; it was “When will you come?” I never really expected it to happen. I was the rector of Trinity, served on Diocesan Council, and had much to keep me more than busy as it was. Southern Sudan was a world away, literally, and I did not think that I had anything much to offer on any kind of mission trip. Then Bishop Smith called and asked if I would go to Lui with him, the Canon to the Ordinary the Rev. Dan Smith, and the President of Standing Committee, Ida Early, in April of 2006. We would be formally representing the Diocese of Missouri and signing the Covenant agreement between the two dioceses.

How do you say no to two bishops? You don’t. On the day after Easter I left for Sudan as part of our mission team, trying to stuff my fear of flying under the seat along with regret that I wouldn’t be traveling to California with my husband to see our first grandchild who had been born only a week earlier. It took so long to get to Lui on so many different airplanes that the trip itself was a kind of inoculation against my fear, and I actually sat in the co-pilot’s seat in the tiny plane that took us from Nairobi to Lui and back.

Being in Lui with the people of Southern Sudan was a conversion experience. The Anglicans in Lui have survived a terrible civil war, suffer from hunger and disease as constant companions, and have seen their cathedral bombed three times. Under those circumstances you might expect anger and bitterness and hostility towards those of us who have so much. Yet, as those who have been to Lui will attest, there is only gracious and generous hospitality and tremendous faith. Worship is fervent and joyful, thronging with children who learn to drum at an early age.

As part of my preparation I’d thrown in my suitcase some colored pencils and a sketch pad. I have an undergraduate degree in art and hadn’t done any drawing in years, but thought maybe there would be something of interest to inspire me. One afternoon when we were given some free time, I pulled out a plastic chair and sat at the edge of the cathedral compound with my sketch book and pencils and began to draw one of the houses called tukals. As I struggled with rusty drawing skills a man came up to me, knelt down and admired the half-finished picture. Then he turned to me and said, “Will you come and teach our children?”

It was a beautiful and overwhelming and impossible request and I didn’t want to lie, so I said that I would love to come and teach the children. Going to Lui once had seemed more than improbable; returning looked impossible.

The Lui Children’s Art Project grew out of that one simple question. The question remained in my heart until I developed it to present to the Companion Diocese Committee. The committee approved the project, which will be part of the next mission trip to Lui in November. This fall children ages six to twelve will be able to attend an art workshop at several parishes here in the diocese of Missouri. In November I will return to Lui to hold those same workshops in four or five villages. Following each workshop the children’s pictures will be displayed for their families and villagers, and I will bring some of them back to the United States with me. Each picture (both Lui and Missouri) will be accompanied by a photo of the child artist who created it, and next year the selected pictures will be displayed at a special art show here in St. Louis.

There is so much that is needed in Sudan, from clean water and medical supplies to irrigation plans and mosquito control. These fall under the category of development. However, our relationship with Lui is more than raising money, as much as that is needed. It is about spending time with people and discovering the commonalities that bring us together as Christians.

The language of art is universal, and speaks without words across the world. The opportunity for children to create art is an important experience, and one that we in Missouri perhaps take for granted. Our children have paper and crayons from an early age, and even when they are quite little they can express themselves vividly. Look at a piece of paper filled with black scribbles and slashes, and you might accurately guess that the child who made them was angry at the time. I am eager to give children in Lui an opportunity to exercise creativity, even in such a limited way as a single workshop. It will give them a chance to express what they cannot say in words, both happy things and sad ones as well.

As I prepare once more to go to Sudan I reflect on all of the ways God works and surprises us with grace. Out of a chance encounter and a simple question, mission is born. I am very grateful for the opportunity to develop and present this project, even as I am both eager and nervous. I am sure that God has more surprises in store.

[Ed. note: The photo at left depicts the Rev. Anne Kelsey with Mama Janifa, a priest in the Diocese of Lui, during Anne's April 2006 trip to Lui.]
==

Addenda:

The next trip to Lui will depart from St. Louis on Sunday, November 22, and return on December 5. Several initiatives will be included, most of them focused on information exchange and relationship-building; the initiatives will depend on the missioners selected for the trip. If you are a member of a parish in the Diocese of Missouri and want to join this mission, complete the application form here. Applications are due Monday, August 24.

If you want to make a financial contribution to this project, go to the diocesan site, select "Diocese of Lui" from the menu, navigate through the pages, then put "Lui Mission Trip" in the "purpose" field.

More News Coverage about Archbishop Daniel

2009-07-29T20:12:00.002-05:00

A friend has alerted me to additional coverage about Archbishop Daniel’s visit in the U.S.

The Goochland Gazette focused on his relationship with Jennifer and Daryl Ernst, a couple who also founded Hope for Humanity, an organization that promotes educational opportunities for future leaders in Sudan.

Goochland County, Virginia, lies between Richmond and Charlottesville.

Invitation to Mission

2009-07-26T20:19:00.004-05:00

The Diocese of Missouri plans for at least two missions trips to the Diocese of Lui each year, God willing, and our last one for 2009 is scheduled for November 22 through December 4.
Plans for the trip include a conference for clergy and an art project with upper primary students.

We are seeking people interested in helping with those events as well as missioners with expertise in agriculture, medicine, general engineering, and business administration for the dicoesan office.

The approximate cost of the trip will be $3000, which missioners are encouraged to raise through donations.

To apply, please fill out an application (MS doc file or Adobe PDF file), have a reference fill out the recommendation, and submit them by August 24, 2009. Notification of selection for the next mission trip will be by September 4, 2009.

Pictured above are Bishop Bullen, Rosemary the director of the midwifery school at Lui Hospital, and Stephen Dokolo. They're sitting inside the office fence at the tea party that followed the VSAT dedication. From the blog LuLuLui (God loves Lui, in the Moru language)

Abp Daniel in Roanoke

2009-07-25T20:03:00.001-05:00

As Debbie Smith has informed us, Sudan’s Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul and his wife, Mama Deborah, visited General Convention, where he made an impassioned plea for the Episcopal Church to support the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. His statement was based on this letter to the Episcopal Church.

I was aware that he was going to travel elsewhere in the U.S. after GC, but I haven’t seen many media reports about his presentations or other work.

I was pleased to find this article in the Roanoke Times. Because newspaper articles quickly become unavailable, I am posting the entire article here. I hope articles like this help people throughout the U.S. realize what is at stake in the quest for peace in Sudan.

Archbishop urges unity
The leader of Sudan's Episcopalians says the focus should be on the people in the war-torn country
The Most Rev. Daniel Deng Bul, Episcopal archbishop of Sudan, visited Roanoke on Thursday to deliver a stern message to the area's Sudanese Christian community.

"I am challenging you, you have a problem and you need to solve it. You are not speaking together," he told an audience of about 17 men and women at Roanoke's St. James Episcopal Church.

Sudanese expatriates need to organize their efforts to draw attention to the plight of people in the southern part of the impoverished and war-torn African nation, he said. Too often Sudanese get caught up in tribal allegiances that make it difficult to speak with a unified voice.

That message resonated with Nelson Walla, who has lived in the United States for about five years and who has tried desperately to get the Sudanese community organized.

"We have to unite and be one nation," he said after the archbishop's talk. "Even within the Sudanese community in Roanoke, wherever you go, this issue [of tribalism] is there. We need to bring all the people together despite all the differences."

The archbishop's visit was a momentous event for the area's Sudanese, who probably number about 120, according to Walla. At first, Bul hadn't planned to visit the area, choosing instead to spend time in more populated places where he could call on American leaders and Sudanese expatriates to pay attention to the plight of southern Sudan, which is today often overshadowed by Darfur, a war-torn area in the west of the country.

But St. James persuaded him to stop in town on the way from Greensboro, N.C., where his son is graduating from Guilford College. The church has become a haven for Sudanese people in Roanoke. About 30 of them gather there every Sunday evening for a short service.

Unfortunately, Bul got lost on the way and arrived at the church's parish hall an hour and a half late. No matter. Roanoke's Sudanese were ready to greet him with cheers and a welcome song. He was also welcomed by Bishop Heath Light, retired bishop of the diocese of Southwestern Virginia, who visited Sudan almost 30 years ago and who has worked to promote cooperation between Sudan and Southwest Virginia.

A 2005 peace treaty brought a tenuous hope of stability to Sudan, which has been engulfed in civil conflict between the north and the south since before the country gained independence in 1955. But that treaty is fragile, Bul said, and violence has flared up anew in the south.

Bul's role, he said, is to bring attention to the conflict and to push people in the United States and around the world to action.

"I want our partners, if they are really trying to help us, they need to step forward, they need to talk to their governments," he said.

I hear Archbishop Daniel speak frequently of the need for U.S. support for the Comprehensive Agreement, and I concur. I am impressed that he is also now speaking openly about the tribalism within Sudan and among its diaspora that have settled in the U.S. They must all get together, or the entire venture will fail.

Abp Williams calls for sustainable peace in Sudan

2009-06-18T20:54:00.004-05:00

This news was a little late appearing, as it just appeared today, calling for a day of prayer for Sudan today. Episcopal Life has the story here. It begins:

The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has issued a statement in support of Sudan Day of Action, June 18, which calls for a renewed commitment to sustainable peace in Sudan.
The Sudan Day of Action, organised by Baroness Caroline Cox and the Sudan Action Group, aims to raise awareness for the desperate plight of the people of Sudan.

Read the whole story.

Thoughts on racism after Lui

2009-06-13T19:32:00.003-05:00

A little girl in Lozoh checks her hand while shaking mine.

Thoughts on racism after Lui
Dan Handschy

Somewhere I read that one of the sounds most familiar to a young black man is the sound of the electric locks on car doors being locked. I have to admit that any number of times, I've been stopped at a light on Lindell or Vandeventer or some other street in town, and seen a group of three or four black men walking by, and hit the lock button. Somewhere along the line, I have received training to be afraid of a group of black men, especially young black men.

As you can imagine, I became aware of this unconscious response in Africa. In the car from the airport at Entebbe to the guest house in Kampala, along the long and crazy road late at night, I wondered what would happen to me if the car broke down. I was aware the fear was irrational, but there it was. Throughout my stay in Lui, as a group of us would be walking down the road, I would become aware that many heads were turning to watch us. I would wonder why people were watching us so closely, with that fear not far below the surface. Then it would dawn on me -- oh, yeah, they're watching us because we're white!

It really struck me the day the Baptists came to Lui. We were walking to church, and I saw a head of red hair under the mango tree, and said out loud, "Look, there's a white guy at the Cathedral." Deb laughed and said, "Yeah, I know. I'm walking next to him." We were pretty obvious. People looked at us, because we were out of the ordinary. But never, never did I experience the equivalent of the electric car locks locking. No one was afraid of us, the way white people are afraid of black people in this country. At the worst, we were treated with indifference, but never fear.

Several times, walking down the road, I would notice a group looking at us, and I would feel a bit of that fear, as they watched us closely. But then someone would break away from the group, and run over to us, and say "Deb-o-rah!" Someone she had worked with or known from her first trip would greet Deb, and our group would stand on the road for introductions and greetings. What had felt threatening (for no good reason) turned out to be an occasion for joy.

When I was a kid, a carpenter was working on the house across the street. He was a black man, and one day he brought his son with him. They boy was a year or two younger than me, so we were playing in the front yard. After shaking hands, I remember looking at my hand to see if the black rubbed off on me (I lived in a really white neighborhood). I noticed his palms were lighter than the rest of him, and wondered if that was why. Of course, the black didn't rub off. I wonder how he felt about me checking my hand.

I got the chance to know. Everywhere I went in Lui, kids came up to me and wanted to shake my hand. I felt a little like the Pied Piper. And always, they were laughing. I guess I looked goofy in my floppy hat. I noticed several of those kids check their hands after shaking mine, to see if the white rubbed off!

So, I'm left wondering how I received that training to be afraid of black men. After Lui, I find myself wishing I were back among the people of Lui. I wonder if black people in this country ever get tired of people being afraid of them. I will never have to live with people being afraid of me. Even the kids who checked their hands were only curious about my strange color, rather than afraid of it. I'll bet it gets really old.

Safely Home

2009-06-04T22:59:00.004-05:00

Over at LuLuLui, Debbie Smith reported at 7:33 p.m. that our travelers are safely home. I expect it will take them a while to rest and readjust to life back home. Debbie promises she will post photos soon.

The Companion Diocese Committee will meet Sunday, June 14, along with our three missioners. We all look forward to hearing their first-hand reports of all that was shared and done and learned in Lui. On behalf of the Committee (and the Diocese, I hope), I express deep thanks to the missioners for being our presence in Lui over the past couple of weeks.

Well done, thou good and faithful servants!

Thank God for their safe return.

Living Libraries

2009-06-04T13:44:00.006-05:00

Dictionary Dan demonstrating a skateboard

Morris looking at the book from Advent

Morris and his wife

Sylvester.

Living Libraries
Scroll Article for June, 2009
Deb Goldfeder

Someone said, when a person dies, a library burns. The life experiences, the stories heard from elders, the observations from one particular life lived are all lost at that moment. For those of us who have computer records of every thought we have ever written it may not be quite the same but, for the people who live in a verbal culture, the loss is tremendous.

Every time I asked a question about the past history of the Moru people or Lui the people around would say, “Ask Morris.” Sure enough, Morris would tell me the history of the Moru people, the origins of the word for “spoon” in Moru, or whatever other question I might have. Morris is a gifted teacher. He teaches children English and the clergy and laity Theological Education by Extension (TEE). He also runs the bookstore where you can buy the Moru Bible which he helped translate and that he typed! He has a wonderful curiosity about things and a great kindness. He was ordained a priest in the Diocese of Lui and served as the Archdeacon of Lui Parish for a time. He accomplished all this despite a third grade education. I have often pondered what Morris might have accomplished had his life not been so disrupted by war, famine and social upheaval. As it is, Morris is the library for Lui.

Morris has a great sense of joy, too, and he often could be located by the sound of his laughter. I was never sure where, exactly, he lived but his wife lived in Wiroh (pronounced Willow). When I asked why she lived fourteen miles away (or seven miles by the cutoff) he told me that when the Arabs were bombing Lui he felt he had to stay there anyway. He said he was not so important. His wife, however, was very important so she stayed with the children in her home village while he continued to work in Lui.

It was Morris who taught me about Moru dancing. I first saw what I thought must be authentic dancing at Christmastime but Morris said, “No, that is not the real dancing.” Finally when we went with Bishop Bullen to confirm candidates in Wiroh, Morris rounded up some of the elders of the community (men and women) including his wife and, with Morris beating out the rhythm on a little drum, they showed me REAL Moru dancing outside the church! Morris was my library of Moru history and culture.

I had another “reference” in Lui. Gordon, the administrator for the diocese, could always be counted on for another source of knowledge. Gordon carried the satellite phone for the diocese. Satellite phones work best outside and away from any large buildings that might obstruct the signal from the satellite so Gordon could always be found sitting under the mango tree on the cathedral grounds aiming the phone at the southern sky and waiting for calls from the diocesan offices in Nairobi. Although he is very serious, he has a great “yuk, yuk, yuk” kind of laughter which carried in the quiet of Lui. Once I commented to him that he was always sitting under the tree and he said he was, “Jeremiah 33 verse 3,” and then he quoted the Scripture to me: “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” Then, he laughed that great belly-laugh again.

I discovered that Gordon, who had lived from the age of eighteen to thirty-six in the bush as war was raging all around and who had been ordained without formal theological education, could tell me where to find any verse in the Bible I could think of. As I was called upon to preach at a moment’s notice, I would turn to Gordon and ask him where to find this or that verse and he never hesitated. He was better than any concordance sitting on my shelf at home. Gordon was my human concordance.

This past December we carried a small spiral-bound book from Church of the Advent’s kids. They each had written something of their lives, families and interests on a page that held a photograph of them. We brought it for the church in Lozoh so the children there could know who was praying for them. It was probably the most popular thing either Dan or I had carried there. Each day people would gather and we would try to explain what skateboarding was, how baseball was played, what coffee hour meant (a remarkable number of Advent’s children said their favorite thing about church was coffee hour!), or any number of other things the children had written about. We tried with words to explain things so different to them but always resorted to drawing with out hands or with a stick on the ground or, most usually, acting them out.

Sylvester, the priest in charge of Lui parish church and one of my former English students, was enjoying the explanations one day when he looked at me, smiled, and said the nickname my former English class had given me—a nickname I had completely forgotten—and we both laughed. Sylvester made me think about how each person is a library. To teach English I had to use a Ugandan book so I had to explain things they didn’t have like post offices, banks, newspapers, sports and games. How ridiculous I know I looked standing over an imaginary Titleist with an invisible putter trying to sink a fifteen-foot putt into a fictitious hole [“Why do people do this?”] or skipping across the compound or hitting an imaginary backhand down the line. I’m just glad I was the only person with a video camera! My students called me the “Two-Legged Dictionary.” When I saw Dan “pushing” an invisible skateboard he had drawn in the dirt for our friends in Lui, I knew he was a Two-Legged Dictionary, too.

Pilgrim's Progress: Land of the Uninvited Guest

2009-05-31T10:01:00.002-05:00

Years ago, I was introduced to the idea of the uninvited guest by my friend Rita who always set an extra place at any holiday table. An old Polish custom,, it was held open for one of the prophets (which one I don't remember) in case he should appear unexpectedly. I have always thought it was a lovely custom and that perhaps, we might also be waiting for Jesus, or an angel unaware.

Moru Land is the land of the uninvited guest. People drop by; chairs migrate from the payot to the shade of the nearest big tree, usually a giant mango and then back. The chairs are the same plastic chairs we can buy from Home Depot/China. They have supplanted the local folding chairs crafted from local mahogany.

I have stepped into the payot to get water as I did the other day to find David, one half of the CMS couple who live just down the Juba road, sitting there with Alyssa and Akeisha, two girls from the World Harvest group in Mundri. (CMS is the Church Missionary Society out of the UK). Alyssa is a young missionary who will be in Mundri for two years and is currently living in a safari tent while Akeisha is the middle school age daughter of the senior missionary couple. She has apparently lived her whole life in one part of Africa or another. The discussion centered around being able to get goat cheese from Khartoum. There's very little dairy in this part of the world. The rest of the talk was also about food and made Mundri sound like Whole Foods south Sudan.

In the evening after supper, we sit around outside the payot and people drop by. We chat about local people, world politics and finally we all say compline together.

Stephen was telling us that if he wants to visit one of his brothers, he simply arrives and stays as long as he wants. The same thing occurs with funerals. Family and friends come from many places and long distances for the three days of the funeral. The family provides at least one tukul and the guests take turns sleeping. Food is provided for everyone.

There is a grace and fluidity to hospitality here. I will miss the ease with which people move about. It is hard to be lonely if you are near the payot. Some one will be along in a minjute.

Peace,

Mary

Pilgrim's Progress: Nearing the End

2009-05-28T08:55:00.002-05:00

Ouch...I just looked the Cathedral Times and realized I ought to proof my blog better. I apologize for all the errors.

Debbie and I finished the Adult Education Teachers' Conference today, the last one of the three. There were eight teachers, three from Wandi which is on the famous road to Kediba. They work without pay to provide education for adults who missed their chance during the war. Almost everything in Sudan is a Gordian knot of scarcity. The teachers from Luinje School had very good books in Math, English and Science from the Secretariat of Education of New Sudan but only for the teachers...the teachers from the other schools were using curriculum from Uganda. And probably only books for teachers. Keep in mind there are no copiers...all supplies come from Juba or Uganda. To get more books from the govenment will mean an organized effort or a word in the ear of the appropriate official from the Bishop, maybe. Transportation and communication are a challenge all the time. Scarce and expensive.

Except for conferences, it appears they work in isolation much of the time. When I think of how much I have muttered about small glitches in my daily professional life over the years, I'm embarassed. I still believe my students are the future of our country but I'm not sure they do and it's clear they don't see themselves as helping to build it. The teachers and the youth here know they are helping to heal and build their country. Here in Sudan, everything is beginning again after the war. They are recreating their institutions pretty much from the ground up with very little money and few resources. The terrifying thing is that no one knows what will happen with the upcoming elections or the referendum. There is also the potential for more internal tribal violence. So the fragile peace and the hard-earned gains of the past five or six years could go up in smoke again.

At the end of the conference today we sang Jesus Loves Me in Moru and English with lively hand gestures, almost patty cake interspersed with clapping. Imagine Episcopalians doing something so lively...Debbie and I really enjoyed it. Then one of the teachers closed with prayer. The Moru pray almost as much as they wash their hands ...which is often. It is very clear that they know that Jesus loves them. As Pentecost approaches, are we as clear about the great rushing wind that could fill our lives with such certainty?

Mary

Pilgrim's Progress: Incarnation/Bathing

2009-05-26T10:22:00.003-05:00

One of the reasons I wanted to come to Lui was to retrieve the nitty gritty of my body from the obsessive cleanliness of American culture. Every culture has different definitions but I've felt for years that we have carried this washing, sanitizing, this coverup of natural odors to a paranoid and unnatural extreme. Something is wrong when doctors tell us we're too clean, that we're preventing children from developing immunities to garden variety germs.

I grew up as a grubby little tomboy whose mother would laugh and say,"We all have to eat a peck of dirt before we die, anyway." Not that I'm dirty but there some things I just can't get that excited about.Cooking odors, for example. I discovered as a side benefit of being close to a complete vegetarian that my house smelled much better. Without meat grease, it's much easier to clean.

Don't get me wrong. I like hot showers and tub baths as well as the next one. I'd prefer a tile floor to a dirt one, a rug to a dirt floor but I can quite happily deal with dirty feet for a while. Do I enjoy sweating and smelling? Not particularly but it's been a while since that happened. (Consumer tip: nice organic deordorants don't make the grade here.) I'm glad to know that my body will still produce odors.

I've gone back to bathing twice a day the way I did in Venezuela. I feel better if I do. It's much easier to be a guest. John Noel, the compound manager, makes sure that the big iron cauldron is full of hot water twice a day. He makes a fire of sticks or bundles of grass. Steam rises off the water. I go get the blue plastic basin from the washing room and dip the hot water into it. There's also a jerry can of cool water nearby to add to the hot water. I learned not fill it too full because there's a high step into the washing room. Jim suggested filling the basin in the room. Debbie suggested as an alternative setting the full basin on the step first.

Once inside with my clothes hanging on the one hook (I don't take a change of clothing because there's really no place to hang it.) first I use the tin cup to pour water over my entire body to get it wet. Then I use Dr.Bronner's Lavender Castile Liquid soap as a shampoo, the extra suds under my arms etc. I use cake soap on my face. Then I scrub everything with my wash cloth. Then I rinse everything a couple of times with the tin cup. Then I dry myself off with my extra special technical towel which dries rapidly when I hang it on my mosquito net with clothespins.

A number of times I've done this in the dark resting my head lamp and my small flashlight on the high window ledge. It's kind of like Ray Charles shaving in the dark. I know where my body parts are and I can tell which soap by touch.

This time period has helped me reconnect with the simple minimum of how do things. I have a more intimate sense of my own body again. It's helped remind me how little I really need to be comfortable. Would I want to do this for a really long time? Probably not. It reminds me how much I don't need. Do I love my servomechanisms? My washer? My dryer? My dishwasher? My shower? Yes, but Lui has reminded I don't have to have them.

Mary

Pilgrim's Progress: Ironies

2009-05-25T10:21:00.002-05:00

It's alway seemed ironic to me that doing good works in the developing world produce opportunities worthy of an Evelyn Waugh of Paul Theroux novel.

I find it odd that I can preach twice in two weeks in Lui and schmooze with the bishop when in the States, I certainly wouldn't be allowed the pulpit at the Cathedral. I've only passed pleasantries with the last two bishops of Missouri but was invited to be part of a discussion about finding a replacement for a pastor who had recently died here. I'm aware of the novelty factor of being an American in an impoverished community although Europeans of various NGO sorts appear to be thick on the ground in this part of Africa. No backpackers carryingthe Lonely Planet at all.

I preached at Buwagyi yesterday to a full church. Oneil, one of the pastors, who had come back from Juba for the funeral of the pastor who died, translated for me. He kindly lent me hisMoru hymnal so I could follow the hymns which I could usually work outby the antepenultimate verse thanks toMorris' Moru lessons. No clue what they meantbut I could utter the words. Working with a translator creates a kind of split page. I had time to look at the congregation and wished I could take photographs of some of the congregation. I think it went well but the Moru are very polite so I probably won't know with any certainty what they actually thought.

This coming Sunday I preach at Fraser Cathedral which given the season of Pentecost, will give mean opportunity to talk about unity in Jesus.

Remind me next time you see me about the time the governor of the state of Aragua,Venezuela, invited himself to lunch at my house in the barrio. He came without his bodyguards but plunked a pearl handled revolver down on the table next to his plate. That's one chapter in the novel.

Next, how to bath in a large blue plastic basin from China whhich I'm going to go do now.

Peace,

Mary

Today in Lui

2009-05-24T16:27:00.009-05:00

Be sure to check Debbie Smith’s account of the missioners’ activities today (May 24) at LuLuLui. Debbie reports that Mary Seager preached at Buwagyi, and they had a very full day.

Debbie writes of Mary: “I don't think she's going to blog today; she mostly wants to lie down from the heat ….” Apparently, it is awfully hot and humid now.

In the meantime, here’s a photo I took of the Buwagyi church -- where Mary preached today -- back in 2006:

And of the interior, with Manyigugu/Darius holding the bishop’s crozier:

I remember this church well, because it had artwork all around the walls. Drawings like this went all the way around the chancel walls and down the walls of the nave.

I wonder whether it still looks that way.

I hope you all don't mind my "chipping in" with updates and old photos.

I’m sure that, like me, you are eager to hear first-hand from Mary and Jim, but they’re sleeping now. Remember Lui is 8 hours later than CDT.

Pilgrim's Progress: Finding my rhythm

2009-05-23T06:31:00.002-05:00

I'm procrastinating. I should be starting to work on my sermon but I wanted to do this first. I just reread the last blog and I apologize for the omitted words. I was using the laptop on which the space bar sticks, typing using my head lamp for light (indispensable for reading in bed and finding my way to the lat...greatest attribute besides light is that it's hands free.)

It's taken me a week but I'm finding my rhythm within the rhythm of life here. We are saying compline about 9 pm and then to bed. I'm taking one bath in the evening to wash off the day's dust (think Georgia on my mind) and sweat...there is hot water from a giant cauldron) and then another in the morning to wake up. We have breakfast, usually breads of some kind with Ugandan tea or tinned coffee I brought from Uganda. Then some activity. The last two days it was the youth conference. We walked from the cathedral compound to Luinje School in the early evening on the Juba road...the only two lane graded road in the area...red dust...with Stephen and Gordon pulling us out the way of enormous speeding trucks, motorcycles. The flock of sheep with one trailing lamb managed to get across on its own. Then dinner. Some sitting around telling stories with Ramsey, Stephen and Darius. Ramsey told us about witnessing the birth of his son and how it changed his life. Stephen described hunting dikdik and antelope in the forest with bows and arrows.
Moru lesson with Morris who translated the Bible into Moru. Lunch with the team with Gordon whom we had check an article about the Moru from Wikipedia. It apparently was accurate because it turned out that Debbie and Gordon knew most of the people whose work had been referenced. More Moru shortly. Then to the sermon.

Peace,

Mary

Lui Down

2009-05-22T22:06:00.004-05:00

I received a phone message today from Debbie Smith from Lui. Apparently, the generator in Lui is down, so our team cannot blog or respond to e-mails. She wants us all to know this is why there are no blogposts from Lui today.

Debbie hopes the generator will be repaired soon. I’m sure you join me in hoping that is true.

Medical Supplies En Route

2009-05-21T22:25:00.003-05:00

News from the “Home Team”

I like Susan Naylor’s concept that we have a “Home Team” and an “Away Team” at this time in our relationship between the Dioceses of Lui and Missouri. Debbie, Jim, and Mary are the “Away Team” for now. They are doing marvelous work and relationship-building in Lui, and my prayers are with them almost without ceasing. Like many of you, I hit the LuiNotes and LuLuLui blogs each day – in fact, multiple times each day – hoping for more news from the “Away Team” in Lui. God bless and inspire them and keep them safe.

Meanwhile work goes on here for the “Home Team,” and I’ve been asked to keep folks informed of significant news.

Today was a big one!

Many of you know that the Companion Diocese Committee has had a task force coordinating the collection of medical supplies for Lui Hospital. Marc Smith has coordinated that effort, receiving marvelous support from many Missouri hospitals and Washington University. The many donations were consolidated, packed, and palletized in April, primarily by members of Grace Episcopal Church in Jefferson City.

The shipment is four pallets, weighing about 3,260 pounds. That’s over 1½ tons of support for the Lui Hospital

Charlie Walch of First Choice Courier & Distribution is handling the shipment from the U.S. to Africa. We have had many conversations among the folks working on this. Today I received the delightful news that the shipment has left St. Louis, headed overland to Chicago, then New York, then by ocean transport to Mombasa, Kenya. Today Charlie sent me details. The medical supplies should leave New York on June 6, aboard the President Truman, expected to arrive in Mombasa on July 15. Thanks be to God!

Then it will be up to our friends in Lui to coordinate the overland transport from Mombasa to Lui. Debbie and our mission team are working with the Lui staff to make sure this goes smoothly.

Pilgrim's Progress: Dancing to Wandi and Kediba

2009-05-21T08:39:00.003-05:00

When Bishop Bullen said that we would be dancing to Wandi and Kediba, I should have been forewarned about our excursion to visit Wandi and to see the sorghum grinding mill in Kediba. It was like riding a mechanical bull ride in a Texas country and western bar for two hours. It was hot too. Jim, Debbie and I were accompanied by Stephen, Margaret, and Gordon, three of the pastors.

In Wandi we were greeted by a large group of children and women singing and dancing with branches. Then all of them shook our hands...it was very moving but by the end I had an inkling of politicians and celebrities greeting their fans. We moved into the payot where we had lunch with pastor and elders. Of course, we shook hands with every. The assistant chief was there also because the chief had gone to a chief's' meeting. It was fascinating because the roof of the payot had been recently replaced and it felt like being inside a beautiful basket. After the lunch of rice and chicken, we got back in the truck and went on to Kediba where we sat under a tree with the pastor and ate fresh mangos which Margaret peeled for us. It was a great treat because we had just missed the mango season in Lui. We walked over to see the grinding mill the Mothers' Union purchased through a UTO grant. (Now you know what happens to your "mite boxes.")

More later....we're(Debbie and Jim) off to Lui Market with Vasco. Somehow I couldn't organize the movies and dinner or even an iced tea. This is our treat instead. Tomorrow we continue with the second day of the youth conference. Debbie and I will preaching this Sunday; Jim on Pentecost at Lui Parish, the companion parish to his. Keep us in special preaching prayers.

Mary

Susan's Story

2009-05-19T21:43:00.004-05:00

Several of you have asked how/why Susan Naylor was blocked from her flight to Africa. Here is her own story. I am posting this to the blog on her behalf. Please respond to her.

It was a good plan. It could have worked. It should have worked. I should have been able to make the trip from my husband Earl's recital at St. Thomas Church in Manhattan to the Newark Airport with time to spare. Earl's recital was wonderful, and all too soon afterward it was time for me to go.

We hailed a cab, piled in my (carefully packed and weighed) bag and off I went to Penn Station.

I asked at the information and ticket booth which train would take me to Newark / Liberty Airport. The attendant sold me my ticket and told me "There's a train loading now on track 9 - if you run, you can make it. Next one will be in 20 minutes."

So I ran, and I made it, rejoicing that this lucky connection would get me there a little early.

Unfortunately for me and a half dozen others, we found out too late that we were actually on an express train to Trenton, and it did not stop at the airport. By the time I could get off and get back to Newark, I was too late to check in for my flight.

To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. Heartbroken was more like it.

After checking every available option, and in consultation with Lisa and Debbie, we decided that it was best to leave this trip in the very capable hands of Debbie, Mary and Jim.

I am trusting that things worked out this way for a reason, and even though I can't see what it is right now, I know in whom I trust. So, I am now part of the "Home Team," holding the "Away Team" in prayer, and eagerly awaiting each new posting.

For all of you who have been praying for me, thank you, and keep those prayers coming - I obviously need them. I'll be joining our prayer partners at 7:00 a.m. to pray for the travelers, who are now safely in Lui.

/Susan

[Posted by Lisa Fox on behalf of Susan Naylor]

Pilgrim's Progress: Africa/Kamapala/Lui

2009-05-19T08:48:00.002-05:00

We've arrived. We're in Lui after much time in flying machines. All the air time was blessedly uneventful. All the luggage arrived with us. It's always a relief to see your bag approaching you on the carousel.

The Missionary Aviation Fellowship guesthouse was simpole and very pleasant. The veranda looked out to the hills surrounding Kampala. Debbie and I went into Kampala in a car with a driver. We got Ugandan shillings and shopped at a government craft village and then at a mini-Walmart in a shopping center.

The MAF flight left from their airfield in Kaajansi. The pilot who appeared to be an Aussie offered a prayer forus and our mission before we took off. It felt comforting and made me feel like a member of the fellowship. We stopped in Arua for fuel and Yei to drop off a German couple and then to Mundri airfield, a wide place in the bush. On the ride to Lui we mostly saw women walking with bundles on their heads, young men on bicycles or motor bikes, and two enormous trucks.

The people in Lui welcomed us in the paiyat in the Cathedral compound. That's a tukul used for gatherings and meals. It's really really hot so I feel stupefied. No deathless prose today.

We sat around as men, mostly priests, came in to welcome us and chat. It was so good to see Stephen Dokolo again. We ate lunch with everybody and then went toour rooms and laid down a napped. It's that hit on the head pass out kind of nap I remember from Venezuela. You wake up sweating and feeling stupid. It's the alternative to the only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun.

Gordon, one of the priests, gave us the schedule for the visit. Two weeks will go by very quickly.
We'll visit four other communities and offer three two day conferences for different groups.

The new internet connection via a large satellite dish and generator is quite fast so you'll be hearing from me again.

Peace,

Mary

Safe Arrival in Kampala

2009-05-17T15:00:00.004-05:00

Debbie Smith e-mailed me at 2:30 p.m. (CDT) that she, Jim Hinrichs, and Mary Seager have arrived safely in Kampala. They left St. Louis yesterday, shortly after noontime. This is a vivid reminder of just how far a journey this is; it takes about 24 hours of plane rides and transfers to reach Kampala. Tomorrow, Susan Naylor will arrive in Kampala, then they’ll be heading on a MAF plane into Lui.

Debbie reports: “We're beat, going to say compline and go to bed. Keep the prayers going - we had the most uneventful trip ever.”

It’s now almost 11 p.m. in Kampala – 8 hours later than Missouri.

Now that we have restored telecommunications in Lui, look for our missioners to report here and at Debbie Smith’s LuLuLui.

Also remember that we are asking everyone to pray with/for our missioners at 7 a.m. (CDT) each day through the duration of the trip.

For those wanting a “refresher” on the purposes of this trip, see the story at the diocesan website.

Pilgrim's Progress: Way Stations

2009-05-16T06:56:00.002-05:00

The last post from the States. I don't really see myself using the public computers in Detroit Metro or Amsterdam or... I've tried that and they're mostly junk and by the time you've figured out their quirks, the money's run out. So God willing the next time I post it will be from Kampala and/or Lui.

I passed the weight test, I hope. I'm going to repack and see what I can eliminate to get it down a little further. And drink only water and eat only dry bread until I've been weighed on the cargo scale. I feel like a prizefighter trying to make weight for a big fight.

I watched "Farrah's Story" last night relearning old lessons. Nothing is promised. In the end, money, beauty and fame can't protect you. It's not a problem if you have the money to fix it. There are some things all the money in the world can't fix. Her friends kept saying she was being so brave. People used to say that to me. I had a difficult time with that because I knew fear was driving me. She has had a much harder time than I had. (I'll let you in on a secret. Most cancer survivors keep a hierarchy of direness tucked away in their minds and almost unconsciously rank other people's disease. Usually we only talk about it amongst ourselves) Why would I watch something like that the night before I leave for Sudan? Periodically I need to be reminded how truly and deeply blessed I have been, to celebrate the fact that I'm alive, to know that for whatever mysterious reasons of God's own, God has kept me here.

Voy con Dios.

Mary

Pilgrim's Progress: Minutiae of Setting Off

2009-05-14T21:03:00.002-05:00

"Pilgrimage is always about movement from head to heart."
a Bishop of Massachusetts

It turns out that the journey between the head and the heart is very long and filled with the minutiae of travel, particularly foreign and to a truly far place. Each piece reveals yet another complexity and yet another mini journey branching off into a place only glimpsed.
Much has to be taken on faith.

An example was my immunization list. Some I had already had; some I needed to renew. The meningitis turned into a small quest. I had had Guillain-Barre in college which knocked one form of vaccine out completely and raised the spectre of G-B returning. After many phone calls which resulted in little definite information, I finally settled on pneumovax instead. I still think science is definite although I know better than that. If you travel far enough afield, you encounter elegant metaphors, great works of the imagination and finally at the end of science, miracle. So I pray that I made the right choice.

Then the list of diseases on offer in south Sudan. Read quickly any list becomes poetry but this list included some old friends: filariasis (elephantiasis), dengue and schistosomiasis (liver flukes, a particularly nasty parasite that infests fresh water in the tropics.) So no swimming in the river and plenty of DEET.

I make lists and check things off and make new lists with piles of things. To repeat Joseph Smith's curse, I feel as if "I'm being bitten to death by ducks."

Saturday still seems very far away and I don't feel ready whatever that means. I'm looking forward to sitting on the plane with my plane toys. Thick trashy novels which I leave behind on the seat. An electronic NYT crossword gizmo. I can even watch the little video tracking the flight quite happily. It's almost meditative. I'm not taking my iPod, one less charger, one less thing to lose.

I am excited by the fact I found a travel Bible on the Christian Dollar website. New King James with Jesus' words in red, a blue leatherette cover (emphasis on the 'ette) with a little gilt clasp which is already peeling. But it's all there so if I preach, I can actually use the Hebrew Bible too.

I'm lost somewhere in the capillaries of the esophagus...nowhere near the heart yet.

I am looking forward to the stripping away of all the conveniences of the West to an enforced simplicity. I need to get away from stuff for a while. After Venezuela, it took me a long time to buy a vacuum cleaner and I didn't have a television until I got married. Part of a pilgrimage for me is setting things down by the roadside because they have become a burden.

"The bread you do not use is the bread of the hungry. The garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of the person who is naked."
Basil the Great

Prayers for Lui

2009-05-10T11:00:00.000-05:00

Please Join Us

The next team of missioners from the Diocese of Missouri will depart on May 16, returning on June 4.

We invite you to the St. Louis airport chapel at 12:15 p.m. on Saturday, May 16, to pray over and with the missioners: Mary Seager, Jim Hinrichs and Debbie Smith as they leave for Lui. (Susan Naylor will be departing on a different itinerary.)

The prayer service will be in the airport chapel, which is outside the security gates. The chapel is on the eastern end of the airport’s lower level. If you go to the airport site and click on the map for the lower level (where baggage claim is), you'll see the chapel at the extreme right side, near the eastern-most entrance/exit doors.

Daily Prayer
We invite and encourage all members of the diocese to support the mission team by praying each day at 7:00 a.m. during the mission trip (May 16-June 4). Lui is 8 hours later than St. Louis. Many mission teams have told us that they are aware of and encouraged by our prayers. We invite you to comment below if you are willing to be prayer partners with our mission team.

Image courtesy of ExtremeSelf .

Lui Mission in May/June

2009-05-09T23:00:00.015-05:00

The next team of missioners from the Diocese of Missouri will travel to the Diocese of Lui (Episcopal Church of Sudan) from May 16 to June 4.

The missioners are: Dr. Jim Heinrichs (St. Timothy’s), the Rev. Susan Naylor (Emmanuel/Webster Grove), Mary Seger (Christ Church Cathedral), and Debbie Smith (St. Timothy’s).

Mary Seger has special expertise in teaching reading and ESL. Jim Heinrichs has special expertise in infectious diseases including HIV/AIDS. Susan Naylor is a deacon in the diocese and a parish nurse. Debbie Smith will serve again as mission trip coordinator for the diocese.

At the request of Lui’s Bishop Bullen, and understanding some adjustments will be made on the ground, the mission team is prepared to lead conferences on: (1) HIV/AIDS ; (2) pastors and contemporary society; and (3) adult education and English language for adults, addressing the literacy gap because of war.

It is expected that Susan Naylor and Jim Heinrichs will work in the Fraser Hospital in Lui and/or with those responsible for it as well as with HIV/AIDS education. Mary Seger and Debbie Smith will probably work with literacy programs.

You can read more about this trip at the Diocese of Missouri's website.

Thin places of the heart

2009-05-08T13:57:00.002-05:00

The Thin Places of the Heart
Scroll Article for May 2009
Deb Goldfeder

Celts believe that there are places in the world where the veil between heaven and earth is thinner and we can get closer to the Divine in those thin places. I don’t think the people of Lui have ever heard of thin places nor do I think they would think much of the idea. If you asked me if I thought Lui was a thin place, I would probably say that it wasn’t, at least not in the Celtic sense. But Lui is a place that will break your heart so why do I love it so?

Lately we have been talking about doing mission at Advent. What is mission anyway? It certainly isn’t just something we do in Lui. I’ve heard you say, “Don’t take me there! I have issues!” But we are talking about mission in a broader sense—not just in the “foreign service” branch of the church (as someone said). Maybe mission is anything we do that breaks our hearts. And if that is the case, why on earth would we do it?

Whenever something happens in Sudan now, I get e-mails with the stories attached. Those e-mails aren’t from Lui but they are from people who now know and care about the people living in mud huts in Southern Sudan. Going to Lui changed me and, as he frequently says, changed Dan but, most importantly, it changed you, too. We made you care and that makes you vulnerable to having your hearts broken, too.

In December, the Rev. Vasco Tadu Daniel shared with us that his wife Charity was expecting a child and she wasn’t feeling well. I knew that he must have been quite worried about her because people don’t talk about pregnancy in Lui. I’m not a maternity nurse but I visited her in the hospital. Her symptoms were vague but very uncomfortable. We tried a few things like putting bricks under the old iron bed to raise her head a bit and talked about her diet but nothing really helped. She was discharged before we left but she was not well. We urged Vasco to take her to the hospital in Juba but he waited until we left before taking her.

We really hadn’t heard anything about Charity and the baby until April 6th when we heard that the baby had been born. Charity was okay but the baby, a girl, was quite sick and in the hospital. We all held our breath and said our prayers until a week or so ago we heard that the baby was, “…a bit fine.” Thank you, God! Thank you for not breaking our hearts this time. We know Vasco at Advent. He has been here with us. He has shared our table. What happens to Vasco happens to all of us now. It is as if we are all connected by our heartstrings and they are stretched to the breaking point sometimes.

I’ve heard people who had a second child say that after the first child they wondered if they could ever love another child as much. When the second child was born they suddenly they found their hearts enlarged and their love multiplied. Mission does that, too. When that little airplane left Lui, I suddenly felt like my heart was ripping out of my chest and I cried. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to be coming home but what if I never see them again? A friend said that we never know when we have seen someone for the last time and that was the last time I saw her. Who would be gone if I should be so blessed to return to Lui? All that love expands your heart until it gets thinner and thinner.
Marcus Borg was at Eden last week. He talks about “thin places”, too, but he says they are any place our hearts are opened. Maybe he would think Lui was a “thin place”. I think that it isn’t the place that gets thin but our hearts as they expand and expand.

One of the benefits of being an Episcopalian is that we absorb so much of Scripture through the Book of Common Prayer. There are also those phrases we absorb but sometimes we can’t quite remember where we heard them. One I have absorbed says, “…write all these thy laws in our hearts, we beseech thee.” [It comes at the end of the Decalogue in Rite I.] Somebody else has said that we should write Scripture on our hearts so when our hearts break open the words will fall inside. What a balm those words are for our broken hearts!

The Christian Mission Mutual Ministry Coordinators have invited you to mission and to get involved in small groups because it is in the community of a small group that we look at how the life of Christ is present in our work, what we pray for, what we confess and what we are thankful for. It heals our broken hearts but it makes us vulnerable to each other, too. I really pray you join us in this.

This prayer is the Prayer of an African Christian and it is mine for us all:

O God:
Enlarge my heart
that it may be big enough to receive the greatness of your love.
Stretch my heart
that it may take into it all those who with me around the world
believe in Jesus Christ.
Stretch it
that it may take into it all those who do not know him,
but who are my responsibility because I know him.
And stretch it
that it may take in all those who are not lovely in my eyes,
and whose hands I do not want to touch;
through Jesus Christ, my saviour, Amen.

(With All God’s People, World Council of Churches, 1989, in, Bread of Tomorrow: Praying With the World’s Poor, Janet Morley, Ed. SPCK, 2004, p. 27).

The Rev. Vasco Tadu Daniel on a visit to Confluence Park near St. Louis.

Pilgrim's Progress: Holy Spaces and Shrines etc

2009-04-29T22:27:00.002-05:00

The gap between this post and the previous one has been filled with the minutiae of preparation, moments of joy at reconnecting with old friends because I asked them for money and thinking about the place at the end of the pilgrimage.

Pilgrims travel to shrines, holy places. I can recognize at least three places in my travels that echoed with holiness for me. I think two were hallowed by prayer; two were hollowed out by suffering to be filled up with prayer. The two most obvious were the 15th century Convent of San Marco in Florence and the pre-1959 parts of Lhasa. The Convent of San Marco is a monastery decorated with Fra Angelico's murals in the cells. My friend Marge and I looked at them in awe but wondered how the monks could see the murals with only candlelight. What an unbelievable luxury to have these almost invisible devotions. Marge turned and pointed to circular openings in the wall above the door. Once a day, the sunlight would pour through the opening to illuminate the mural. Suffering maybe not but light and prayer filling the space, certainly.

Lhasa is the center of the Tibetan Buddhist world, the suffering submerged in glancing references to before 1959. There were few Chinese visible but there were surveillance cameras in the market and high posts. The ancient tiny pilgrims performed prostrations like inchworms around the sacred circuit. Giant prayer wheels spun slowly as yak butter votive lamps burned throughout the temples. (My clothes reeked of yak butter after I left.) Both ancient and endless prayer and more recent suffering and loss. In spite of everything, there was a deep peace in Lhasa.

The mystifying holy place was a building I entered on the Plaza Bolivar in Cartagena Colombia. I noticed a plaque by the door but didn't stop to read it. I just wanted to get out the sun. Like many Latin buildings, it was built around a central courtyard filled with lush tropical plants, even trees. I climbed to the third floor and leaned on the railing over the courtyard. It was shady and deeply peaceful. I stayed resting in the quiet and the coolness. I had the same sensation I had had in old European cloisters... much prayer and contemplation. When I finally left, I read the plaque. To my consternation, it read El Palacio de la Inquisicion. I had forgotten that the Spaniards brought the Inquisition with them to New Spain and logically, the center would have been in the first royal port. All I can think is that the suffering of those souls ultimately became peace.

I wonder how Lui will feel. The people suffered a great deal during the civil war and yet by all accounts their faith is strong and vibrant. Mike Kinman pointed out in his Good Friday sermon that the cross is the safest place to be because the worst has already happened. Once the worst has happened, the joy of the resurrection follows. Perhaps Lui has already experienced the cross....

Mary

Pilgrim's Progress: Progress

2009-04-21T12:32:00.002-05:00

Setting out a pilgrimage brings to mind the hobbits' wrenched away from the comforts of their hobbit hole and the prologue to the Canterbury Tales where Chaucer describes the urge to go on pilgrimages, often seeking far off shrines caused by April showers, a sort of spiritual spring fever. And yet, all of them heard a call to leave their homes for the open road which in the Middle Ages could constitute high adventure.

As I think about why I am going to Lui, I think about the other times I have felt a cosmic nudge, sometimes a vague suggestion, sometimes a push. Often it would come from unexpected quarters. It would seem unusual or even outlandish. It was very often expensive and at least half of my friends would question it seriously. And so would I. But during my adventure in cancerland, I learned early to follow those nudges, those whispers of something different from the usual.

A couple of examples:

Leafing through ELLE magazine post-diagnosis ( yes, the fashion magazine) I saw a little blurb about a multi-disciplinary practice for breast cancer patients in Malibu. I was going to Malibu to visit Susan Klein anyway so I called them up. The joint practice included a double doc who was a psychiatrist, a fitness trainer, and a PhD chiropractor nutritionist. Among the three they recommended therapy, weightlifting and a 10% or less fat diet and a regimen of vitamins. It took several months for me to implement all the suggestions. Ultimately they became part of the framework which helped save my life. The consult cost me $500.

The next adventure was a weekend of pancha karma at an AyurVedic clinic which I had read about in Deepak Chopra's books. Once again it was expensive, outlandish to some friends and long distance ...Lancaster MA. I flew into Boston where my brother-in-law picked me up and we drove through gray drizzly March weather to central Massachusetts. As he stopped the car, I said, "Look, if there's an electric blue statue of Shiva in the foyer, I'll be back out. Wait for me to give the high sign." There wasn't and once again I discovered that the nudge had led me onto another path for healing.

Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on...

When Stephen Dokolo described the children in his school weeping quietly from thirst, I remembered being taught about the signs of hunger among my class in the school in Roxbury. Hunger, yes. Thirst, no. If children are hungry in the morning, it isn't just they didn't eat breakfast: they likely had no evening meal either. School lunches were the only food they could count on. I felt as if I were back at the beginning of my teaching career. Even further back to the puesto de leche in Barrio Los Olivos where malnourished children were given a super enriched milk product to enrich their diet. Then Stephen asked me when I was coming to Lui and I felt that nudge again.

All the familiar hallmarks: unusual, expensive (although contributions will fund most of it), unexpected (believe me south Sudan was not on my Africa list. Egypt, yes; the Dogon dwellings in Mali, yes; the Masai Mara, yes; a photographic safari, yes) and many of my friends are questioning the whole idea. And then this morning in Forward Day by Day, I found this, "We are to take counterintuitive, costly, joyous steps toward God's new order of life in and through our faith, hope, and love." Amen.

There is now a well on the grounds of Fraser Cathedral so the children have water to drink.

Pilgrim's Progress: Eureka!

2009-04-16T15:19:00.001-05:00

Eureka! I'm a blogger. I never thought I'd blog but then I never thought I would be a missionary, either. (Thank you, Beth, for holding my hand through the set-up.)

Throughout most of my life, even during periods I considered pretty interesting, I never kept journals. No journaling during my two years in Venezuela as a community organizer in the slums of Maracaibo and Maracay, not on the trip back by bus through Colombia, Central America and Mexico. No journaling during my nine months of high dose chemo and the bone marrow transplant although it was recommended as therapy. I was living through it all and swearing I would remember every vivid detail. And it didn't occur to me that anyone would be interested in reading them. So no journals of either journey and there are definite parallels.

During the Cathedral fish fry supper, I discovered that people had read LuiNotes and were interested and pleased to have done so. Hmmm!
I read Lisa's and parts of Mike's, chuckling about the extended discussions of the "toilet facilities" and their surprise at it becoming an easy topic of conversation. (All the volunteers in Maracay ate at the same pension, lots of cheap food, beer and flush toilets. As we shoveled in pasta and drank beer with Fanta orange, we discussed the condition of our bowels. The nearest north American doctor was in Caracas so we needed to take care of each other. We weren't missionaries but recent college graduates who believed JFK and went out to help save the world.)

I was really moved by Mike's account of the welcome they received and Mamma Jarusa's funeral. It will be very different for me to be in a deeply Christian third world community. Barrio Los Olivos had been formed by land invasion of the municipal garbage dump. The first time I saw it people were putting up shacks in spite of the burning garbage. We had to pay a priest to say Mass on Mother's Day and bring him to the barrio in our truck. I occasionally baptized babies dying of gastroenteritis because I was one of the few people there who was sure I had been baptized (and because I was the resident gringa.) The people were Roman Catholics but there were no priests. So I look forward to seeing Stephen Dokolo again and the looks on the faces of the priests who will receive the bicycles paid for by the Trinity children's bake sale. They will use them to tend their flocks. And thank God for them and their faith.

I thought maybe people might be interested in what occurs to me as I prepare for the trip to Lui. I keep thinking of the line attributed to Sir Walter Ralegh (yes, that Sir Walter Ralegh: "Give me my scallop shell of quiet" from a poem titled "The Passionate Pilgrim..." So far it's been anything but quiet but I'm holding the image of all those medieval pilgrims trekking to Canterbury and to Santiago de Compostela and of John Bunyan's pilgrim in my heart and mind.
Please pray for me.

M. Seager April 16, 2009©

Advocacy Action to Help the People of Lui and Mundri

2009-01-29T20:21:00.002-06:00

Hello everyone,

in recent weeks you might have seen terrible reports coming out of Southern Sudan about incursions from the Lord's Resistance Army (a terrible rebel force from Uganda that, among other things, is not only brutal but uses child soldiers as agents of their brutality) into Mundri (a neighboring diocese to Lui). In addition to the injury and death this has caused, it has also caused an influx of refugees into Lui. You can find out more about this here:

http://sudan.anglican.org/lraattacks.php

http://www.bradford.anglican.org/worldlinks/sudan/index.php?pageid=mundri

The Rev. Dan Handschy, rector of Church of the Advent in Crestwood and part of the mission team that recently returned from Lui, has been in touch with the Episcopal Office of Government Relations in Washington and will continue to relay their counsel as to how we can best use our political power to pressure our government to enforce the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and stop these incursions (there is widespread belief that the Khartoum government funds the LRA in exchange for them continuing to destabilize and terrorize the south).

Below is a letter Dan wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He has also included contact information to send a similar letter to Sens. Claire McCaskill and Kit Bond as well as UN Ambassador Susan Rice. The letter can easily adapted for use by you and your congregation.

Please circulate this widely and please take this opportunity to raise your voice. Terrible things are happening far away, but they are happening to our sisters and brothers and we live in a nation that has the power and influence to stop them -- or at least give it a really good try. But we have to do our part.

Names and Addresses for letters concerning Sudan

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton
United States Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington DC 20520

www.state.gov

Dear Madam Secretary:

Ambassador Susan Rice
U. S. Ambassador to the United Nations
U. S. Mission to the U. N.
140 E 45th Street
New York, NY 10017

usunpublicaffairs@state.gov

Dear Madam Ambassador:

Senator Claire McCaskill

http://mccaskill.senate.gov/contact/

Dear Senator McCaskill:

Senator Christopher Bond

http://bond.senate.gov

Dear Senator Bond:

Sample Letter

The Honorable Hilary Clinton
Secretary of State
U. S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington DC 20520

Dear Secretary Clinton:

I am a member of Church of the Advent, an Episcopal Church in St. Louis, in the Diocese of Missouri. Our parish has a sister parish relationship with the parish church of Lozoh, in the Diocese of Lui, of the Episcopal Church of Sudan. Over Christmas, our pastor and one of our members accompanied six other missioners from Missouri on a trip to the Diocese of Lui, ECS.

Since their return, we have learned that the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel army from northern Uganda has been active in the Diocese of Mundri, the Diocese just west of Lui. Many people from Mundri have been displaced, leaving their crops in the field to be stolen or burned by the LRA. Some of those displaced persons have come to the village of Lozoh, our sister parish.

I am writing to urge you to make peace in Sudan a top priority of the new adminstration. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement has been in place only a few short years, after 21 years of civil war. Anything might destabilize that peace and return southern Sudan to war. This would be disastrous for our friends there. Whatever the United States and the United Nations can do to help keep the peace in Southern Sudan will make an important difference.

Know that this letter comes with our best regards.

Faithfully,

Deep Wells, Deep Relationships

2009-01-22T22:17:00.002-06:00

Episcopal Life Online has posted a story about our recent work with the people in the Episcopal Diocese of Lui (Sudan). I think the ELO reporter did a pretty good job with the story. I commend it to you.

Note: I'm copying ELO's text below, but I've added some of our photographs that weren't in the ELO story.
= = = = =

MISSOURI: Deep Wells, Deep Relationships in Lui

[Episcopal News Service] Eight Missouri Episcopalians left family, friends and holiday traditions behind to spend the Christmas season in Sudan. The mission trip was the latest chapter in the companion relationship between the Diocese of Missouri and the Diocese of Lui in the Episcopal Church of Sudan, now rebuilding after more than two decades of civil war. It has also provided the opportunity to develop close and lasting relationships that are invigorating faith communities in both dioceses.

The Venerable Robert Anton Franken, a member of the Missouri team, helped launch the relationship between the dioceses in 2006, a time when there was no running water, sewers, electricity or telephones in Lui. During seven trips to Sudan in the past three years, he has seen a lot of rebuilding in the war-torn country and notes that Missouri Episcopalians have played a key role.

Efforts by members of the Diocese of Missouri have provided a computer and satellite access for the diocesan office in Lui, enabling communication by telephone and email. A $19,200 grant from United Thank Offering will help to establish a grinding mill, which will be a project of the Mothers Union. Missouri also hosted a Sudanese priest, the Rev. Stephen Dokolo, for two years of theological education, enabling him to return to Sudan to teach other clergy.

Another gift from the Diocese of Missouri has eased the burdens of daily life for hundreds of Moru families: the convenience and benefit of clean water.

Deep Wells

Since 2006 the Diocese of Missouri has provided for the drilling of six wells in Lui, each at a cost of approximately $17,000, according to Franken, who worked with Lui Bishop Bullen Dolli to select locations for the wells.

Franken explained that they are "deep water wells which don't dry up during the drought season." He said the wells have ranged in depth from 165 feet to 360 feet, all drilled through solid granite, and that the water is drinkable without filtering.

The wells are also about witness, said Franken. "They are all drilled on church property, but open to the community, so it's a real witness about what the church is doing."

The Rev. Joe Chambers, Episcopal campus ministry chaplain at the University of Missouri, Columbia, wanted to join the mission team so he could make a direct connection with the people who are using the wells—one of which he helped to provide.

Chambers was a part of the 2008 Waters of Hope bike ride, a joint project of the Dioceses of Iowa and Missouri. The ride raised $65,000 which went to provide for clean water making devices for the Diocese of Swaziland and for one deep water well in the Diocese of Lui. A similar ride through Missouri in 2009 will seek to raise additional funds for clean water projects.

Chambers says that Missouri's goal is to provide a well for each of the seven archdeaneries of the Diocese of Lui. That goal will be exceeded by the time the next mission team from Missouri arrives this May, as arrangements have been made for three new wells to be drilled, paid for with funds already given by Missouri Episcopalians.

Missouri missioner Debra Smith said the team witnessed first hand why providing clean water is one of the Millennium Development Goals.

"We saw how much healthier the people in Lui look, especially the children," she said. "And because they no longer spend time at water holes spooning water into containers, some women have had time to enter adult education classes to learn to read their own language."

Deep Relationships

Smith's husband, Missouri Bishop Wayne Smith, told the diocese's 2008 convention that mission transforms the missioner. "That's the great secret," he said, "missioners then scatter transformation among the communities who sent them in the first place."

Debra Smith said the transformation generated through the relationship with Lui has "spilled over" throughout the Diocese of Missouri and that there is "an awareness of the vastness of creation and how small the world really is."

No place has this been more true that at the Church of the Advent in Crestwood, whose rector, the Rev. Dan Handshy, was a member of the Missouri team, making his first visit to Sudan.

In 2006, the Church of the Advent established a sister relationship with the congregation in Lozoh, in the Diocese of Lui. One Sunday, Handshy announced to his congregation that the church building in Lozoh had been destroyed in a grass fire. After church an eight-year-old boy came up to Handshy and said, "Why don't we have a bake sale?" They did and raised $450 from the sale of hot cross buns baked in large part by children. The money was sent to Lui along with a large ceremonial check signed by Advent's Sunday School children.

Upon entering the one-room diocesan office in Lui, Handshy said he froze and tears began to run down his cheeks. There was the large check, framed and hanging on the wall. Bishop Bullen reported that the check is taken out and used in catechism classes as concrete evidence that the Diocese of Lui is part of a larger family, the Anglican Communion.

"That's what this relationship is about," said Handshy. "We now have very young children who have a real sense about what the Anglican Communion is."

Smith said the trip was more than a project, "it was a visit to friends, the only real way we have to check in with some people we have come to love."

"Maybe we go to inspect wells or photograph a chapel or check on the grinding mill progress, but the real purpose in our visit is to see our beloved brothers and sisters in Christ," she said.

Deeper Understandings

The Christmas trip to Lui, including an unexpected meeting with Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul, the primate of the Episcopal Church of Sudan, provided an opportunity to talk about the issue of human sexuality—an issue that has caused controversy throughout the Anglican Communion with some repercussions in Missouri this past year.

On July 22, 2008, while attending the Lambeth Conference for Anglican bishops, Deng held a press conference during which he called for the resignation of the Right Rev. V. Gene Robinson, the openly gay Bishop of New Hampshire. He said Robinson should resign in order to preserve the unity of the Anglican Communion.

Deng also said that homosexuality is not "approved by the Bible" and "is not part of my culture." He said there are no gay or lesbian people in Sudan.

Following Deng's comments, a number of people in the Diocese of Missouri called for the termination of the companion relationship with the Dicoese of Lui, some of them members of Handshy's parish, which is an "Oasis" congregation that has been explicit in welcoming and involving gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons.

Yet, Handshy reported that the Advent congregation was so involved in its relationship with Lozoh that it could not see severing its relationship with Episcopalians in Sudan, despite the hurt caused by Deng's remarks. The parish submitted a resolution to the 2008 convention of the Diocese of Missouri that affirmed the commitment of the diocese to the "work of inclusion of all the baptized in the whole sacramental life of the Episcopal Church" and also affirmed Missouri's commitment to the Episcopal Church in Sudan "despite the sometimes painful differences with Archbishop Daniel in our understandings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

In the rationale for supporting the resolution, members of the Church of the Advent said, among other things, "we cannot afford to do without the gifts we received from our fellow Christians in Sudan." The resolution was adopted overwhelmingly.

On the second day of the trip, the Missouri missioners attended the dedication of new offices in the neighboring Diocese of Mundri. There the group encountered Deng, who was on hand to preside at the service. Handshy said that within five minutes of the group's arrival Deng brought up the remarks he had made at the Lambeth Conference, saying they were "the feelings of my people and I was there representing my people."

Handshy reported that Deng also said that the feelings of his people were not necessarily his own feelings. To Handshy, Deng's remarks seem to leave open the possibility that this own views about Bishop Robinson might be different or more complex than his people.

Whatever his beliefs, Deng made it clear to the group that the Episcopal Church of Sudan is staying in the Anglican Communion, even if they disagree on some issues.

For me to hear that," said Handshy, "was worth the price of admission."

Smith reported that she had the opportunity to have "a really good conversation" with Bishop Bullen about issues of homosexuality, including the belief held by many in the United States that they are born that way. She reported that this seemed to be "new information" to Bullen, who asked "hard and honest questions." Smith said there are significant cultural differences that make it difficult for the Sudanese to wrap their minds around how we see this issue.

"What's important is that we are talking about this with them and that is not derailing the relationship," she said.

-- Joe Bjordal is Episcopal Life Media correspondent in the dioceses of Provinces V and VI. He is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Anglican Communion alive and well

2009-01-15T11:06:00.003-06:00

One of the high points of my trip to Lui was discovering that Vasco and Gordon had framed a silly display "check" that the kids of Advent had given to Vasco for the Church at Lozoh. When Deb had come back from Lui after her six month stay, she had felt a special fondness for Lozoh. She asked if we could enter a sister relationship with that parish, which we did. Every week, we pray for the Parish at Lozoh and for Noel N, their pastor. During Lent of 2007, we got the news that the church at Lozoh (a mud church, with a grass roof) had burned in an uncontrolled brush fire. After I had announced the news, a Sunday School kid, Mark, who was eight years old, asked if we could do something. He suggested a bake sale.

Nathaniel and the Sunday School kids ran with it. They baked hundreds of dozens of hot-cross buns, which they sold to anyone who would buy them on Palm Sunday. The kids raised $450. They wanted the money to go for a new metal roof for the Church, so it wouldn't burn again. Vasco and Bishop Bullen were in town during Easter 2007, and went over to Office Max and copied a check onto a three foot banner. We filled it out, and all the kids signed the check. On a Sunday, we presented it to Vasco. I figured he would get back to his hotel, and pitch it.

On my second day in Lui, we went to the Diocesan Office (a two room mud house, with a metal roof, a generator and two computers). Vasco brought out the check, now framed. He told me they use it in catechism classes to show the reality of the Anglican Communion: here's a parish in America that prays for the parish in Lozoh (who in their turn pray for the parish in America). This is what their Sunday School did when they heard about the fire in Lozoh. I have to admit, I was completely non-plused. We throw out these little actions, only to discover they have huge consequences. You can be sure I'll show this photo to the Sunday School kids at Advent, along with the photo of the new church at Lozoh, with its metal roof.

Lui dust

2009-01-12T14:01:00.002-06:00

With all of the trucks roaring through Lui while we were there (container trucks, dump trucks, pick up trucks), and the cars and the motor cycles, there was always a certain amount of dust in the air. You could see it settling on the leaves of trees and plants alongside the road. I had a white tee shirt hanging on a line in my room of the mud guest house. When I took it down to pack for our return trip, I noticed a red line of dust where the shirt had been folded over the line. The toes of my boots pretty much remained covered with a reddish-orange patina the whole time we were in Lui. When I got home and unloaded everything into the washing machine, I caught the distinctive smell of Lui dust on pretty much everything I brought back, including the suitcase.

I noticed with some regret on the trip home, that my boots were loosing their coating of Lui dust. Walking through airports, sitting on airplanes, being wrapped under airline blankets against the unexpected cold (funny how ambient temperature becomes relative), the dust was coming off. Jesus instructed his disciples, when he sent them out two by two, that if a town or village did not welcome them, they should shake the dust of that town off their feet as they left, nevertheless warning them that the kingdom had come near. So, if a town had welcomed them, were they to keep the dust on their feet? We were certainly welcomed, we ate what was set before us, and we really didn't have to tell anyone that the kingdom was near -- it was pretty obvious.

The Moru are not all good, and we Americans tend to romanticize people who live simply. That would be a mistake. We met plenty of people with the sophistication to "work the system" and there are plenty of systems to work. It would be easy to get sucked into that good liberal guilt that tells us we should just give lots and lots of money, but that isn't relationship. Walking around the cathedral our second or third day in Lui, Deb and I were invited to sit on good chairs in someone's compound and offered "first pour" coffee, in small shot glasses. We sat and talked and laughed and were generally well entertained. No one asked us for money, they were just delighted that we would sit. There were many moments like that, which helped me to see what interdependence and community really look like. I'm sorry to see my boots loosing their coating of reddish-orange dust.

Safe Return!

2009-01-08T20:08:00.003-06:00

I have a note that our missioners have returned safely home from Sudan. Look for a posting soon at LuLuLui.

Thanks be to God!

Arrived in Amsterdam

2009-01-07T22:41:00.003-06:00

According to the KLM website, the flight on which Dan, Deb, and Debbie traveled from Entebbe to Amsterdam has now arrived. It's 10:40p here in Missouri and 5:40a in Amsterdam. I'm pleased to know they're making the way back home.

Please keep the team in your prayers. I well remember the cultural shock I experienced when I returned home from Lui back in 2006. Pray for the team -- for their safe travels, their health, and their emotional and spiritual adjustment upon returning home tomorrow. They are scheduled to arrive back in St. Louis at about 4:30 Thursday afternoon.

I give thanks for the marvelous work the missioners have done, and I look forward to hearing from them here and at LuLuLui.

Preaching at Lozoh

2009-01-05T01:50:00.003-06:00

Dan Handschy

Deb G and I went yesterday to Lozoh. Sosthen came along to translate for me. Gordon to do some business, John and William to make sure we were taken care of, and Archdeacon Festus (of Lozoh archdeaconry) to introduce us.

The first half of the journey there (on the good road) went very quickly. The second half, on the Lozoh road, was a bit exciting -- bumps and gullies that would high-center a dump truck. The trip might have been easier on motorcycles. When we arrived, we sat in good shade for a few minutes, and as 11:00 approached, I wondered aloud if Church was to start soon. The pastor-in-charge informed us that service had been pushed back till noon, so that people could stay home and chase the birds out of their gardens (away from the sorghum). Evidently, these particular birds take a rather strictly enforced siesta from noon until about three o'clock. So we spent the extra hour meeting the children of Lozoh and looking at the beautiful church. It is probably the prettiest church building in Lui diocese. Concrete block construction, metal framework (the termites can't eat that), and all the doors and window shutters are solid mahogany. Absolutely beautiful. I can't wait to show Adventers the sparkling metal roof.

About noon, I vested and we processed into church. Five or ten minutes into the service, a young woman began to have a nodding seizure, so Deb went down from the chancel to sit with her, and then just stayed there for the rest of the service. She was able to get good pictures and video. I preached on Jeremiah 31:7-14 and Matthew 2:1-12 (the readings for second Sunday after Christmas -- they don't usually follow the lectionary here). I talked about the wise men from the east coming from Babylon, Israel's sworn enemy after the Exile. I spoke about the reconciliation of old enemies in the worship of the child, and in the offering of our very selves to each other. I had noticed in the bottom of the pulpit and offering basket just like the ones we use at Advent (rather more worn, however), and held it up to say that we used two just like this for our offering at home. The church erupted into applause and 'allelyas.' I said it reminded us week by week of our relationship with Lozoh, as we said our prayers.

After service, we had the entire congregation come forward to the chancel in order to take their picture (just as we had done at Advent before we left). We'll have great photos and stories to share when we get home. Like the wise men, we will come home another way -- completely changed.

I won't post again, as we leave tomorrow by MAF, and I probably won't bother in Kampala. If all goes well (and I can't imagine it won't), we'll touch down in Saint Louis on Thursday. See you after that.

Living in the new year

2009-01-02T08:37:00.002-06:00

Being in a relationship like this one is not always comfortable. Often, in a conversation, with almost anyone here, there is a lurking but well disguised request for help, often money. We begin to sound like broken records (anyone remember those?): you must ask your bishop, who will ask our bishop, and the bishop will work with the committee to see what can be done. There is a sinking feeling in the gut when the request is made. We are often seen as pockets, when we want to be so much more. There would be many opportunities here for micro-loans if they weren't seen as handouts. These last few quiet days, we have had a chance to be honest with some of our friends about helping in other ways than money. They are not easy conversations.

There was an announcement at the hospital today that all staff who want to stay are going volunteer. The Board of Directors is trying to work out a memorandum of understanding with the Government of South Sudan. If they can make it work, GOSS will pay some salaries. The Board hopes that GOSS will give preference to workers who have stayed on as volunteers during the interim while the hospital cannot pay them. There seems to be an Italian NGO in the wings which would help the Church administer its part of the operation of the hospital. It might be that all that is needed from us is encouragement to flexibility in negotiating the memorandum of agreement, and a few desparately needed items in the meantime.

We have had good opportunities to talk to people about issues. Debbie S had an important conversation with Bishop Bullen about homosexuality. Most Sudanese think homosexuality is a sin, and if one repents and asks forgiveness all will be well. Debbie stressed that many people in America believe people are born that way, that it is not a choice, that God has made a person one way or another. This seemed genuinely new information to him, but he took it into careful consideration. One step at a time. Also, a young Moru woman who lives in the Church compound came last night and peppered us with questions about family planning. Seems like under previous administrations, the hospital had not been forthcoming with information. Again, here is a real opportunity to make a huge difference in the lives of people.

Still a lot to process, but we will come home with much information to throw in the mix for how future trips might run, and what the needs are.

Dan Handschy posting for Joe Chambers.

The Twilight Zone

2009-01-01T07:16:00.002-06:00

Happy New Year from Lui, Sudan. A different voice today: Dan Handschy

Life in the Lui Cathedral Guest compound has been quiet the last few days after our five companions have headed back to the States through Juba and Kampala. There has been a lot of time for catching up on notes and sermons and the like. Deb G preached the English sermon this morning for Holy Name Day. It was a wonderful sermon about how our name locates us in community (really true here, where children are named by the community at a naming ceremony), and that God has named us with the divine name, and claimed us as God's own. Our Lui friends have named us and claimed us, and we are blessed. Manyagugu told us that on Holy Name Day, people come to church to write their names afresh in God's book of life. What a great image.

Day before yesterday, Deb and I went to the hospital and saw the operating theater, the x-ray room (a shipping container with windows cut in it), and talked to Lois, the head nurse. We saw Charity Vasco, who was in the maternity ward. In the maternity ward, we also saw a mother with a five day old baby. The mother had fallen in the fire and had pretty bad burns on her face and shoulder. We saw John Fulla's uncle, as John was getting ready to take him to Juba for surgery, because the doctor had not yet been to Lui. Don't know if it would have made much difference anyway. In the operating room, they had no suture materials. They also had exactly zero rolls of adhesive tape in the whole hospital. Patients' families could buy it in the market and bring it to the hospital. Someone in Juba is skimming the shipments of supplies to the hospital. A case that should contain 8 rolls will have one or two.

WhenDebbie S got back from Juba, we got the blue supply box out of the store room, andwent through it. We threw away expired medicines, and decided that the mosquito net and trauma suture kit in the box would be better at the hospital. Deb carried them over in the afternoon. Lois nearly wept. She was able to change the dressings on the mother's burns. They hadn't been changed in two days.

This morning, on the way to church (the Moru service, at11:00 a.m.), life got a little more interesting. I noticed six white people under the mango tree. Now I know how strange we look. We got to church a few minutes early, and sat in the south transept. The other white visitors were escorted to the chancel. The usher tried to escort us forward also, but we declined.

When the time came for the introductions, the leader of the other team stood up and introduced them. They were with Sudan Christian Strategic Advocacy. They were in town for the day. He then opened his bible and declaimed to us a word of encouragement. I couldn't quite tell how were were being encouraged, probably because of the interruptions for translation. One of the women of the group got up and held up her bible, and told us that whoever ate food would hunger again, and whoever drank water would thrist again, but whoever drank for the living water of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the bible would never thirst again. It made me wonder how many jerry cans of water Ada and John Leon carry into the compound for us. I worked it out to be about six a day. Another one stood up and asked us all to hold up our bibles. He was encouraged that so many had bibles. I didn't hold mine up.

After church, we all had lunch in the piyat. They said that they were here to look at drilling wells in East and West Mundri. They evidently have a lot of money for that and that is a very good thing. The more wells the better. I guess it's o.k. to thirst after all. Then they said they were also here to teach discipleship. They wanted to train some of the Moru, who could then go to the Nuba Mountains and to Darfur. I guess that's a good thing. Tomorrow, they are coming back for a tour of the hospital. If they have deep pockets (as they seem to for the wells they are drilling) maybe they can do something at the hospital. I want to make sure I'm there when they come.

I'll end this post by pondering the idea of discipleship. When I hear the stories of people like Dean Joseph, and Manyagugu, who stayed on as priests in the Diocese of Lui during twenty years of war, and didn't flee, but made the rounds to the preaching stations to take care of the Christians there; when I hear about Canon Ezra and Morris, who worked on translating the Bible into Moru while the war was going on, and how Canon Ezra was shot trying to get to Juba; when I listen to Gordon and Vasco, who had to farm by night, I realize that I don't know a thing about discipleship. I hope to learn a little here from my Moru friends. I suspect my life is changed forever. I don't know that my Moru friends will be as profoundly changed by know me, as I by them.

And finally, hello to Shelley, Madeline and Lizzy. See you in a week.

2008-12-31T14:00:00.000-06:00

Emily, Tammy and I are at O'hare connecting to our final destinations.

We are tired, but good.

More later. Happy New Year!

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

The journey home

2008-12-28T07:40:00.003-06:00

Believe it or not, 5 of the 8 missioners from Missouri will start heading home tomorrow morning. The trip will take a few days and will be very tiring, so please keep us in your prayers.

I will update this blog on our progress, but we are limited, so you probably won't here from us until Wednesday when we all split up from O'Hare.

The weekend was spent by missioners completing projects and meetings within Lui. It seems like a lot of the focus is already on our next trip and the interim time between. We are doing our best to see where are energy could best be used, and finding ways that we can better communicate between here and Missouri.

This trip has been a lot of many things. It's been powerful, fun, spiritual, prayerful, quiet, loud, long, short, and hot (not really cold, although it did get just a little bit cold one or two nights). Overall it's been very good.

I will encourage Deb and Dan to blog while I am gone, and Debbie will be keeping her blog posted here: stl2lui.blogspot.com.

I am sure I will post a reflection or two after some contemplation from afar, and I will encourage Emily to do the same after she takes the GOE (General Ordination Exams...please keep her in your prayers)!

More later, but for now, araboya for reading!

More Photos...

2008-12-27T02:56:00.003-06:00

Happy Christmas

2008-12-26T07:35:00.002-06:00

Since our team split up yesterday to four separate archdeaconries we didn't have the opportunity to wish you all a virtual Merry Christmas from Lui. So, Merry Christmas everyone! (they say Happy Christmas here)

We spent Christmas Eve at the compound singing Christmas carols (small hymn books compliments of Nancy) and attended the late night Christmas Eve service at the cathedral. The service actually started at midnight, which was new for all of us as we are used to having midnight mass at 10:30 or 11pm.

Yesterday Dan and Deb went to Wandi, Tammy and I went to Kediba, Robert and Nancy went to 'Buagyi, and Debbie and Emily went to Lui Parish.

Every trip was full of festivities highlighted by grand celebrations in and around the churches. In Kediba there were an estimated 3750 people gathered to celebrate Christmas and to greet us as their guest. All of our groups reported large numbers and lengthy celebrations (every service was over 3 hours). Everyone was pretty tired when we gathered back at the guest compound for dinner. It was delightful to greet each other in exhaustion and wonderful to all get a peaceful night of sleep.

Today we attended the ordination of three deacons and six priests. The service was much longer than any of us have ever experienced. It was exhausting. We were hot, hungry, and a little worn out by the time Bishop Bullen stood up to introduce more government officials, distinguish guests, and Bishop Bismark from the Diocese of Mundri, all of whom gave speeches. In the end it lasted four hours, so next time you complain about church being too long just think of the Lui ordinations.

Believe it or not five of us in the group only have two full days left here in Lui. So tomorrow, many of us are wrapping up things from our projects and Sunday we will celebrate together in church for the last time as a team on this trip.

Peace,
Joe

Christmas Eve in Lui

2008-12-24T07:41:00.001-06:00

(new photos below!)

Christmas Eve in Lui: the first Christmas Eve I have ever spent away from home (hi, Mom!) in twenty-six years. Like many Christians, I have always had angst about American Christmas: whether or not to give gifts, where is 'Christ' in the consumer free-for-all, and what to do about Santa Claus. Now, half a world away from the normal traditions, stripped of excess, I am finding Jesus at Christmas for the first time.

Yesterday, I was invited to preach at the monthly meeting of the Mother's Union. Here in Sudan, nearly all 'women's work' - including economic sustainability projects, prayers for new babies, pastoral care for bereaved women, and literacy education - happens through the Mother's Union. Using Mark 16:1-8 (when Mary, Mary Magdalene and Salome are the first to receive the Gospel message of Christ's resurrection), I preached about how 'women's work' was changed with Jesus: that we, as women, are charged to be Gospel-bearers (theotokos) in the world. In the case of Mary, the mother of Jesus, this meant physically carrying God within herself for nine months. For others, it means bearing hope to sisters who are suffering; for me, it often means spending hours preparing sermons in order to bear the Gospel for others.

The work of Gospel-bearing is often excruciating here in Sudan. Jacqlyn, a thirty-four year old deacon, will be ordained a priest on the 26th. Two weeks after she was ordained a deacon in 2004, she was sitting with her mother and sisters and two other female clergy-people on the grounds of this very Cathedral (where we are staying). Some soldiers arrived, incensed by a previous conflict. While her family was able to run, Jacqlyn did not escape and so she was beaten by twelve soldiers. After her recovery, Jacqlyn traveled to Nairobi and was trained for six months in trauma healing and recovery and now runs workshops for women in the area. I am very, very glad to be here at the time of her ordination.

I also met Helen, the local government coordinator for NGO activities in the area. She is also in her early thirties, and spent the twenty-one years of the civil war (from 1982 to 2003) living in bush, traveling from place to place in order to survive. I cannot fathom living that way for twenty-one years; nonetheless, Helen has not only survived - she has returned in order to rebuild her community.

These two women are Gospel-bearers to the people of Southern Sudan. Like the women in Mark 16, Jacqlyn and Helen are witnesses to suffering, and thus are able to participate in the birth of hope into the world.

Merry Christmas.

Peace+,
Emily Bloemker

Photos

2008-12-24T07:36:00.004-06:00

2008-12-23T08:05:00.002-06:00

The last two days have been really busy. The team has been doing a lot of teaching and listening and taking inventory.

Yesterday morning Emily and I both had a lengthy conversation with a group of 25-35 year old church leaders. We were initially told we would be speaking to the youth, so we were a bit surprised when we showed up to see about 25 young adults. The group of mostly men were interested in speaking about life as Christians living in Southern Sudan compared to life as Christians living in the U.S. We spoke about politics, AIDS, action and service, and even managed to sing each other a Christmas song in our mother tongue. Emily and I chose to sing a verse from Silent Night, and in doing so we managed to impress ourselves. It wasn't so much our individual voices that gave us ideas of becoming a touring duet vocal group around Lui Diocese, but the combination of our voices and the fact that we were able to remember the words to the song gave us ideas of stardom!

The fruitful conversation was wrapped in deep theological reflection. The stories we told about our own cultures enriched our understanding of one another and allowed us to feel the love of Christ at work. The deep faith and belief in the Moru people is astounding. It's simply inspiring to be introduced to a way of thinking and living that is so devoted to Christ. It's something so foreign to my eyes that it is hard to believe.

We stressed the importance of the future elections that will decide much of Sudan's future. Each one of them seemed to have a grasp on the political climate and when asked if they were planning to vote, they instantly responded with a resounding yes. But we stressed to them that their work was not just within the group and within the church, but in the unchurched in the community in which they live.

In many ways we are discovering that our cultures have more similarities than differences. Certainly Missouri doesn't suffer from post-war conditions in a tropical climate with no electricity, running water, or adequate heath care, but we do share deeply our desire to learn more about each other and to invite God into that relationship.

Along with Emily and my conversation yesterday with the "youth," Dan and Robert spoken with the candidates for ordination, who will be ordained this Friday, about church administration. One of the topics of conversation was about church insurance. Dan proposed a way that the diocese could come up with their own insurance policy by each individual church agreeing to help the other churches equally if something were to go wrong. The only difference is that the policy would not require each church to purchase anything, or pay a premium or deductible when they made a claim. Dan's obviously on to something! Today Dan and Robert spoke with the ordinands about stewardship, which looks a lot different in the economic conditions that plague this country. Here, stewardship is about so much more than fund raising. Tomorrow, Dan and I will speak to the ordinands about preaching.

Debbie, Deb, Tammy, Emily, and Nancy all attended a special Mother's Union meeting today, where they shared in prayer and stories. Their work here is very powerful and should be known. Emily will post more about this meeting later (hopefully tomorrow), and share with you some of the incredible interviews that she has had with some of the women in Lui.

More to come for sure. I will post pictures tomorrow.

Peace,
Joe

P.S. The roosters are obnoxious.

Farewell to Stephen!

2008-12-22T12:24:00.003-06:00

After nearly two wonderful years, we bade farewell to Rev. Stephen Dokolo on Sunday morning. As I write this, Stephen should be back with his family (wife and 3-year old son!) whom he hadn't seen since leaving to come to Missouri in early 2006.

It was a team effort getting Stephen on his way back to Uganda (and, eventually, Lui). He successfully defended his thesis at Eden Seminary last week and then all that was left was the daunting task of packing. The Rev. Susan Naylor and the stalwart Men of Emmanuel (Webster Groves) packed nearly 600 pounds of books into more than 20 boxes. Eleven suitcases had to be repacked to four suitcases because of holiday extra suitcase limits on Northwest/KLM, with the remnants left behind to be shipped as well (thank goodness Susan has an in with Air Cargo!).

Sandy and Skip Coburn picked Stephen up at 6:30 am and we helped him navigate the check-in procedures and get all his bags where they needed to go. Skip then treated Stephen to a farewell cup of coffee (he probably can't wait to get back to Moru coffee, though from the missives from our missioners in Lui/Mundri, it's probably only a matter of time before Starbucks hits Southern Sudan!), after which we went to the airport chapel and prayed with and over Stephen in thanksgiving for his time with us and in petition for safety for his journey.

We waved goodbye to Stephen and saw his broad, bright smile for the last time (for awhile, at least) as he passed through security.

Thanks to Susan Naylor, Rick Kuhn (and all the Men of Emmanuel), Sandy and Skip Coburn and all those who helped Stephen get on his way. We are so richer for his time with us ... and can't wait to see who Lui sends our way next!

Ama Kado!

2008-12-22T07:29:00.002-06:00

Mede!

I posted some pictures below of the past few days. Enjoy!

Change

The other day at the Mundri Diocesan Office dedication Bishop Bullen spoke about three biggest things that plague Southern Sudan:Ignorance, Poverty, and Disease.

There is no deadlier combination that I can think of that would be worse, unless you brought back the war. But because Sudan is no longer at war and the Moru are no longer forced to live in the bush, rebuilding and creating life is at the center of their focus. There is great evidence that progress has been made in education, health care, and economic development, yet, Lui town is still a place in great need, and the Moru people have many challenges ahead.

One example that is central to building up this community is the "new"road. The road has been redone and is very smooth compared to what it once was. It is a perfect example of things to come as it represents a gateway to new things. It brings in supplies, basic imports, new forms of transportation (the bus pictured below travels to Juba once a day for only $10 U.S.), and connects Lui to the greater world. It's a central part of eliminating poverty, disease, and ignorance. The road brings great promise and is no different than a new road in the U.S. when major roads are built and gateways are established.

In the same address to his people, Bullen said, "Change, Change,Change, you must change, or change will change you."

The progress of the road is one aspect of new life that forces people to change. Since the road is faster, accidents that may cause injury are now a reality, something the Moru have never had to deal with. With any new technology or new advancement in society, there are always new problems and new consequences, so learning how to change is important.

It's going to take hard work and sacrifice to make Southern Sudan a better place, and I have no doubt in my mind that the people of Lui Diocese will step up to the task.

More stories and reflections to come!

Stay tuned!

Peace,
Joe Chambers

P.S. It's 96 degrees in the shade. I hear it's cold back home.

Moru lesson of the day:
Mede- Greetings
Ama Kado- We are good!

Some Pictures!

2008-12-22T07:23:00.003-06:00

A note from Emily

2008-12-21T08:27:00.005-06:00

Greetings from the Diocese of Lui! I am writing at 4:30 in theafternoon, when the air is hot and still but the promise of coolevening beckons. It is a good time of day. The generator, whichDebbie Smith started like a boat motor, is humming in the shed next tothe office (allowing us to write this blog).

What is there to write about Lui? All of the missioners are safe andsound, though we have had a long two days. Yesterday, we attended thededication of diocesan offices in the Diocese of Mundri, approximatelyfifteen miles from here. Compared to 2005 (my last trip to Sudan),the road has greatly improved and all land mines have been removed bya United Nations team. This progress is so hopeful, because smoothroads make for the beginning of other types of infrastructure:bridges, culverts, etc.

The main excitement of the dedication yesterday was that ArchbishopDaniel Deng Bul was present, along with some of his family. He is a'big man', both in stature and in authority. He stands over six feettall, and is built like a linebacker. The Archbishop works hard tohold together a church that is split by political, ethnic and economicdifferences. It was surprising to all of us from Missouri that theArchbishop, within five minutes of our arrival, addressed the remarksthat he made about Gene Robinson at Lambeth. "What I said at Lambeth,this was the feeling of my people, and I was there as representativeof the people of Sudan," explained the Archbishop. "This is notnecessarily my feeling as well." His remarks were very politic, inthat they left open the possibility that the Archbishop's views on theelection and consecration of Gene Robinson are different, or morecomplex, than those of his people.

On his way from Mundri to Juba today, the Archbishop stopped andvisited us at Lui, which was a great honor. I was especiallyfascinated by the story he told of how the women in Sudan upheld thechurch during the war. Archbishop Deng Bul spoke about how, duringbombing raids, women would gather under the trees every morning from4am until 6am in order to pray and to encourage each other, becauseevery day they expected to die. Since the men were off fighting thewar, the women were primarily responsible for the spiritual lives oftheir communities. Mama Deborah, the Archbishop's wife, said thatnow, Sudanese parents teach their children peace and responsibilityfor the rebuilding of their nation. It was a powerful visit.

We hope that you all are well in the United States, and we are sograteful for your prayers.

Peace+,
Emily Bloemker

In Lui

2008-12-19T02:16:00.004-06:00

We are here in Lui!

The team arrived yesterday afternoon from Uganda and were welcomed with great hospitality. The flight to Mundri "International" Airstrip on the Cessna Caravan was delightful, as Laura, our pilot from Missionary Air Fellowship couldn't have been better.

We were greeted with open arms from Bishop Bullen and Vasco, the diocesan secretary, along with many other people that turned a small airfield in South Sudan into a big welcoming party.

We were taken to Mundri to meet with the West Mundri County Commissioner, along with his staff, and had a quick look at some of the recent improvements in Mundri. Most notably were the bridge, cellphone tower, bank, two gas stations, and the new Mundri Diocesan office building that will be dedicated in a ceremony tomorrow led by Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul.

We were introduced to many clergy and leaders in Mundri, as we happened to arrive during the Diocesan Standing Committee meeting, where Bishop Bismark happily welcomed us and made us feel at home.

The road from Mundri to Lui has also been improved. It only took us twenty minutes to travel, where in years past it would have taken much longer. It was smooth and speedy.

Once we arrived in Lui we were welcomed with singing under the mango tree. A perfect end to our long and arduous travels.

Our accommodations are amazing. The Cathedral compound guest quarters offer each one of us a nice space to spread out our things and find comfort. The meals have been wonderful, and the coffee is incredible!

More updates to come for sure, including pictures and voices from other missioners.

It's good to be home in Lui.

2008-12-17T22:16:00.000-06:00

Bridge

We have word that the missioners have now all arrived safely in Kampala. Thanks be to God!

Tomorrow, the entire team will fly into Lui on a small, non-pressurized airplane ... probably similar to the one pictured here (from our 2006 mission).

Then they will land in what we have come to call the "Mundri International Airport." Don't schedule an appointment with your optometrist: You're right that it's merely a rough dirt landing strip. According to my notes, our missioners will leave Kampala at about 7:30 Thursday morming in Kampala (about now, 10:30pm, in Missouri). By the time we awake in Missouri, they should be on the ground in Lui.

If you are trying to follow their schedule, be aware that Lui is 9 hours later than St. Louis. So when it's 10pm in the Central timezone, it's 7am the next day in Lui. The posts here will appear with CDT "timestamps."

You may also want to know about the weather in Lui. Weather Underground has daily weather for Juba, in southern Sudan. Juba is about 50 miles northeast of Lui, so the weather for Juba will probably be pretty close to Lui's. We're running in the teens here, but they're going to see temperatures in the 90s in the next few days.

2008-12-16T13:04:00.000-06:00

On The Journey.

Dan, Tammy, Emily, and Joe are at St. Louis Lambert International about to board a plane for Detroit, where we will catch a plane to Amsterdam.

Deb is in the air on her way to Kampala, and Debie, Robert, and Nancy are awating us all.

We're all very excited and looking forward to trip.

Thank you all for your prayers and support. We look forward to sharing our stories with you.

Peace,
Joe.

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

2008-12-15T16:22:00.000-06:00

And we're off!

The December 2008 Lui mission team from the Diocese of Missouri is set and ready to go. Some missioners are already on their way, while others leave tomorrow, including Emily Bloemker as her ordination to the transitional diaconate is this evening at Christ Church Cathedral in downtown St. Louis.

This is the place to come for text updates, photos, and stories about our trip. Hopefully all of the missioners will have the opportunity to share their own experience on this page and share their own voices of mission.

Please pray for us on this journey as we seek to deepen our relationship with our brothers and sisters of Lui.

Peace,
Joe Chambers

2006-08-02T18:03:00.000-05:00

Lui Fund-Raising

Today our diocese sent out this notice: "The second annual Biking for Lui will be Sept. 30 on the Katy Trail in St. Charles. The event sponsored by Trinity/St. Charles raises funds for the Diocese of Lui, where priests travel by bicycle between their congregations. After the ride, open to riders six and up, everyone is invited to Trinity, 318 S. Duchesne, for a wienie roast, hot chocolate, and s'mores. For more information, call (636) 949-0160. "

What a great idea!! Kudos to you, Trinity & Tamsen!

2006-07-28T20:59:00.000-05:00

Lui Travellers' Reunion

In late June, Sandy hosted a reunion of sorts for those of us who had been to Lui. The big, important trigger was that Deborah had finally returned from her six-month mission to Lui! And we all wanted to see her again and learn what she had experienced, and catch up on the Lui news.

So we all convened at Sandy's house in St. Louis, and it was wonderful to see again the people with whom I had travelled and sweated in Lui, plus those who had been on the trips before & after mine.

Deborah looked so good! And it was great to hear her updates on how things were going in Lui after we left. The rains had come at last! You can read Deb's blog entries at ADVENTure: Sarah's Laughter.

In that delightful evening together -- with so many people who had travelled to Lui -- I was moved again and again. We have all been changed by going to Lui. And we all now share a deep bond together.

I can only hope that our Diocese will keep sending others going to Lui -- and stimulating all our parishioners to remain mindful of Lui.

2006-07-28T20:53:00.000-05:00

Lui Debriefings

After coming home from Lui, I have had several opportunities to talk about that trip.

My first formal presentation to my parish was on the evening of April 6. The folks in my parish generously understood that I would need some time to “come back to earth” after that trip, so they didn't press me to a program too soon after my return. Instead, they gave me almost a month, to do an evening program as part of our Lenten series. I think this was a good program. By then, I had time to gather and sort my photographs. And I pulled together a PowerPoint presentation for them, which I would happily provide to others. We had a big potluck dinner, and something like 60 folks came – which is pretty wonderful, in a parish with an average Sunday attendance of 140. This was an important event for me, as it gave me a chance to talk with my parish about what was accomplished for all the gifts and money and sacrifices they had donated to make my trip possible.

On April 23, I got to do another parish presentation. My April 6 program was more “travelogue” – explaining to folks the nuts and bolts of my trip: how and where we traveled, where we slept, how we bathed, what we ate, who we met, what we did. This Sunday morning program involved all the adults and our middle/high school students, where I focused more on the spiritual insights of my trip. It made me think fleetingly that maybe I could be a preacher -- for a certainly did preach in that 45-minute session. One of the impressive things about the program was the attendance; some people came who are not even parishioners, but had read about my trip in the local newspaper.

I made a very different presentation on May 13. A priest friend of mine is active in Boy Scouts, and they were having Merit Badge University on May 13. He asked me to come into that weekend-long event to give them a program about my trip and Sudanese life. It was very different to talk with these boys about my time in Lui, but I did, and they seemed to be engaged with the story I told them. Of course, in that setting, I did not focus on the church events, but on the spiders and rats and lizards ... but the boys seemed to enjoy it. But I also was able to talk with them about the suffering and grim realities that the people of Lui are enduring, and what that means to us in the U.S. Drawing from that program, a group in Arkansas is now talking with me about doing a similar program for them.

The very next day, on May 14, I had the opportunity join with Rick (who was part of my mission) and Ida (who went on our diocese's next trip) to lead a session at the adult forum at Emmanuel/Webster Groves. We had a very good turn-out, and I was honored to talk to them, in company with Rick & Ida.

Here’s my only disappointment: We and the diocese have done our best to let all the parishes in our diocese know that we are available to make presentations and lead programs about our time in Lui. But sadly, very few parishes in our diocese have asked for us to come. We would come anywhere within our diocese – which means over 100 miles in many cases. But most of our parishes have not expressed interest in having a presentation about our diocese’s work in Lui. That is disappointing. And I don't know what it means for our companion relationship.

2006-07-28T00:00:00.000-05:00

Miscellaneous Reflections

I woke early on Sunday morning -- my first morning back from Lui -- and had the opportunity to make several entries in my Lui journal. I wanted to be ready, in case they asked me to articulate any major themes about my journey. Here are the things that I flagged:

The people in Lui have two feet planted in the Iron Age and two hands reaching toward the 20th [not even the 21st] century:

§ Their "agricultural tools" are merely a hoe and stick
§ The women must spend hours per day grinding grain.
§ Water is 3 miles away -- and the well is nearly dry.
§ There's virtually no machinery ... and they have little understanding of how machinery works. So even assembling the treadle sewing machines was impossible for them ... until Deborah helped them.
§ News & communications travel only at the speed of a walking person or perhaps by bicycle -- much like the U.S. 200 years ago.
§ There's just one computer [an old 486] in the whole diocese of Lui - -powered by a generator and connected to e-mail thanks to a satellite phone from our diocese. But all those connections are very fragile and prone to breakdown. While Deborah's there, they have satellite phone connection to the wider world. But what connection will they have when she (and her phone) leaves?

I visited five villages/archdeaconries (beyond the village of Lui) in my time there:

Kedibah -- burned in September by the Dinka
Wandi -- where the women gave us/Robert a live bird
Mariba -- also destroyed by the Dinka -- where they're now rebuilding with grass, because they're no longer confident of the peace
Buigi
Nideh -- including healing prayers for children with nodding disease

Everywhere we went, people talked about how missionaries -- white people -- have come in the past, promising assistance, but never returned. Now the Diocese of Missouri has sent three groups in three years. And in one of our village talks, one old man said, "We have suffered war for 21 years, and have felt forgotten by the whole world. But now we think maybe we have real friends." We must keep our covenant with this man and this diocese!

Have I talked about their offerings during their worship? We Americans drop our checks and bills into a brass offering plate. But they do not have money. They give what they have: a handful of seeds, some leaves, a pretty rock. We give out of our abundance. But, truly, they give of their hearts.

One of the powerful things that hit me throughout this trip was the difference between being a relatively well-informed person -- one who lives and breathes NPR and PBS vs. one who really knows about the civil war -- who knows people who have had homes bombed, family members hacked to death, John conscripted at age 12 to serve in the SPLA.

2006-07-27T23:46:00.000-05:00

Home in Missouri (Saturday, 4 March 2006)

Father Bob & I arrived in St. Louis around 4:30 p.m. Saturday. To my great surprise, my sister & brother-in-law met me at the airport. Boy oh boy! It sure was wonderful to have family there to meet me! They drove me home, and stayed with me for several hours while I talked and talked and talked about Lui. It sure was helpful to have such good, kind, listening ears to ease me back into my regular life.

That was Saturday evening. I had scheduled my airline itinerary so that I could be home with my parish on Sunday. Though I got home pretty late Saturday, I woke early Sunday [thanks to the Lui time-zone-shift] and eagerly got ready to go to church in my own parish.

Going to church that Sunday was rather bizarre. I got ready as usual, parked as usual, walked in as usual. But as soon as I walked into the nave, I started crying. One dear friend, sitting in the back pew, saw me walking in and gave me a bear-hug, and then I really lost it – just crying and crying and crying. In my time in Lui, I had been vividly aware – much more than I would have anticipated – that folks in my parish were praying for me and bearing me up on those prayers. Being with them again on this Sunday was a most powerful affirmation and reunion. I was home at last, and humbled to be back with them.

2006-07-27T22:56:00.000-05:00

Heading Home (Friday-Saturday, 3-4 March 2006)

Throughout our time together in Lui, our group had salivated about the fantasy of hot food and a cold beer. After we finished the meeting with the Lui representatives, we went back to the Methodist Guest House, then our driver was available to take us to dinner.

Strangely, we Americans in Nairobi, after visiting Sudan, had Chinese for dinner! How funny is that??? But our driver picked the restaurant. So … ok!

It’s really hard for me to talk about that last dinner in Africa with my traveling companions. We had shared so many experiences! And were so bonded! But I also knew that this was the end of that intense experience. I knew that – no matter how much we might wish it different – in the next 48 hours, we would all return to our individual worlds, and would never again feel as close as we had in the past 2 weeks. Sad for me, it was.

Father Bob & I had return plane tickets for that night. Archdeacon Robert, Sandy, and Rick had tickets to return on Saturday. So after dinner, the whole gang accompanied me and Father Bob to the Nairobi airport. We got there around 10 p.m. for our near-midnight departure.

I can’t talk much about those hugs and leave-takings. It was so hard and so sad to leave my companions there.

Then Father Bob & I had to just cool our heels in the Nairobi airport. Not long after we got into the airport, we saw the display saying our flight had been delayed. Oh well. We took turns – one of us wandering around the airport, while the other “kept the other’s seat.”

This struck me when we got into the plane. We had all the usual in-flight announcements, which nobody pays much attention to. But then I heard something different in the script, and began to pay attention. The flight crew was alerting us that – before we departed – they were going to do an industrial-strength “insecticide drop” throughout the aircraft. In other words, they were going to bomb us all with insecticide. They did it, and it wasn’t very noticeable. But it did make me aware again: there are a whole bunch of insects and parasites in Africa, which the First World does not want to have.

I’d like to just skip over the plane ride(s) and jump straight to our arrival in St. Louis. But I think other people have talked about the plane ride. So I guess I have to ‘fess up to it.

I had scarcely eaten anything in Nairobi – just a fried shrimp, a fried dumpling, and part of one beer. But about 30 minutes after our take-off from Nairobi, I realized I was feeling very, very bad. And got sick – projectile vomiting like a scene from The Exorcist. Aargh! It was so embarrassing. The flight attendants took care of it well, but I was seriously chagrined to have made such a mess.

I do wonder what was going-on gastro-intestinally. I had not eaten much. But I continued to have serious gastro-intestinal problems for about 48 hours after getting home. Maybe it’s those plates of salad I ate when we got into Nairobi (as some of my traveling companions opined). Or maybe it’s some bug I picked up. Whatever …. it was darn miserable.

Our flight home left from Nairobi around midnight on the night of 3 March, and we arrived home in St. Louis around 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, 4 March.

Fortunately, my sister and brother-in-law met my flight in St. Louis. I was amazed at how grateful I was to greet warm, friendly faces. Riding home with them, I talked and talked and talked with them – doing a heart-dump on my time in Lui. Folks who visit Lui in the future: be sure someone you love greets you at the airport and takes you home! For, when I returned, I was very eager to talk with others who had visited Lui or would be sympathetic to the trip.

2006-07-27T22:18:00.000-05:00

Wrap-Up in Nairobi (Friday, 3 March 2006)

Big day today. Bigger than I would have imagined. This was the day where we visitors from Missouri were to meet with representatives of the Diocese of Lui and some others the Bishop would invite. I expected it might be maybe us five Missouri visitors with Bishop Bullen and a couple of others from the Diocese of Lui. But no! There were at least 10 people from Lui in that close, hot room with us.

The Episcopal Diocese of Sudan maintains offices in this Nairobi building. Several other groups -- currently expatriated from Sudan -- also have space in this building, including the Roman Catholics of Sudan.

In that very hot room with no breeze blowing [Did I mention it was hot?], these ten (or so) people from Lui explained their situation and talked with us about their needs. Others in the meeting surely took more thorough notes than I did. They impressed me with the depth of their needs and the urgent need for us to bring assistance as soon as possible.

This is a shot of about half the group:

I think all – or least most – of these folks had moved from Lui to Nairobi. But that does pose a question and a challenge. When war came to Lui, many folks fled. I’m not sure what was involved in that flight. But I do sense – and so did others in our mission group – that the people back in Lui are starting to feel irritated by these people who are still hanging-out in Nairobi and other cities outside Sudan. While the Moru in Lui are suffering without power, water, or food, their compatriots – and some of the leaders of the non-governmental organizations – are living in Nairobi where they have vehicles, refrigeration, air-conditioning, power, and – more importantly – food, water, and schools. I sense that it’s the “elite class” and the educated people that fled to Nairobi and beyond when civil war began devastating Lui. But now – if Lui is going to be rebuilt – they really need to go home to Lui. But what would you do? Especially if you had children. Would you leave the relative comfort and safety of Nairobi to go home to the primitive conditions in Lui? I hope I would, but I can’t be sure. What will they do? And how can re-building really take hold in Lui if the more educated and affluent people don’t go home? There are no easy, facile answers to those questions. But they are the questions that we began to raise in our meeting with the “Lui leaders” in this session.

One of the men –with the Sudan Humanitarian Service – made a powerful statement in that regard. He said, “You see us here today in suits and ties, but we are refugees.” His comment hit home for me. These guys [and, yes, most of them in that session were men] have done their best to survive. But they do still feel homesick for Lui. They want to go home, and they want to help their people.

Education is a huge issue. Several of the Lui leaders mentioned it. There’s a terrible shortage of schools, and a problem with the quality of education offered in the few schools there are. One man mentioned that only 27% of school-age children in Lui are able to attend school. That’s a problem that we can and should address.

Health care is another big issue. Lui is fortunate to have the Samaritan’s Purse Hospital located there - -and thanks be to God that it’s there! But the travel logistics are so primitive that it takes many, many hours to carry a person to the hospital – carried on a person’s back, or maybe (if you’re lucky) on a bicycle. Strangely, transportation is the key issue that stands between the Moru and reasonable health care. There should be a way to deal with this!

Millennium Development Goals. This was strange to me. As an American, up to that time, I had heard very little about the UN’s MDGs. But a majority of the speakers that day spoke of the MDGs … what they promise … what needs to be done to achieve them in Sudan. Thanks be to God, and thanks to Michael Kinman, the Episcopal Church this year made a strong commitment to the MDGs. I hope their benefits will finally begin to make a significant difference in the lives of the people of Lui.

Agriculture. Several folks spoke about these problems. They recognize the soil is depleted. They’re getting sparser yields using the current, traditional methods and tools, but aren’t sure how to improve the situation. They have a desire to explore “agri-business” as a way to provide food sufficiency in Lui and generate income for the Diocese and the people, but not sure how to proceed. For instance, they have lots of mangoes, which arrive all at once, but many go to waste because they have no way to preserve or transport them. They sense there may be export options, but don’t even know how to begin exploring those.

It was somewhat overwhelming to hear all these people – one after another – list their needs, hopes, and problems. I wish had wise words to say here. But I don’t. I don’t feel we got any resolution about all these issues, nor that we charted a way that our companion relationship can move things forward. That was sad. Desperately disappointing. I just hope our diocese -- and the many other Episcopal dioceses and humanitarian groups operating in Sudan -- can begin to provide significant, sustainable development before the people of Lui despair or die.