Easter in Bor Diocese

From Robin Denney, Sudan:

This Easter trip to Bor is actually a peace and reconciliation and evangelism trip, as well as the Archbishop’s official visit to the Diocese of Bor, and the new Diocese of East Twic, just instituted today, April 13! We are about 75 miles north of Bor, and will continue to travel the rest of the week up further, returning to Bor.
This is Jonglei State, which has suffered from a lot of deaths from cattle raiding --750 died last month, and another 40 were killed in one village on Palm Sunday. This trip was put together to talk about peace and reconciliation in the Christian context. Since 90% of the population here is Episcopalian, it has particular impact!
We are traveling with the Archbishop, his wife, Mama Deborah, three other bishops, about 30 assorted pastors and staff, and a marching, dancing choir of about 150. The choir travels in two big open trucks.  There is a pickup with a generator and sound system for the rallies, so we make quite a convoy!
In other news, there was some trouble in Juba since we’ve been in Bor. No one was hurt, but a group of soldiers under one Commander in the southern army defected to join the northern army. This is a worrying development, as it shows some of the old dis-unity coming alive. The soldiers loaded onto a barge in Juba and headed north, apparently peacefully. Prayers for peace continue to be order!
I hope you all had a wonderful Holy Week and Easter,
Robin

National Geographic, "The Forgotten Faithful"

From Rev. Michael W. Ridgway, St. Stephen’s-in-the-Field:

Followers of Jesus for nearly 2,000 years, native Christians today are disappearing from the land where their faith was born.

Read the article The Forgotten Faithful authored by Don Belt of National Geographic republished on the “Friends of Sabeel” website here.

And keep in mind that Naim Ateek, the head of Sabeel and author of the book: A Palestinian Cry for Reconciliation will be in the Bay Area July 24-26, preaching at Grace Cathedral at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday, July 26.

Tell a Friend – Make a Difference

From Rev. Jerry Drino, Hope With Sudan:

Lost Boys of the Sudan Documentary

This Sunday, May 31 KTEH, Channel 54 at 6:00 pm,, will present their documentary, “The Lost Boys of the Sudan.” Facing genocide as little boys, Peter Nyok and Simon Kuir Deng will relate the flight from their villages in Sudan when they were seven, running for weeks with other boys to Ethiopia where they stayed with nearly 40,000 other boys for three years. At ten they were forced back into Sudan and down into Kenya walking over a thousand miles and confronting death by Government troops and wild animals. After five months they came to Kakuma Refugee Camp where they continued their education while living on the brink of starvation for ten years. They were resettled with sixty other former Lost Boys and Girls in San Jose starting in 2001. Tell a friend and go to www.hopewithsudan.org where you can make a donation to support the orphans they have brought down into Kenya and Uganda to get an education. Donations can also be sent to Hope With Sudan, 5028 Hyland Ave, San Jose, CA 95127

Appeal to the International Donor and Diplomatic Community in the Sudan

From the Rt. Rev. Daniel Deng Bul, Archbishop and Primate of the Province of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan:

4th May 2009

I, Daniel Deng Bul, Archbishop and Primate of the Province of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan and Bishop of the Diocese of Juba, am personally appealing to the international donor and diplomatic communities, on behalf of the entire Church and the entire country, for increased support and action in safeguarding the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).

Over the past year I have undertaken major tours of Southern Sudan, covering almost all of Equatoria, Lakes State and Jonglei State. During these visits I have witnessed first hand the suffering of my people and the increasing fear of communities on the ground because of a situation of ever-increasing insecurity. In the Church’s opinion, this is the biggest problem in Sudan today, and prevents any further material or economic development, as well as the free and fair elections desperately needed in February 2010 and the referendum on Southern secession scheduled for 2011.

Peoples in Western and Central Equatoria are being attacked, murdered and displaced by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), rumoured to be supplied by people within Sudan. A large number of civilians in Eastern Equatoria, Lakes and Jonglei states are armed. The proliferation of modern weapons has caused traditional tribal conflicts over cattle ownership and grazing rights to increase and escalate into far bloodier warfare all over Southern Sudan – warfare that is now damaging the unity of the people and the CPA process as a whole. Last week a large weapons cache was apprehended in Lakes State and there are rumours of trucks loaded with weaponry heading north out of Juba to fuel tribal violence in Central Equatoria State.

The only conclusion one can draw is that these are ancient disputes that are being deliberately stirred up into something much more damaging for the local people and the stability of our country as a whole. Who is doing this is still largely unknown, but it is evident from local reports received through the Church network that the arms smuggling, re-armament and incitement of tribal violence is being carried out by enemies of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).

During Easter 2009, I visited Jonglei State, travelling from Bor right up to Ayod in the Nuer lands. Although I and the vast majority of the party I was travelling with are Dinka, we were welcomed, and I as a Church leader spoke about love and peace between tribes. On my return to Juba I was informed that following the visit all cattle raiding and violence in the Ayod area has ceased. I take this as proof that the Church is one of the most effective ground-level players in the peace process and as proof that our message of love and reconciliation is one that is most effective in peace building amongst the tribes of Southern Sudan.

The Church has a presence in almost all small villages in the South, coverage unmatched by any organisation, including the Government of Southern Sudan and the SPLA, which in most cases are no longer able to keep the peace on the ground. The army is largely absent from effected areas, the police are too few to provide adequate security to even the County Commissioners, let alone the people, and therefore the government is in danger. As evidence of this I cite the fact that the police in Twic East County of Jonglei State were not able to contain local violence even during my visit to the area.

I am therefore making a passionate and heartfelt appeal to those governments and organisations that form Sudan’s diplomatic and donor community, in particular the United Nations agencies and the governments of the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Netherlands, all of which have a major presence in Southern Sudan and are guarantor signatories of the CPA.

As guarantors you have a duty to prevent this nation from returning to war, and I urge you to consider very seriously the churches as key partners in the work of peace-building on the ground. This is a problem that requires an ecumenical approach – all churches need to be supported by international stakeholders in the CPA to be tools of peace building on the ground. With our community-level network that surpasses any other, we need to be empowered to spread peace in this land as I have been doing in Jonglei State last month. We must teach our people that they are part of much bigger politics of which they are unaware, but which they are destabilising. They must also be empowered to make free and fair democratic choices in the upcoming elections and referendum.

My worry, and the fear of many thousands of people I have spoken to across Southern Sudan in the past year, is that the current escalating violence will add to the current disputes between the National Congress Party (NCP) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) over the North-South border and the Abyei Protocol, that are already threatening to cause the CPA to collapse. If the CPA is not guaranteed now, war can start again all too quickly, during which a return to peace will be incredibly difficult, the Sudanese people will be further devastated and the whole region will be destabilised.

If you are guarantors of the CPA, then why is the international community allowing this violence to continue? I beseech you to act now to prevent it and protect the peace of my people.

Yours in the love and peace of Christ,

The Most Rev. Dr. Daniel Deng Bul Yak
Archbishop and Primate of the Province of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan

Nanyuki Spinners and Weavers

From Claudia Ward - All Saints', Carmel:

In 2001 while in Kenya, a friend discovered Annah Warature and the Nanyuki Spinners and Weavers through a chance encounter. Being a spinner herself she sat and spun with the ladies and when she left she shipped home a bunch of their products which we then sold, returning the proceeds to Africa. My friend and I belong to Anne’s Web, a spinning guild here in Monterey County and since then the guild adopted the ladies in Kenya as a woman to woman project and we have individually and corporately sent them money for several years. We also continue to sell their products which they ship from time to time.

At some point I discovered that Margo Sisler, a fellow member of All Saints, Carmel, was involved with a knitting group in Nanyuki that obtain their yarns from the Spinners. Margo, until recently, has gone to East Africa annually for many, many years. After our serendipitous discovery, she hand carried the money and small gifts to the ladies every time she went. Also, my friend went back two or three more times.

We discovered that Becky Adams, the daughter of the Rev. Wayne Adams, retired pastor of Cypress Community Church in Corral de Tierra, founded and runs an orphanage in Nairobi. Wayne has visited the Nanyuki ladies several times when in Kenya to help his daughter. When All Saints and another church in New Jersey sent money to buy additional grazing land, Mr. Adams handcarried the money, helped Annah, the project director, make the purchase and open a bank account to which we could wire money in the future, making it much easier to help them.

Since the Rev. Adams retired, he has founded an organization called Hands of Hope International. Its main project has been Becky's orphanage but it has other projects as well and one of those is the Nanyuki Spinners and Weavers. The beauty of this arrangement is that any donation through Hands of Hope is tax deductible. They wire funds to Africa at no cost.

Now the story gets better. I am a co-supervisor of the Monterey County Wool Show. For the past several years we have had a display on this African project. At the 2008 fair a man came up to me and told me about his daughter, Megan, going to Kenya that fall on a Rotary scholarship. She is studying how to help women's organizations market themselves.

The big obstacle to financial success for this organization has been their limited access to international markets. Until recently they relied on the safari trade which was decimated after 2001. The political turmoil in Kenya in 2008 and now the world economic situation have continued to exacerbate their problems.

The most exciting news is that Megan is in touch with an organization out of Santa Cruz called Rising International which sells the products of artisans like our group from around the world. I connected Megan with the ladies in Nanyuki. She has been there, met Annah and placed an order which has now been shipped to Rising International. Pray that this organization has success in selling the rugs which have been the staple product of this organization. It is connections like this that will lead to financial success for this women’s cooperative.

If you are interested in being involved with the Nanyuki Spinners and Weavers project or would like to see some of their products, please email Claudia Ward: claudiajo@redshift.com.

England Visit Report with Photos

From the Rev. Canon Brian Nordwick:

View Bishop Mary’s visit to England with photos, please click on the following link: http://www.edecr.org/companion/Companion-TriadUpdate-20090513.pdf