Lulului: Back to Lui

I have never blogged before. After years of hiding my journals and periodically ripping them to recyclable shreds, it seems counterintuitive to journal publicly. And besides, the blogs I read online are all so profound, so rich with spiritual insight... What a burden of expectation. But I am off to Lui in Western Equatoria, Sudan, on Sunday as part of a mission team from the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri to visit friends in our companion diocese, the Diocese of Lui in the Episcopal Church of Sudan, and I want to stay in touch with friends and family and also preserve something of the daily experience for myself. So here goes.

The town of Lui and the diocese named after it lie northwest of Juba, the capital of Southern Sudan, and southwest of Rumbek, a regional center. To get there, our team will fly into Kampala, Uganda, on commercial airlines, and then fly to the airstrip nearest to Lui, in n

earby Mundri, via MAF, the Missionary Air Fellowship. Eight of us are making the trip -- introductions of the rest of the team later, when I have their permission. Three of us are going as far as Kampala a couple of days before the rest of the team to make arrangements and scout out what resources are available in Uganda. I'm excited to get a little time in a new city.

This page is called "Back to Lui" because I visited Lui in the spring of 2003, when the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement were still engaged in the decades-long civil war that left millions dead and millions more displaced. Of our team of eight, six of us have been to Lui before. I'm expecting big changes in the town since I was there because expansion and development have followed on the heels of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the GOS and the SPLM. In case you're wondering, Darfur is a long way away, as is Khartoum, the historic capital of Sudan and seat of the unified government of Sudan.

Here's a picture of the town of Lui just so you can imagine where we'll be. (Click to enlarge it!) I probably won't be uploading photos from Lui even though I'll be taking lots of them. Notice that the road through Lui is not paved. The town likewise has no running water, no electrical grid, and no cell phone service. The church has a solar-powered computer and satellite-borne Internet access. Extended families live in compounds of several small mud-and-grass houses surrounded by a fence. The Moru people of Lui are farmers, in contrast to the better-known Dinka (think Lost Boys of Sudan) from farther east, who are famous for their large white cattle.