Countdown to Lui

Our two teams are leaving August 11 and August 20, respectively. I am particularly excited that the materials and tools to put a roof on the long-unfinished Lunjini Chapel are expected to arrive in Lui this weekend, and the work will be done with supervision by professionals from Missouri and Lund and labor by Moru carpentry trainees. These guys learned and produced a lot last November under the instruction of Carl Rapp and Gary Johnson; Carl is going back to work with them along with Tim Baker on the first part of the August mission and Rick Kuhn will take over for the second part, along with Swede Nils Winqvist. Having two teams lets us -- as a group, if not individually -- stay long enough to get this done.

If you have been following my blog for a long time, you know about the development of our connections with the Diocese of Lund in the Church of Sweden and Blackmore Vale Deanery in the Diocese of Salisbury, C of E. Lund's relationship with Lui predates Missouri's, but we have had the pleasure of watching Blackmore Vale's relationship emerge. In 2009, they sent two team members along with our very large team, and they have had people on all the trips we've been on since then (except Dan and Ev's month in 2011 and Wayne's and my trip in June of 11 for Bishop Bullen's funeral), and they led one trip of their own that had only one Missourian. They have concentrated more and more on efforts to help with education in Lui, and this trip, Jeannie Stevens is returning for the third training with preschool teachers. In the past, other team members have worked with her; this time she hopes to have previously trained Moru women help her train teachers for new preschools.

Annette Joseph will be leading a preachers' conference on using the common lectionary during the first team's time in Lui, perhaps with help from other missioners. Martha Colville will be the team doctor for the first group, and Eva Winqvist, trained as a midwife, will take over the medic role for the smaller second group. Dan Smith is officially the team leader but will only be on the ground for the second part of the trip; Ev Smith is the actual leader for the first part. Ev will also head up the adult ESL team, which will include Carrie Lewis from Blackmore Vale and Missourians Cyndy Rapp, Krista Baker, me, and everyone else we can pull in as they're available.

Everyone has been working hard to prepare, and I think we're ready to go. There is a little instability in South Sudan, especially in Jonglei State, far from Lui, where long-term fighting over cattle raiding and kidnappings between the Murle people on one hand and the Nuer and to a lesser extent the Dinka, continues, with complications from a rebel group and the SPLM. The media keeps predicting problems in Juba because President Kiir dismissed VP Riek Machar and his entire cabinet, but so far that seems to have passed peacefully. In any case, Juba, though "only" 100 miles from Lui, is five hours away over a very bumpy dirt road, and there is little reason to think Moru culture will be much disrupted by the government's internal goings on.

The team blogs from luinetwork.ning.com. Anyone can read it; join to comment.

Going Back to Lui

Wayne and I went to Lui in June 2011 for Bishop Bullen's funeral. Bishop Stephen was consecrated in July 2011. He and Lillian came to St. Louis and stayed with us from our diocesan convention till mid-December in 2011, and Lillian and I participated in the UN Commission on the Status of Women events via Anglican Women's Empowerment in February-March of 2012. Last summer I gave up the DioMO coordinator role for the Missouri-Lui-Blackmore Vale-Lund relationship and left the AFRECS board. I have stayed much more involved in both our local Lui doings and the ECS-focused activities of TEC than I expected, and now I'm most likely going back in August. This time I will be going to teach English and train English teachers; the organization and leadership of the trip won't be on me.

To see what's happened in the relationship since I last wrote, check out the Lui Partners site. 

Catching Up -- the Death of Bishop Bullen Dolli

I haven't been good about writing here because the Diocese of Missouri gets the Lui news better from the Ning blog. Since Bishop Bullen's surgery in Nairobi, he was in ICU for a couple of weeks and then was stepped down to the High Dependency Unit, from which he was to be flown back to Lui Hospital on December 14th. Sadly, he died in the Nairobi hospital on the 11th.

All along, I've been corresponding with Stephen about helping to pay the part of the hospital bill we hadn't already paid (so, as I understand it, the body could be released); we had sent money to MAF-Kenya for the medical flight back to Mundri, and that money was converted into hospital bill money when the flight was no longer needed; I think other friends were going to front the balance until funds arrived from us, Lund, and Blackmore Vale to cover it.

I do not know what other assistance they may have received from NGOs, church friends, and the Moru people, but I learned today from a friend at ECS that the bishop's body will be flown to Juba tomorrow, rest in the cathedral for prayers, and then be returned to Lui for burial and the funeral this weekend. I'm not sure how this fits with our understanding that the funeral is usually about a month after the burial. I also don't know how soon the process will begin to elect a new bishop; I'm sure whatever would normally happen will be affected by the referendum, which is supposed to be January 9th. In any case, I guess we can infer -- since the body is being released -- that the hospital bills have been paid.

I will remember Bishop Bullen for his amazing stories of survival and witness, for a few famous sayings, like "if you don't change, change will change you" and (about the mosque in Lui) "it's a house of prayer, but only the mosquitos worship there now," and for his tenacity and his charismatic ability to make friends. Bullen Dolli, rest in peace.

For more about Bishop Bullen:
http://www.diocesemo.org/news/2010/12/11/bullen-dolli/
http://www.lui.anglican.org/index.php?PageID=newsbpbullen

Bad News

Cross-posted from Ning -- if you read it there, don't bother here...

Today Stephen wrote me that Bishop Bullen is doing very badly and in fact is in the intensive care unit of the hospital in Nairobi. Then Rebecca Coleman, the missionary from the Diocese of Salisbury who is working with Archbishop Daniel in Juba, wrote that Bishop Bullen's diagnosis is confirmed as cancer and he's expected to be returned to Juba, perhaps tomorrow. 

Lui Bits and Pieces from Around the Web

Here is the blog of a young Moru man from Mundri who's in Alabama to be educated. If you follow this blog back to 2006, you will find a story from Bishop Bullen Dolli and also a description of a 2006 visit to the US by Stephen Dokolo, Jeffreys Kayanga, and two others: http://bullensblessings.blogspot.com/

Here's a news story about that visit: http://www.therandolphleader.com/articles/2006/04/19/news/629-sudanese.txt

Here are some photos of Lui during the war from Frontline Fellowship: http://www.frontline.org.za/photo_browerwindows/photo_gallery_sudan.htm

Here's a story about Canon Ezra's translation of the Bible into Moru. I'm not sure how this connects with the idea that Morris and Scopas finished the work -- can someone fit the pieces of the story together for me? http://www.frontline.org.za/news/thegreatest_gift.htm

And here you will find a 2004 story about the work of Samaritan's Purse at Lui Hospital: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week739/feature.html

If only we had known: a story on the conflict and violence between the Dinka IDPs and the Moru hosts in 2005: http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article11899

Bicycles, Cross-Posted from the Lui Ning Blog

I have gotten more positive feedback regarding my post about the great bicycle miscommunication than any other post ever. I'm copying it here because I'm not sure how many of the followers of this blog are on in the Ning group where I originally posted it. Before I do that, though, here's an update on Bishop Bullen (since I've also been posting those to the Ning blog): After a trip to Juba for blood pressure treatment and two hernia surgeries by Dr. Fabio at Lui Hospital, he was rushed to Juba to the hospital late last week and then flown to Nairobi on Saturday. There doctors are still examining him and considering what to do; I'm not sure what the problem is now, but it seems to be abdominal.

Here's the bicycle post:

The Diocese of Missouri has been holding the funds raised by "Biking for Bikes" at Trinity St. Charles, along with other contributions from bikes, including some from Trinity Central West End and one from St. Peter's Ladue for the dean, for some time. (Sorry if there are other donors that I don't know -- please feel free to add in comments!)

We've gotten mixed messages about the need for additional bikes in Lui: The diocesan staff, eager to pursue other transportation projects such as a much-needed new Land Cruiser for the diocese and a dump truck to enable them to do building and marketing projects, told us we had bought enough bicycles, and we were considering the possibility of turning the money to other transportation needs with the permission of the donors. However, we've been asking pastors and youth from around Lui Diocese in our conferences for several visits now, and it has become clear that not all of them share the vision of the central administrative staff because so many are still traveling many miles and many hours on foot. One pastor this month walked 11 hours to get to our pastors' conference.

So earlier this fall, we transferred all our bicycle money to the Diocese of Lui to buy 30 new bicycles and one motorbike. The bikes were to be divided evenly among the seven archdeaconries for use by anyone who needed one to make a long trip. The motorbike was for the diocesan youth coordinator, who has to be able to get to all seven archdeaconries. And so we were thinking surely four bikes per archdeaconry would be enough to share, and we could turn some of that fundraising energy to other projects.

Enter the second misapprehension in this story: While we intended the bikes to be held in common, Lui Diocese has something of a pecking order for bicycle distribution. Over the years, various organizations, including our friends in the Diocese of Lund in the Church of Sweden, have donated many bicycles to the Diocese of Lui, and they have been given to individuals in order of rank and seniority, or something like that. Our most recent gift of bikes was incorporated into that scheme of distribution. So while we were expecting all the pastors at our conference in Lui this month to have ridden bikes if they came far, we found out that most of them had walked while the archdeacon at home kept the bike. And they were kind of unhappy that we'd been giving bikes out and they didn't get one. So Stephen and I went into their conference to explain what each of us had intended, and I think it was actually a really useful moment because it gave us Westerners a clearer understanding of Moru culture, and it gave the bikeless pastors hope that they'd be next in line. Meanwhile Stephen and I both urged the holders of bikes to share. (I should add that one of the bikes when to the diocesan Mothers' Union leader.)

I hope that's not more than you want to know about the reality of our visits to Lui and the facts about raising money for bikes! The bottom line is that more bicycles ARE needed in Lui Diocese if congregations still want to raise money for them.

This is where I should be uploading photos of bicycles. Rick and I both saw them on Stephen's camera, a great, joyous ceremony and celebration of bicycle distribution to 30 people at Fraser Cathedral. But something is wrong with Stephen's camera and we couldn't upload anything he's taken for the past year, hard as we tried. So sorry -- I'm sure you'd rather have one great picture than my thousand words here!

Home Again Home Again

Emily, Rick, and I spent a lovely 24 hours in the air traffic system and arrived home this afternoon right on time. As I write this, our English and Swedish friends should be in the air on their way home too. Thanks to everyone for their prayers through this trip. We look forward to sharing our experience in the Diocese of Missouri and beyond.