What We Did in Lui When We Were on Our Own

Last week right after I posted my Lui Parish video, I spent a long time posting photos, but then my Internet Explorer crashed and I lost hours of waiting for photos to upload and arranging them with commentary. I had been clicking 'save now,' but I didn't find a saved file. With the deadline for May trip applications this past Friday, I have a renewed desire to communicate, so I'm going to try again now...



The photo above is the mango tree in front of Frazer Cathedral. It's a gathering place for just about everybody. Anytime we had nothing in particular to do, we might go out and sit under it and just see who would show up. Sometimes it was little kids, sometimes Bishop Bullen -- we never knew till they came. There was another mango tree in front of our compound, but that one was used mostly by the Bishop and clergy. I don't know why.



Some of us spent quite a bit of time in the computer room in Lui. Here Joe is in front of Gordon's computer, probably resizing photos so he could upload them to the LuiNotes blog. Joe did a lot of work on the computers, as did Robert, while they were there. About a month after we came home, the BGAN satellite was moved. Nobody notified us or Lui Diocese, so Vasco called to tell me, and it has taken a couple of weeks to find out what happened. Fixing it will require climbing on the roof and manually resetting the satellite dish's orientation. Not being able to communicate by email is wildly inconvenient as we are working on getting the grinding mill going and also planning the May trip to Lui.






Something else we did a lot of was wander around. At left, Robert shows off the beehive he bought at the craft shop of the upper primary school (I think that must be a bit like middle school). Below, the carpenter at the shop we went to on our way home from Lunjini school.







We ordered eight small mahogany boxes at the carpenter shop and went back for them the next day. When we got there at the appointed time, the carpenter and his people had finished a box or two and had the rest in process. We waited a very long time. Eventually Vasco came looking for us.






Another favorite destination was the market, right. Here you can see the doughnuts we discovered. We bought so many of them in our afternoon excursions that Christina and Ada finally started feeding them to us for breakfast. In the background you can see other stalls; it was amazing how much was available in "downtown Lui" -- fabric, plastic pails, chips, candy, readymade clothing -- but there wasn't any chocolate in the entire town.



The most fun we had when we were on our own was sitting and visiting. Here Emily is holding Harriet, the baby daughter of Betty, who is one of the Lunjini teachers the Diocese of Missouri is supporting. Harriet was sick when we arrived in Lui; Emily made friends with her family, who live in a tukul in front of the guest compound, and came to Deb concerned for Harriet. The two of them went to the tukul with rehydration solution, and Harriet quickly got better. Betty sat with us a long time talking about the school, and she came back later and chatted with Deb, Dan, and me about the U.S. and how we get our food, among other things.


If you've been reading my blog all along, you might remember that Emily very gracefully wove a piece of blue Emil Frei stained glass from St. Timothy's into her Christmas Day sermon at Lui Parish because of the two parishes' sister relationship. Today she came to St. Timothy's and worked into her transfiguration sermon our escape from our minders that day, when we managed to walk back to Lui town down the dusty road. It was beautiful symmetry.

Greetings from Lui Parish

Now that the greetings from Lui Parish in the Diocese of Lui have been officially delivered to St. Timothy's Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Missouri, I feel comfortable putting the video on my blog so others can see it too. One important thing I didn't say in my presentation at church this morning is that the piece of blue glass that Emily holds up in her sermon is glass from Emil Frei, the maker of St. Timothy's stained glass windows. The glass has a Christmas-themed image and message, so it's especially appropriate that we delivered it to Lui parish on Christmas day. Having something from us to hold in their hands seemed to mean a lot to the people in church that Christmas morning. I have to give Emily a lot of credit for figuring out how to incorporate the piece of stained glass into her sermon so gracefully. Also, for those of you who are looking forward to the arrival of Margaret next fall to study at Eden Seminary (God and the admissions office willing, of course), she is the woman who explains about the existing church and the plans to build a new one. Here's the video:

Power

Today I attended a lecture by Dr. Nancy Kinney, an associate professor of political science and public policy administration at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, entitled "Aiding the 'Other' Sudan: Complexities of NGO Involvement." Nancy was one of the eight missioners to Lui on the December 2008 trip; she was working on professional research about the effectiveness of nongovernmental organizations in developing countries, specifically in Southern Sudan. She gave an excellent talk.

It's tempting to write a summary of the entire talk, because Nancy raised many issues that we need to keep in mind. But I'm sure she'll publish her research and we can read it in her own words, which will be a much better thing than me trying to summarize. There was one point, though, that I want to put in writing here and now:

In looking at the benefits and drawbacks of long-term relationships between an NGO (or in our case the church) and some portion of the developing world -- and she had laid the groundwork of contrasting our sense of being in relationship with Lui, of being there for the long haul, with other types of relief and development in which the organization does an identified R/D task and gets out -- Nancy articulated what for me is the problem in what we're doing, which until that moment had just been a vaguely troubling back-of-the-mind sense that something was not quite right: She pointed out that focusing on the relationship overlooks the power differential between the two parties. And that is just it. We can insist that the relationship is what matters to us, and I think we do that in complete sincerity, but in the end, we have the money.

We can't make that untrue. We try to negate the power differential by observing -- quite rightly -- that we 'catch faith' from our Moru friends, that in spiritual terms, they bring as much to the table as we do. In fact, missioners to Lui often observe that they are receiving much more than they give. (Nancy used the term 'reverse mission' for that effect.) In a perfect world, that would do it, and the money wouldn't matter. But since we live in this world, I have to ask if the spiritual equality in the relationship really offsets the power differential inherent in the financial disparity. How can we (Americans and Sudanese alike) let go of our awareness of secular, this-worldly power and truly live into our equality as God's beloved?

Announcing... The May Trip!

Today the announcement and application form for the May trip from the Diocese of Missouri to the Diocese of Lui went online. Here's a teaser: The Companion Diocese Committee is pleased to announce the next mission trip to Lui Diocese in South Sudan. Tentative dates for the trip are May 16, 2009, to June 3, 2009. We are looking for people from the Diocese of Missouri who are deeply committed to their faith and open to cross-cultural experience, and who want to further the relationship between Missouri and Lui. To read on and find the application form, visit our diocesan website.


Meanwhile, all kinds of other things are under way. We have estimates for the many expenses related to the grinding mill for which we have a UTO grant, and we are working on putting together a comprehensive proforma invoice. The hope is that our friend Stephen Dokolo can shepherd it to Kediba next month. We are watching developments on many political fronts. Spring walks and bicycle rides to raise money for Lui are in the planning stages. And the most recent set of missioners are accepting invitations to speak in parishes or other venues to anyone interested in hearing about the trip, Lui, and South Sudan. To arrange for a speaker, you can email me and I'll try to help you set something up.

Tammy and I loved this sign we saw in Juba. We fully concur with the hopes of GOSS as portrayed here.


Here are some more photos from the recent trip. Imagine IDPs (internally displaced persons) from Mundri Diocese and beyond inserted along the margins and in the centers of all of them, because since our team was in Lui, the Ugandan rebel group that calls itself the Lord's Resistance Army has advanced on Moruland and wrecked havoc in the villages of Mundri Diocese, causing IDPs to pour into the Lui Diocese. We hardly recognized Lui on the recent trip because of the extensive development; we might not recognize it now because of the state of emergency. If you want to read about that, check out the Salisbury Link's very up-to-date news. And, apropos of nothing, if you want to read an overview of the current state of Sudan with regard to the CPA (comprehensive peace agreement signed in January 2005 by the government and the southern leadership to end the civil war), Chatham House, a British NGO, has a very impressive and helpful report. By the way, if you didn't see the faithful, generous coverage Episcopal Life Online gave our mission, check out reporter Joe Bjordal's story. We are supposed to be featured in the print edition of Episcopal Life in March.




Photos from December/January 2008-9


We go to church a lot in Lui, and never more than in the Christmas season. Here on the left is Bishop Bullen, seated, and Chancellor Nathaniel, standing, with the ordinands facing them. The chancellor had the responsibility of reading anything pertaining to canon law (we think!) during the ordination. At right, the choir prepares before the ordination. Both photos were taken in Frazer Memorial Cathedral in Lui on December 26, 2008. Below, a look at the state of the drums they're using... and check out the close-up of cathedral pews.





We wrote about the wonderful bread we ate most mornings, and we think it came from this bakery (center), which was the project of CHF International (an NGO) with funding from USAID, as you can see. At left, a more famous NGO (Oxfam) supported the development of a restaurant in Lui market, and at right, chicks cluster around a feeder in the chicken house UTO funded for the Lui Diocese Mothers' Union. Both CHF and Oxfam have moved their operations out of Lui Diocese. We wonder why. If you're interested in NGOs and their work in South Sudan, and you are in or can come to the St. Louis area, be sure to catch Dr. Nancy Kinney's lecture on her research in this area at UMSL February 5th, 2009. Some of that research happened on our December/January trip!



Of course there's also private enterprise. At left, Joe watches the carpenter at the shop down the road from Lunjini School. Center: Someone must own these goats that rove the compound. They are tasty. Right: Bundling grass or firewood for sale will bring in a few pounds.


Finally, who can resist kid photos? The children of Lui are as adorable as any you'll see around the globe. Here are a few of them. Left: Like adults, kids congregate near the well. Top right: Deb with baby Most. Center and bottom right: Aunts and cousins with baby Harriet (I think).

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Ever since I got back from Lui this time, it seems like I am more there than here. Tammy and I are spending a lot of time planning for the May trip, and I have subscribed to a couple of listservs and news feeds that keep South Sudan front and center.

If there is actually anyone reading my blog who is not following the news from South Sudan, you need to know that the news is bad. The Lord's Resistance Army has moved northeast, farther into Sudan, and cut a wide and tragic swath through West Mundri County and the Diocese of Mundri. A number of people were killed or kidnapped, and many more have been displaced. Some were fleeing to Lui Diocese, especially around Lozoh, and Lui Hospital is feeling the effects. Then today we heard that the LRA has entered the Diocese of Lui too, but so far we have heard no details. You can read Bishop Bismarck's story of the attacks in Mundri Diocese here: http://salisburyanglican.org.uk/admin/news-nav.asp?page=890 The map shows the areas where the LRA is active. I copied it from salisburyanglican.org.uk and I thank them for their very current news and helpful images.

This news makes me incredibly sad. Kony and the LRA are beyond brutal, and I can only imagine the terror my Moru friends must feel. Looking at the development in Lui while we were there, I couldn't help thinking how fragile it was, just like the peace, and how the breakdown of the CPA would threaten all the progress the people in South Sudan have made since January of 2005. I was worried about the possible consequences of the 2011 vote. I thought I was being realistic, but it didn't even cross my mind that the LRA, then only barely across the border into Sudan, posed a much more immediate threat.

Right now, losing ground in development looks like nothing next to the threat to human lives. All over the southwestern part of Southern Sudan, at least from Ezo to Lui, people are in danger from the LRA, directly or indirectly. ERD - Episcopal Relief and Development - has already committed to a relief grant that will be administered through SUDRA, an NGO in South Sudan, to help those in the path of the LRA. If you want to help, you can donate online to ERD at https://www.er-d.org/donate-select.php. If you want to help the Diocese of Lui specifically, you can donate via the Diocese of Missouri: http://www.diocesemo.org/donateonline/.

The Way Forward

Yesterday our mission team -- minus Emily who had to go back to seminary -- had a reunion and debriefing meeting with the Companion Diocese Committee. They came to our house and Wayne (aka The Bishop) made the pizza owed them from a canceled mission prep meeting. We had some raw vegetables that weren't a danger to our health, and M&Ms for the sake of chocolate. (Dan told us that his first night back, Shelley had made a big chocolate cake!)

It was odd, but comforting, to see my Sudan buddies in winter clothes sitting around my den instead of cradling their water bottles and enjoying rice and beans in our payat back in Lui.

I think we need to stop calling ourselves a "mission team" when we go to Lui. The term sets up a mistaken attitude of having a project, going to do something that we either do or don't accomplish, and then being finished. The relationship between Lui and Missouri is not like that. When I go to visit my aunt and uncle in Fort Worth, I'm not on a mission but just going to see my family. Maybe I say I'm going because there's a show I want to see at the Kimball Museum, but that's never the main point. Same with Lui: 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.

People keep saying to us that we got so much done this trip. And we did. Deb collected a lot of data about what's going on at Lui Hospital, and she, along with the rest of us, got a much fuller picture of who the real players are in the hospital drama. Those players are not us, by the way; whatever sense we had going in that the Diocese of Missouri could or should "fix" anything at the hospital has been corrected by the better idea we now have of the respective views and roles of the Diocese of Lui, the Episcopal Church of Sudan, the government of South Sudan (GOSS), and various medical NGOs working there.

Robert and Tammy visited the six wells the Diocese of Missouri has provided in Lui Diocese up to now, and Robert and I visited Sumadhura, the company that drills the wells, and arranged to have three more dug. With Gordon, Vasco, and Bishop Bullen, the three of us determined that those wells would go in Wiro, Kediba, and Lesi, which is on the far northern border of the diocese, in the Lakamadi archdeaconry. Clean water is one of the Millenium Development Goals for a good reason. We saw firsthand how much healthier the people in Lui look, especially children, and we saw constant activity wherever a well had been dug. Because they spend less 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.

We did not shepherd the new grinding mill to Kediba. (This one is private enterprise, a mill in the Lui market.) That was one of our tasks, and we did not accomplish it. But we made progress. We have a list of supplies needed to complete the mill house, which must be built before the mill is delivered. And we have a plan with Stephen Dokolo to find and buy the mill in Kampala. We also presented the certificate from UTO to the Mothers' Union's diocesan leaders, Jenifa and Margaret, with a speech about how UTO money is collected in the US and what UTO does with that money around the world.

But the most important thing we did was not one of our stated goals when we left home in mid-December. The most important thing is that we showed up in these hard economic times and stayed long enough and deepened relationships to show, we hope, that we aren't going to abandon Lui now that money is tight at home, or now that development is occurring there at the hands of others besides ourselves. The trip wasn't a project, it wasn't really a mission trip (although the term serves us well with government officials, who understand who we are if we put it that way) -- it was a visit to friends, the only real way we have to check in with some people we have come to love. The relationship between Lui and Missouri isn't glamorous, and it will never be based on the handing over of huge amounts of money. As Robert pointed out last night, Americans who immigrated from African countries decades ago are still sending money back home. Africans need financial help, and their relations help them. We have covenanted with Lui to be in a relationship, so we help them with development projects and with money when we can. But the money is about the relationship, and not vice versa.

We are planning our next trip in May. With luck, that's soon enough that we will be able to enter significant conversations without quite so much startup formality. Bishop Bullen has asked us to do several three-day conferences: one for pastors on contemporary society, English language, and computer skills; one on HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention; one on adult education with some concurrent English instruction for the adult ed class; and one on Christian formation for the Sunday School teachers. He'd also like an agriculturist who can teach farmers to graft and bud citrus, an administrator or accountant who can help with basic systems and processes in the diocesan office, and doctors who would do specialty clinics for a couple of weeks. All that in the context of continuing to build relationships! That's probably more than we can tackle in May, but how the trip shapes up will in part depend on who applies to go. Which brings me to another point: The Companion Diocese Committee will be putting an application online soon, and we hope that people from around the diocese who are interested in going to Lui will apply. You don't have to be a specialist in one of the conference areas to go; you just have to be willing to help with them.

And the other thing, of course, is money. The big initiatives of the Diocese of Lui right now have to do with managing the increasing development needs of the Moru people. We and others have been digging wells, and GOSS has been working hard on roads and schools. To manage their projects, educate their clergy, and stay in touch with their people and their outside partners, the diocese needs an office building and a vehicle that will carry groups across bumpy dirt roads without breaking down constantly. (The one in the photo is a matatu; we rode it to Juba for 30 SDG each.) They are raising money for these projects and collecting in-kind donations for the office, but they need our help, and -- despite our own financial woes in the US these days -- we hope we can help.

Home

Deb, Dan, and I had a long but uneventful trip from Kampala to St. Louis. Our whole team of missioners has now returned. On the last plane today, from Detroit to St. Louis, I sat in about the same position as I'd sat Tuesday on the MAF plane, and found myself thinking about the parallels. Both trips crossed fertile farmland, different though the two lands are, and both followed -- part of the way -- the continent's most famous river. That got me thinking about how recent, in the great scheme of things, the American Civil War was, and correspondingly how quickly Southern Sudan could develop and change.

Yesterday (Wednesday, 7 January) we had fun checking out Ugandan shopping with Stephen. Later his wife, Lillian, and son, David, joined us for Indian food and kept us company till time to check in at Entebbe. It was wonderful to see Stephen happily reunited with his family. While we were at the MAF guesthouse with them, another old friend from Lui turned up as a guest -- check out his photo. We were excited to learn that Ramsey has a new baby, and he told us about breaking with Moru tradition to be present at the birth!

Once again thanks to everyone who sustained us during our trip. I'm going to be adding photos to my blog over the next few days, so check back if you want visuals.