It's amazing how quickly a trip to Sudan fades into the surreal and how yet how easily it all comes back. On the one hand, seeing Jim at church this morning I could hardly believe we'd just been in Africa together for most of three weeks, but on the other hand, the chorus of 'welcome home' from St. Timothy's took me back to the warmth of Lui and the greetings of the people there for our diocese. And every morning when I awaken at 4 because my body thinks it's noon, a part of me is still in Africa.
Sitting in church this morning I was thinking about how much less keenly I felt the presence of God in Lui on the May trip than I did in December and wondering why. This is nothing unusual, of course; my sense of the presence of God waxes and wanes anyway, as I imagine it does for most of us. I was kind of overwhelmed on this trip by doubts and ambiguities in the companion relationship, and less aware of the sheer grace of having a relationship at all, and I wondered (sometimes aloud -- for which I should both apologize to Jim and Mary and thank them for being there, faithful companions every step of the way) if I could sustain the hope and faith necessary to keep going with this project. So today was a great day for the OT lesson to be "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord... Whom shall I send, who will go for us? ... Here am I, send me." Self-doubt apparently goes way back, and scripture is a great place to find solidarity with the people of God.
So I came home and wrote a letter to the President of the United States about how things really are in Sudan, as I saw them, anyway, and I asked him to send Jack Danforth back to Sudan to help the Juba government make things go and to help the north and south implement the CPA faithfully. Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul has requested that the churches lobby their governments to intercede in Sudan now while there's still a chance -- now, before the 2011 referendum on secession vs. unity. You can read the archbishop's letter here:
http://sudan.anglican.org/diplomaticappeal.php, and you can email President Obama here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ if you are so minded.
And I guess I will stick with the relationship with Lui and trust that God is there, in the place and in the relationship, even when beyond my perception.
Gordon and Stephen survey the well site on the ground where the new diocesan center will go. The truck behind them is one of the 4 or 5 Sumadhura trucks it takes to put in a new borehole.
Here workers are removing drilling pipe so they can install water pipe.
Here you can see he actual drilling rig and waiting water pipes.
This young man played for us at Lui Parish on Pentecost. He was from some other part of Sudan -- not a Moru and didn't speak the language. He was very intent on making music.
Here we have Bishop Bullen, Rosemary the director of the midwifery school at Lui Hospital, which is located in a building that Jim and Mary called the Lui Holiday Inn, and Stephen Dokolo. They're sitting inside the office fence at the tea party that followed the VSAT dedication.
This is Festus Gyinaba, the archdeacon of Lui Archdeaconry. He celebrated the Eucharist at Lui Parish on Pentecost. Festus is taking more of a hand there for now; Sylvester Mazawa is currently studying at the Ngalamu Theological College in Mundri, so Repent and Christina are the priests in charge at Lui Parish. While we were there, though, Christina was in Juba.
Here is the Mothers' Union English class, which meets on Mondays and Thursdays from 2 to 4. The white woman is Heather, half of the CMS missionary couple stationed in Lui. She's from Ireland. Usually there are Moru teachers too, but on this day Heather was on her own.
These children have nodding disease. They live in the IDP camp at Wito (IDP=Internally Displaced Persons, as opposed to refugees, who by definition are outside their home country). There is a lot of nodding disease among the IDPs, and a lot of concern about it. The adults there almost begged me to take photos and tell their story; they desperately want doctors and public health researchers to come and figure out what's causing this horrible, deadly Moru-specific illness and how to cure or prevent it.
For me this little girl was the most poignant figure of the trip. She too has nodding disease.
Cooking and laundry in the IDP camp look pretty much like cooking and laundry in our compound.
The IDP camp stretches for a great distance -- I heard that there are over 1000 people there now.
The buildings at the IDP camp seemed sound, and it was one of the neatest, cleanest places I saw. Unlike Lui, it wasn't divided into compounds -- families seemed to have just one tukul apiece.
Our three conferences all occurred in the same space -- the transept of Fraser Cathedral. We had a blackboard and plenty of chalk. This is the youth conference; Jim is at the board and Mary is sitting up front.
A project we celebrated with a dedication ceremony was the installation of the VSAT system for Internet at the office, which is currently only a semipermanent building, constructed of mud but with a cement floor and corrugated steel roof. The VSAT dish (do you see it to the left of the office?) is much larger than the BGAN one, which still sits atop the office roof.
The grinding mill in Kediba is the new initiative of the Mothers' Union, funded by a grant from the United Thank Offering of The Episcopal Church. Here it is, below, in its semipermanent structure, left. Stephen is going back to the mill vendor in Kampala to replace a few parts that were damaged during installation; currently the mill isn't in use.
