Good Sudan Stuff

Below are some photos from Blackmore Vale Deanery's synod meeting, where they decided to have a tri-link with Lui and Missouri.

After I left England, I went to DC for the AFRECS (American Friends of the Episcopal Church of Sudan: http://www.afrecs.org/) board meeting. We spent Thursday morning (9/10/09) on advocacy so we could go to Capitol Hill to ask our government representatives to put the power of the US government behind enforcement of the CPA, particularly in election monitoring. I went to talk to Josh Kremer, one of Senator Bond's staffers. He was a great listener and asked good questions -- the whole experience was a vindication of everything I've always believed about democracy. Now I just hope it does some good for the cause of Sudan.

Check out this other website about companion relationships too: http://www.ecspartners.org/

We are off and running with the November mission. I have emailed the Missionary Aviation Fellowship to work out flight and lodging details... Here begins the next intensive round of blogging as we prepare for this journey of 11 people (9 from Missouri and 2 from England) to Lui.

A New Partnership

Tonight I went to the deanery synod meeting of Blackmore Vale deanery in Dorset, part of the English Diocese of Salisbury, where I had the joy of witnessing their unanimous vote to join with the Diocese of Missouri and the Diocese of Lui in a three-way relationship. I am excited about the opportunity to connect with the real-live modern-day English church and to enrich our relationship with our Moru friends in this way. It's especially important to me that the partnership means a more immediate way to practice and demonstrate transparency, and that having a third culture in the mix will give us new perspective. Our new partners hosted Bishop Bullen last summer at the pre-Lambeth Sudan conference, and he worked his magic on them as he has on us. They have already been raising money for schools and one church's Mother's Union made lots of stoles for Lui clergy and sent them. So I'm thrilled to say that when we officially announce the November team next week, two of the missionaries will be from Blackmore Vale Deanery.
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Things Sudan

I'm sitting in the Detroit airport, which is surprisingly familiar from the last Sudan mission. Today I'm on my way to England to attend a meeting of Blackmore Vale Deanery and discuss the possibility of a three-way relationship between us and Lui.

Even when Missouri isn't actively preparing for a mission, there is always something happening on the companion diocese front. Recently we provided funds to buy a new generator because the old one had broken beyond repair. Our friend Stephen has been in Kampala to get a visa - he is attending a conference in Sweden next month. And our friend Margaret has been in Nairobi awaiting her US visa for studies at Eden, but she could not get an interview soon enough to start school this semester.

Meanwhile, LRA attacks are getting worse and worse in Ezo, and horrible killings are occurring between tribes in Jonglei State. Our Moru friends are lucky to live between the affected areas, but of course problems anywhere affect the whole country, so there is growing despair because of these problems and the sense that both the 2010 elections and the 2011 referendum are at risk.

Missouri Senator Kit Bond is the ranking member of the Africa subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. If you have feelings about the US taking a strong stand in helping uphold the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, as Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul has asked us to do, contacting Senator Bond could be a good move.
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Photos from Lui Day at the AFRECS Booth

Here are the promised photos of Lui Day at the AFRECS booth at General Convention 2009. First, a view of the whole booth on our day. Every day the bulletin board featured a big poster and story cards about the day's featured relationship. The smaller poster about Marc Nikkel, on the left side of the board, stayed up every day.


Up close, the bulletin board with the Missouri/Lui poster and, in front hanging diagonally, our story cards.



Here's the story card close up:

And a closeup of the poster:



Connie Fegley kindly took my picture on Lui Day so you'd all know I didn't really spend all my time at the beach. (And Connie, who coordinated all the work that went into creating the booth and staffed it every day, was the source of endless valuable information and note-comparing, and introduced me to several other people with lots to share about Sudan.)

Two Quick Things

First, just a reminder that applications for the November trip to Lui are due soon. We will leave the Sunday after diocesan convention, be gone for Thanksgiving, and return the first weekend in December. To apply, please fill out an application (available as a doc file or pdf), have a reference fill out the recommendation, andsubmit them by August 24, 2009. Announcement of the team for the next mission trip will be by September 4, 2009.

Second, here's something cool: Beth in the Missouri diocesan office has posted the 2009 calendar of Sudanese bishops on the Internet. You can find it at

http://media.diocesemo.org.s3.amazonaws.com/lui/EpiscopalBishopsSudan.pdf

or as a jpg picture:

http://media.diocesemo.org.s3.amazonaws.com/lui/09EpiscopalBishopsSudan.jpg

The mission team received these calendars in the office of ECS in Kampala. The story we heard then was that the province had to publish the calendar because there were rogue bishops going around pretending to be ECS bishops, and the churches needed to be able to recognize the real bishops. Hmmmm, right?

Lui-Missouri Day at General Convention

Sandy Coburn spent lots of time helping the AFRECS board member in charge of the booth at General Convention put together a display on Lui to be shown on our official day at the AFRECS booth, and the Companion Diocese Committee helped pay the graphic artist who actually created the panels for the whole booth as well as each diocesan partnership. I will post better photos after convention ends; I didn't bring the cable for my camera and right now am having to rely on my phone for uploadable (crummy) photos.

The display was very nice; besides this big poster, we had six story cards, on which half the page was a photo and half was its story. I spent the day "staffing" the booth, but exactly nobody actually came up to us to talk about Lui or explore the idea of companion relationships. We were selling crafts for the Mothers' Union in Kajo Keji, and I believe we sold a total of one bag and seven cards. Still, working the booth was fun and a very good opportunity to chat with others involved in Sudan relationships. If nothing else, the time here at GC with the AFRECS people has given me a sense that we are not alone in our struggle to develop a relationship with our Moru brothers and sisters. Everyone is walking a fine line between building relationships and turning into an NGO.

What we actually did at the booth today was work on a letter to President Obama that we hope the bishops will all sign. Its purpose is to encourage him to do everything he can to oversee and safeguard the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Advocacy was the number one priority of Archbishop Daniel when we asked him what he needs from us. He stressed it again and again. Tonight quite a few of us, including AFRECS and TEC leadership, are going to dinner to talk about advocating for Sudan. The other Sudan-related thing I did today was talk with Craig Coburn, the executive director of Five Talents, about microlending in Sudan. Craig is a wellspring of useful information and well up on what it's like to work in Sudan.

On a less global but equally pressing note, I had email this morning from Stephen Dokolo telling me that the crops in Lui are failing because they have had so little rain. He is fearful of famine and asks the prayers of the Diocese of Missouri for their crops and their weather. Please pray for our Moru brothers and sisters, that their crops may thrive and their food supply be secure. And please pray for peace in Sudan, the just and complete carrying out of the CPA, and wise and prudent governance by both the Juba and the Khartoum governments.

Mama Deborah speaks

Here is Deborah Atem Mading talking with the bishops' partners and spouses. Her message to us is that prayers for peace in Sudan and advocacy with the US government for enforcement of the CPA are the most important things we can do. And she says sending people to teach in our companion diocese is more important than giving money, but money is also very good.
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