Search Results for: Lorelei

Director’s Update

A group of AFRECS Board members, plus the Episcopal Church’s international policy advisor Patricia Kisare, met last week with State Department officials charged with the Sudans.

On Sudan, they informed us that Assistant Secretary for Africa Molly Phee (former ambassador to South Sudan) is trying to coordinate a four-pronged approach:

1. Ceasefire talks in Jeddah.  That remains the only venue acceptable to the warring parties, the Sudan Armed Forces and the Rapid Strike Force. The US is seeking to broaden sponsorship to include Egypt, the African Union and IGAD (the Horn of Africa regional group).  Ambassador Daniel Rubinstein, ex-Chargé d’Affaires in Cairo, is tasked with putting together the Jeddah talks.
2. Humanitarian Access to the civilian population is very limited and difficult to achieve.  USAID/Sudan is forced to operate out of Nairobi.  Save the Children, CARE, Norwegian Refugee Council and some other NGOs have been able to maintain programming in parts of the country but hope to expand.
3. Civic engagement leading to a Civilian Transition. The US wants to make this inclusive to include Resistance Committees, the Forces for Freedom and Change, political parties, and trade unions, but believes the various Sudanese civic groups must take the lead, working together to hammer it out.
4. Broader international engagement.  So far the UN Security Council has done nothing, but President William Ruto of Kenya has taken the lead for IGAD.  US Horn of Africa Envoy Mike Hammer is playing a role.

On South Sudan, the State team emphasized there was no political accountability, no halting of the sub-national violence directed by Juba-based élites, no transparency on use of oil revenue estimated at $1 billion annually, and no meaningful progress toward credible elections scheduled December 2024.

AFRECS hopes to meet with US Congressional representatives in the near future to press for hearings on both countries.

Duke Divinity School student Travis Williams preaches at a church in Yei, South Sudan while serving as a visiting teacher.

Duke Divinity Students Return to Teach in Yei, by Travis Williams

From May to August of 2023 I lived, taught, preached, and worshipped at Bishop Allison Theological College in Yei, South Sudan. The college had come through a tumultuous year, returning to Yei after years of asylum in Arua, Uganda. Preparing for my teaching, I had read about the war years and spoken to people on the ground. The suffering was nevertheless astounding. More striking still was the resilience. Instead of  disillusioned or broken-hearted staff and students, I met diligent and dedicated disciples. Between the students in my Biblical Interpretation class and those in my Church and Community Development class, we organized first a prison and then a hospital ministry. I saw the group go, in the dungeon-like confines of Yei’s prison, from a cohort of shocked students to empowered evangelists. They preached, prayed, and provided material support to the prisoners and their families, encouraged and appreciated by the prison’s administrators and  guards.

My work was teaching, but my role was learner.  I drew closer to Christ.  I am now directing my research towards ways to encourage other Christians to be as eager as BATC students. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xkL_Rt1rxk1K6IrcChWAfzvQBmU7QU8i/view?usp=sharing

On a weekday morning BATC students and staff gather after completing the Daily Office. (Far L.  Deputy Principal Rev. Cosmas Gwagwe; 2nd from L.: Travis Williams; 5th from L.: Garret Kaiser; wearing green stole: Rev. Lucky James Moses, a student in the  Certificate class.)

by Garrett Kaiser

Shortly after meeting the Reverend Emmanuel Lokosang Charles, principal of Bishop Allison Theological College, I was unexpectedly comforted by a simple prayer beginning, “Almighty and ever-living God.” Such a small phrase, unique to the Anglican family, spoke volumes about the shared grammar of faith that was my lifeline in an isolating cultural unfamiliarity.  In many instances, the language of faith was all that we seemed to have left to offer one another. When old teaching resources in the library reached their termini, and the food stores of the school grew slim, we kept turning to the prayerbook and to the local church. Even if there are words to describe the hardship of the South Sudanese in crisis, there are certainly none that can speak enough of their faith, nor of the tangible presence of the Lord there to meet them. Certain as I am that God directed me to South Sudan, trusting as I was in His promise to stay by me, and sure as I remain that His intimacy never departed me, I am even more confident in saying that God is present amidst the faith of those who are looking for him.

Sudan: Survival and Succor

Friends in the United Kingdom share photographs of Sudanese pastors distributing food aid to people who have fled ongoing bombing and looting, along with peaceful scenes of weekly worship. (https://www.casss.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/UPDATE-AUGUST-SUDAN-NEWS.pdf)

South Sudan: Driven by War Back to an Ill-Prepared Homeland

On September 7 the New York Times  published photos from Bodo and Renk in South Sudan, describing the trek by vehicle, foot, and barge still continuing in August for refugees from the fighting in Khartoum and western Sudan. They have been searching for shelter and survival in Malakal, Juba, and Bentiu.

Women and children at the transit camp in Renk, South Sudan. Many of those arriving here fled their homes and businesses in Sudan and have brought with them only meager belongings. “I never want to go back to Sudan,” one said. “But I know it will not be easy where I am going.”  https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/07/world/africa/sudan-refugees-south-sudan.html 

You can help the Episcopal Church of South Sudan assist these people with their non-food needs through a gift to AFRECS – the American Friends of the Episcopal Church of the Sudans. Please donate today.

South Sudan Basketball Team Qualifies for Paris Olympics

South Sudan is the only African national basketball team to qualify for the Paris Olympics.  The team did so by going 4-2 in the FIBA Basketball World Cup which took place recently in Asia.  South Sudan defeated Angola 101-78 in its final game to clinch its place.

News from the Diaspora

Athing Mu Competes in World Track Championships

At the World Championships in Budapest last month, Athing Mu, AFRECS’s favorite track and field star, took bronze in the 800 meters.  Mu, the Trenton, New Jersey-born daughter of South Sudan refugees, who was Olympic champion in her event in Tokyo in 2020, has taken on a new coach, the renowned Bobby Kersee, and relocated to Los Angeles in the past year.  She has recently complained of fatigue, which appears to have affected her performance in Budapest.  After a break, she will focus on defending her Olympic title in Paris next year, chasing a new world record. 

From Stone Mountain, Georgia, the Reverend John Aroc shares the sad news of the August death, in Juba, of Awan de Gak.  Gak had been in charge since 1998, along with Ayeil Deng Ayel and Guot Bul Mayuon, and supported by the Wycliffe Bible Translators, of producing a fresh translation of the Old Testament  into Dinka Cham. (https://afrecs.org/?s=Lorelei).

From Grand Rapids, Michigan, the Reverend Zachariah Jok Char writes:

“Good news which God has done in the Sudanese Grace community: English Services every first Sunday of the month at 11:30….Lake Effect Church renewed its lease…. We are in the process of certifying our church kitchen for public use…Sunday attendance is growing – average now about 80… The number of newborn children is growing… Recently received two families from Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya…  Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Wyoming donated a GaGa Ball Pit for our children to play in…Three Sudanese Grace members are postulants for the priesthood and attending the Academy for Vocational Leadership.”

“July 9 we had joint services with Grace Episcopal Church in East Grand Rapids, our mother church, followed by a food sale and wonderful fellowship.  Sunday School for younger children has been steady and growing .. just began a teen group… Hosted diocesan regional day camp led by Camp Chickagami staff. Workshops in our building have helped the South Sudanese community to know some of the services available in the city. A couple of our families have started a daycare business.”

In Annandale, Virginia, an All-Day Kids’ Ministry gathering of the Sudan African Fellowship on August 19 included games, college preparation wisdom from current  undergraduates, Bible study on the “I am” sayings of Jesus, and family mental health advice from Dr. Edward Kenyi of Baltimore.

In Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, “Belonging” was the theme of a fundraiser announced for September 15 by Elizabeth Aluk Andrea, president of Manitoba Women for Women South Sudan (MW4WSS) and a participant in the 2019 AFRECS conference in Denver.  Senator Marilou McPhedran was guest speaker. The Rotary Club of Winnipeg’s service arm will transmit donated funds to MW4WSS’s partner in South Sudan who distributes daily necessities to returning refugees. (https://www.women4womenmb.ca.)

From Kampala, Uganda, .Bishop Hilary Garang Deng Awer, retired bishop of Malakal, writes that he is continuing to collect data for his doctoral thesis on peacemaking between tribes in the Upper Nile region. His fellow students at Uganda Christian University include Bishop Wilson Kamani of Ibba Diocese and Rev. Abraham Maker and Paul Issa from the Episcopal  University of South Sudan.

Marc Nikkel Day was observed August 27 at Grace Episcopal Church in Lexington, Virginia, during Sunday morning worship attended by Virginia Military Institute cadets, faculty of Washington & Lee University, and one Sudanese family from Roanoke, Virginia.  James Hubbard, who first met Nikkel at Fuller Seminary in California before Nikkel became a missionary in Sudan, recalled his own August 2022 visit to churches in Khartoum, Juba, Terekeka, and Rokon, challenging the congregation to ponder a partnership.  Susan E. Bentley testified to the inspiration she takes from the life of Nikkel and her admiration for the faithfulness of Sudanese Christians resettled  in the Roanoke Valley. Samson Mamour, a 2021 graduate of Virginia Theological Seminary, celebrated Holy Communion and welcomed students new to town.

Loss of an Eye, by Lawrence  Duffee

A dear friend whom I used to jog with was jogging on the streets of Juba last Friday morning when he was set upon by a gang wielding machetes. He suffered pretty bad injuries and looks like he has lost his left eye. This sort of random violence is a terrible reminder of the situation in South Sudan.

What is the Anglican Alliance?

The next Mission Networking Call will be Wednesday, October 4th with guest speaker the Rt. Rev. Anthony Poggo, General Secretary of the Anglican Communion and former bishop of Kajo-Keji, South Sudan. To be connected to the call, or if you have topic ideas, please reach out to Jenny Grant at jgrant@episcopalchurch.org.

Guest speaker on Sept. 6 was the director of the Anglican Alliance, Canon Rachel Carnegie, explaining her network of churches and agencies as “a vision – not simply ‘development’ but something much richer, more holistic and inspiring…. For example, climate change is leading to more disasters, forcing people (and especially young people) to migrate, making them more vulnerable to exploitation and trafficking.” https://anglicanalliance.org/

More Than Ever

Dear Readers,

AFRECS will soon celebrate 20 years of advocacy, peacebuilding, education and support for our friends in the Sudans.

Now more than ever, your financial donations, in any amount, are needed to sustain the work of AFRECS in helping to rebuild the loss of infrastructure and equipment suffered by the Episcopal Church in Sudan. Equally urgent is the need to send aid to those areas receiving returning South Sudanese displaced once again by the violence in Sudan.

Our Annual Impact Report highlights our continuing engagement with:

• Trauma Healing Partnership with Five Talents and Mothers Union of the Episcopal Church of South Sudan
• The Glow Mission Academic Primary School
• The Episcopal University of South Sudan
• The Sudanese Diaspora
• And connecting with and maintaining relationships with Sudanese and South Sudanese leaders who need to know they are not alone

Now more than ever, The Board of AFRECS invites you to join us.  Please donate today.

This issue was compiled by Richard J. Jones, Anita Sanborn, and Larry Duffee.  We welcome your news, comments, and corrections at anita.sanborn@gmail.com.

Bishop Anthony Poggo to be next Secretary-General of the Anglican Communion
by Ed Thornton,  Church Times, London

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s adviser on Anglican Communion affairs, the Rt. Rev. Anthony Dangasuk Poggo, has been appointed the next secretary-general of the Anglican Communion.

Bishop Poggo, who is 58, will take up the post at the start of September, and will succeed Dr Josiah Idowu-Fearon, who is due to retire at the end of August after serving a seven-year term.

The secretary-general leads the staff at the Anglican Communion Office in London, which serves the four Instruments of Communion: the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primates’ Meeting, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the Lambeth Conference.

Before taking up his post at Lambeth Palace six years ago, Poggo was the bishop of Kajo-Keji in the Episcopal Church of South Sudan.

At the age of one, he moved with his family from what is now South Sudan to Uganda to escape the first Sudanese Civil War. They returned in 1973, when he was aged nine.

Bishop Poggo was ordained deacon in 1995, and priest in 1996, before which he worked for Scripture Union, ministering to Sudanese refugees in Uganda. He graduated from Juba University with a degree in Management and Public Administration, and also holds an MA in Biblical Studies from the Nairobi International School of Theology, in Kenya.

Bishop Poggo’s wife, Jane Namurye, coordinated follow-up to Women on the Frontline, maintains contact with the Mothers’ Union of the Episcopal Church of South Sudan, and facilitated the 2018 AFRECS conference in Denver. Dr. Josiah Idowu-Fearon was archbishop of Kaduna, Nigeria and founded the Kaduna Centre for the Study of Christian-Muslim Relations.

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2022/17-june/news/world/poggo-to-take-over-from-idowu-fearon-as-the-communion-s-next-secretary-general

Director’s Update

The big news in South Sudan this past week has been the cancellation of the Pope’s visit scheduled for July.  The decision was based on the advice of the pontiff’s doctors who cited the undesirability of interrupting therapy for his knees.  Recent photos have shown him in a wheelchair. According to the Vatican, the visit will be postponed “to a later date to be determined.”

The State Department is required to report on religious freedom in countries around the world. The most recent report on South Sudan points out that the transitional constitution provides for separation of religion and state, prohibits religious discrimination, and guarantees freedom to worship and assemble.  It notes, however, that in January the military detained and killed five Episcopalians worshiping in Central Equatoria State.  Two bishops were detained but later released at Bor airport in connection with the dispute over the appointment of the internal Episcopal Archbishop of Jonglei Internal Province.  The report also mentions the killing of two Catholic nuns on the Juba-Nimule road and the shooting of the Catholic Bishop-designate of Rumbek, who survived. The perpetrators of the latter incidents have never been identified.

Overshadowing this violence targeting religious figures in South Sudan, intercommunal conflict in Abyei, Northern Bahr al-Ghazal, Western, Central, and Eastern Equatoria has killed over 200 in the last few weeks and has displaced 150,000, according to a church official.

In Sudan the international community has launched a “tripartite initiative” by the UN, the African Union and IGAD aimed at overcoming the political deadlock. Talks began June 8 led by UN Special Representative Volker Perthes. However, the Forces of Freedom & Change, the major civil society group which has been heavily involved in popular demonstrations, refused to take part.  The group criticized participation of the military leadership and Islamist elements and the failure to release all political detainees.  Observers fear that Gen. Burhan and his supporters are pushing a plan to formalize the entrenched power of the military, while providing only enough civilian window dressing to induce the international community to resume economic support.  Massive street protests continued this past week.

Episcopal Church officials in both Sudan and South Sudan have warmly welcomed news of planned travel by AFRECS Vice President Steven Miles, Board member Rev. James Hubbard, and me August 12-24.  We look forward to renewing our contacts with church and Mothers’ Union leaders in both countries, and in South Sudan visiting the Glow MAPS school, our trauma healing program, and the new campus of the Episcopal University.  We intend to report back our adventures to all of you.  

Executive Director

Scholar of Middle East Joins AFRECS Board

We were delighted in June to welcome Rachel M. Scott to the Board of AFRECS.

On joining the Board, Dr. Scott wrote:” I am particularly drawn to the initiative that bridges trauma healing with community savings. I believe firmly in the power of financial independence and the transformation such independence can bring. Christian-Muslim relations in Sudan and South Sudan, and the growth of Christianity in South Sudan, really pique my interest.”

Dr. Scott is an Anglican and has lived and done research in Egypt. She studied Arabic and Islamics at Oxford and took a Ph.D in Islamic Studies from the University of London in 2004. Now a professor in the Department of Religion and Culture at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, she teaches on Islam, religion and law, secularism, and Coptic Christianity. Her second book, Recasting Islamic Law: Religion and the Nation State in Egyptian Constitution Making, was published by Cornell University Press in spring 2021.

Dinka Cam Translation of the Old Testament Nears Completion
by Lorelei Mah, Senior Philanthropy Advisor, Wycliffe Bible Translators USA

Editors’ note: In the combined territory of Sudan and South Sudan, over 115 languages are spoken, including Arabic, English, and Dinka. Sudanese church leaders count 26 Bibleless languages in Sudan and 11 in South Sudan. There are three major dialects within the Dinka community: Dinka Cam, Dinka Padang, and Dinka Rek. Each has developed its own hymns and books and translated the Bible. A Dinka Rek Language Committee was established to lead on the translation of the Bible, collect Christian songs, and write stories for books in the Dinka Rek dialect.

The Dinka Cam team of Wycliffe Bible Translators, USA, in Juba is making progress. By March of this year all the books of the Old Testament had been published in trial edition form for community checks among the Dinka Cam congregations. All that remains is the completion of the consultant check, plus harmonizing and updating their translation of the New Testament done a long time ago. Then follow the read-through and typesetting.

The Juba team is led by Awan de Gak, who joined the team in 1993, and Ayeil Deng Ayel, a  computer/paratext expert who joined in 1992.  In addition, Guot Bul Mayuon, a Scripture engagement and literacy specialist, joined the team in 2018 and is learning Greek and Hebrew., but is on a short leave right now.

The Juba team has used daily Skype calls to South Africa with university professors of Hebrew Jacobus A. Naudé and his wife, Cynthia Miller. (She previously worked on the Murle Bible.  The Corona virus lockdowns in South Africa forced the professors to teach their regular classes online, which meant extended periods when they were not available to the Dinka Cham team. An undersea fiber cable that they relied on for Skype internet connectivity was severed for a time. Miller’s mother in the USA passed away unexpectedly, taking her out of the work for several weeks. These disruptions delayed the work for a month.

Keep in mind that I have not met in person with these folks since 2008.

Instrumental in encouraging this translation project has been Joseph Garang Atem, a graduate of Seabury-Western Seminary in the US and Principal of Renk Theological College, who is now Bishop of the Episcopal Church’s Diocese of Malakal and Archbishop of Upper Nile.  Donors in the USA continue to provide financial support.

For more news:  lorelei_mah@wycliffe.org, www.wycliffe.org, or  810.772.9196

Hymns People Sing: North America and South Sudan
by Joan Huyser-Honig, Grand Rapids, Michigan

That so many Dinka Bor people became Anglican during the Second Civil War (1983-2005) is due partly to a decision by Bishop Nathaniel Garang Anyieth to stop requiring literacy as a condition of baptism.

For generations the Church Missionary Society (CMS) required baptismal candidates to study for a year or more to prove they knew enough about Christianity. Growing up in an oral culture, the Dinka were very good at memorizing. Missionaries suspected that they were “cheating” by memorizing, rather than reading, the necessary passages and answers. Missionaries worried that without literacy baptized Christians wouldn’t be able to deepen their faith.

For five years during the Second Civil War, however, people in the Bor region were cut off from the rest of the Anglican Church. Bishop Nathaniel was the only bishop in the region, and thousands of traumatized Dinka Bor were ready to switch allegiance to a God more effective than their local jak. The bishop decided to baptize first and catechize later.

These baptisms led Dinka women to meet and encourage each other through worship, church meetings, and shared learning. Among them was Mary Aluel Garang Anyuon, who was called by the American missionary Marc Nikkel “a natural theologian”. Nikkel heard, then recorded, and eventually wrote a doctoral dissertation about her songs. These new Christians’ preferred medium was singing.

Songs from Scripture

Meditating with scripture, Mary Aluel was inspired to compose hymn texts. In 1985, the year after her conversion, she wrote two songs that quickly spread. The songs spoke to people as warring groups stole their cattle, burned their homes, destroyed jak shrines, raped and killed their relatives, and forced them to flee.

Mary Aluel Garang

Mary Aluel’s first song was “Death has come to reveal the faith”

The first of four long verses begins: “Death has come to reveal the faith.”
Verse three gives voice to suffering and pleas:

God, do not make us orphans
of the earth.
Look back upon us,
O Creator of humankind.
Evil is in conflict with us.”

The final verse begins:

Let us encourage our hearts
in the hope of God,
 who once breathed wei [breath and life] /
into the human body.
His ears are open to prayers: the Creator of humankind is watching.”

When this song was published, the Dinka Anglican editors gave the scripture reference as  John 11:25–27 (“I am the resurrection and the life..  Do you believe…? Yes, Lord, I believe…”).

Her second early song, also spreading quickly, was “God Has Come Among Us Slowly”

The first of five verses begins:

“God has come among us slowly,
 and we didn’t realize it.
He stands nearby, behind our hearts,
shining his pure light upon us.”

The song explains (v. 2) that God, not jak, created all people and all things, even the insects. It asks for the Lord’s power and “Guiding Spirit of truth” to reach everyone. It muses:

We receive salvation slowly, slowly,
all of us together, with no one left behind.
Gradually, gradually it will succeed,
until the day when it will be grasped
by the Dinka who sacrifice at shrines.

Mary Aluel created these two early songs in Kongor, which had a brief flurry of Christian revival in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Prior to 1983, other people groups in southern Sudan had responded far more enthusiastically to Christian missionaries than did the Dinka.

Here is an exercise for an American staff meeting or worship committee seeking to make church music relevant to real-life issues:

• Describe your knowledge about or connections with Christians in or from the Sudans.
• Which songs in your congregation’s repertoire speak specifically about joys and problems in your culture or subculture?
• How can you tell when your political or cultural identity overrides your “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” identity? Which of your worship songs address this issue?

More at https://worship.calvin.edu/search/new-search#s=Dinka%20 or joan@hhcreatives.com

Meet AFRECS at New Wineskins Conference September 22-25, near Ashville, North Carolina

Dane Smith and Board members look forward to welcoming visitors at our exhibit at the once-ever-three-years New Wineskins gathering of Anglicans and Episcopalians engaged in international cross-cultural mission. Our guest on Friday and Saturday will be Bishop Grant LeMarquand, editor of the letters of Marc Nikkel Why Haven’t You Left?, recently Bishop of the Horn of Africa in Gambella, Ethiopia, and professor of New Testament at Trinity School for Ministry.

Register now at https://www.newwineskinsconference.org. For details , contact 800-588-722, 828-669-8022, or Richard Jones at 703-823-3186.

AFRECS is grateful for the recent donation from the Women of St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church, Dallas, Texas.

We give thanks for your continued support in prayer and generosity

We are deeply grateful that contributions from you, our supporters, continue to nurture AFRECS in expanding our impact.  You make a difference in the essential peacebuilding work of the Episcopal Church of South Sudan, so needed in these challenging times. We hope you will make a contribution to support our work with the people of the Sudans and offer a prayer for their nations. You can contribute online at https://afrecs.org or send a check made out to AFRECS to P.O. Box 3327, Alexandria, VA 22302.This issue was prepared by Board members Ellen Davis and Richard Jones.