Update from Dane Smith
The news from South Sudan in late March is about desperate conditions in areas on the edge of famine, slightly tempered by some progress in bringing additional parties into the 2018 peace agreement. The World Food Program reports that in six counties of South Sudan 100,000 people are “one step away from famine.” Overall, 7.2 million are in a situation of severe food insecurity. The area most severely affected includes counties in Bahr al-Ghazal and eastern Upper Nile. Although in places like Maridi, in Western Equatoria, wildfires have taken over from floods, destroying a diocesan guest house, heavy flooding is predicted again for later this year.
The news from Sudan is about tensions with Ethiopia which are distracting the Transitional Government from dealing with the severe economic hardships endured by most Sudanese. At the beginning of March President Abel Fatta al-Sisi of Egypt made his first visit to Khartoum since the overthrow of President Bashir in 2019. He conferred with Sudanese leaders about the problems posed by Ethiopian filling of the Renaissance High Dam on the Blue Nile. Last week Prime Minister Hamdok of Sudan formally requested that the African Union, the United Nations, the European Union and the United States mediate a solution to the dam dispute.
The dam debate has now become enmeshed in a border conflict between Sudan and Ethiopia which has flared since the beginning of the year. Al-Fashqa (sometimes spelled Fashaga by the Western press), a strip of land between Sudan’s Gedaref state and the troubled Ethiopian province of Tigray, was placed on the Sudanese side by a 1902 treaty between Sudan’s then colonial overlords and the Emperor of Ethiopia. In the 1990s Christian Amhara farmers from Ethiopia migrated to the area as laborers and then began cultivating the land. Recent flows of refugees from Tigray into Sudan drew attention to al-Fashqa, and Sudanese forces have reportedly reoccupied the enclave. The Washington Post reported last week that troops have been reinforced on both sides, with Amhara militias from Ethiopia playing an aggressive role in the strip. The Sudanese claim that Ethiopia’s prime minister is linking the border conflict with the dam dispute because of his dependence on Amhara militias for control of Tigray. Troubles in the Horn have gained Washington’s attention. Last week the Biden Administration, which has criticized Ethiopia for “ethnic cleansing” in Tigray, sent Sen. Christopher Coons (D-DE) a close friend of the President, to Addis Ababa to discuss “the deteriorating situation in the Tigray region and the risk of broader instability in the Horn of Africa.”
In church news the Episcopal Province of Sudan has just elected an Assistant Bishop for Khartoum to facilitate the tasks of the Primate, Archbishop Ezekiel Kondo, in his responsibilities for all five Sudanese dioceses. Episcopalians in Sudan have been suffering greatly from the COVID lockdown, which has made it difficult for the largely poor population to travel into Khartoum and other major cities to work. Church leaders, the Mothers Union and international organizations have been giving priority to food security and income generation activities over education in the current crisis.
Rev. Joseph Bilal, Acting Vice Chancellor of the Episcopal University of South Sudan, told us in a recent conversation with US church leaders that churches and schools in the country remain closed, and that, therefore, teachers are not being paid. Colleges are expected to reopen in April. The Episcopal Church is working to mediate disputes between pastoralists and farmers in Central Equatoria that have sometimes erupted in murderous violence. Bilal said that additional resources are needed for that work.
Executive Director
Editors’ Note: We offer you for Holy Week two images by Hilary Garang Deng Awer, artist and retired Bishop of Malakal, South Sudan. War and floods drove Hilary Garang, born in Twic County in 1956, to Malakal and El-Obeid, before he studied fine arts at Khartoum Polytechnic. He created this charcoal sketch “Three Sudanese Men” on a visit to Ridley Hall, Cambridge UK in 2016.”
Focus on Theological Education:
By the numbers: Enrollments in the constituent Colleges of the Episcopal University of South Sudan
by Richard J. Jones, AFRECS Board Member
In December 2019, following a meeting of the Principals, the Newsletter of the Episcopal University of South Sudan reported the following enrollments:
Bishop Gwynne Theological College, Juba: 158 students in theology and religious studies
St. John’s College of Theology and Development, Wau: 393 students
Renk Theological College, Renk: 45 students
Kajo Keji Christian College, located in Moyo, Uganda: students in theology 142, education 45, business administration 66
Chaima Christian Institute, Maridi: 79 students in theology, social work, and development.
Due to Covid -19, most schools were not functioning in 2000, but they anticipate regathering in April 2021.
Other theological schools also serve the Episcopal Church of South Sudan, including Bishop Allison Theological College, located in Arua, Uganda. The 50-year-old Bishop Shukai Bible Training Institute in Omdurman, Sudan, serves the Episcopal Church of Sudan, including outlying centers in Kadugli, Wad Medani, and Port Sudan, teaching mainly in Arabic.
A personal reflection: Where Do They Go after St. John’s College, Wau?
by Susan Virginia Mead, Diocese of Southwestern Virginia
This is the story of a dream, friendships made, and partnerships which continue five years later with people in South Sudan.
When I taught at St. John’s College of Theology and Development for four months in 2016 and was staying at the ECSS guesthouse in Wau, the college was under the direction of the Rev. Nathaniel Maral. Nathaniel was just then forming the African Christian Ecumenical Alliance (ACEA), a non-profit organization, operating in Wau and beyond. Some of their most recent work has been in peace and reconciliation efforts and advocacy for women, especially in the form of empowering girl children to end early forced marriages. Nathaniel reports that ACEA has just built several buildings to house their staff and headquarters. I am now working here in the U.S. to find partners who also focus on empowerment of women, to assist him. He has roofed the buildings — for less than $400! – and now seeks funds for doors and windows.
A relationship that began in the parking lot of a 2011 AFRECS conference in Richmond, Virginia, followed and sustained me while I was in South Sudan–and continues today. By the time I arrived in South Sudan, Mariak Chuor, a former child soldier raised in Richmond, had returned to the Diocese of Gogrial to work on his family farm and to share his expertise in solar technology. With funding from a youth group in the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia, Mariak had offered a week-long seminar at St. John’s College while I was there, teaching simple solar energy techniques and leadership strategies. Mariak continues this work today but has added basketball coaching to his resume!
He recently asked for help with raising money to buy forty-eight pairs of used shoes for his teams–and enough extra money to buy six basketballs. Several sports-enthusiast alumni of Virginia’s Ferrum College have joined me and funded that small project, starting with getting Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors to sign memorabilia for the fundraiser. Now one of the biggest stars in the National Basketball Association is thinking about the plight of youth in South Sudan!
At St. John’s I taught sociology and peace studies. Then from afar I witnessed the graduation of a theology student cohort go on to minister to their own communities, one even leading peace negotiations that saved lives after a revenge killing. They used South Sudanese prayers published in a book I had purchased at an AFRECS conference and used in class.
Upon returning to the U.S., I followed a number of other success stories: a St. John’s business program graduate, made possible through sponsorship by Virginia college students and faculty; a St. John’s faculty member who earned his Master’s degree in environmental studies, funded in honor of a nationally recognized water-quality expert from Virginia; a young man who helped ECSS visitors to Wau day in and day out, now advancing his education through a nursing scholarship at the Catholic Health Training Institute, but needing help with his food, books, and incidentals each month.
As opportunities for South Sudanese citizens grow, it is a blessing — though at times overwhelming — to facilitate connections between people in the U.S. and these promising educational endeavors.
One ongoing educational partnership is with Hope House International, an enclave of more than twenty-five youth from the Diocese of Tonj, who were brought by the Rt. Rev. Peter Yuol to continue their schooling in Kitale, Kenya.
with Bishop Peter Yuol, at Hope House International, Kitale, Kenya
They excel as top students in their classes and even have become supreme prefect captains of their Kenyan schools. In addition to nine Hope House student sponsorships funded by churches and individuals in Virginia and beyond, their collective household in Kitale needs substantial funding each month for food and supplies. Having a strong home base has proven just as important as school fees for building a community of faithful youth who will return to South Sudan to further its progress. This partnership is expanding, as we now have volunteers from Grace Church in Lexington, Virginia tutoring Hope House students in Kenya over Zoom!
The key to these efforts? “Connecting diverse communities through creating sustainable partnerships for cultivating prosperity and peace” –the mission statement of Diversity Serves, a non-profit formed upon my return from South Sudan to facilitate these projects. We in the U.S. need to be reminded how easy it is to make an impact, even when we are confined to our homes through a pandemic and not able to visit. We can make a difference on collective lives in South Sudan when invited to do so, all the while enriching our own lives immeasurably here in the U.S. — through divinely inspired connections.
Dr. Susan Mead is President of Diversity Serves, Inc. and Assistant Professor of Sociology at Ferrum College, Ferrum, Virginia, whose motto is “Not Self, but Others”. She can be reached at svm@diversityserves.org or smead@ferrum.edu and tel. 540-365-4611
News and Notes
Wildfire in Maridi
The Diocese of Maridi faced another wildfire March 13-14. The diocesan guesthouse was destroyed. Deacon Patti Johnson and Dave Malson of the Diocese of Albany reported from conversations with Bishop Moses Zungo:
“Archbishop Peni led the bishops on an evangelism tour in December, ending in Maridi. Then the Mothers’ Union had a conference, then they had the Synod, and then… the fires. The rainy season had lasted ten months, and the water table was so high the crops were rotting. Then it dried out, and the wildfires started. In Maridi diocese, sixty-eight families were left homeless, one child perished in the fires (8-year-old), and many food storage places were destroyed. The mango trees are not producing. They are facing famine… Bishop Moses said, ‘Satan is not happy with what is happening here’ because they have a five-year plan: “Transforming individuals and community”. In 2022 they will be celebrating 100 years of Christianity in Maridi, so we are praying God will open doors for us to go in January for the celebration.”
The Episcopal Diocese of Albany (address: 580 Burton Road, Greenwich, NY 12834) has sustained a long companion relationship with the Diocese of Maridi, including the tenures of retired Bishop William H. Love and the current Archbishop of South Sudan Justin Badi Arama.
Contact: albanymissions@gmail.com or Dave Malsan at crazydog6@outlook.com.
A Reflection from the AFRECS Board Meeting:
Can an Organization be a Friend?
Individual Actors and Group Actors under God
This excerpt from the 1867 novel Robert Falconer, by the Scottish poet George Macdonald, was presented recently by the Reverend James Hubbard for reflection by the AFRECS Board.
“Then Falconer began to see that he must cultivate relations with other people in order to enlarge his means of helping the poor. He nowise abandoned his conviction that whatever good he sought to do or lent himself to aid must be effected entirely by individual influence. He had little faith in societies, regarding them chiefly as a wretched substitute, just better than nothing, for that help which the neighbor is to give to his neighbor. Finding how the unbelief of the best of the poor is occasioned by hopelessness in privation, and the sufferings of those dear to them, he was confident that only the personal communion of friendship could make it possible for them to believe in God. Christians must be in the world as He was in the world; and in proportion as the truth radiated from them, the world would be able to believe in him. Money he saw to be worse than useless, except as a gracious outcome of human feelings and brotherly love….
But he must not therefore act as if he were the only person who could render this individual aid, or as if men influencing the poor individually could not aid each other in their individual labors. He soon found, I say, that there were things he could not do without help. “
Other News from Various Sources
Naivasha, Kenya: Peace talks between South Sudan’s government and opposition groups
Peace talks between South Sudan’s government and a set of opposition groups kicked off in Naivasha, Kenya, in early March.
General Paul Malong and Pagan Amum each lead one faction of the rebel umbrella South Sudan Opposition Movements Alliance (SSOMA). It is made up of two organizations, the Real Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (R-SPLM) and the South Sudan United Front/Army (SSUF/A).
In January 2020, both sides had signed a peace declaration in which they recommitted to the cessation of hostilities and called for uninterrupted humanitarian access to the local and international organizations and for abstention from sexual and gender-based violence. In Naivasha they recommitted to that declaration and agreed to join the Transitional Government of National Unity at a date to be determined.
Dr. Barnaba Marial Benjamin, Chief Negotiator for the Government of South Sudan, reiterated the unity government’s commitment to dialogue and peace in South Sudan.
Pagan Amum, leader of the Real Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (R-SPLM), said: “This is time to genuinely learn from our experiences, from our few and limited successes, and from our so many mistakes. I would like to express our commitment as SSOMA that we have come here with open hearts and genuine commitment to seeking a genuine solution to the problem in our country.”
Paul Malong, leader of the South Sudan United Front/Army (SSUF/A), reiterated their commitment to dialogue to reach a peace agreement. He thanked all regional and international partners for supporting South Sudan to achieve peace and stability.
The Bari leader, Gen. Thomas Cirillo, head of the National Salvation Front, remains a holdout from the 2018 Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (R/ARCSS). His forces operate in the Equatoria region.
Abstracted from Radio Tamazuj 03/11/2021
Eye Radio
104 More people catch the dreaded virus
by Daniel Danis 03/12/2021
A total of 104 people has now died in South Sudan due to coronavirus after one more death was reported on March 11. The Ministry of Health announced 129 new cases it confirmed between March 10 and 11. There are reportedly three people under critical conditions, who are receiving treatment.
According to statistics released yesterday, the new cases are from 1,008 samples collected across the country. This brings the cumulative number of confirmed cases in the country to 9,334. South Sudan has so far conducted 119,507 tests since the coronavirus was detected in April 2020.
CGTN
UN: Urgent funding needed to address needs of 6.6 million people in South Sudan
by Grace Kuria 03/16/2021
The South Sudan Humanitarian Response Plan for 2021 has on Tuesday been launched, with the plan requesting US$1.7 billion to reach 6.6 million people in South Sudan with urgent life-saving assistance and protection by the end of 2021.
This year, South Sudan is expected to yet again experience devastating flooding which affected almost 1 million people in both 2019 and 2020. The ongoing sub-national violence and localized conflicts in many parts of the country, combined with the disruptive impacts of the COVID-19 on markets, services, and movements, are said to have led to a substantial increase in vulnerabilities.
As a result, S. Sudan is facing its highest levels of food insecurity and malnutrition since independence 10 years ago. The upcoming lean season from May to July is expected to be the most severe on record.
“Conflict, displacement, loss of livelihoods, inability to reach health care and lack of access to schools have created urgent humanitarian and protection needs, especially for women and children,” Alain Noudéhou, the Humanitarian Coordinator in South Sudan, said.
“Throughout these various shocks, the affected communities have continued to demonstrate a great sense of solidarity. I call on the Government, development partners, donors and aid organizations to match their solidarity with unwavering support,” the Humanitarian Coordinator added.
Noudéhou stated that urgent funding is needed to prevent a further deterioration of the situation, adding that violence too needs to stop so that the people of South Sudan can finally recover from the crisis and rebuild their lives.
Devex Inside Developments: South Sudan
South Sudan facing highest ever levels of food insecurity
By Rumbi Chakamba 03/17/2021
South Sudan is facing the highest levels of food insecurity and malnutrition since it declared independence 10 years ago. An estimated 7.7 million people will need food assistance.
Jonglei state, where famine is rife.
Photograph: Maura Ajak/AP
The country’s 2021 humanitarian response plan, released Tuesday by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), states that “the latest food security analysis estimates that the lean season [April to July], will be the worst … ever.” Approximately 108,000 people are predicted to be in phase 5, which on the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, scale, indicates catastrophe or famine and is the highest possible classification.
Anthony Rama, Tearfund’s South Sudan country director, said, “about half the population is in dire need of food assistance. We have endured years of intercommunal conflicts and now COVID has … weakened our fragile health system’s ability to treat people.” Rama added that there are severe food shortages in all the geographical areas where his organization works and that it is now targeting relief only in those regions for which the IPC has classified the severity of food insecurity as phase 4 or phase 5.
OCHA is requesting $1.7 billion to reach 6.6 million people with urgent life-saving assistance and protection by the end of the year. “Our immediate priorities include sustaining our response in the most food insecure areas and preparing for the upcoming rainy season, which is forecasted to lead once again to major floods,” said Alain Noudéhou, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in South Sudan. “But we need urgent funding to prevent a further deterioration of the situation.”
Crown of Thorns
made while a student at Virginia Theological Seminary in 2000.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROUS SUPPORT!
We continue to be grateful that contributions from you, our supporters, continue to nurture AFRECS in expanding our impact in the essential peacebuilding work of the Episcopal Church in the Sudans. As we approach the sacred time of Holy Week and Easter, we hope you will consider another gift of whatever you can afford in this time of COVID — remembering our Lord’s generous gift of his life for us. You can contribute online at https://afrecs.org or send a check made out to AFRECS to P.O. Box 3327, Alexandria, VA 22302
Please Note: AFRECS’ former address c/o Virginia Theological Seminary is no longer valid.
This issue of the AFRECS E-Blast was compiled by Board members Richard Jones and Caroline Klam.