AFRECS E-Blast: October 23, 2022

– Charles Wesley

Thirty clergy and congregational leaders from the South Sudanese diaspora in the U.S. met October 1-3 in Kansas City to talk — chiefly among themselves. One major issue was finding permanent places for worship and gatherings under Episcopal church roofs, whether in Maryland, Texas, or elsewhere. Some communities had been received in Lutheran or Presbyterian churches, but the clear message from the conference was that they were Episcopalian and wanted to have their children raised within the Anglican tradition of their people back home. The Episcopal Church was said to be losing the gifted leadership of its South Sudanese American members because of the common experience of a lack of hospitality.

The pastoral leaders voiced a need to understand better the American way of providing for family life. Clergy are working long hours and are generally expected to serve without church stipend. Negotiating advanced education requirements within the Episcopal Church was confusing and frustrating, especially for those discerning calls to ordination. Some feared that Sudanese children were losing pace in their faith development for lack of trained Sunday School teachers, as well as resources that would hold children’s attention in American society. Some wanted assistance finding scholarships, especially at Episcopal schools and colleges.

One leader from Atlanta sends out the entire lectionary readings in Dinka to as wide a network of congregations as he can find. He has help in handling lessons from the New Testament but finds no modern translation for the Old Testament lessons, so he translates them himself, and all in his “spare time.” His desire is to know how to upload everything on the internet and make his work accessible in a digital form year by year.

We hope that the Episcopal Church’s newly named Office of African Descent Ministries will be able to address some of the issues raised. See the full article here.

Mary Jane Hubbard and Richard Jones finish executing the Judy Smith-designed made-in-USA tukul to display the work of AFRECS Sept. 22-25 at the New Wineskins conference in North Carolina.  Board Member James Hubbard said after the conference, “I can’t remember when I was with a crowd more enthusiastic for Jesus.”

Virginia Theological Seminary has announced a future visitor from London, Bishop Anthony Poggo Dagasuk, Secretary-General of the Anglican Communion and former bishop of Kajo-Keji Diocese in the Episcopal Church of South Sudan.

Participants in the tenth triennial conference of the New Wineskins Missionary Network in Black Mountain, North Carolina September 23-25 included Abraham Yel Nhial, bishop of Aweil in the Episcopal Church of South Sudan and author (with DiAnn Mills) of Lost Boy No More; Andrew M. Rowell, rector of Christ Church Anglican in Montgomery, Alabama and sometime teacher of Greek at Renk Theological College; Carrie Boren Headington, canon evangelist of the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas; Christopher Royer, director of Anglican Frontier Missions; Mary Chowenhill of SAMS (Society of Anglican Missionaries and Senders) serving at Uganda Christian University; Steven Noll, retired Vice-Chancellor of Uganda Christian University; and an American couple awaiting their visa to serve in the Diocese of Port Sudan under Bishop Abdul Nur Kodi.

Hilary Garang Deng, retired bishop of Malakal, continues his long-distance Ph.D. studies at Uganda Christian University.  He is in conversation with the School of Fine Arts, Music, and Drama of the University of Juba about the possibility of future teaching there.

Are We There Yet? Rokon and Back
by James Hubbard

August 19, 2022

When my children and their parents were young, and we were on a car trip, the frequent question was, “Are we there yet?”  (I’m confident that no one else has had that experience.)  Yesterday, many around us were saying, “Rokon is coming.  We are nearer it now.  It is coming soon.”  Let me tell you it was never coming.  Oh, we finally arrived, but we did all the ‘coming.’  Rough dirt roads, not unlike what we see right in Juba, but with a difference. It is a long road, 53 miles, I think I was told.  Fifty-three miles is nothing.  I ought to know.  I drive 70 to work!  Oh yes, you haven’t driven this 53 miles. No major traffic, the road was wide, the day was beautiful, the car was air conditioned, the company was congenial and it took three hours plus maybe 143 miles bouncing up and down and left and right and back and forth to cover those 53 miles. We met at the Bishop Gwynne College with the Rev’d James Aruma Ilarios, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs for The Episcopal University to be built on the foundation laid by several college level institutions throughout South Sudan.  But we were going to visit the site of a proposed new campus for all of these schools on a two kilometer square site in Rokon—yes, 53 miles outside of Juba.  Vice-Chancellor James introduced us to the University staff, a very impressive and committed group of individuals.  And then he prayed for safety and a blessed day.  Only seven us were privileged to go.  Now I realize that the other half-dozen folks breathed a sigh of relief as we climbed into the Land Rover and drove away.

I’ll introduce you to the others according to their seating position.  Our driver, Joseph, an amazing driver who would be bored out of his mind driving in the U.S. after what is required and what he is so good at in this country.  I doubt if he could imagine driving in straight lines and all in one direction.  He would have to see it to believe it.   Bp. Jackson Arifa, Assistant Bishop for Juba rode shotgun.  Dane was behind him, Joseph Agang, who is about 6’4” was behind Joseph the driver. He is the Examination Officer for the Episcopal Church’s 3000 students. I sat in the middle — we all know why, because I’m short.  And in the privileged fold down ( no comfort here) jump seats were the uncomplaining, but painfully aware, Engineer,Moses Mauwa and the University Operations Manager Joseph Uyikuru.

We left pretty close to 9:00 A.M. and arrived pretty close to 1:00, but who’s counting?  At our first security checkpoint Dane and I were wondering what the inside of a South Sudanese prison looks like since we were told we did not have a CID clearance.  Of course, they had done the same at the airport on Tuesday via computer, but this little policeman was not having any of that, nor that a CID clearance is not needed for a tourist, but only if you are a citizen and taking a government job.  Bp. Jackson and Joseph Agang talked the young fellow down, and the Bishop promised to bring some Bibles for him and his colleagues the next time he came through.  Fortunately, Bishops are seen as equals to government officials in this country, even if they are far superior, and the young man could not get from Bp. Jackson any kind of agreement that he, the policeman, knew what he was talking about. With the promise of the Bibles, he told us we could go — and then welcomed us cheerily.  Later we were told that these men, military and police, when they are out of cigarette papers have been known to use pages out of the bible to roll their smokes!

So back into the Land Rover only to be stopped immediately at the road blockade and told that we needed to see the young man’s superior.  So Agang climbs back out and stalks over to see the superior.  The Bp is muttering, “We are not paying them anything, not now or ever.” Soon Agang was back, muttering a little himself.  No, he had not paid them anything.  I think every other security point in the, yes 53 miles, waved us through.  They knew the car or saw the bishop, or who knows, but no problems.

The bush is beautiful in its own way.  Many species of shrub, grass, trees and a few birds are present.  A small dove was very common and a blackbird about the size of a starling I saw a few times. I did see a committee of vultures in a tree.  There are frequent streams, but for the sake of my grandson, Loren, they are not trout streams, not any more.  Actually,  they were probably never trout streams, we are too close to the Equator.  They are filled with erosive material and look horribly polluted.

We began encountering herds of cattle, owned by the Mandari tribes people in this region. Like the Nuer and the Dinka, they are pastoralists and traditionally keep cattle.  Cattle are their wealth, part of their family, used to pay dowries to the bride’s family, and were traditionally part of their religious life.  I asked Joseph Agang if they marked the cattle to tell them apart, because I knew that families treated them family.  He said, ‘No need’ they are so familiar with every marking, every shade of color and in many other ways, that they know them as individuals, and even in large community herds have no problem identifying their own.  Each is given a special name, in fact.  This reminds me of Jesus’s assertion that the Good Shepherd knows his sheep and they know him.  Well, it is true for the good herder and the cattle themselves in this very rural pastoral setting.  The horns on these cattle are probably three feet long.  The white cattle are the preferred color and Joseph says that after a rain they are beautiful.

About 1:00 we arrived in Rokon, drove by Saint Joseph’s school that only a few years ago had 330 students, but now is closed for lack of money and teachers.  The students have gone to Government schools although Saint Joseph’s was originally far superior.  The headmaster told us that the schools — there are two, the other is Saint Mary’s but is a little distance away, and that region is under the control of rebels presently — have for years been the identity of the Rokon community.  They feel lost without them. The ladies ululated us into the Diocesan Office area as their way of welcoming us. They extended us the hospitality of tea which only one of us accepted.

Finally, we went to university land and walked through the bush to the three boreholes that AFRECS helped fund.  We felt as if we really were at the beginning of something great. The issue, as it is so often, is money.  The entire planning for the campus has been done by EMI (Engineering Ministries International).  Most of the engineering and architectural team was North American.  The complete onsite evaluation, electricity, water, waste water and sewage, architecture, drawings, with cost estimates have been published this year.    And their work has been approved by the Church.  Phase One A and B estimates are roughly $26,000,000.00.  It is a daunting amount of money, but U.K. participants have begun the search for large sums and intend to do so in the U.S. as well.  On one hand, we might say that our God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, a propos our earlier discussion about cattle.  On the other hand, a lot of money is needed and an entire nation will eventually be the beneficiary.  Governments and large companies, even large charitable organizations are used to thinking in terms which exceed the experience of many of us in the Church.  Still a large vision is needed for South Sudan and for the Episcopal Church in South Sudan.  There will be a time not too many years down the road when this initial sum may seem small indeed, and if it is given that time will come more quickly than if it is not.  Christians can pray together to hold out this vision.  God can prepare hearts and minds.  And there is an urgency about this, because a security fence is needed before the present land and perhaps the boreholes are raided.  Security will diminish some of the urgency.

Much praying and the planning have been done, initial steps have been taken.  Let us take up the praying and an offering networking that may make much more possible a reasonable calendar for construction.  Money for the security fence has been identified and the holders, Christians all, are thinking, praying and studying the practicality of it.  Let us pray with them to accomplish this first essential piece, about $1,000,000 of the $26,000,000 mentioned.

This is a worthwhile vision.

Click here to read the full dispatch.

An Episcopal University of South Sudan vehicle took us to their Juba headquarters at the compound of Bishop Gwynne Theological School.  There we met with the Rev. James Aruma Ilarios, Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs; George Taban, Acting Dean of the School of Theology; Registrar Paul Issa; Joseph Uyikuru, Operations Officer; Joseph Agar, head of student affairs, and Joseph Ajang, Examinations Officer.  (We also encountered Bishop Zechariah Manyok Biar of Wanglei (Jonglei), a part-time professor.) The last three accompanied us as we picked up Jackson Arifa, Assistant Bishop of Juba, who took the place of the still abroad new Bishop of Rokon, Emmanuel Lomoro Eluzai. That proved a happy circumstance, because Arifa is part-time on the faculty of the University and knows Rokon well.  He proved dexterous in moving us past a checkpoint where authorities initially insisted that James and I show a registration document we did not have.

Rokon is about 65 kilometers northwest of Juba on a wide dirt road, which the rain and heavy lorries have left with deeply rutted areas.  The land is flat and increasingly populated by trees as we moved north with numerous jabls – “mountains” in Arabic, but in this area spiky rocky hills.  We passed several large herds of cattle owned by Mandari, a Nilotic group that lives in Equatoria.  As we approached Rokon, Ajang called our attention to the beginnings of the university campus plot – 2 square kilometers – that borders the road on the northwest.

Continuing on some 12 kilometers into Rokon itself and the diocese office, we were greeted by Diocesan Secretary Malish Francis, the Rev. Barnaba, Provost of St. John church, and several archdeacons. We spoke with Rev. Ruth, local coordinator for the Mothers’ Union and wearing clerical collar, who stressed the importance of helping women with gender-based violence and trauma. The core of the diocesan compound is an orphanage created by missionaries which still serves 20 children..

Receiving a warm welcome, I thanked the group — in Arabic, to their surprise. On our way back to the university campus, we visited the St. Joseph’s Primary School (temporarily closed because it ran out of money) and borehole (pump broken). St Mary’s School in the archdeaconry of Keri was closed because the area is in rebel hands.

Back at the campus – which those without vision might characterize as an untamed wilderness — we visited on foot, in grass as high as an elephant’s eye, the three successful boreholes.  At this point they are basically narrow well shafts protruding from the ground and sealed.

  

Phase IB includes construction of academic and student housing at a cost of about $25 million. With Phases II and III and some desirable options like athletic fields and a retreat center, the total is estimated at more than $76 million.

There is great excitement and large hopes about the university among what seems to be a very committed senior staff.  Adequate and timely funding remain a huge obstacle to its realization under the present plan.

Click here to read the full dispatch.