Message from the President
We at AFRECS are so happy that Executive Director Dane Smith and board member James Hubbard are in the midst of an extended visit to reconnect with Sudanese and South Sudanese church leaders and other AFRECS friends in Salisbury, London, Khartoum and Juba, as well as other parts of the Sudans.
The Covid pandemic has reminded us there is no substitute for direct human contact and dialogue. That AFRECS has been able to show up and be with our friends, for the first time since early 2020, is quite meaningful. Dane and James will get to see first-hand the progress of three projects that we support — the Glow MAPS school in the displaced persons camp outside Juba, the developing campus of the Episcopal University of South Sudan in Rokon, and the vocational and trauma healing program administered by Five Talents in Terekeka (where it has expanded from Renk). Most importantly, we get to rekindle friendships, spark new ones, and share ideas for new mission. So much more can happen face to face than over a choppy internet connection — where the video often must be turned off to make the audio audible.
Recent in-person discussions at the Lambeth conference of Anglican bishops were, of course, a reminder of our differences as a Communion. Differences certainly remain. As the gathered bishops were able to do, however, we too can find a way forward as friends in mutually respectful relationship, working together to fulfill Jesus’s vision of human dignity by addressing the suffering of his people. The current visit by Dane and James is a reflection of that call and furthers that effort.
I pray for continued safe travel, and for stronger relationships in shared mission!
Phil Darrow
Smith and Hubbard Visit UK, Khartoum, and Juba: Selected Dispatches
Dane Smith (Khartoum, Sudan, August 15):
James and I met with Hawaya Abdul-Rahman, Coordinator of the Mothers’ Union today at the Provincial Office. Mama Samira Suleiman, MU President, joined us late in the meeting. The meeting was in English until the latter arrived and was then translated into/from Arabic. Hawaya said that the Mothers’ Union has been mobilizing literacy circles in Arabic in the dioceses. Coordinators are trained in Khartoum, then they train facilitators. There are currently seven coordinators and fifty facilitators (ten per diocese). The training goes on in Khartoum with trainees housed locally in “hotels.” The coordinators are Christian, but facilitators may be Muslim or any other faith. Both the diocesan coordinators and the facilitators are volunteers but receive incentive payments from time to time. Building on the literacy work, training continues into small business. Graduates receive up to 16,000 Sudanese pounds (about $32 today) to get started. The bulk of them acquire simple sewing machines to enable them to create clothes, especially school uniforms. Others go into the food business, selling tea on the streets or creating cakes or other food items. Women benefiting from the program — often their husbands are unemployed — have been able to pay school fees for their kids, buy them clothes, purchase goats, or even buy a house. Mothers’ Union evaluates the success or failure of those they have trained in order to improve the program. In one case, a graduate ambitiously attempted to build a cafeteria to sell food but ran out of money before completing it.
James Hubbard (Omdurman, Sudan, August 13):
Saturday evening Dane and I were taken to the Mahdi’s tomb. The tomb itself is located within a huge architecturally carved wooden case, which is itself a screen with dimensions of, say, 25 x 40 feet in width and length. A few of the devout were there to pray.
Later we were driven through mud and water (this is the rainy season in central Africa) into the grounds where the dervishes were to dance. By the time we arrived, several hundreds, perhaps more, mostly men, were gathered to hear speeches. We walked through the vehicles, small structures, and crowds, sticking to high ground, to see and hear the speeches—all in Arabic, of course.
Suddenly there were men gathering around us, shyly smiling, and then asking where we were from. They were fascinated that Americans were there, but over and over they welcomed us. One asked me my profession and, being a little coy, I said “Clergy”.
“ ‘Clergy’, what is clergy?” he responded. I told him I was a Christian priest.
That he understood and then said that their holy book was the Koran.
“Yes, I said, “I’ve read it many times.”
“What do you think of it?”
“There is much that’s good in it, like the Bible”.
‘But what do you think of it?’
“Well, no disrespect, but it seems disorganized”.
“Why do you say that?”.
“Well, because it does not develop topically, logically. It speaks of one thing and then moves to another, maybe later on comes back to a topic mentioned previously. There are no connections between paragraphs. You write an essay and you develop a topical sentence and then a paragraph around that, and then move on logically.”
He understood that, but said that I misunderstand the logic of the Koran. Then another young man jumps in to say that it is my opinion and he cannot say that I am wrong. He must respect my opinion.
“No, if he is wrong I must tell him so.”
Delightful. Open. Disagreement, but in a very friendly manner.
Then the discussion turns to forgiveness: “Only God could forgive.” I agreed. “But humans have to forgive each other too,” I say.
“Give me an example”, says one. So I suggested we were friends, but say I told him a lie. When he finds out, then to retain the friendship he must forgive me. I must forgive him for something he does to me. They thought this was fascinating, seemingly a new idea. We had an enjoyable conversation, all six or eight of us!
Impact of AFRECS
AFRECS has released our 2021 Annual Report featuring stories, updates, and reports from its work over the previous year. Read more about AFRECS’ partnerships and the inspiring ministries in Sudan and South Sudan. Click here to read the AFRECS 2021 Annual Report.
Bishops Discuss Differences at Lambeth Conference
At the recent gathering of bishops from all dioceses in the Anglican Communion at Canterbury Cathedral, known as the Lambeth Conference, some of the more difficult discussions exposed differing views within the Communion on human sexuality and same-sex marriage. Prior to the July 27 opening of the conference, Archbishop Justin Badi Arama, alongside the Archbishop of Hong Kong, had announced the hope of the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans that the conference would reaffirm a 1998 declaration that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. As the seven-day conference of bishops and their wives proceeded through worship and Bible study, small-group discussions, plenary responses to themes such as evangelism and climate care, a message from the Queen of England, and many corridor conversations, no voting on this divisive matter occurred. The gathered bishops instead concurred on a Call regarding human dignity that recognized the different views, but affirmed the commitment to listen and walk together despite “deep disagreement” on these issues.
See the links below for interviews with the Bishop of Tonj, Peter Yuol Gur, and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s advisor for Anglican Communion affairs, Anthony Dangasuk Poggo, former bishop of Kajo-Keji.
Come See Us at New Wineskins, Black Mountain, North Carolina Sept. 22-25
Dane Smith and AFRECS Board members look forward to welcoming visitors at our exhibit during the once-every-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. We will also welcome Tad deBordenave, founder of Anglican Frontier Missions and author of Light to the Nations: God’s Covenant with the Nations and Abraham Yel Nhial, Bishop of Aweil in South Sudan.
Register now at https://www.
Violence in Northern Bahr al-Ghazal Internal Province
Following a series of machine gun and burning attacks on villages between February and June, the bishop of Abyei Diocese in the Episcopal Church of South Sudan, Michael Bol Deng, on June 26 appealed to friendly governments and the United Nations for assistance with food and shelter for 156,000 people, including twenty pastors, displaced from their homes in nine Ngok Dinka villages. These homeless people have congregated around Aweil town, the capital of Northern Bahr Ghazal, which is 175 km. by road SW of the border of Abyei, overwhelming local resources.
The Abyei Administrative Region has been disputed between Sudan and South Sudan since independence. A proposed referendum never took place in 2011 because of a dispute over whether nomadic pastoralists were residents; an informal referendum in 2013 was boycotted by pastoralists.
Bishop Michael Deng Bol (abyeianglicanchurch@hotmail.
A Teacher Makes Up Her Mind
“I decided at the outset (for me, 2005) that with the relatively small amount of money and human resources I could hope to contribute, directly and indirectly, I could make the most significant impact through improving theological education, since the Sudans are one of the few places on the planet where Christian clergy are the best educated, most trusted, and most influential members of the community. I still think that is the case.”
Ellen F. Davis, Distinguished Professor of Bible and Practical Theology, Duke Divinity School, July 27, 2022
Seminary in Exile Prepares to Uproot and Go Home
War has twice forced the theological school with the best library in the Episcopal Church of South Sudan to pack its books and seek refuge in Arua, Uganda. Bishop Allison Theological College (https://www.batcyei.org), established in Yei in 1993 by Bishop Seme Solomona, now plans to build back on property formerly belonging to Samaritan’s Purse and to return home to Yei in 2023. Principal Emmanuel Lokosang Charles has just sent off to Uganda Christian University in Mukono his dissertation for the Master of Arts degree.
Most students pursuing the three-year residential program live in refugee camps one or more hours away from the Arua campus. These include seventeen candidates for a certificate and five for a diploma in theology. Each of the five teachers at Bishop Allison offers two or three courses per term, plus administrative duties.
To share this strenuous load and strengthen the faculty, BATC has recently welcomed students from Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina in the United States to serve as unpaid short-term teachers. Maggie Larson, a 2nd year M.Div. candidate at Duke teaching said in June, “I love the students. Many are coming from challenging backgrounds, yet they are all joyful. Everyone has their role within the student body. Some of the students are already ministers and ordained.”
A fellow Duke student, Bri Karpovich, added: “One of my favorite parts of teaching is small group discussions. The students are able to so elegantly explain and think about all the different aspects of the New Testament. I have been really blessed by challenging questions. The students have such curious minds – so much imagination.”
Exams for students are created by Uganda Christian University’s theological faculty. UCU selects questions submitted by BATC instructors. Students then see a bank of questions and must choose which four questions to answer. In the most recent class, 100% of the students passed their exams.
Stephen J. Crupi, a Duke graduate, joined the full-time BATC faculty in 2017 and served as academic dean until December 2021, teaching Bible, history, ethics, English, and basic computer skills. Crupi helped maintain links to supporters, including the Diocese of Salisbury, parishes in the UK, Church Mission Society Ireland, the Lipscomb Foundation in the US, and the Antioch Partnership.
The Reverend Rhonda Parker, director of ministerial formation at Duke, visited BATC in June and came home asking, “Are there ways to reduce the need for such long residential terms – perhaps concentrating education into two days per week so that students can work the other days of the week?”
Click for a video that captures a glimpse of life at BATC.
Who Funds Training?
by Robert Hayward
The Episcopal Church of South Sudan’s Development and Resettlement agency continues to train new staff. In 2018 thirty-eight Development Coordinators and Mothers’ Union Coordinators from fifteen ECSS dioceses and four internal provinces received eight days of training in Emergency Preparedness and Response. The training was conducted by CORAT Africa (Christian Organizations Research and Advisory Trust) trainers from Nairobi, paid for by Anglican Alliance partners.
In the Episcopal Church of Sudan, another supporter is the Relay Trust. As well as providing generous funding for education and development projects and training in El Obeid Diocese, the Relay Trust supports the Provincial Office, the five dioceses, and the Shukai Bible Training Institute in Omdurman to increase their wi-fi and other communication capacity, so they can better do theological education by extension (TEE).
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 of the E-Blast was compiled by Board members Richard Jones and Rick Houghton. We eagerly welcome comments, news, photographs with captions, and rejoinders from you, our readers, to anitasanborn@gmail.com.