Author: AmerFriendSudan

On June 28 in Louisville, Kentucky, before closing the 81st General Convention of The Episcopal Church, the deputies and bishops authorized our Washington office to advocate for US government efforts to persuade countries supporting the combatants in Sudan to cease supplying arms, equipment, and funds.  They called also for high-level diplomacy to mobilize from many countries the funds and equipment needed to relieve the impending famine, restore medical care, and reconstruct Sudan.

Resolution: Response to the crisis in Sudan and support for the Episcopal Church of Sudan

AFRECS Board members, testifying before the joint legislative committee on World Mission, offered first-hand testimony from His Grace Archbishop Ezekiel Kondo, recorded during a BBC interview in April 2023 while he hid with a dozen Sudanese Christians as the Khartoum Cathedral was being overrun. Kondo’s closing words, as flying bullets could be heard in the background, were inspiring:  “Nobody knows how and when this situation will come to an end.  There is so much fear among the Sudanese people…. I thought about the boat, the disciples and Jesus. The disciples cried out ‘Don’t you care that we are about to die?’ And Jesus wakes up and commanded the wind to be quiet and be still.  And it was. I believe God is able to do and does things.  And this is the whole hope that we have.  That [for] this sinking boat the waves and the wind will die out.”

The Presiding Bishop was asked to encourage donations to Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) and the American Friends of the Episcopal Church of the Sudans (AFRECS) to aid in this effort.

The resolution submitted by former AFRECS Board member Russell V. Randle, current Board member Susan E. Bentley, and Diocese of Virginia lay Deputy Cindi Bartol requested the Presiding Bishop to designate a season of prayer for Sudan later this year by our dioceses, congregations, clergy, and people.

The Right Reverend Sean Rowe, elected Presiding Bishop at the convention in Louisville, will take office on November 2, succeeding the Right Reverend Michael Bruce Curry.

Grace Episcopal Church in Lexington, Virginia will hold its annual celebration of the life of Marc R. Nikkel (1950-2000) on September 8.  Nikkel was ordained in the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia by Bishop Heath Light , supported by the Church Mission Society of the UK, and served for 20 years as a teacher in the Episcopal Church of Sudan.  His letters from Sudan (Why Haven’t You Left?, edited by Grant LeMarquand, available at churchpublishing.org) have inspired many.

Photo: Gathering at the AFRECS exhibit at the Louisville General Convention were (L to R) Archbishop Hilary Garang of South Sudan; Joseph P. Alaak of the Diocese of Nebraska; Dorothea Brooks, member of the Standing Commission on World Mission; Bishop Anthony Poggo, Secretary-General of the Anglican Communion; Anderial Lual of the Diocese of Arizona; and Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Capetown and Metropolitan of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa.

Three Sudanese rectors of Sudanese congregations in the United States were active at the recent Louisville Convention. The Reverend Agook Akuol serves a South Sudanese congregation in Houston, Texas.  The Reverend Anderia Lual serves the congregation of St. Paul the Apostle in Phoenix. Arizona. Joseph P. Alaak, a graduate of Virginia Seminary serving as Assisting Cleric/Sudan Missioner at St. Martha’s Episcopal Church in Papillion, a suburb of Omaha, was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop J. Scott Baker on August 16.  Deacon Daniel Kuol assists at Messiah Trinity Episcopal Church in Louisville, Kentucky.

Elsewhere, The Rev. Zachariah Jok Char and Deacon Abraham Muong Anei lead worship in English on the first Sunday and Dinka on the other Sundays of the month in Sudanese Grace Episcopal Church’s own building in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Jacob Deng Aleer is scheduled to be ordained to the priesthood August 31 at St. Andrew’s Church in Des Moines by Bishop Betsey Monnot of Iowa.  The Reverend Kwathi Akol Ajawin, pastor of the African Sudanese congregation at Cornerstone Free Evangelical Church in Annandale, Virginia, plans to visit Sudanese congregations in Melbourne, Australia in the month of September.  John Thon Majok directs the Refugee and Forced Displacement Initiative at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C.

Photo: Hilary Garang Deng, a retired Archbishop in the Episcopal Church of South Sudan, shares with AFRECS leaders (L to R) Steven Miles, Anita Sanborn, and Dane Smith an artistic creation he made while visiting the General Convention in Louisville.

In the congested bazaar of the Louisville General Convention, a lanky African in a black suit and purple shirt attracted browsing visitors June 24-26 while he sat drawing with oil pastel crayons.  Hilary Garang Deng,  head of the art department at the University of Juba and retired bishop of Malakal in South Sudan, embraced old friends and invited strangers to pray for peace in their own hearts and for healing of the war-ravaged Sudans.

AFRECS Board Member Steven Miles said he was moved by Archbishop Hilary’s work as it expressed, in Steven’s words, “a re-creation, a spiritual expression of our Risen Lord as expressed by the empty Cross and the dazzling sunrise in the background.”

Bright Stars, the first men’s basketball team to represent South Sudan in the Olympic Games, reached the semifinals in Villeneuve-d’Ascq before being defeated by Serbia 96-85 in a hotly contested game August 3, 2024. Expectations for the team were high after it lost a pre-Olympics game on July 20 in London by a single point – 101-100 – to the United States team led by LeBron James. AFRECS Board member Steve Miles noted that most of the players for South Sudan were descendants of South Sudanese refugees to the US or Australia.  “Several had outstanding collegiate basketball careers in the US or played with NBA teams,” he commented, “but were ultimately released from those NBA teams, sometimes for reasons that sound (as described in the ESPN article) rather capricious.” An ESPN reporter predicted, “There probably will be a movie made about the South Sudan basketball team someday.”

LINK: South Sudan Coach Accuses Refs of Bias in Olympic Loss to Serbia

The AFRECS team at the 81st Episcopal Convention in Louisville in June was honored by the presence of artist and retired Archbishop Hilary Garang Deng of Malakal.  A magnetic figure, he greeted and prayed with South Sudanese and American friends,while sketching vibrant oil pastel works.

Inconclusive Sudan talks were set up for Geneva August 14, arranged by the US with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE as co-sponsors. The SAF did not show up. A new round was scheduled in Cairo August 26, but failed to materialize. One positive development: the SAF has now agreed that humanitarian assistance can enter Darfur via Adre, a key site it had previously ruled out.

The Famine Review Committee, a UN-related body for measuring food crises, has declared parts of North Darfur to be in famine, especially the ZamZam displacement camp housing 500,000 just south of El Fasher.  Famine is also projected for other parts of Darfur, Gezira State, and Kordofan unless humanitarian access improves.  One estimate projects that as many as 2.5 million could die from starvation. Pray for the Sudanese and urge maximum US efforts to save them.

Biographies

Russell Randle, Esq., Convener, Russ Randle is a Principal at Miles & Stockbridge PC in Washington, DC. He served on the AFRECS Board of Directors from 2008 to 2017.  He is an honorary canon of St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Renk, South Sudan. He has worked with the Episcopal Church of Sudan and the Episcopal Church of South Sudan since 1997 in advocacy to The Episcopal Church, including adoption of multiple General Convention and Executive Council resolutions. He has collaborated with the Episcopal Church Office of Government Relations in presenting concerns about human rights, religious persecution, peace, and development to Congress and U.S. Government agencies on a pro bono basis.

Buck Blanchard is the former Mission and Outreach Director for the Diocese of Virginia and the Episcopal Church in Colorado. He also served for a time as a member of the staff of the Global Partnerships Team of The Episcopal Church. He has travelled to South Sudan extensively, beginning in 2008, and has visited more than a dozen dioceses there.

Brian D’Silva has over 45 years experience working in Africa – in Northern Nigeria, Sudan and South Sudan and Kenya. He retired from the US Government after 32 years. His time with USAID was spent both in residence in Sudan as well as a regional position with USAID in Kenya covering East and Southern Africa. He continues to work on issues related to Sudan and South Sudan. Most recently he worked as an advisor to the Minister of Finance and the Office of the PM, during the Civilian Transitional Government of PM Hamdok (2019-2021). Before that he worked as an advisor to the Minister of Finance in the independent Government of South Sudan. Currently he is advising USAID on their $60 million initiative for Sudan. He lives with his wife in Reston, VA.

Rev. Robin Denney, Rector of St. Mary’s Episcopal, Napa, CA. was ordained in 2017, and before that had a career in agriculture development as a missionary of the Episcopal Church in Liberia and South Sudan. She also served as a lay church-planter, starting a bilingual ministry in the Salinas Valley. Robin grew up on a farm and ranch in northern Salinas Valley and has a degree in Viticulture and Enology from UC Davis. She has a Master’s in Divinity from Virginia Theological Seminary.

Liz Ha is the CEO of Five Talents, a Christian micro-enterprise organization that ministers in South Sudan as well eight other countries in the global south.  Five Talents is proud to partner with the global church and partner organizations such as AFRECS to facilitate literacy, savings, and entrepreneurship training to help people find a sustainable path out of extreme poverty to the flourishing of the body and spirit.

The Rev. Andrew Merrow serves at Saint Mary’s Episcopal Church in Arlington, Virginia, one of the parishes that helped to build the Cathedral of St. Matthew in Renk Diocese. He has made numerous trips to South Sudan over the years and was blessed to lead a Retreat for Deans at the request of the then Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul. Saint Mary’s prays at all Sunday services for the people and church in Sudan and South Sudan.

Bishop (Rtd) Alan Scarfe was born in Bradford in Yorkshire, England. Before ordination in 1986 he served as Executive Director of Keston College USA, an independent research institution advocating freedom of religion in communist countries. He was rector of St. Barnabas’ Episcopal Church in the Los Angeles area before his election as Bishop of Iowa in 2002. As Bishop he created a diocesan companionship with the ECSS Diocese of Nzara. Bishop Scarfe co-chaired the Task Force on Dialogue with the South Sudanese Anglican Diaspora 2018-2024. He has twice visited South Sudan and has frequently hosted Archbishop Samuel Peni of Western Equatoria and Yambio Diocese. 

The Rev. Oran E. Warder is the long-time rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Alexandria, Virginia, a congregation that has a decades-long mission partnership with the Diocese of Renk, South Sudan and also has a South Sudanese worshipping community that is part of the parish.  He has made two visits to South Sudan, once to visit the Renk Basic School (which the parish supports) and once to attend the first General Synod Meeting of the Church of South Sudan following independence.