Category: E-Blasts

Dr. Edward Eremugo Kenyi reports from Baltimore, Maryland: “Again this year we celebrated at St. Matthew Catholic Church, 5401 Loch Raven Boulevard. The event was well attended, with over 120 participants from Northern Virginia, District of Columbia, Maryland, and even Pennsylvania, including women and children. Yes, I sang some of the Easter songs in Arabic, and Mr. Emmanuel Hakim led on the keyboard. Pastor Kwathi Ajawin gave the homily, centered on I Corinthians 15:19-26. I have the homily on YouTube:  https://youtube/yolQHkpeO1Y?si=5TbffznUBe8uOYdn.” Mother Margaret Yar Deng, leader of the Dinka-language congregation at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Alexandria, Virginia reports good participation on the Sunday after Easter.

by Dane Smith

Sunday morning February 8, 2026, we drove further north for about forty-five minutes, left the road, crossed a wide, sandy wadi, and arrived at a grove of massive mango trees. Bishop Andudu, Assistant Bishop Hassan, and other clergy donned their vestments and joined a wide circle of perhaps a hundred men and women under the trees. After an opening prayer, various choirs of young women appeared, singing in Moro, the language of this part of the Nuba Mountains. After each of two Scripture readings, a choir appeared or reappeared. Eventually the bishops and the foreigners were introduced and asked to speak. 

I spoke briefly in Arabic to introduce AFRECS and describe our work for the Episcopal Church of Sudan and of South Sudan. Mentioning my earlier visits to Sudan, I rejoiced in my first visit to the Nuba Mountains. I noted we were considering, with Bishop Andudu’s encouragement, a possible program in trauma healing. 

Rev. Jared Wensyel, Executive Director, Sudan Church Partners, preached a sermon in English, translated into Arabic. Over time, the numbers rose steadily, to perhaps three hundred. We were sharing a uniquely African worship experience. It had relatively little in common with services I have attended in the Juba cathedral, which I could recognize as Episcopal rites. The service ended after three hours, and we repaired to another grove of tree for a lunch of chicken, rice, and goat innards, with strong sweet tea.

Why worship in the mango grove? For one thing, it certainly was a lot cooler than worship in one of the several churches we saw along the way, without fans, heated to ninety degrees by the incessant morning sun.

The real reason, however, is security. The Sudan Armed Forces has targeted large gatherings of church people, in the dioceses of Kadugli and the newer diocese of Heiban, with drone attacks. An attack on a 2023 Christmas gathering in Dilling killed several Christians. So, precautions are taken with large gatherings, particularly those involving Christian leaders. The precautions might also relate to disquiet among Muslim leaders over rapid gains in Christian numbers in the Nuba Mountains, with its mixed population of Muslims, Christians, and traditional African religions.

Christian evangelism is expanding rapidly in this area, sealed off thus far from the depredations of the Sudan Armed Forces or any authorities in Khartoum or Port Sudan. This area is under the control of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/North. Their agents, unknown to me, were circulating in our area – a mode of quiet policing to avoid trouble. To the north of this area, in Kadugli and Dilling, where Muslim authorities are still in general control, there is little church expansion. 

General Abdelaziz al-Hilu, popularly known as Aziz, is the strongman of the Nuba Mountains. A major figure in the SPLM/North, Aziz has kept the Sudan Armed Forces out of the Nuba Mountains. He has the reputation of being perhaps the most capable commander in the country. He has favored a democratic polity and separation of religion from the state.

It generated some perplexity when he signed an agreement with the Rapid Support Forces of Gen. Mohammed Degalo to create the “Government of Peace & Unity” in early 2025 and assumed the number two position. Bishop Andudu says Aziz concluded early on that, while both sides in Sudan’s civil war were evil, he needed to avoid having both against him, if a settlement were reached between the two. Given the more recent Islamist slant of the SAF, he sided – for the moment – with the RSF. The latter has pledged secular rule in their area. That seems a reasonable interpretation.

O God, by your providence the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church; as the martyrs of the Sudan refused to abandon Christ even in the face of torture and death, and by their sacrifice brought forth a plentiful harvest, so may we be steadfast in our faith in Jesus Christ; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever.

In 2018, the General Convention of The Episcopal Church meeting in Austin, Texas, encouraged dioceses and congregations to observe the Feast of the Martyrs of Sudan on the Sunday closest to May 16^th. It called for public prayer plus personal outreach to Sudanese and South Sudanese immigrants in our vicinities. This governing body urged “exploring appropriate efforts to assist their effort to foster peace in South Sudan and Sudan, and among its disparate tribes.”   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Baya_Lawiri

Following his death in Nairobi in April, the South Sudan armed forces transported the body of Bishop Nathaniel Garang Anyieth to Juba to lie in state at All Saints Cathedral in Juba. He was finally laid to rest at the Episcopal Cathedral near his compound in Bor, in the Upper Nile region. Canon Jerry Drino of San Jose, California, reports that the Archdeacon for the Episcopal Church of South Sudan in Kenya, Michael Bul Tor, accompanied the bishop’s body to Bor, along with four busloads of Episcopalians from Kenya.

by Leslie Siegmund

Our covenant with the Diocese of Ezo had held good for more than a quarter of a century — through wars, independence for South Sudan, and the tenure of several bishops — until in 2025  the United States imposed a travel ban on visitors from South Sudan, torpedoing our invitation to the Rt. Rev. Isaac Ephraim J. Bangisa, current bishop of Ezo, to visit our parish in Great Falls, Virginia. We needed a workaround.

Then we called to mind our mutual acquaintances, Ezo’s and St. Francis’s, with the Diocese of Salisbury in England. Bishop Isaac had visited Salisbury when he traveled to the 2022 Lambeth Conference. We had corresponded sporadically with members of the Sherborne Deanery-Ezo Link Team in Salisbury for about 10 years, exchanging information about projects and fundraising. Could we meet halfway between Africa and the U.S., in England?

Dr. Andrew Tomkins, a retired researcher on tropical diseases, and his wife Celia offered to host everyone at their large home. Bishop Isaac and Mama Nora obtained UK visas and arrived February 25^th. The next day, four members of St. Francis—Priest-in-Charge Weston Mathews, Deacon Nancy Searby, and parishioners Jack Mathias and myself—landed at Heathrow for the three-hour drive to Salisbury. The workaround worked.

We women attending the local Mothers’ Union meeting, where Mama Nora spoke about her Mothers’ Union in Ezo and showed photos of women learning to sew on machines purchased with donations from Sherborne. Over afternoon tea and cake, we met our counterparts on the Ezo-Sherborne Link team. Saturday, we filmed interviews with Bishop Isaac and Mama Nora, learning more about Ezo’s need for a functioning secondary school. Around the Tomkins’s generous dining table, we worked to update our covenant. Zoom connected us with St. Francis parishioners back in Virginia after their Sunday morning service. Before our return to the U.S., we learned of the UK-based Sudan Medical Link Team (https://www.salisburysudanspartnership.co.uk/about-us/) which supports Episcopal Church of South Sudan clinics with medical supplies, equipment, and training of health workers, focused on maternal and child health and combatting malnutrition and malaria.

Once back home in Virginia, we were thrilled to raise enough money to help build the high school in Ezo—the first Episcopal secondary school in that Diocese. Construction started on April 10^th. Our Associate Rector, the Rev. Joy Warburton, was able to connect with Mama Nora over Zoom and exchange Mothers’ Union information. Joy also worked on a plan to connect St. Francis and Ezo youth. We anticipate future connections between St. Francis, Sherborne, and Ezo, exploring the fruits of this unexpected but fortuitous workaround.

As we celebrate May 16 the Feast of the Martyrs of Sudan, it is fitting to remember the toll taken by the civil war in Sudan, which has entered its fourth year.  The Council on Foreign Relations in its “Global Conflict Tracker” reminds us that the estimated death toll ranges for 61,000 to 200,000; nine million are displaced – the worst displacement crisis in the world; four million have fled to other countries – most also very unstable, like Chad, Ethiopia, and South Sudan; and more than 33 million are enduring “the world’s largest hunger crisis.”

The Iran war has once more taken the spotlight off Sudan.  The Trump Administration is focused on bringing that conflict –now almost 15 weeks old – to an end.  Iran’s attacks on the UAE, perhaps the country that has most fueled the Sudan war with arms, has pushed it into closer alliance with the U.S. and Israel.  There could be an opportunity to press the UAE to halt its arms sales to the RSF, but no attention is being paid.

Executive Director

You are invited to connect online at 7:00 – 8:00 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time, Friday, May 15 to hear Ambassador Donald E. Booth, U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan 2013-2017 and again for Sudan 2019-2021, share  his impressions of the current situation in the Sudans.  Retired ambassador Dane F. Smith, Jr., director of AFRECS and Senior Advisor on Darfur in the Office of the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan 2011-12, will be in dialogue with Ambassador Booth.  An in-person Reception at 6:00 p.m. awaits you at Virginia Theological Seminary’s Addison Academic Center, 3737 Seminary Road, Alexandria VA (physical location: 3630 Bishop Walker Circle).

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/zQi4weZBRNKL2JJaU8QLbg

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

By Tom Staal

From the latest World Food Program report: Sudan’s overall hunger outlook remains dire. More than 21 million people face acute or worse food insecurity, the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) finds. Roughly 375,000 Sudanese face level 5 (IPC 5), or catastrophic hunger, the highest level. Two cities ripped apart by violence – El Fasher in the west and Kadugli in the south – are categorized as in famine. While fighting and drone attacks are still widespread throughout the country, since the fall of El Fasher to the RSF last year it has been especially concentrated in Kordofan.

In mid-February critical humanitarian assistance has finally reached parts of South Kordofan, including Dilling and Kadugli – areas largely cut off from aid for more than two years. WFP transported food to support nearly 70,000 people, including 21,000 mothers and children with specialized nutritious food to prevent malnutrition. With more funding and access, WFP could do twice as much: supporting up to 8 million people each month and helping to more durably reverse the hunger tide. “We need to take a very balanced approach to our operations in Sudan,” says WFP’s Director of Emergency Preparedness and Response. “On the one hand, we need to be working on famine prevention and responding to people in areas where conflict is active – and pushing for access to deliver food to civilians where they are. But we also need to support the conditions for people to return home. That’s happening in the city of Khartoum and the central Al-Jazira state, where WFP’s food and nutritional assistance reached more than a million people once conflict had subsided. Many people are returning to shattered homes and infrastructure after months of sometimes multiple displacements.”

In February, the London-based Robert Hayward of Christian Aid attended the opening by Archbishop Justin Badi Arama of a second boardinghouse for 51 girls at the Juba Model Diocesan Secondary School paid for by Holy Trinity Cathedral, Gibraltar. He also confirmed that a new well and 40-student hostel (12 female, 28 male) are being funded at Bishop Allison Theological College in Yei, now affiliated with The Episcopal University headquartered in Rokon and Juba. Robert reports that Thoura Primary School in Omdurman, Sudan, is now being completely rebuilt with six 40-pupil classrooms and a teachers’ office, with funds from a UK trust. For now, in Omdurman the staff of Bishop Shukai Theological College is displaced to Cairo, and the prestigious CMS Girls’ Secondary School remains closed.

When Joseph Tucker was growing up in La Cañada, California and attending St. Bede the Venerable Roman Catholic grade school, students had to choose between joining the choir or serving at the altar. Joe and his friends chose to be altar servers instead of singing. But his resonant mature voice went public when, as a student at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, he joined the student staff of the college’s radio station, WZBT 91.1. Their logo was a whimsical image of Abraham Lincoln with googly eyes. Weekly shipments of newly released albums arrived at the station, and before graduation he was airing his own hour-long show.

Joe’s family gave him an early appreciation for world affairs. Undergraduate study of decolonization led to increasing interest in African politics, with postgraduate work in political science. Arriving in Washington, DC in 2004, he worked for the National Endowment for Democracy, the Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the U.S. Institute of Peace. He was honored to work with many committed public servants, including the late Ambassador Princeton Lyman, one of President Obama’s special envoys to Sudan and former US ambassador to South Africa during the transition from apartheid. Tucker and Lyman travelled together frequently to Sudan and South Sudan.

After spending enough time in the region to appreciate its complex history, including meeting political and civil society leaders plus a wide variety of people striving to make a difference, he notes the deep commitment felt by those Sudanese and South Sudanese who have risked their lives bringing much needed assistance, information, and hope to people in both countries. In particular, he was always impressed by the work of dedicated local print and radio journalists, some of whom were supported by the U.S. and operated in remote, conflict-affected areas.

Over the years, Joe’s commentary has been broadcast on BBC, NPR, Voice of America, and Al- Jazeera, among others. His voice was also heard by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when he testified on Sudan in 2022.

Joe recently relocated from Washington, D.C. to Nairobi to follow current events in both countries and the Horn of Africa. AFRECS counts on continuing to hear his assured and informed voice via the internet.