How Homelike is the Episcopal Church for South Sudanese Americans?
by Richard J. Jones, AFRECS board member
Ronald C. Byrd, director of African Descent Ministries ( formerly Office of Black Ministries) in The Episcopal Church, has added South Sudanese Americans to his constituencies.
When our Episcopal Convention meets in Louisville this June, Byrd along with bishops and deputies will be discussing how South Sudanese communities have evolved since the time depicted in the comic film The Good Lie, starring Reese Witherspoon and Emmanuel Jal, when refugees were plucked from Kakuma refugee camp and dropped into life in America. In 2022 15 clerics and 14 lay South Sudanese American congregational leaders were heartily welcomed at a Kansas City hotel– with some apology for things we had previously left undone — by Presiding Bishop Curry and House of Delegates President Julia Ayala Harris. For two days these leaders shared two decades of frustrations and aspirations. Later that year a smaller group wrote up their desires for full acceptance of their clergy and their congregations. In spite of uneven educations and limited finances, they committed to support dioceses that would give them recognition.
South Sudanese American congregations in Iowa, Michigan, Texas, Washington state, and Atlanta have become centers of community life. Others, including Portland, Maine and Baltimore, Maryland, have made their way without remaining connected to The Episcopal Church. As Ron Byrd and other chief pastors focus on newer, alongside older, congregations with links to Africa, they will welcome photos and facts, reports and rosters, to depict the health of these households of God. Please send your news to your bishops and deputies, the United Thank Offering of the Women of the Church — and to AFRECS at anitasanborn@gmail.com. We want to know!
Read more at: Report of the Task Force on the South Sudanese Diaspora and The Episcopal Church