Sudan Partnership Weblog

It strikes me this morning that I have made community an idol in which I depend more on people to meet my emotional and physical needs than on God. It seems to me that this new revelation is meant to free me from bondage to ways of dealing with life which can so easily fail. I have a new appreciation of the place,time and culture which brings me face to face with myself and God. I have a sense of peace in lifting my eyes to the One who never fails. Perhaps it’s just my morning coffee or the hazy, early morning sunshine lifting my spirits but I’m grateful to find contentment even for these brief moments when I feel the Spirit speaking very personally to my soul that His promise is true that He is near, that He will never leave us or forsake us. The truth is that He is there in solitude or in community. In fact, He is our community.

I’m discovering I much prefer the way Africans deal with death where immediately those around know that someone has passed when women begin wailing and expressing the depth of their distress. Then neighbors and family rush to them and for the next week or two the family is surrounded with those who join in the grieving process. Men work together to arrange for a coffin and dig the grave right outside the home and women begin cooking to feed everyone. People sit around just talking and grieving each time another person arrives with women rushing to the hut where the body lies or throwing themselves on the grave if the body has already been buried, wailing and expressing afresh the loss of the family member.

Here it seems to me even family members are like ships in the night with only an occasional glimmer of light in passing. Jeff and I have been able to experience the glimmer as we’ve been with his brothers and sisters the first afternoon at his brother’s house then at the funeral home and then with Mom’s priest in making final arrangements for the funeral. As Americans the value seems to be to continue life as normal. For the most part, it seems we leave each other to deal with the death each in his or her own solitude. I did not realize how hard this would be for me personally as I long to be in community especially at a time like this. I don’t mean to be critical of the different way we deal with death. It’s just that I feel the isolation of it knowing there are different ways of experiencing the aftermath of death.

I think for the first time in the transitions from Africa to stateside, I am realizing how easy it is to feel abandoned and isolated here. I always knew it was difficult but I think I’m just beginning to understand why when the morning after arriving I walked to the local supermarket to buy breakfast food and found that not one time did I look someone in the eye or hear a greeting, or speak a word with the choice of using the automated check out. Americans can so easily be disengaged from others. This and the different way we deal with death is a great revelation to me. Now I’m trying to figure out what it is I am to do with the revelation. One thing I know now. I more deeply appreciate my second culture where for decades I had only experienced how foreign it felt. Now it seems it would be lovely to be walking the dusty paths of death in the African context where one is surrounded with caring people not for an hour or two, but through each hour of each day looking death in the face and accepting it as what it is, a normal part of life’s passage, comforting one another in the truth that we are not alone.

We came as quickly as we could but Jeff’s mother died a few hours before our plane landed in Portland yesterday. Now we’re just grateful to be with those we love. Though there is great sadness, there is also an aura of peace surrounding this family. As I read Psalms 29 and 30 this morning, I sense how great is our God and how near He is in the hard places. If you want to pray, pray that the entire family will gain a fresh sense of His presence through it all and that even in the grief there will be a sense of celebration of the life of our beloved Mom, Margaret Theisen.

Life has taken an unexpected turn this week. Jeff’s sister communicated that their mother has become very ill and was hospitalized. Along with many other problems she has developed pneumonia and her 83 year old body is not responding to antibiotics. Thus she has been placed in hospice care. We are told her life expectancy is only 1 – 2 weeks. So today we booked tickets to fly home to be with family in this time of crisis and life passage. Please pray with us for all the details we need to deal with before we leave.

We also are depending on God’s mercy for the journey out on extremely difficult roads between Adjumani and Gulu. Our last visitor, Blake Gaskill, found it to be quite an adventure taking over 6 hours to travel the 90 miles just 2 days ago. He started out in the bus but had to transfer to a commercial truck to finish the journey as the roads were blocked by the semi-trucks which were unable to get through between Gulu and Sudan. We plan to take a security road (not more than a track) which by-passes the most difficult passage the big transport trucks take on the travels in and out of Sudan.

Jaclyn Konczal and Erin Carkner will be staying in Adjumani continuing their lives and ministries here while we are away. We all have peace about the decision. We’ve just been discussing how much more intense our dependence on God in our existence here. At the same time, we have a deep sense of His presence with us, as well.

Words that take on much deeper meaning here come from the Book of James:

You don’t know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes…you ought to say ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’

If God wills, we will fly out of Uganda Wednesday Aug. 20th and arrive in Portland Aug. 21st. Depending on God’s will for Jeff’s mother, we plan then to return to Uganda Sept. 18

Two very big changes have happened since I last blogged. The first was Erin Carkner’s arrival from Imago Dei Community Church last month. Erin comes to us with a lot of cross cultural experience having worked with a refugee resettlement program in Portland, Oregon. The other more painful change was the departure of Rick and Faye Meyer as they wrapped up their 10 months with our Adjumani community. We saw them off Wednesday morning. The fluidness of community members and visitors (the Kearns family, also from Imago Dei Community Church, visiting last month) coming and going is one of the bittersweet facets of living in and ministering from the Adjumani Imago Dei Community. As we debriefed with Rick and Faye, it was very evident that neither they nor we are the same as we were before we initiated living in community together. There has been transformation in all our lives because of the good and the rough times we’ve been through together. Each person is being transformed and impacting others in their transformation. It is truly a refining process in all our lives. Beyond that, Rick and Faye have helped us further develop the vision and direction of our community. I think that’s the beauty of this whole thing of living in and working out of community that God seems to speak into the arena of direction and purpose for the community through the gifts, talents and passions of each individual. We thank God for loaning us Rick and Faye for this season. They have created pathways for others to follow and left their imprint on many hearts.

Geologist Hal Hansen, his 17 year old daughter, Kirsten and her best friend, Katie, spent days with us in the bush near our Magwi, Sudan site evaluating the water (borehole/wells) in the area. Hal was able to evaluate 8 wells, 2 of which were not functional. Others were seriously affected by sediment buildup. Only 1 or 2 are fully functional in this area where thousands of refugees are resettling. Each well must supply hundreds of people. Hal hopes to return in November now that he has a better idea of what is needed. The challenges are still ahead. We’ve heard that 300,000 refugees have been repatriated in a triangle between Yei, Torit (including Magwi) and Nimule. Clean water is a huge problem these people face.

Kirsten and her best friend, Katie, acted as Hal’s data and photo assistants. The girls endured dark pit latrines, no running water, bugs which seem to be on steroids, elephant grass over their heads, tiny black flies attacking eyes, ears and nostrils, old men wanting to buy them as their wives, offering many cows and goats. They learned that it is much easier to be a man than a woman in Sudan and that being white is to be watched every moment of the day and night. Meals consisted of oatmeal for breakfast, cheese and crackers for lunch, beans and rice for dinner everyday. The 8 hour journey covering 106.4 miles into Magwi was a great adventure, the 8 hour journey retracing every bump, bog and pool pure torture, part of the adventure digging the truck out of one difficult mud hole.

Jeff and I were impressed by the girls’ courage and endurance in those conditions and we are encouraged that Hal wants to return with a heart for helping people and expertise in problem solving tough water issues.

I also experienced that God is beginning to heal and restore my soul after the difficult months behind us. I’ve learned much about myself and about my God through all of it. Some people have dry periods in which they find it difficult to pray. I had a long dry period with difficulty believing Scripture. However, the richness of the Word is like fresh, clean water to me in recent days. I read yesterday that Jesus learned obedience through the things he suffered. So even he had to learn many things while walking this earth as the Son of Man. It was a revelation to me that he learned through his suffering. Who would have thought the God/Man who was perfect in every respect had to learn anything. That speaks to my soul. Seeing all the suffering in this part of the world can easily overwhelm me but to know that it is not in vain gives me hope. There is much to be learned through suffering.

Sudan says Uganda rebels kill troops, start “war”
07 Jun 2008 13:15:02 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Skye Wheeler
JUBA, Sudan, June 7 (Reuters) - Ugandan rebels have killed 23 people including 14 south Sudanese soldiers and “started war”, a south Sudanese minister said on Saturday.
Wednesday’s raid by Lord’s Resistance Army guerrillas at Nabanga village on the remote Congo border appeared to signal the collapse of peace talks with the Ugandan government that have been hosted by south Sudan since mid-2006.
“The LRA have started war,” south Sudan’s Information Minister Gabriel Changson Chang told Reuters in Juba. “Southern Sudan will not be the place where they can wage this war.”
Chang said his government would decide how to respond. “We do not yet have a definite position on this,” he said.
Nabanga had been the site of tentative meetings between Ugandan officials and the LRA’s fugitive leader Joseph Kony, who is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.
But he failed to appear in April to sign a final deal to end more than two decades of civil war in northern Uganda that have killed tens of thousands of people and displaced 2 million more.
On Thursday, a Ugandan military spokesman said Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan would launch a joint offensive against the LRA if Kony failed to commit to talks.
“RECRUIT, ABDUCT, REARM”
Major Paddy Ankunda, the Ugandan spokesman, said the elusive rebel commander had shown he had no interest in negotiations.
“As usual, Kony has used the peace process to recruit, abduct and rearm himself to fight on,” Ankunda said this week.
He said agreement on the need for a multi-national operation was reached at a regional security meeting in Kampala on Tuesday. It would be led by the DRC government with the support of a U.N. peacekeeping force based in eastern Congo, he said.
Kampala says the United States has pledged its support too.
Kony is thought to move between camps in lawless northeastern DRC’s Garamba Forest and Central African Republic, security experts say. The guerrillas have also used bases in neighbouring southern Sudan in the past.
Aid workers say his forces have raided villages and abducted hundreds of civilians in the three countries in recent months.
Kony and two of his deputies are wanted by the ICC in The Hague for crimes including massacres, rapes and the kidnapping of children as sex slaves and fighters in their insurgency. (Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Ibon Villelabeitia) (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/)

We are tracking this info. The Ugandan paper, The Monitor, had an article yesterday with unsubstantiated reports that the LRA had attacked a Sudanese garrison in Nabanga this past Thursday. And that there had been a 4 hour battle with a Sudanese Commander killed in the action. I found Nabanga on the map. It is located on the Southwestern border with the Congo. We’ll have to wait and see how this develops. All is quiet in Northern Uganda and Jeff and I still plan a trip to Magwi, Sudan this Wednesday with Hal Hansen, his daughter and friend. I just found another update in the Ugandan Sunday Monitor:

GoSS suspends talks over LRA attack

Angelo Izama

Kampala

The Government of South Sudan (GoSS) has suspended its mediation of the peace process between rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Ugandan authorities, a day after attacks by the rebels on an SPLA base.
The attack came on Thursday as President Museveni was delivering his State of the Nation Address before Parliament in which he too declared the peace process over.

“It would be unreasonable for the Government of South Sudan to continue [with the mediation],” said Mr Gabriel Changson Cheng, the GoSS information minister.

Mr Cheng, who spoke to Radio France International (RFI), said the decision to withdraw his government’s mediation was brought about by several other factors including the attack itself. “[The LRA] are the ones abrogating the peace process,” he said, adding that the other party to the talks, the Uganda government, was equally disinterested.

“We have become victims,” Mr Cheng said. The attack at the DR Congo-South Sudan military outpost of Nabanga, which served as an observation point for SPLA forces as well as a food distribution centre for the rebels, claimed the life of a major and 21 of his troops.

Sources familiar with goings-on in South Sudan tell Sunday Monitor the LRA attack was led by Commander Smart Ojara, who holds the rebel rank of lieutenant colonel, and was aimed at raiding the SPLA detach for food and weapons.

New LRA spokesman Justin Okello, however, told RFI the rebels had instead been attacked by a joint Ugandan/SPLA force.

The nearly two-year peace process has unravelled fast in the past two months. Mr Joseph Kony, the LRA leader, was a no-show on April 10 for the signing of a final peace deal at Nabanga.

And a spate of abductions in his reported locations between the forests in eastern DR Congo and Central African Republic suggest he is rebuilding his forces. The heads of the militaries of Uganda, DR Congo and GoSS on Wednesday said they plan to launch a joint offensive alongside the UN’s Monuc forces in DR Congo on the LRA.

The LRA fighters say they will defend themselves in what amounts now to a resumption of hostilities even if the peace process is yet to be officially called off.

Former Mozambican Presiden Joachim Chissano, who is a special envoy of the UN secretary general to the talks, is in Kampala for discussions about the future of the process. He is expected to meet with Ugandan authorities as well as the chief mediator of the Juba process, Dr Riek Machar.

Mr Chissano was yesterday also set to meet Mr Timothy Shortley, the senior advisor to the US secretary of state on Africa and an observer at the Juba talks. A few weeks ago, Mr Shortley, speaking in Washington, said the phase of negotiations with the LRA had ended after the rebels failed to sign a final peace deal.

Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda, who led the government delegation in Juba and who just returned to the country from a tour of the United States and Europe, said yesterday he would issue a statement after meeting with Mr Chissano.

I am humbled and blessed by the love and understanding of you who sent comments and e-mails since I last wrote. Thank you so very much. You have truly comforted and helped me.

God willing, Jeff and I will be in Sudan again next week with a short term team coming for a vision trip and with expertise in repairing borehole/wells. I don’t expect the conditions have improved since we were last there. So pray for grace and endurance as Jeff and I will sleep another week in our incomplete camp with the leaky roofed huts which also lack doors and windows. I was also reflecting that it will be nice to know we will pour the slab for a permanent latrine as we’ve been making do with a hole in the ground with a tarp for privacy but no roof. So my contrived toilet seat is either sizzling hot from the sun or wet from the rain. I have to admit I’m not a good camper. I hadn’t really done any camping in the past 25 years until we started this Sudan thing. The short term team will be staying at the local guest house which is one step up from our camp situation. Jeff and I would stay there but don’t feel it just that we spend the money when we need money for building. So I’m praying God will give me a sense of humor in all of this. I know we will be encouraged by Hal Hansen, his daughter Kersten and her friend who are the ones joining us for this week long trip.