June 20, 2011
By Emily Cherry

July 9 marks the date that South Sudan will celebrate its official independence as a sovereign nation. It's a date that has loomed large on the calendar for the Episcopal Church of Sudan (ECS) since the January 2011 referendum, when the people of South Sudan voted overwhelmingly to separate from North Sudan. This vote came following the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement which brought a tenuous peace and end to about 50 years of civil war.

Maintaining such a peace was at the forefront of a three-day conference of the American Friends of the Episcopal Church of Sudan (AFRECS), which met June 17-19 at Christ Church, Glen Allen, in the Diocese of Virginia. A group of about 100 partners, advocates and others interested in supporting the ECS gathered under the theme "The Church and Sudan: Partnering for the Future."

With some 4 million members, the ECS well understands its role as a peace-keeping force amidst the ongoing conflict that has continued in the wake of the referendum. "It is well known that the church has often been central to reconciliation efforts between the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Government of South Sudan, and rebel militias," wrote ECS Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul in a letter to AFRECS attendees. But reconciliation is a tall order amidst ongoing violence. Much of the source of contention lies over political power, land and oil rights. Khartoum, the seat of government in the north, and Juba, the seat of government in the south, "have been unable to reach a compromise on land settlement and border issues, particularly where the issue of Abyei and other oil rich areas located along the border are concerned," wrote the archbishop in his letter.

Escalating violence around those border areas was a topic of primary concern at the AFRECS conference. The Diocese of Kadugli, for example, is an oil-rich area in the Nuba Mountains in South Sudan. The area has been the subject of frequent media attention due to a wave of fighting between the Sudan Armed Forces of the north and the Sudan People's Liberation Army of the south, what the archbishop described in a recent statement "as a deliberate strategy to rid Kadugli of its indigenous African and Christian population by the [Sudanese Armed Forces], in short a policy of ethnic cleansing." The violence has included widespread bombing and looting, and has resulted in the displacement of thousands of civilians.

"What Sudan needs is development [and] education, education, education," said the Honorable Alan Goulty, one of the event's keynote speakers who recently retired from a career of 40 years in the British Diplomatic Service, including serving as ambassador to Sudan from 1995 to 1999. South Sudan, he explained, suffers from inadequate infrastructure and resources, and is reliant on income from oil and foreign aid, in addition to being dependent on the goodwill of its neighbors due to its landlocked location.

Goulty also addressed the question on the minds of this particular audience: How can churches help? "Churches are among the best organized elements of civil society, [and] therefore have a key role to play," he explained. "They must themselves set a good example of financial stewardship." Churches can also provide a good resource for training – not only theological, but also on matters of teaching, financial management, health care and human rights. Plus, added Goulty, churches can use their collective strength toward such ends. "Joint action can be much more effective than doing our own things," he said. "The job of outsiders in these situations is to mobilize and act together."

Attendees also heard from Dane F. Smith Jr., President Barack Obama's senior advisor for Darfur in the Office of the Special Envoy to Sudan. "Khartoum and Juba need peace, they need stability on their border lands," said Smith. "They need to focus respectively on the serious economic crisis which lies ahead for Khartoum and the serious economic and governance crisis which lies ahead for the brand new state [of South Sudan]."

The situation for Episcopalians in the mostly Muslim north also is of primary concern. "The dioceses of the north are going to have a harder time after the independence of the south," noted Larry Duffee, an Episcopal Church-appointed missionary to ECS from St. George's, Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Even after South Sudan officially separates from the north, the churches of the north will still be a part of the ECS. "The church in the north is going to be facing new challenges, and far more dangerous challenges," said Jason Churchill, an attendee from the Diocese of Chicago. "What do we do for them?"

AFRECS conference attendees discussed these and other concerns in plenary keynote sessions, in addition to a series of practical workshops that provided periods of resource-sharing on such subjects as supporting education efforts and theological education in Sudan; telling the story of Sudan through advocacy; empowering the Sudanese through microenterprise; seeking peace in innovative ways; and building and maintaining partnerships. "In terms of the focus on our partnership efforts, the advice was to specialize and to better network with others so that none of us in our partner relationships tries to take on the entire world of need," said Phil Darrow, vice president of the AFRECS board from the Diocese of Chicago. Duffee agreed, emphasizing "the continued need for networking and communication."

Going forward, AFRECS members and conference attendees expressed a commitment to a continued focus on communication, cooperation and advocacy efforts, encouraging the U.S. government to keep focusing on Sudan and to encourage North Sudan to honor the terms of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. But in addition to the advocacy work, attendees renewed a commitment to support ECS in another important way: through prayer.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori joined conference attendees in a dinner and awards ceremony on the Saturday evening of the conference. "You and your work in Sudan are in the prayers of many, many Episcopalians," she said in addressing the group. The presiding bishop brought news that the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church, at a recent meeting in Baltimore, had passed a resolution urging the U.S. government to take a number of steps in regard to the violation of human rights and the violation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

At the closing Eucharist, Jefferts Schori spoke of relationship-building through trustworthiness. "That's what's needed in Sudan right now – people searching for trustworthy friends, and acting like trustworthy, loving neighbors in the face of suspicion and mistrust that moves toward armed violence," she said in her sermon. "We stand with our brothers and sisters in Sudan, facing the violence, turning our faces toward Jerusalem and saying an eternal "No!" to forces that would deny or diminish life."

Episcopal News Service
Emily Cherry is the communications officer for the Diocese of Virginia.