DATED 16 AUGUST 2006

Depending on the kindness of strangers

        RENK, Sudan – Ever since I became a missionary in Sudan, I have learned to live my life like Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire: I depend on the kindness of strangers.

        Not all my family and friends believe this. One asked me, in great confusion: “So, when you need something … you just … ask?”

        “Yep,” I said. “I ask, and people help.”

        He sighed: “You have more faith than I do.”

        If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my year serving the Episcopal Church in Sudan, it’s been that everything has to be done by faith.

        Faith that when prayers are needed, strangers will pray for us.

        Faith that when our story needs to be told so that we are not forgotten, strangers will tell the story.

        Faith that when money is needed to sustain us, strangers will give it.

        Without faith that God would provide loving, caring, giving angels to watch over us, the Church in Sudan would not have survived the 21-year civil war. Without faith, churches would not have been built, children would not have been educated, the hungry would not have been fed, refugees would not have been given sanctuary. Because of faith, communities have been formed, tribal boundaries have been overcome, and the long-sought reconciliation is beginning to take place.

        We in South Sudan thought that once peace came, things would be different, that we would not need to spend so much time asking others to help us simply survive. We thought that with the peace, we would be able to shift our focus instead to thriving.

        We knew we would still need prayers, still need people to tell our stories, still need financial aid to achieve self-reliance.

        But we didn’t think we would be in the same place as before, pleading for help whenever a crisis struck.

        We were wrong.

        Just last week, a new crisis arose, one that has us terribly worried throughout the South, and especially in Renk. Last week, we received word from the new Government of South Sudan that contrary to what we had been led to believe, the government would not help us with our schools. The new constitution mandates separation of Church and State, which means that our schools are not eligible for any funding at all.

        Understand that for years in rural South Sudan, the Church provided the bulk of education for our children. With help from strangers across the world, we built schools, hired and trained teachers, and taught thousands of children to read, write, and do arithmetic. Without the Church, those children would have had nothing.

        The Church ran these schools completely on faith. Because of the war, there was no economy in most of South Sudan. Teachers frequently were not paid for months or even years at a time. The parents of our children, many of whom are refugees, have no money to live on, and can only dream of paying the school fees we need to pay our teachers.

        Initially, it seemed the Southern government would help pay the teachers until an actual economy was developed, until the parents actually could pay their fees.

        But now, the latest news has put us right back where we were before the peace treaty was signed and implemented in 2005:

        With our hands out, asking in faith, depending on the kindness of strangers to get us through yet another crisis.

        If we don’t pay our teachers, the government says, we could lose our schools. They wouldn’t just be shut down and left to molder into ruins. The government could take them over, lock, stock and barrel, leaving the Church with nothing to show for all its hard years of work and dedication.

        In Renk, where we have five primary schools and one senior secondary school, with more than 1,500 students enrolled, we haven’t been able to pay our teachers since May. To give them their back pay and keep the schools open for the rest of the semester, which ends in December, we need $95,000. But we have no way of raising that money here.

        Throughout the war, the Church was clinging by its fingernails to survive. Now, in peace, it seems those fingernails are being pulled out, one by one.

The result could be the loss of our schools. For our children, the result could be the loss of an outstanding education.

        We know that eventually, an economy will develop in Renk. We know that eventually, our parents will be able to pay their school fees. Eventually, we will have income-generating projects that will give us the money we need to pay all of our teachers.

        But eventually has not yet arrived, and in the meantime, we are desperate.

        So once again, we are turning to strangers and asking for help, for both an emergency infusion of cash to keep our school doors open, and for long-term partners to help us educate the thousands of children who are desperate to learn.

        We are confident the help will come.

        Because we have faith in the kindness of strangers.

        (Those interesting in supporting the church schools of the Diocese of Renk may contact the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia in Richmond, 1-800-DIOCESE.)