Haunted by the need: UM conferences sign Sudan covenant Annette Spence and Linda Bloom, Apr 1, 2008
UMNS PHOTOS BY ANNETTE SPENCE
Bishops Daniel Wandabula and James Swanson embrace during a celebratory meal.
By Annette Spence United Methodist News Service
KINGSPORT, Tenn.—In summer 2005, United Methodist Bishop James Swanson and his staff talked about mission projects they could pursue.
One staff member mentioned a book she had read about the “lost boys” of Sudan. Bishop Swanson told of a photo he’d seen that morning showing a starving Sudanese child being watched by a nearby vulture. The bishop was haunted by the image and challenged the Holston Conference staff to act.
On Feb. 23, less than three years after that staff meeting, Bishop Swanson signed a covenant with Bishop Daniel Wandabula of the East Africa Conference, which includes Sudan. Bishop Felton E. May, interim chief executive of the General Board of Global Ministries, also signed the covenant.
It formally establishes Holston as the first United Methodist conference or church to be in mission in south Sudan. The partnership will provide a school, clinic and other facilities in the city of Yei, as well as educational assistance, church-leadership development, volunteer labor and supplies.
Some fundraising has already provided land for the new facilities, pastors’ salaries, a physician and nurse, school equipment and two wells in south Sudan. In addition, Holston Conference committed to raising $250,000 over the next two years.
The covenant signing was held during a missions celebration Feb. 22-24 at First Broad Street UMC in Kingsport.
Bishop Swanson said he had come to recognize that “the salvation of south Sudan is my salvation.”
“What’s killing the church is that people don’t see God in the church,” the bishop said. “When people see the world changed in Jesus Christ, they believe in something beyond their own power. They say, ‘That’s a church I want to be part of.’ ...We’re not just in this to save the people of south Sudan, but we’re in this to save our own souls.”
Bishop Wandabula led workshops at the missions event on the status of Sudan after 50 years of civil war and the challenges of fostering discipleship in a country with more than 500 languages, ravaging disease and the spread of Islamic and cultic influences. East Africa Conference staff members Muwaya Kubona David and Suuti Samuel also led workshops and said they hoped the partnership would address the “vicious cycle of ignorance, poverty and disease.”
The famous vulture photo that troubled Bishop Swanson was taken in 1993 by Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Kevin Carter. For others in Holston Conference, the inspiration to “do something” about the plight of Sudan came from reading They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky (Perseus Publishing, 2006), which recounts the hunger and displacement suffered by three “lost boys” after their homes were set on fire in Sudan. The children were among thousands who fled Sudan’s civil war in the late 1980s, some settling in the U.S.
Those who read the book joined in a Sudan action team. Its goal was reflected in the campaign name “Hope for the Children of Sudan.”
Within months, a fund-raising effort had begun, and people from all over the conference asked to help. Coincidentally, Bishop Swanson’s office received an unscheduled visit by Daniel Wandabula, then district superintendent of Sudan and Uganda. A conversation between him and Bishop Swanson began, and in May 2006, that district superintendent was elected bishop of the East Africa Conference, which also includes Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and Kenya.
By that time, Holston already had dispatched a three-person fact-finding team to Sudan. Caroline Njuki, representing the General Board of Global Ministries’ (GBGM) Africa office, accompanied Holston’s first team to Yei in March 2006.
“They were incredulous when Holston’s team arrived, because all the time, throughout the war, they felt abandoned by the church,” Dr. Njuki said, referring to the small United Methodist community in Yei that was begun by a refugee from Uganda.
“They had never had a visit from any outside. When the war was over, Darfur got all the publicity because the movie stars and politicians and media decided to get involved. ‘Where was the church?’ we heard again from the people in south Sudan. It took two days to bring about a reconciliation and connection with them, after the first Holston team came.”
When Holston contacted the GBGM about serving Sudan, the southern area was selected because Darfur is already supported by Ginghamsburg UMC in Tipp City, Ohio, and other religious groups.
Today, the Yei District of Sudan includes 21 United Methodist churches with about 80 to 100 people. “With Holston Conference’s support, these churches could double in six months to a year,” said Bishop Wandabula.
The Sudanese are “hungry for the Word,” he added, but also will be drawn to the church by medical attention and other services. “The church is the only hope for them.”
“They have suffered so long, but they know the church and they love the church,” Dr. Njuki said. “They are growing because they don’t have anything else to show, except that they are committed to the community. With a little push, they’ll be on their way.
This year, the missions celebration included workshops led by the Rev. Tom Hazelwood, head of the United Methodist Committee on Relief; John Hill, director of the economic and environmental justice, General Board of Church and Society; and Vicki Stephenson, mission management manager of the Red Bird Missionary Conference’s Henderson Settlement.
“Our church is on a journey,” said Danny Howe, church missions director and chairman of the conference’s missions ministry team. “We try to offer missions opportunities for our members year after year, including the children, because that becomes part of their DNA.”
Bishop May preached at a covenant service that included prayers for an 11-member team that left for Sudan on March 10. The team––which includes teachers, a pharmacist and physician––sorted medications and packed medical supplies for the Yei community. More teams will go to Sudan in fall 2008 and February 2009. The latter team will include Bishop Swanson.
“I pray that God will bless you and keep you,” Bishop May said to the Sudan team. “You can do it. You have the resources, you have the wisdom and you have Jesus.”
During the missions event, leaders from the two conferences discussed providing homes for orphans and teaching self-sustaining skills to families without income.
“Very early on, as the Lord began to talk to our hearts, we were intimidated by the challenge; we were almost afraid to get started because there was so much to be done,” said Bishop Swanson, who oversees 910 churches in East Tennessee, southwest Virginia and northern Georgia. “Even now, the more we get into it, the bigger it gets.”
The planning group will hold a Sudan Summit in summer 2008 and invite other United Methodist conferences and churches to participate. (For information, e-mail connectionalministries@holston.org).
Ms. Spence is the editor of The Call, the newspaper of the Holston Conference.
Sudan Project called a model for church
By Linda Bloom United Methodist News Service
Ginghamsburg Church did not seem to be a promising assignment when the Rev. Mike Slaughter was sent there 29 years ago.
He was the first full-time pastor for the small United Methodist congregation in Tipp City, Ohio, since its founding in 1864. As part of the “rust belt,” the Miami Valley area surrounding the church was losing both jobs and population.
But Mr. Slaughter stayed, and the church has grown to “mega-church” status, with multiple buildings and ministries on two campuses serving about 4,500 people weekly. Membership stands at 1,300.
Ginghamsburg’s ministries now extend far beyond Ohio. Through its Sudan Project, in partnership with the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), Mr. Slaughter said the church is “reaching or touching a quarter million people in Darfur.”
Mr. Slaughter spoke about that project––which has raised $3 million in three years––during the spring meeting of the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries, UMCOR’s parent agency, March 10-13 in Stamford, Conn.
He sees the Sudan Project as a model for the United Methodist Church. His Christmas fundraising message is a simple one: “It’s Jesus’ birthday, not your birthday.”
Since Christmas 2004, Mr. Slaughter has asked parishioners to make a monetary donation for Sudan mission work equal to what they spend on family Christmas presents. The effort has become known as the “miracle offering.”
The project has been particularly effective because it gives local church members a sense of ownership, Mr. Slaughter said.
The $317,000 raised during the 2004 Advent season helped start a sustainable agricultural project in South Darfur, an area with less conflict than West Darfur that is home to many internally displaced persons. The investment in that project is now feeding 65,000 people, he said.
The initial project—promoting small-scale farming and other agricultural work, along with the distribution of non-food items—focused on about 250 families in the Ed Al Fursan community south of Nyala, the capital of South Darfur.
During Advent season in 2005 and 2006, the miracle offerings raised more than $1.5 million, about $80,000 of which was donated by partner churches, schools and businesses. A five-year child-development program was begun in 2005 and a four-year water project in 2006.
The results include the construction of 90 schools, the training of 200 teachers who now serve 11,000 students, and the establishment of 10 water yards, which provide water to 22,000 people and their livestock.
Each year, the miracle offering has expanded to include donations from other churches, many of them small congregations. Of the $1,145,649 raised during the 2007 Advent season, more than $200,000 came from other partners, including 17 United Methodist churches from nine states. Urbana (Ohio) United Methodist Church, a congregation of around 200, has contributed $56,000 over a 12-month period.
“People want to contribute to something that has significance,” Mr. Slaughter told UMCOR’s board of directors.
Mr. Slaughter speaks at churches and schools across the country about the situation in Darfur, labeled by the United Nations as “the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today.” Since 2003, more than 200,000 people in Sudan have been killed and 2.2 million displaced from their homes.
Despite a 2006 peace agreement, a recent rebel offensive in West Darfur prompted government and militia attacks. All sides have participated in killings and human rights abuses, including destruction of property and forced displacement, according to the U.N. Human Rights Council.
U.N. officials have said that a peacekeeping operation cannot by itself bring security to Darfur, and that the parties in conflict must be pressured to negotiate peace. Joint forces from the African Union and the U.N. are patrolling Darfur.
Because the work of the Sudan Project is centered in South Darfur, much of the conflict has been avoided, but progress on the water project was impeded at the end of 2007, Mr. Slaughter said. Work has resumed this year on the project, located in Adilla.
Contributions to the Sudan Project can be made to Advance No. 184385MG. Checks can be dropped in church collection plates or mailed to UMCOR at P.O. Box 9068, New York, NY 10087-9068. To make a credit card donation, call (800) 554-8583. Discussion questions
UMNS PHOTOS BY ANNETTE SPENCE
It formally establishes Holston as the first United Methodist conference or church to be in mission in south Sudan. The partnership will provide a school, clinic and other facilities in the city of Yei, as well as educational assistance, church-leadership development, volunteer labor and supplies. 
Ginghamsburg’s ministries now extend far beyond Ohio. Through its Sudan Project, in partnership with the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), Mr. Slaughter said the church is “reaching or touching a quarter million people in Darfur.” 
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