First Impressions: Tuesday, 17 June 2008: Winding up My Visit to Sudan

This past Sunday I had the privilege of celebrating and preaching at the English Mass at 10:00 am in downtown Torit. Mass again was packed to overflowing, with about 300 people seated under the temporary shelter, and another 200 standing in the shade of trees outside. The people were very gracious and responsive. After Communion, there was a dual collection: the regular weekly collection (in the We Are the Church box) for the reconstruction of the church, as well as the collection of donated items for the families displaced by the inter-village fighting. Knowing the conditions in which the people live here, I was very moved by seeing them come forward with clothing and household items, knowing that they were not giving extra things cluttering their closets, but rather clothes and articles that they really use but which they are sharing with others in need. I couldn't help but thinking of Jesus' praise for the widow's mite.






After Mass I was photographed with two concelebrants who are taller than I (Fr. Jacob, the vicar general, on the left of the photo, and Fr. Joseph, the assistant pastor, on the right; Fr. Martin Madara, pastor, is on the right in the front) - some of the Southern Sudanese are very tall! - and then later outside with Emmanuel - a Cameroonian water specialist living in France and currently visiting Sudan, and again with Fr. Martin Madara. We are standing on level ground, but Theoneste (a Congolese who works in the area of development for the Diocese of Torit) somehow caught us on an angle.




Yesterday, Monday, I attended the Torit celebration of the International Day of the African Child. Thousands of students gathered at Torit East School in their multi-colored uniforms; there were so many that some climbed a tree to get a view of the program. Each school made some kind of presentation to the government officials, parents and guests who attended. One group of students presented a series of traditional tribal dances. St. Teresa, the local Catholic pre- and primary school, was also present. St. Teresa has about 2000 students; some classes have more than 200children. Although newly constructed, the school is overflowing and has to hold some classes in tents and under trees. I found their performance particularly poignant. One song they sang, in a traditional Sudanese posture of mourning, had the words: "Kapoeta, Torit, Juba [towns in South Sudan] are destroyed because of the war... Cry, all the youth, O they cry for Southern Sudan." But this was preceeded and followed by lively and energetic songs filled with pride in and hope for their country. As I gazed at all those young faces representing so much potential and yet facing such daunting challenges, the words of Jesus from last Sunday's Gospel came back to me: "The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few; beg the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into the harvest."
















Finally, today, as I was walking and praying the Rosary in the late afternoon, two young men approached and greeted me. They are Sudanese who have lived as refugees in Uganda for the past ten years. They just returned to their country this past Sunday for the first time in a decade. When they left they were 7 and 9 respectively; now they are 17 and 19. They are brothers, sons of the same father, and members of the Didinga tribe from the village of Chukudum, and hour or so from Torit. They lost their parents during the war, and are unsure if they still have living relatives in Chukudum. They, and a few other members of their extended family have been under the care of the UN High Commission for Refugees during their absence, and it was the UNHCR that brought them to a temporary settlement here on Sunday. They are unsure, however, how much longer the UN will continue to support them, and are anxious about beginning a new life in Sudan. They are Catholic and have faith, and I encouraged them to pray, and promised to pray for them.

Perhaps my impression of the situation of South Sudan can be appropriately represented by the image of a small sapling I happened to notice during that same Rosary walk. It was growing out of the facade of the defunct cathedral, clinging to the ruins with its roots, and stretching upward for light.