On Sudan, Martyrs, and Relationship Written on the Feast of the Martyrs of Sudan, May 16, 2011
From the time of its independence in 1956, Sudan has known civil war. Sometimes the violence has ebbed into remission, though never going away completely. Sometimes there has been raging warfare. The most intense fighting came in the long episode lasting from 1983 to 2005, a period of fighting that cost some two million lives in South Sudan. The deaths were mostly Christian, and they included vast numbers of civilians, besides the soldiers who died. I am writing on the feast day of these Martyrs of Sudan. The war between the mostly Arab North and the mostly African South has been about resources. The South has most of the oil and mineral wealth in Sudan, as well as most of the arable land. The North is mostly desert. Then there is the religious element, with a Northern government ruled by extremist Islam intent on imposing Sharia as the law of the land. The South Sudanese resisted the North, some by means of warfare and some by other means. Enter the scholarly Canon Ezra Baya Lawiri, who devoted his life to training pastors and translating the Bible into Moru, the native language of the people in the central Yei River basin of Western Equatoria State. The people of Mundri and Lui Dioceses are Moru. In 1988 Canon Ezra chose to remain in Moruland rather than move with the rest of Bishop Gwynne College from its base in Mundri to relative safety in Juba. Canon Ezra was a scholar, but he was first of all a pastor, and he chose to stay with the people given to his care. In 1991 the two armies, Northern and Southern, faced one another in Western Equatoria, and the Northern army soon occupied Mundri town. The Southern army then pressed the Northern forces, who in turn fled from Mundri, taking some 2000 civilians with them, among whom were Canon Ezra and the Archdeacon of Mundri, Bullen Dolli. Canon Ezra made sure to gather his manuscripts of the Bible and the Moru hymnal in
all the flurry of activity before fleeing. On Good Friday, March 29, 1991, Canon Ezra was with the forces on the road between Lui and Juba when he and his daughter Cecilia Baya were killed in crossfire between Northern and Southern troops. Archdeacon (later Bishop) Bullen was with Ezra when he died, and he quickly gathered up and carried Ezra’s priceless manuscripts with him to Juba for safekeeping. In 2008 Salisbury Cathedral placed a statue bearing Canon Ezra’s likeness on the west face of the building, a statue to stand for the two million Southerners who died in the war. In our partnership with Lui Diocese, we in the Diocese of Missouri are blessed to have a place to stand alongside this heritage of modern Christian faithfulness and courage and, yes, martyrdom. It does get personal for us. To represent this Diocese, Debbie Smith and I will travel next month for the funeral of Bishop Bullen, this same man who stood in the deadly crossfire and had the wherewithal to remember the manuscripts! You know by now that Stephen Dokolo, who lived and studied in St. Louis for two years, who preached at Diocesan Convention in 2008, who has been in many of our parishes, has been elected to succeed Bullen Dolli as Bishop of Lui. There is probably no more than one degree of separation between the Moru heritage and any given Episcopalian in the Diocese of Missouri. Companion dioceses allow mission far off and stories of faith to become real and personal, not just theoretical. I am very glad and blessed to have known Bishop Bullen. And I am glad indeed to know Stephen Dokolo, a man steeped in what it means to be both Moru and Christian, and with whom very soon I will be blessed to share episcopal ministry. Mission and story are rich, when they become so real and personal.
June 2011 Episcopal Diocese of Missouri diocesemo.org