AN EAGLE SPREADING HARMONY A ground-breaking peace project is using Bible studies to inspire
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n 2018, five Mothers’ Union Ethiopia representatives travelled to Uganda to understand how the Eagle process works in different dioceses, and how it could be adapted for the Gambella region. A year later, Canon Alice Adukuru, Provincial Chaplain to Mothers’ Union Uganda, began training Mothers’ Union leaders of the Anuak and Nuer tribes to deliver the Eagle process in Gambella. In February 2019, on a leadership retreat in Arua, Northern Uganda - Canon Alice’s diocese – 160 MU South Sudan leaders visited seven Eagle parishes and came away full of excitement and energy to replicate all they had seen in Uganda back in their dioceses in South Sudan. Both countries aim to: l Reduce poverty by increasing self-sufficiency through income generating projects l Increase positive attitudes l Use participatory Bible studies to grow theological understanding l Build peaceful intertribal relationships. In Ethiopia since December 2019, both the Anuak and Nuer MU have begun crop cultivation to generate income. The MU groups were convinced by the Eagle process Bible study from 2 Kings 4: 1-7 on Elisha and the Widow’s Oil, which focuses on the identification and mobilisation of under-used local resources. MU members have acted on this by identifying those resources, while
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New leaf: the tribes are working together to cement their fellowship
considering how they can make them fruitful through prayer. Both the Anuak and Nuer MU groups will request land from the government to be used for joint cultivation. All applicants will need a savings balance in a local bank account. Both MU groups will use some of their maize harvest profits to create enough savings to be eligible. This is the first time that the Anuak and Nuer MU have planned a joint activity (especially requiring investment of time and resources) that goes beyond a prayer or fellowship day. This is a marked and exciting change in their relations. One participant said this is part of ‘bringing peace to Gambella’, and that they want their fellowship to ‘bring peace in the community’ and to reach further than the Church. For MU South Sudan, their Arua retreat helped them to plant seeds, which they have been nurturing, and growing in peace. In the Diocese of Akoba, tribal fighting among the
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