February 23, 2005
Rt. Rev. Eluzai G. Munda, Dean of the Province
Episcopal Church of the Sudan
c/o Virginia Theological Seminary
Alexandria, Virginia, USA
Dear Bishop Munda:
Thank you for making the long journey to speak to the first meeting of American Friends of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan on February 20. We heard your comprehensive “Proposed Postwar Program”. We understand that your list of ten areas of need represents priorities which emerged in your discussion on February 9 in Kampala with seven bishops, a CMS observer, the ECS Office Manager, and Canon John Kanyikwa. We are grateful to have such a comprehensive statement of your view of what the Episcopal Church of Sudan needs from outside friends if it is to help restore life and hope to the region which Roger Winter on Friday night called the most ravaged region in the world.
American Friends of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan, as I explained to Archbishop Marona in my letter of August 16, 2004, will not initially be a fundraising organization. We are for now a voluntary network of individual American Episcopalians, together with interested parishes, dioceses, and foundations, committed to assisting both Sudanese settled in the USA and institutions of the Episcopal Church of Sudan in Sudan. We expect to become a non-profit 501(c)3 corporation registered in the State of Virginia. When that happens, we will be able to accept donations which the donors can deduct from their personal US income tax liability. We expect that our greatest help to the ECS will come from our prayers, our listening, and our working to make the needs and provincial priorities of the ECS known among your friends in the USA, and perhaps Canada. We will begin by disseminating your “Proposed Postwar Program” for the guidance of potential donors. It will take some time for our members to digest this comprehensive list and to consider their responses to it.
In response to your Saturday morning address to us, and to the information and concern shared by other speakers with the more than 130 participants during the three-day conference at St. Paul’s, Alexandria, Virginia, a number of intentions were expressed and recorded. We intend:
- to disseminate the Nairobi Peace Accords of January 9, 2005 through our website and newsletter.
- to develop as accurate a roster as possible of the American entities (parishes, dioceses, and churchwide agencies such as Episcopal Relief and Development) which are currently linked with entities (dioceses, clusters of dioceses, theological colleges, or provincial programs such as SUDRA, regional offices, SCC- or NSCC-sponsored programs ) in the ECS.
- to publish a list of Sudanese Episcopal congregations currently meeting for worship in the USA.
- to develop a factsheet for American travelers to the ECS, containing practical information about entry requirements, etc.
- to encourage communication among American entities which have had good and successful relations with entities in the ECS, using our website and newsletter.
- to solicit support for ECS programs of peace-building.
- to raise the possibility of adding a staff member in the Office of Anglican and Global Relations at the Episcopal Church Center in New York to devote full time to Sudanese matters.
- to request the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music of the Episcopal Church in the USA to consider commemorating the martyrs of Sudan, as well as the late Marc R. Nikkel, among our Lesser Feasts and Fasts.
- to recruit new members into America Friends of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan.
Please do not take the above as a list of nine promises. They are the sincere intentions of an energetic group of friends who were moved by your address, by Alfred Taban’s discussion of the war in Darfur, by the wisdom of Bishops Heath Light and Francis Gray, and by all the appeals, reports, and advice they heard. It will now be up to these individuals, their parishes, and their dioceses to pray, plan, and act. You will observe that some of these intentions are such as could be easily implemented. Others will require more time. Still others require resources and authority that we do not directly possess. These we can only gradually work towards.
I look forward to discussing the above with you before you depart for Sudan on Wednesday. The American Friends of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan look forward to being in frequent conversation with you and other leaders of the ECS in the future.
Faithfully yours,
Richard J. Jones
President
American Friends of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan
(AFRECS)
Copy:
Provincial Secretary, ECS
Archbishop, ECS
Director of Anglican and Global Relations, ECUSA
Chairman, Sudan Church Association, UK
CMS, UK and Nairobi
AFRECS Officers and Directors