Map courtesy of
www.theodora.com/maps used with permission.
Emergency Appeal for Kajo Keji
(download a bulletin insert in pdf format)
Please collect money each week in August
To
prevent people in Kajo Keji from starving to death
Sisters and brothers,
We must act now to prevent people in Kajo-Keji from starving to
death.
You may read Connie Fegley's report below; the
situation is beyond desperate.
I ask that we do the following:
-Announce this need for food money in each parish
each week.
-Forward money from parishes and individuals to
Diocesan House, marked for Kajo-Keji food, as soon as received each
week.
-If you are not the rector, remind your rector of this need.
We will wire the money to the diocese of Kajo-Keji
each Wednesday throughout August.
You may contribute through your parish, or may
send checks made out to Diocese of Bethlehem, marked Kajo-Keji Food.
We've shown that we can get energized by many things in the last
year. This needs all of that energy and more.
Thank you for prompt and sustained action.
+Paul
Connie writes
Crisis in Kajo Keji
On July 23, 2004, we in the Diocese of Bethlehem, learned something
of the enormity of the refugee crisis in Kajo Keji Diocese, up to
which point we had only smatterings of information.
Over the last few months, some 37,000 Sudanese have been driven
out and fled the refugee camps all along northern Uganda, according
to a report by a Canadian NGO. (This has been verified by BBC correspondent
Albert Taban and UNHRC reports). They have been terrorized by a rebel
Ugandan group, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which has been backed
by the Government of Sudan.
Bishop Manasseh in a recent phone call, believes the figure is
closer to 50,000, but reminded us that in addition to this, there
are displaced persons from other parts of the Sudan and refugees
who have returned before this recent influx that puts the figure
of those in need over 100,000. Bishop Manasseh repeatedly stressed
how traumatized these refugees have been. They are not in good shape.
In April the LRA attacked a bus near Adjumani, Uganda, which included
refugees. People were killed, others were abducted and the bus was
burned. In the immediate aftermath, the LRA attacked a half dozen
camps terrifying the refugees living there. About two dozen people
were killed, and scores of people are missing. No one knows how many.
The LRA has long abducted children, further aggravating their terror.
The refugees then decided to return to Sudan and have been flooding
into Kajo Keji ever since. They have nothing because their camps
were looted.
They do not have food, shelter, milk to feed their babies, clothing,
blankets, mosquito nets, cultivating materials, etc.
The residents of Kajo Keji County have shared all the food they
had with the returnees, and now there is absolutely no food in the
marketplaces anywhere.
People are living on wild leaves and fruits from the bush.
Last year's harvest was just okay, so what there was in excess
is completely depleted.
People from Kajo Keji living worldwide have been mobilizing to
try to save their homeland from starvation. We, as brothers and sisters
through our Companion Relationship, want to launch an emergency appeal.
Please make this known in your congregations as soon as possible.
The most pressing request has been for money to be funneled through
the Diocese of Kajo Keji that can be used to purchase food
in Kampala, Uganda, or northern Uganda to be trucked into Kajo
Keji on an emergency basis. Make checks payable to the Diocese
of Bethlehem, marked "Kajo
Keji Emergency Fund."
Bishiop Manasseh and the SPLM's North American representative,
Steven Wondu, both agree that besides contributing to the emergency
fund, we could send mosquito netting and fishing equipment from the
USA.
While our diocese is responding, the diocesan world mission committee
is pursing Church World Service for blankets, ERD, and USAID. Church
groups in Canada have been in touch with the Canadian government
about grain shipments to Kajo Keji.
Please, we appeal to you, reach deep in your hearts
and respond as faithfully and fully as you can to this crisis in
Kajo Keji. With everyone pulling together, we can avert a catastrophe
as devastating as the one unfolding in Darfur.
"We
hope to be as effective a vehicle as we can for sharing information
with this Diocese on world mission and also pray that we can
serve as inspiration. We have been so inspired by God, and we
hope we can share this."
Connie Fegley, Chairperson
We as a committee are seeking God's
desire for this Diocese. We want to determine what is already happening
in this Diocese in terms of mission; since we strive to be a serving
committee rather than one that thinks it knows everything about mission.
There is clearly a sense of mission and ministry beyond our diocesan
borders that is often quietly done. We celebrate and honor the work
of all of the parishes.
The Committee Chair is Connie
Fegley.
"We hope to be as effective a vehicle as we
can for sharing information with this Diocese on world mission and
also pray that we can serve as inspiration. We have all of us been
so inspired by God, and we hope we can share this."
At the World Mission Hearing
Opening Remarks of Connie Fegley
Chair of the World Mission Committee
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