March 6, 2006

Friends,

We have just received word that the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has made two attacks on the Catholic mission in Loa, near Nimule, in south Sudan (where our son Steve conducted a workshop last year). Two people were killed and four children were abducted. The LRA has a sordid history of taking children into captivity and making them into child soldiers, sex slaves, or carriers of supplies.

Prayer requests

• Pray that the lives of these children would be spared and that they would be released.
• Tensions are still very high between the Bor Dinka and Zande peoples in Yambio due to ethnic clashes in November in which scores of people died and 851 homes were burned or looted. Del had a productive assessment trip there with the New Sudan Council of Churches. Pray for a successful NSCC peace conference and for the follow-up workshops, which RECONCILE is planning.
• Thank God for the excellent progress on the building the first phase of our training center in Yei, which Del is overseeing.
• Pray for our daughter Bethany as she makes decisions on where to go to college.

Debbie & Del Braaksma