August 7, 2006

Dear friends,

Steve and Alice's wedding.

Greetings from Cambria, Wisconsin! Tomorrow we will have been stateside for a month and it has flown by! Since that time we have had the privilege of meeting with many of you as we have spoken at ten churches as well as three Vacation Bible Schools and the New Wilmington Mission Conference. During this time Debbie’s mom also had a successful heart surgery; we were thankful to be home for that.

Not only has there been a bustle of activity since arriving in the States, our departure was a very busy time as well. We moved house on June 1, Bethany graduated from Rainbow International School on June 12, and then Del spent most of the rest of the month in Yei working hard to see that as much as possible of Phase 1 of the Training Center was completed before our departure. He scooted home to Kampala just after Debbie and colleague Milcah Lalam finished a trauma-healing workshop for Sudanese refugees hosted by the Presbyterian Church of Sudan and just before our son Steve’s June 25th wedding to Alice Akumu. The wedding was beautiful and we had such a good time at the reception, which included a mix of American and Acholli cultural traditions such as Steve serving cake to Alice’s family and Alice to ours.

We took the opportunity of having Michael with us to squeeze in a long dreamed-for visit to Kenya where we had served for 11 years as RCA missionaries when our kids were younger. We covered most of the distance by bus, which was “an experience,” but were able to spend time in Titilla and Mombassa where we had wonderful times with old friends and missionary colleagues. We experienced a pretty overwhelming welcome at the Titilla airstrip when our plane landed— they even closed the school so the kids could come and greet us! We enjoyed going to the gardens to munch on roasted corn, visiting in the homes, and sitting on cow skins for a moonlight supper with best friends Hussein and Diketi. In both places it was exciting to see that seeds of faith which we helped plant had grown and born fruit, and to observe a decrease in poverty in Titilla due to a re-stocking program that Debbie had worked on.

Here in the States it has also been wonderful to be able to meet with friends and churches that have been supporting our ministry with RECONCILE. We have noted that many of you are very well-informed about the situation in Sudan, are involved in advocacy and have been faithfully praying for our ministry. This has been immensely encouraging! We also have the privilege of connecting with some of the RCA and PC(USA) missionaries who served in Sudan decades ago and who pray for us so faithfully. It was a special treat to see the production “Sioux Center Sudan” which portrayed the call of Arlene Schuiteman to Nasir, Sudan and her ministry there. What an inspiration for us to all to be true to our callings!

Before our return in mid-September we will continue to be speaking in RCA and PC(USA) churches. We will also be doing a lot of work on behalf of RECONCILE, which is the primary reason we are stateside at this time. RECONCILE serves as a training arm of the New Sudan Council of Churches, comprised of the Presbyterian, Episcopal, Pentecostal, Africa Inland Church, Sudan Interior Church and the Catholic denominations. Because of this wide span of denominations, and that fact that Sudan is such a needy place, you can imagine that we have a lot of organizations interested in and connected to, our work. So far we have plans to meet with the Episcopal Church and the Washington Office on Africa, the United Methodist Church and the National Endowment for Democracy, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the United States Institute for Peace.

Please keep us in your prayers as we continue to travel, have special times with our families, help Bethany prepare for college, and begin to make some exploratory college visits with Daniel—yes, our “last born” will be 17 in October!

We would also ask that you continue to keep Sudan in your prayers.

Prayer requests

The fruitfulness of the series of seven church-sponsored trauma healing and civic education workshops that will begin later this month in the Yambio and Maridi areas, which have been plagued with very serious tribal clashes.

The crisis in Darfur to be resolved. The peace agreement signed in May has completely failed and the genocide continues to rage.

For peace in Unity State. Recent reports indicate there has been armed conflict between the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army and the Sudan Armed Forces.

The work of Sudan Advocacy Action Forum as they faithfully pray and lift these concerns before our government leaders to encourage a pro-active stance towards the ending of the genocide and implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

In Christ,

Del and Debbie