November 15, 2006

Dear Friends,

Saturday, April 22, 2006, was a disappointing day for me. I was ready to head up to Akobo, Upper Nile, with my colleague Milcah Lalam to do a workshop on trauma healing, reconciliation, and civic education. The mission plane was reserved, my bags were packed, and I was emotionally and spiritually “primed.” But that afternoon I received a call informing me that two Presbyterian health workers were killed in Akobo. Shortly afterwards, with tears in my eyes, I wrote to those of you on our email list:

Dear friends and family: A change in plans, again. I am deeply disappointed that we needed to cancel the Akobo workshop because of security concerns on the ground connected with interclan hostilities—Nuer/Nuer. When we went to Akobo in April we were asked by the church and community leaders to do a workshop with the youth from the outlying cattle camps, where interclan tensions were high and cattle rustling was going on. So we were going to be going right to the root of what is going on there right now—it seemed like such an important workshop so we really feel badly to have to cancel. Our director, Emmanuel LoWilla, advised us not to go. It’s good to have someone to turn to for those hard decisions. We are thankful for his guidance. Please pray for the situation in Akobo, the headquarters of the Presbyterian Church of Sudan, that peace will reign. The rains will be coming next month so we will wait until the dry season to re-schedule. In Christ, Debbie

I was actually more upset than the note conveyed. If one looked at the situation objectively, one might wonder why this American woman would want so desperately to go to Akobo. Although it’s a beautiful spot on the banks of the Pibor River, Akobo is not the easiest place to spend a week. Accommodations are very basic: mud houses with thatched roofs or hospital staff housing that is in desperate need of repair, as the compound was a target of bombing during the war. There is no indoor plumbing so it’s outhouses and bucket-and-cup showers. The mosquitoes always have quite a feast at my expense during those shower times, and meetings are often conducted while waving a branch to keep the flies off one’s face. So why would I be so devastated about not being able to visit such a place?

For one thing, I like going out to the field, and I really enjoy the people of Akobo. We have gotten close to several Presbyterian pastors there, and we have been inspired by the growth and vitality of the church. But most of all it seemed like there was a screaming need for us there! The community was so responsive to our previous workshop, citing six instances when they used skills they had learned to stop bloodshed. In response to this situation, true to my Reformed understanding of God’s sovereignty, I remember saying, “God doesn’t need us there to do his work,” but I think that deep in my heart it was hard for me to really believe that. Although I am a “do-er” by nature, over the next few months I was taught an important lesson: we are not as indispensable as we think we are. While it’s true that God often blesses us by working through us to accomplish his mission, God is still at work even when we are not able to be directly involved.

While buzzing around the States this summer and early fall on a whirlwind two-and-a-half-month home assignment (including 39 speaking engagements and 7 partner meetings), we received news of a voluntary disarmament of 1,300 guns in Akobo. Our prayers had been answered! Of course we didn’t need to be in Akobo for God to be at work!

I spent the first week of October doing strategic planning with the Presbyterian Church of Sudan’s Relief and Development Agency, and then I heard the whole story. In the aftermath of the Presbyterian health workers’ deaths, there were reprisals causing 15 more deaths. (It was good that we did not go in at that time.) After this tragedy, the church and community leaders who had attended the RECONCILE workshop called a meeting to decide what they could do to address the crisis. They conceived and mobilized a grassroots program to voluntarily disarm the people of Akobo.

The Rev. John Both, pastor in charge of the Presbyterian Church of Sudan congregation in Akobo, said, “We got the idea for this plan from the workshop which RECONCILE did for us.” The workshop participants designed the plan, which was first shared with the local chiefs and headmen and then presented to the local commissioner, who gave it strong support. Thirteen-hundred guns were laid on the town square in Akobo! It couldn’t have gone better. In that very tense situation, God used the tremendous commitment of the church and community leaders as well as the meager “loaves and fishes” that we had offered—in the form of a five-day workshop—and it was enough!

Now it is the dry season, and at the Presbyterian Church of Sudan’s invitation we are again preparing to go to Akobo to do the workshop with the youth from the cattle camps. We make our plans willing to be used, trusting in God’s guidance and protection, but significantly more aware that God is in control. Even if our plans fail, God is still working, often in more wonderful ways than we can imagine, to accomplish his purposes.

In Christ,

Debbie (for the Braaksmas)