Your May Update

[John Simpson]

Greetings to all from Northern Uganda!  This my monthly newsletter.

 

It's month #9 for me here, and if you're searching your inbox to count previous newsletters, stop now.  Strangely it comes out to four.  It's fuzzy math.  I don't know.  But since I've been easy on you the past few months, see if you can't manage to read the whole thing: I know some of you are skimmers.  It's time for redemption.  It's also time to get this out before it becomes "Your August Update".

 

 

About the work:

 

Since November, I've been working on a proposal to start something called the Okweyo Initiative, in which victims of violence during the war can take part in "healing of memories" seminars, receive school fees or job training for themselves or their children, and receive plastic surgery or prosthetics normally unavailable by local doctors.  All of these components work together to help those most affected by the war to be reconciled with the violence inflicted on them, then "take from their past that which is life-giving", in the words of our partner Fr. Michael Lapsley SSM.

   

The big news is that the Trust Fund for Victims (TFV, sister org. to the ICC) has agreed in principle to partner with us, initially to the tune of 40 thousand euros (about 65 thousand dollars).  This week, I'm tweaking the proposal and budget one last time before submitting to the lawyers to be turned into a contract.  We will be up and running by the end of June, with a full-time program manager, our first 'healing of memories' seminars and facilitators' trainings.  So I'll be spending less than a month

   

I can't tell you how exciting it is to be working on this at the very ground level.  And learning from everyone - from the diocese, from the Institute for the Healing of Memories in Cape Town, TFV, and others - about reconciliation on a profound level, about what forgiveness is and is not, and about the need for restorative justice.  It's been an education.  And it's stirring and exhilirating to imagine somehow doing work like this when I come home.

 

 

Coming Home:

 

After a lot of deliberation with the bishop, family and friends, I've decided to come home July 16.  This was a tough decision, since since it's a few weeks before I wanted to return, but the flood of summer missionaries apparently has booked my particular flight home from July through August.  The dilemna was: have more time with family before they push off to school (Molly for her first year!), or have more time working with Okweyo.  One conversation I had with Bishop Onono-Onweng made things much clearer.  He said he's been pushing staff to take leave to spend time with family, even when the work is pressing, because the work will always be there.  He also mentioned some of the names he's considering for Okweyo's Program Manager, and the names he mentioned would be very good. 

 

In other news:

 

Seems the flurry of military activity about a month ago, about the time the peace agreement was shelved and Kony disappeared back into the bush, amounted to chest-beating and posturing.  Since then, the LRA has been quiet, and Kony's stayed silet - many think he was killed in a French air strike somewhere in Congo, which would better explain the MiGs we saw.  No one knows what to do but continue rebuilding and re-settling, to continue the momentum of the peace. 

 

Lots of westerners come through here; you'll see them if you know where to look.  Some are here for a couple of nights, or a few months.  Others are more permanent, and have an investment, a presence of one who has let him or herself be molded and changed by the land and the people in it.  It's quickly visible in 'muzungus' gatherings who is who.  I hesitantly count myself in this latter category.  But I differentiate between them only to say that the friendships I've made from this group have been wonderfully fun and fulfilling.  We do a lot of different work (from running non-profit business, to office management, to research) and living situations (secured houses with other westerners or mud-bricked, thatched-roof huts), but from the commonality of our situation here we've had a lot of very important, profound conversations.  This week we're saying goodbye to two long-timers: John and Nick.  They're going home as newly-rounded pegs in square holes, so pray for them.  I'll be following soon.

 

Thanks again for all you do.

 

Peace,

John Simpson
Missionary, Diocese of N. Uganda
www.ecm-raleigh.org/ecm-raleigh/Uganda