A Coalition of Hope

For the last year, several of us who were trained last year in Rwanda to conduct healing and reconciliation workshops have been meeting together, trying to find ways to work together. We come from different churches and organizations, and our vision has been to promote this work within our churches, but also to cooperate and promote an ecumenical effort. But it has proved to be harder than we anticipated. We are an informal group of people with a common passion; we want to be faithful to work within the priorities and interests of our own churches, but we also want this message to reach a wider audience and promote cooperation. But when we approach the council of churches or other organizations to support our ecumenical efforts, we struggle to describe who we are and we don’t have credibility as a ‘known entity’. The church partner I work with, the South Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church, has been active in promoting this work of reconciliation, and we have organized a few workshops this year. But we know that long term the work will have more impact and reach more people if we collaborate with others than if we try to ‘go it alone’.

Last week our loosely connected group came together for two days, facilitated by Joseph Nyamutera from Rwanda and Allan Waihumbu from Kenya, both having experience in this ministry of reconciliation and experience promoting it at the grass-roots level. We reviewed with them the current situation in South Sudan and the factors that have contributed to division and conflict in specific regions. Together we discussed a vision for the future, and what our role could be in promoting healing and peace. We explored what exactly we are as a group, and what structure we could work with. Are we a network? Are we an organization? We finally settled on ‘coalition’, and hope that describes our desire to be distinct parts/groups who come together to work as one united group.

We worked together on a vision statement, although that task will take some more time to nail down. And we dreamed together about what we want to see happen in South Sudan – that children could grow up in a safe environment, that people would be healed from their trauma, that displaced people could return home, and that churches would faithfully disciple people to follow Jesus’ example of breaking down barriers. We are excited, but it also feels a little intimidating to me. Please pray for us! It is never easy forming something new, while also trying to work with existing structures and processes. We know that God wants to bring healing and renewal to South Sudan, and trust that He will guide us in this process.

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5:18-19