A Letter from Debbie & Del Braaksma in Sudan
December 7, 2009
Dear Friends,
Gummuruk women practicing helping skills for victims of trauma.
Two weeks ago I was on a small plane to Gummuruk to lead the second of a series of three workshops for women in the Presbyterian Church of Sudan on “Preventing and Responding to Violence Against Women and Children.” We were heading into one of the most violent areas of south Sudan in which approximately 1,400 people lost their lives due to fighting between the Nuer and Murle peoples this year. I spent the plane ride in a fascinating discussion with my seatmate, a woman who was an expert in international peace building, a Ph.D. holder. This woman, who was near the end of an impressive career, was at the same time very brilliant and very cynical, especially about the prospect of lasting peace in Sudan.
Debbie and Murle women in Pibor.
While we as RECONCILE staff daily surround our work in prayer at staff devotions, the conversation with this woman really moved me to serious prayer. I realized even more intensely that what we were doing is a “drop in the bucket” compared to the immensity of this conflict. Yet I knew that as Christians we have a hope that those who do not know Christ cannot fathom. We have access to the same empowering Spirit that enabled South African Christians to break the sin of apartheid and that is leading Kenyan Christians to reconcile after the violence of the 2008 election. The power of the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is ours! (Rom 8:11). So we went into Gummuruk feeling like the young boy who handed his loaves and fishes to Jesus — that it was small compared to the need, but we were expecting the Lord to bless and multiply what we had to offer: a one week workshop to train women to respond to the violence between ethnic groups and within their homes and communities.
Akobo women doing role-playing of scenes about violence against women and children.
We began each workshop with an exercise to determine where the women were in terms of understanding their rights. Typical of women who have been denied education (5 percent could write their names), these women had accepted many traditional practices that harm women and children. The majority of the women agreed that men have the right to beat women, that women should not choose their spouses, and that if a woman is being beaten she must be patient because the Bible teaches that Christians are to suffer. They said, “women need to be trained and disciplined by their husbands,” “if a woman is being beaten by her husband it means she has misbehaved,” “women cannot talk to their husbands as friends, they need to show more respect.” Welooked carefully at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Declaration of the Rights of the Child as well as the Bible and found the Bible to be strongly supportive of the rights of women and children. We could see the Spirit working as we saw the “light bulbs” turn on in these Presbyterian women’s minds to what they called “new ideas that we had never heard.”
We also helped the women to understand the dynamics of trauma, which they had all seen virtually all of their lives. They had been especially affected by the recent violence. In Akobo, all 56 of the workshop participants had a family member killed, abducted or injured in this year’s fighting. We gave them basic skills on how to help victims to heal the wounds of their hearts, with special attention to the needs of abused and abducted children and women who have been raped or are victims of domestic violence. But perhaps most importantly we learned about how to break this cycle of violence, how to choose “the path” leading to reconciliation rather than getting caught up in a cycle of violence and revenge.
The last two days of the workshop we helped the women to discern prayerfully what they could do to stop the violence and to make plans to do so. They made bold promises and specific plans that they shared with church and community leaders. They promised to report and follow through on cases of abuse and rape and to stop supporting their husbands and sons who raid by preparing special food for them to carry and dancing and singing their praises when they returned. They made plans to hold special prayer meetings for peace and organize meetings to instruct church leaders on the biblical principles of women’s and children’s rights and how to work for peace. They even said that they would refuse to give birth to children who would be killed by this interethnic fighting. But the boldest commitment was this pledge to hold a women’s peace meeting:
We promise to try to bring women leaders together from the Nuer and Murle tribes to make plans for peace. This will be initiated by the PCOS church women, and we will lead the meeting to be held in Pibor. We will invite men who can help us in the peace process to participate. We will inform the government and ask them to provide security.
Both Murle and Nuer women said that, as Christians, they were ready to go into the areas where there had been massacres to make peace because they know that Jesus is with them and that he will protect them as they do his work of peace building. RECONCILE is looking for funds to support such a meeting. As it is not safe to travel by road or river between Akobo and Pibor we will need to use air transport. As you celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace this Christmas, please pray for these dear women and for us as we try to support them in their desire to forge peace.
In Christ,
Del and Debbie Braaksma
The 2009 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 32
