A letter from Ingrid Reneau in South Sudan
March 2012
Dear Friends,
…the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;
in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:2b and 3).
Jiye Girl after school burned down, now back in traditional dress
Five years ago I began this journey of serving with the PC(USA) with its partner organization, Across, in South Sudan as an Education Officer. At that time my heart’s Bible verse was Proverbs 3:4–6 and the understanding I’d gleaned from II Chronicles 16:7–9 that above all else, I was to rely wholly on Yahweh for all things that pertained to life—spiritual and physical—in international mission. Over time, other verses have participated in that heart word: John 10:10, John 6:56 and 57 and many others. Now, for the past year, the Scripture that has been sounding the clearest and that has been the source of Christ Jesus in me as peace and rest has been Isaiah 55, with verses 8 and 9 sounding most clearest.
Over the years I’ve learned that whether in international or home mission, or wherever we’re serving to fulfill our Father’s mission in the world, we are undergoing the overarching call of being transformed from glory to glory into the image of our Lord Jesus, the Christ; this usually means lots of changes in life—body, soul and spirit. And these changes are both the natural and supernatural nature of life as a Christian, and even more so, life as a Christian serving in mission.
Me, with 3 pastors from the MA cohort; I', the only woman in a class of 14 Pastors of the Pentecostal Church of Ghana
Indeed, engagement with/in mission creates such opportunity for change. It is this continuous change that brings me to this newsletter in which I share the present part of this change-journey I am on: I’m still in the classroom, but now seated on the other side of the teacher’s desk. I write to you from the Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology, Mission and Culture (ACI), Akropong, Ghana, where I’ve begun the first of three blocks of one-month on-campus course work to complete by Dec. 2012, an M.A. in Theology, Mission and Culture, focusing on the cattle camp culture of South Sudan.
The cultural—educational and theological—concerns of this M.A. arise from my engagements inside the teacher-training classrooms, the church congregations, and my observations outside both within the communities at large in the South Sudan contexts into which I’ve been privileged to enter as a PC(USA) mission co-worker. What’s become apparent is the primal worldviews that underlie much of South Sudanese cultures, especially in the cattle camps, and the extent to which many of us engaged in ministry/mission in South Sudan—Christian, humanitarian or otherwise—are not sufficiently equipped to engage the unique realities and histories of the semi-nomadic pastoralists of the cattle camps. Thus the development work we do, both in a physical and spiritual sense, is rarely successful. By development here I also mean the degree to which people become Christians, grow in the saving knowledge of Jesus, the Christ, so that the gospel becomes culturally relevant to effect deep, long-lasting discipleship transformation with/in them.
ACI Campus, Akropong-Ghana
Inevitably long-lasting, sustainable peace continues to be illusive because cattle raiding and revenge killings persist, and with the availability of modern weapons of war—AK-47s and the like—these have become more pernicious in the taking of lives: villages are invaded and women and children are now killed by cattle raiders! Naturally, when these raids occur or when cattle raiders attack the villages of the tribe from which they are stealing cows, this destroys lives and Life more abundantly, too, as all forms of development work and service cease to happen; mission and humanitarian workers are evacuated and in some cases the very teachers we are training leave the training to take up arms and go to defend their homes or take part in counter/revenge attacks. In some cases entire villages are burned to the ground! When this happened recently even the schools were burned, and with all the homes burned, the girls who had just begun to attend school lost everything they had; in addition, they had to move far away from the tribe that had attacked them, so they became harder for us to reach. This, however, did not deter these girls. Dressed again in their traditional apparel, the girls came to our compound, begging those there to come where there were to resume school for them! This, however, is not always possible due to logistics and availability of transport.
Jiye girls after village burnt, talking with Lucy & David in Boma.
Yet, while the cattle raiders and raiding[1] are unreasonably destructive, there are still primal rituals that occur in cattle camps; these are rituals of group identification, of community cleansing, and others that have a meaningful base for the pastoralist community as well as for those who may no longer live or visit cattle camps or are involved in the raiding, but for whom those cattle camps rituals and ceremonies are not to be missed. Similarly, even as the younger generation of one tribe but of many age-mate groups are making war on those generations from another tribe, there are still spiritual leaders of the community, both in the camps and villages, who continue to initiate and conduct these ceremonies and rituals. Recently I learned that a rainmaker in one village in which we work said he’d welcomed my visit and interview for he wants to know what rituals or acts he performs we (Christian development workers) would consider righteous or unrighteous. What an opportunity for learning and sharing! Clearly, while on the surface it appears that only modern cattle raiding warfare is emanating from the cattle camps and from those in the villages still engaged in cattle camp activities, there is still very much a traditional, primal way of understanding and engaging in life and identity that persists.
It is these persistent ways of understanding and engaging life and identity that I’d like to explore further in this M.A. at ACI[2] especially in hopes of discovering patterns that will assist us in becoming better equipped in doing and being what the African theologian Samin Lanneh calls “translating the gospel” in making it culturally relevant in all aspects of South Sudanese semi-pastoralist and village life. This would entail discovering the intricate ways that young people in the cattle camps learn (without any formal education, they seem the brightest young people, memorizing all the 99 names for cows, and so on), transmit and create new knowledge, as well as the ways in which the primal rituals and ways of knowing and being of the cattle camps continue to inform identity and understandings about salvation, redemption, development, change, learning, education, and so on.
Same girl when she was going to school
While here in Ghana I continue to work for Across (the wonders of email!): I’m organizing an Across retreat seminar entitled “Encountering African Christianity” to be held in Nairobi facilitated by two Rev. professors of ACI’s faculty and the co-founder. Our topics will included but are not limited to: Understanding the Issues of Gospel and Culture; Primal Religion and Christian Spirituality; Development in African Christianity and Their Implications for Discipleship, Witness and Holistic Ministry. The intent of this seminar is to introduce ACI and Across to each other with the hope that an affiliation will be formed between these two Christian mission organizations (both PC(USA) partner organizations) that will have an impact on all mission/humanitarian work (ers) serving in South Sudan.
Last, both the focus of this M.A. and the seminar I’m organizing bears on the new responsibilities for me at Across that are now being discussed and considered; this would be as head of Across’ Research Desk, a position Across seeks to create in keeping with its five-year strategic plan to establish a Research and Development Desk and establish itself as a resource organization on South Sudan, especially relating to holistic, integrated ministry in effecting Christ-centered transformation of South Sudan communities (Across’ vision).
I thank you each and all so very much for your continued prayer and financial support as I continue to be available to Jah [Jehovah] in completing his mission in South Sudan.
Ever in Christ,
Ingrid
The 2012 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 94
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[1] * Cattle raiding is essentially where those of one tribe tending large numbers of cattle in a cattle camp attack the cattle camp of another tribe to steal hundreds and even thousands of cows. This stealing of cows occurs because cows are the means of economic wealth and status in the community; similarly, marriage also provides such status and increases economic wealth as many cows are paid as dowry for a woman at marriage. Whereas in the past cattle keepers would use bow and arrows and spears in cattle raiding, they now use AK-47s and other modern weapons of war.
[2] ACI is a partner organization of the PC(USA), was founded by the late African theologian Ghanaian Rev. Dr. Kwame Bediako of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana and his wife, Dr. Gillian Mary Bediako, now the Deputy Rector. Please visit web site at: www.acighana.org. Thus, because ACI (although small in size) is one of Africa’s leading research institutions on African Christianity, especially on Primal Religions and Worldviews, with the training I receive here I will be better equipped for Christian development work as transformational ministry in a primal cultural contexts, and I will also be better equipped to train others to be and do likewise.
