Welcome to John and Julia's website!
Julia and John’s website
This website is intended to let our friends, loved ones, and anyone else follow our lives as we are on our 3-year term of service with the Mennonite Central Committee. Please take a look around, but before you do—read the following little description of what we are doing in Sudan. It will probably help you figure out what in the world you are looking at and reading about.
So, Julia and John are in Africa, what’s that all about?
Even before we met we both felt the strong call and responsibility to lend ourselves to those in need as a natural response to our faith. Most of us would agree that our faith (the Harris’ is a Christian faith, but most of the other ones call for this too) compels us to be a part of the process of breaking chains of oppression and lending a hand to those in need.
This is no new idea and most of you reading this are probably yourselves a part of these efforts in your own communities and beyond (if you aren’t, what are you waiting for?).
After we got married and finished with school, we thought about how we might lend ourselves to others. We began to understand that most of us should be a part of this work, which is of course taking part in God’s redemptive work, at or near home. However, some of us need to leave our communities, on behalf of our communities, and lend ourselves to people across town, down state or on the other side of the world.
A lot of people for a lot of very good reasons can’t leave their communities, much as they may want to be a part of God’s work in places like Sudan. Well, we thought about it and realized we were the kind of people who found ourselves in the kind of situation that allowed us to go to a place like Sudan. So we began, through prayer and consultation with trusted members of our families and communities, to look into international service opportunities for ourselves on behalf the communities we represent.
We have always respected the Mennonite Central Committee for their view on peace making and solidarity with the poor and oppressed. We began to look for ways we might be involved with them.
Sudan is a place that has been on our minds for a long time. When we saw that there were openings with MCC in Sudan we thought it might be a good fit for us. And we still do.
What is MCC?
The Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is the Relief, Development and PeaceBuilding branch of the Mennonite and Brethren Churches of North America. They have programs all over the world and their major activity is to place people like us with partner organizations like CEAS in places like Sudan to be a part of the peace making and poverty alleviating efforts taking place.
What is CEAS?
Our MCC service places us both in positions with Church Ecumenical Action in Sudan (CEAS). CEAS is an organization with emergency relief, education, health, and food security programs all over South Sudan. CEAS works with smaller local church based and community based organizations who partner with CEAS in all its programs. Within CEAS, Julia is a “Capacity Building Specialist,” which means she is working on the CEAS strategic plan and with our local partners to always be looking for ways to improve how we work. John is an “Emergencies Specialist,” which means he travels all over helping to manage the different projects CEAS has going from a distribution of crop seeds and cultivation tools for recently returning refugees to talking with high school students about ways to improve their lives at a recently built (the only one in the state) secondary school.
What’s the deal with Sudan?
In January of 2005 a peace deal, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), was signed between the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and the northern Government of Sudan. It had been a 21 year old war and Africa’s longest running. The war was a devastating one; fought over ethnic, religious, and political differences as well as access to large oil reserves. The war was mostly fought in the south, home to the SPLA rebels and left the area with virtually no physical infrastructure. All efforts are now focused on rebuilding, actually building for the first time, South Sudan.
In the headlines these days you are probably hearing a lot about Darfur. Darfur is in the Northwest of Sudan (not in the South) and home to a very recent conflict. Just as the conflict in the South was beginning to cool, rebels in Darfur began a campaign against the government. The atrocities you have been hearing about on both sides since 2003 are similar to those that took place in the South for 21 years.
We currently live in Nairobi, Kenya. For now, CEAS is headquartered in Nairobi along with most organizations that were working in Sudan during the Southern war. CEAS and the Harris’ (along with everyone else it seems) are in the process of moving to Juba, the capital of South Sudan. We are not sure when we will move permanently, but it looks like some time in late 2006 or early 2007.
Please pray for Sudan! Please pray for us!
Abbreviations and Other Info:
- MCC: Mennonite Central Committee
The North American organization that is sending us to work for, seconding us to, a Sudanese organization
- CEAS: Church Ecumenical Action in Sudan
The Sudanese organization we work for that is currently based in Nairobi Kenya.
- CPA: Comprehensive Peace Agreement
The peace agreement signed between the northern government and the southern rebels that ended the civil war between the North and the South in Sudan.
- SPLA/M: Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement
The southern rebel group that began as an army and over time became more political, hence “movement”.
- GoS: Government of Sudan (northern)
The northern centralized government of Sudan
- GOSS: Government of South Sudan
The southern government of Sudan formed after the CPA
According to the CPA South Sudan will hold a referendum in 2011 for its people to vote either for unity with the northern government or create an independent southern government, i.e.: independent country.
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