Recently, I returned from Kampala, Uganda and in these past weeks you most likely heard of the tragedy with authorities recovering the bodies of 38 students who were burned, shot, or hacked to death along with three adults. The rebels attacked a secondary school near the border with Congo. The President of Uganda has a reputation of providing security in opposition to the rebels of ISIS, but they want to demonstrate they are still around and able to destroy innocent human beings. The United Nations condemned the attack and called for those responsible to be brought to justice.

In May, I was there to visit five refugee camps of our South Sudanese students living in the camps near Arua, Uganda. Many of you know the story of Father John Lasuba coming to our St. John parish community in Rochester, MN from what was Sudan in 2005. He served as a parochial vicar with me for twelve years and during that time, people from the parish were so inspired by his presence they formed a group in order to create a school near his hometown of Yei, Sudan. He had served in the “bush” for ten years, helping his people to survive a war that had continued for decades until Sudan split and South Sudan was named the youngest Nation in the world on July 9, 2011.

In Sudan we hear of the on-going civil war and the devastation of a people longing for peace. Thousands upon thousands of people have been fleeing Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, for weeks. The situation in Sudan is similar to South Sudan with civil war and leaders taking sides with an army, leaving people abandoned without food, shelter, or a way to recognize and discover their dignity as a human being. Our popular media outlets have been featuring Sudan more at the moment because their war is more recent. However, even before South Sudan had experienced war and refugees were leaving Sudan to go to any of the surrounding countries including South Sudan, Sudan faced a very complex situation that is unimaginable. South Sudan remains in a serious humanitarian crisis: some 9.4 million people, 76% of the population, are estimated to be in need of humanitarian assistance in 2023.

One million people left South Sudan during their civil war and found camps in northern Uganda, near Arua. This is where our parish school, created under the leadership of Seeds of Wisdom, was built and I went for the dedication in April of 2016. A year later, the civil war escalated and our students and their families moved to the camps in Uganda. The Ugandan government has been most welcoming to our families, but the resources are very limited. The people live in five different camps with life in the huts. The children are even educated in a hut. They have a very small classroom, but our teachers are exceptional and our principal George is as well.

My experience places me in an extraordinary encounter of joy, life, community, family, encounter and faces full of life even as they live in abject poverty. Although they live without so much, they have a grace that seems to be missing in so many places here in the USA. I see that this leads them to have a dependence on God because they do not have an abundance under which to hide and pretend everything is fine. They know the every day drama of grief, loss, and hopelessness, but yet they live with hope. Our students do very well with their education and presently we are creating a fund in our parish to sponsor our 8th grade students to move to a boarding school in Arua. Otherwise, they would not be able to continue their education.

I have limited abilities to communicate the beauty and wonder of my experience in Uganda and with the neighbors to the north, South Sudan. What is clear to me is that even though the devastation surrounding us while I was visiting was beyond measure, the grace of human beings searching for reality and the presence of Christ was remarkably life-giving.

Grateful to you, Father Luigi Giussani, as you taught me how to look at the positivity of reality,

Father Jerry, Rochester, MN