I have been reflecting on the meaning of the Sudanese in my life and the energy that has been released creating a vision of a future borne out of the suffering of children, youth and adults. I have been reading Jonathan Sacks' book, The Home We Build Together: Recreating Society. For me this is an immensely important book that I encourage everyone to read. At the heart of his thinking in the biblical core principle of society as being a conscious act of new beginnings. Parties come together to achieve what neither can achieve alone. St. Paul talked about those who were far off having now been brought near. For us in the U.S. Sudan and the Sudanese have been brought near; but in the same way for those in Sudan, Kenya and Uganda we in the U.S. have been brought near to them. Unknowingly the carriers of the potential for making a covenant were the Sudanese themselves who came as refugees bearing in their bodies and souls the suffering of Sudan. In biblical times a covenant was always sealed with a blood offering. Not knowing that this was happening as little children, their blood and the blood of their families was being shed in preparation for the day when covenants would be made between Americans and Sudanese.

Sacks says The parties to a covenant bind themselves to one another in an open-ended bond of mutuality and loyalty. They agree to share a fate. He refers to one of the most famous lines of the Bible: Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. (Psalm 23) Here is the certainty that God is sharing the fate of his people. Unlike contracts, which are about interests, covenants are about identity.

As I look back to 2002, I was equally unaware of what began to form between myself and the Sudanese. I couldn't name it because it was more than compassion or empathy, more than admiration or awesome respect. I saw the same stirrings happening in other people whose lives were touched by these young men and then eventually young women. A covenant was being formed. For some of us the fate of the Sudanese here and in Sudan became more and more evident as our own fate. An ever increasing number of people wanted to help In 2007 I brought together a handful of people with whom a similar bonding was taking place. This marks the conscious act of new beginning. This was a conscious act of covenant making.

Joseph Allen is quoted by Sacks as saying, To be in covenant with other people involves believing that we and they belong to the same moral community; that in this community each person matters in his or her own right and not merely as something useful to society; that we all participate in the moral community by entrusting ourselves to others and in turn by accepting their entrusting; and that in the moral community each of us has enduring responsibility to all the others.

Now starting my seventh year with the Sudanese I have no doubt that I and they belong to the same moral community. When we look at our mission statement: Hope With Sudan seeks to build community to strengthen the potential of children and youth through education in re-establishing the society of southern Sudan.

we see the affirmation of such a moral community. Our mission is not a contract; it is a covenant. As a board I invite us to consider the implications of what it means to live in a covenantal relationship with the Sudanese, what it will take to know the members of such a community and what is the nature of the enduring mutual responsibility to all the members. We are not talking about contracts with students for scholarships; we are talking about evolving relationships where our fate is committed to their fate and vice versa. We share one fate.