Ochan Self-Help Alliance

Have you followed the story of the former high school girl, Catherine Ajok, who, at age 13 in October 1996, was abducted from her school in Apac District of Northern Uganda by rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)?  While in captivity Ajok became one of several dozens of forced wives of Joseph Kony, the spiritual leader of LRA. He passed her on to  his  junior officer after impregnating her and replaced her with a more recent,  younger abductee.  In October 2009, Ajok was rescued in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo where the LRA is hiding  from international authorities under the thick canopy of Garamba Forest and continues its predations on local populations.  Ajok was brought back to her parents’ care in Uganda.  A remarkable part of Ajok’s story is simply that she  lived to tell it after so many years in captivity.  Hundreds of other young ‘silent victims’ of LRA were not as fortunate.  The bell of grief continues to toll for families of boys and girls still unaccounted for.

a young farmer in her field planted with sunflower crop given by OCHAN

OCHAN is in Northern Uganda to help war victims and their families reclaim their lives through improved health care, more secure housing, and green commerce to stimulate their home economy once again.  Introducing reforestation as a long-term means to safeguard the local environment from effects of a wood-based economy and climate change is OCHAN’s long-term commitment to their future.

St. John’s Episcopal Church, Mt. Washington, Baltimore MD, has been crafting clay sunflowers for several Lenten Sundays this year to offer to all in church on Easter Sunday as gifts of hope and love.  Rev. Lori Babcock, the pastor, stated the following in St. John’s Epistle of April 1, 2010:  “We will hand out decorative clay flowers as a symbol of our own new life and our support of the new life and hope for the resettled refugees of Opac Village, [northern]Uganda.”

OCHAN, touched and grateful for such creative and uplifting support, hope to carry some some of the clay beauties pictured here to the women leaders of the farmers in Opac. We will also carry the hope expressed as a blessing in the final lesson of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland’s 2010 Lenten Project, ‘Sunflowers for Opac’:  May God give you of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain.” Genesis: 27.28.