SUDAN AT A TIME OF GREAT STRESS AND GREATER HOPE

This is a difficult time for everyone in Sudan as well as for Sudanese abroad and people who know and love the Sudanese – northerners as well as southerners, easterners and westerners. Understanding and compassion is needed for all Sudanese as the referendum voting continues and as they face a new and uncertain future in its aftermath.


There are many concerns but among them is the plight of thousands of southerners who have congregated on the outskirts of Khartoum in the belief that their journey south would be facilitated by government, international or church efforts. This is not apparently happening sufficiently and major health and security issues could develop.

Together for Sudan has lost two of our five key colleagues in the Khartoum office. One hopes to return after the referendum but may not be able to do so. Nonetheless, we are determined to carry on as a charity dedicated to helping, in particular, women and children who are marginalized and in need of education. But major adjustments seem to lie ahead.

TfS remains dedicated to Sudan and to its multi-cultured and worthy people. At this difficult time of enormous change we hold hope for the Sudanese people and ask God to guide and protect them.

May peace and justice prevail,

Lillian Craig Harris

Director, Together for Sudan

Pushing Myself

I regarded today with some trepidation as it was the date for my longest training run. Previously I had not run for more than two hours but this one was supposed to be for three, so getting on for the marathon distance.

I am lucky around here in at least having plenty of pleasant areas to run in. I started below Alexandra Palace in Alexandra Park, then went via Highgate Woods to Hampstead Heath, which provides a long circuit with plenty of hills. I certainly felt myself slowing down after the first hour and a half and the hills became much more of an effort. Curiously my breathing, which tends to slow me down on shorter runs, was not a problem today; it was the weariness in my legs which affected me more and more as time went on.

For the sake of realism I extended my run along the local railway walk to Finsbury Park so I ended up doing 3hours. That was good psychologically as I now know that I can push myself to do a bit more even when I am pretty tired. I suppose that I did 17 or 18 miles altogether, so not to far off the marathon distance. Writing this three hours later I do not feel too exhausted so hopefully all the training has had some effect.

Now the training schedule tails off with a 1 hour run next weekend followed by a series of short runs to keep things ticking over until the big day. Then, hopefully, I shall have the responsibility of actually justifying the sponsorship to keep me going, and can reflect that any discomfort I suffer running is fairly paltry compared the challenges faced everyday by displaced and marginalized people in Sudan.

Adrian Thomas