Barnes in Common

the magazine of Churches Together in Barnes
May/June 2006

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Joseph Ayok-Loewenberg

by Rosie Findlater

Joseph was born in Aweil, Southern Sudan, in the early sixties, one of eight children.

His father was a teacher and started one of the first schools when the British were still in Sudan in the 1950's. Joseph describes his father as having been "rather British, quite stern, very upright". Of course, the Sudanese people wanted to run their own affairs and longed to be free of the British and independent. Unfortunately, corruption returned and soon they wished the British had not gone.

Joseph went to school and found that he excelled at sports. Rather to his father's dismay he loved sport and winning, and when his school realized what a prize they had, he was entered for every possible sporting competition. He found himself competing in many other countries, was part of the Olympic Team and ran in the World Championships (3000m steeple- chase). He entered a different world from the one he was born in.

He came to England in 1983, and studied in Whitby to acquire enough English to read Theology at Trinity College. At the school in Whitby he met Karin, also studying English. George Carey was in charge of Trinity College and Joseph remembers him as a source of great comfort when Joseph's mother died in the Sudanese war, soon after Joseph had started his course.
In 1989 Joseph was ordained in Salisbury serving his curacy in Swanage. In 1990, he married Karin and they both joined the Church Mission Society, serving in Bermondsey (in London) for a while, and later in Northern Uganda in Sudanese refugee camps.

Returning to England in 1995 and working as team vicar in West Dorset, he wanted to continue doing something for his fellow Sudanese who had so little. He sent bicycles for teachers. His parish was very supportive and an old friend, Peter Gill, a TV presenter, helped him get publicity. A programme was broadcast on the BBC about the situation in Joseph's home area.

Because Sudan suffered the longest civil war in Africa, generations had been without education, schools had been demolished. Joseph dreamed up the idea of having portable schools called "Under Tree Schools". All that was required was a tree for shade, a blackboard, a slate and chalk for children and a teacher of course! If an area got dodgy, they simply moved to a quieter place and a different tree.

Joseph and Karin lived in Barnes in 1992 when a lot of us first met Joseph. I will never forget him at St. Mary's Church, so upright and already possessing charisma and an aura of strength, stability and goodness. He was something new and different and exciting in our lives and when he and Karin moved on, we followed their life with great interest because we knew they had chosen to go far to help Joseph's people.

After Easter 2005, Ross and his team visited Joseph, Karin, Ashol and Aluel in Alexandria where they had set up a Ministry to Sudanese refugees. That is another story.

Earlier this year, Joseph travelled to Southern Sudan to see how the project of the "Under Tree Schools" was doing. He was profoundly moved at the sight of girls still washing clothes in the river and catching fish in fishing baskets for the evening meal. This was their life forever. Nothing had changed since he left and there was still little chance for education for them because boys are considered more important and education for girls does not matter.

Another aspect of life in his homeland was that his sister and two female cousins all died in childbirth (at age 17) and this moved Joseph to action also. He couldn't conceive that a girl would have so little ahead of her, no education and no freedom.

Joseph had the vision to change this. He feels things can be changed, and that it would not only benefit the children and young women in the Sudan, but also enrich the lives of those who want to create change. He believes that such poverty is a mirror of our lives and shows us the other side of life. A great believer in community, Joseph knows something great could be achieved and that the benefit would not only be to the young girls coming out of a life of near-slavery. Joseph is not out to make a noisy impact: very far from it, but he feels there is a huge opportunity here for people to do something to help change these girls' lives.

Now he and Karin, and their twin girls are back at Boileau Road and they have brought a breath of new life with their energy and joy.

Joseph, a man of great depth has a vision and he would love to share it with us. It is a lifetime vision for renewal; we are all fortunate to have him with us, and we will learn as much from him as we can help him to bring new life to others and bring those girls out of the darkness.

Perhaps Joseph will help us all to understand the paradox of why people who have so little as those in Sudan, have so much joy; whereas joy to us seems to be an emotion of which we know very little, yet are always seeking.

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