[Episcopal News Service — Chicago] Diocese of Nzara Bishop Samuel Enosa Peni began work in his remote diocese with a laptop, printer and generator set up under a mango tree. As he led the diocese in a strategic planning process for the first five years, Peni said, he also knew the diocese had a key, influential role in the new nation of South Sudan. This work is being done all the while the people in the area face the continuing threat of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The bishop is in the leadership of an interfaith group of religious leaders from South Sudan, Uganda, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo that is working to end the violence caused by the LRA.

– The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is an editor/reporter for the Episcopal News Service.