Winds of Change - Back to Ottawa

This is the final video from our remarkable trip to Sudan for the historic referendum. Of all our dozens of trips, leaving on this occasion was perhaps the most difficult. The Sudanese we have known for over a decade - administrators, soldiers, exiles, slaves, religious and educational leaders, NGO workers - were all focused on one event, the referendum, and it caused many of us to commiserate on just have far things have come over the years.For the Sudanese it didn't represent a moment in time in which they could exercise their vote; rather, its was the culmination of decades in which they were able to correct what they believed to be one of the great social and moral injustices of the modern era. Even as we were attempting to sleep under the bright stars, we could hear the shuffle of thousands of feet, as they made their way through the night to their respective polling stations to leave their own fingerprint on correcting injustice. It was a remarkable, though quiet, sound of a determined people bent on proving that they can administer themselves despite all the challenges they will inevitably face.Now, as the team has returned to Canada, we undertake our regular tasks of speaking, singing (for some), filing reports, holding fundraisers, and communicating regularly with our friends in Sudan. All of this will culminate in time for our trip again next year.For Jane and I it's a bit different. Along with all these other tasks, we remain determined that Western governments maintain their focus on Sudan - north and south - as they seek to separate peacefully. And with the humanitarian crisis about to descend on the border regions where we work, we will continue to dialogue with government representatives in place like Ottawa, Washington, and European capitals.It wouldn't be an overstatement to say this last trip was "historic" - indeed it was. For the members of the team, we were baptized into a moment and a movement far greater than ourselves and we discovered that we, too, had expanded and grown in the process. A special thanks to all of them. We hope the videos have been helpful. It's never that easy to verbally portray what we witness in Sudan; these videos will hopefully give you a better idea.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8XUMQiXFuU