As the only full-time Episcopal missionary living in Sudan, back in the United States for General Convention, I now know I can go back to Sudan with a positive message from our church to theirs.

Tuesday afternoon, I couldn’t say that.

Tuesday afternoon, I was close to tears, because the House of Deputies had defeated the resolution that addressed the Windsor Report’s two main concerns -- the consecration of gay bishops living in same-gender relationships and the blessing of same-gender unions.

When that resolution was turned down in Deputies, resoundingly so, I thought I was in trouble.

Those of us who live full-time on the front lines of this thing we call the Anglican Communion needed a response to Windsor, a formal response, from General Convention itself.

To have no formal response – just a refusal to bring forth any resolutions, which is what it looked like Tuesday afternoon – scared me.

How could I go back into the Communion, which is my reality overseas, with nothing to bring them? Even if Convention had said “no” to the rest of the Communion – “No, we don’t want to talk to you about this, it’s our business only” – that statement would have been sufficient, because it would have been a response.

How could I go back to the Sudanese Church, which voted in its Synod to walk with us because we walked with them throughout their war, even though the Sudanese don’t like what we did in 2003? How could I tell them we didn’t respond to Windsor?

With that despair ruling my life, I went back to the House of Deputies Tuesday night, where some of the despair lifted. The House of Deputies, which I think maybe took a step back after its decisive tally, voted on two other resolutions, one a commitment to being in the Communion, one to support a discussion about a possible Anglican Covenant.

Wednesday morning, with hope beginning to fill my being, I started talking to various deputies and bishops. I told them all the same thing:

“Please. Do not send me back to Sudan with nothing. Do something. Give me something to take back that shows we are willing to be the Body of Christ with the Body of Christ.”

Reminding everyone with whom I spoke that I am their missionary in Sudan – the only missionary in Sudan sent forth by the national Episcopal Church – helped, I know. That fact gives me a voice that is very different from many other voices, because to me, the “Anglican Communion” is not some esoteric, ethereal idea. It is real. It is where I live and move and have my being.

The Anglican Communion to me is Bishop Daniel Deng Bul, bishop of Renk. It is Awok, my cook, and her son, Madjur. It is Martha, priest-in-charge of our cathedral. It is Awol, the man who came to Christ because of the Cathedral (God told him, he said, he was to go to the Cathedral and meet the bishop; five weeks later, he was baptized, confirmed and received his first Holy Communion). The Anglican Communion is every Christian I’ve ever met in Sudan, every person with whom I’ve ever broken bread at the table.

And to go back into the Communion, within weeks of General Convention, I need to have something to say to them. I have to be able to say, “Yes, we in America listened to your concerns. Yes, we have responded. Yes, we can talk now.”

So I can go back to my home in Sudan, back to the front-lines of the Anglican Communion, knowing that General Convention has been faithful, that is has responded, that both the conversation and my services as a missionary, will continue.

Which gives me great hope that this experiment we call the Anglican Communion will continue.