We celebrated our 6th anniversary in style here in Malakal. Thanks to our great team mates and their creativity we celebrated in the style of the main tribe in the area. We also had the chance to hop on the motorbike and head into town for a lunch date while another team mate watched Avery for us. Such a treat!

Apologies are in order for our silence. More updates will be coming soon. Avery had round 2 of some sort of stomach bug. She is getting better and we are grateful for not having to clean up any more messes, for now. Thank you all for your prayers, we sure do need them!

I find myself making friends easily in Kenya. I hope that as we learn the language and culture of Sudan, the friendships will flow just as easily.

Yesterday I was downtown to help a fellow missionary purchase a digital dictaphone to record her language helper. She had left for a moment to run an errand and I was sitting on the sidewalk. Up walks a Kenyan gentleman offering to taking me on safari. This happens pretty much every time I’m walking around downtown. I explained that I lived here and that I was not on vacation as most Munzungus (white man) are. He ask where I lived and I continued to explain that I actually lived in Sudan and I was a missionary and only came out to Kenya occasionally. He encouraged me to continue preaching and sharing the good news, of which he himself needed. I asked ‘you don’t know the good news?’ He explained that he had been saved some years back but had fallen into sin and his friends had informed him that he was no longer saved. I explained to him that he was still my brother in Christ and that no amount of sin could ever measure up to Christ’s blood on the cross. He was still saved and in the Kingdom of Heaven. I went on to explain that God loved him and looked forward to hearing his prayer of repentance and that doing this would also heal the pain in his heart from his past sins that he felt separated himself from God. My fellow missionary walked up about this time and suggested he read 1 John 1:1-9 and then to continue reading. I asked if he had a Bible and he said he did not. He informed me that he would borrow his neighbor’s Bible and invited me to come to his home and see his family when I saw him the next time. As we parted ways I told him I would be praying for him.

Will you join me?

I pray that he would read that Bible passage and be moved to repent and come closer to Christ. I would pray that God would put someone in his path to disciple him and invite him to Church.

AMEN?!?!

SIM maintains a secondary school in South Sudan that serves over 1 Million people. Up until recently it was the only one, but in the last year some muslim secondary schools have opened in the area.

Historically the students have been uncompromising in various demands they have. Many if not all of these demands are directed at the head master of the school (an American missionary) and made personal, even though they have nothing to do with her. For example, they have long complained about having to pay tuition (a token amount that doesn’t come close to the actual cost).

This came to a head last week when the students posted their grievances on the wall of the school one morning. SIM chose to close the school temporarily until the local church board (who has been given ultimate authority over the school) can meet and make some decisions about the current events. The local piam (the leadership of the area villages) is resisting SIM’s move to shut the school (however temporary) and saying that SIM would no longer be needed should they shut the school.

The church leadership was to have met yesterday. Please be in prayer with us as our missionaries on the ground there as well as our leadership in Nairobi meet to discuss how we should move forward.

One important difference in the handling of situations in Africa is not so much WHAT should be done, but HOW it should be done. Relationships mean more than anything else in these contexts. Please pray that the missionaries can build relationships through these hardships and become closer with the community there as they work to seek an amicable outcome.

Allison and I always joke about a Saturday Night Live sketch that has a couple visiting another couple who live a very odd lifestye and either come from a different planet or strange country. Invariably, there is always a moment when they exchange names. It must be the same when we are learning new languages….

I haven’t taken any photos specifically to ’showcase’ scarification in Sudan, but I found a few good examples that I thought I’d show you.

Click any image to see a large version.

The first is an old Nuer man. He used to be the village chief. This was taken in a small village on the Sobat river South of Nasir. This is very common and only done on men. It should be done with elders and young women in attendance.

I am not sure what tribe this woman comes from. This photo was taken in Nasir, a town of mostly Nuer Sudanese. I have only seen this kind of scaring on women. Sometimes a woman’s entire body can have this spotted scaring.

Sorry for the blurry photo. This was originally a MUCH wider photo that I cropped. But this man’s scaring is VERY prominent. I believe this photo was taken in Malakal and he is likely Dinka. The Dinka and Nuer lined scares on the forehead are very similar and I have not learned to distinguish it yet.

This Nuer is actually a friend of ours. He is a Baptist pastor and also works with a Christian NGO started in Africa by Africans. His scars are hard to see. He is also quite educated and it is rare to find educated men with scars as they typically were in a boarding school at a young age and did not grow up in the village. The Sudan political leadership are often referred to as boys as they were never scared into manhood and can be denied tribal rights as they are not considered adults.

This woman is from the Shuluk tribe. The photo was taken in Atar which is mainly Dinka. I am not sure if she was just visiting the area or actually lived there. Malakal, where we live, is historically considered a Shuluk town (but Dinka also claim it). Both men and women have the protruding scars just above their eye brows.

A tree begins to blossom, but the brilliant red is muted by the sand in the air. A girl in a flowing pink dress (attending church) fills a bottle of water from the church’s tap.

Kids crowd around to get in front of the lens.

Obama makes an appearance at church.

Photo opp with the camera man!

Kids’ favorite past time, tether ball. Except these kids use water bottles with sand and rock in them and retie a string ever hour as it breaks.

Girls pose at a tether pole (actually our power pole).

It’s great fun to chase kids around. We all laugh it off. This time I decided to grab a pic of him. I may make this a series, but I need them to look back.

The ubiquitous problem. Trash, and usually plastic bottles. Sunday’s congregation in the background.

We didn’t experience so much a storm as a dump of sand on us. Sunday we didn’t even see the sun it was so thick and flights were canceled from Juba. Click on the two images below for two different image galleries. One more commercial in nature and one more personal. Enjoy…