Coming soon….

EMBED code is acting up….

Taylor will be leaving Friday to head to Sudan to look for a place to rent. He’ll first stop over in Loki overnight, just on the boarder and take an early flight into Malakal on Saturday with the UN. He will be going with the Sudan Director, Chris Crowder. Taylor may also make a short visit to Atar while he is there.

Please pray about God providing a place for our family to live. We are also still deciding and praying about whether we should to go Khartoum for language learning before being stationed in S. Sudan.

We are so very thankful for all of you! As we write this most of you will be busy preparing your Thanksgiving meal. We were able to go with some fellow SIMers to the Spur restaurant to enjoy all you can eat ribs for our meal of thanks. It was a great day and we wanted to share with you a picture of our little turkey! 

In the last year there has been a style of commercial replicated by many people. Recently, some of you might have seen the Starbucks vote campaign.

I had a good friend of mine record some original music so that I could replicate this myself. I’m likely a few months out from implementing it. My mother-in-law just sent me an email tipping me off to an organization using the same creative marketing style for good (Water in Sudan) with a Christmas spin to it.

The message is nothing new. You’ve likely been bombarded by something with this message nearly every year. Are you fatigued by it? I often wonder how much I might be helping to induce something we have come to call ‘compassion fatigue’ in the non-profit world. We’re all asked to give financially year ’round now to the hurricane disaster, the AIDs outbreak, Red Cross, Church tithe, war in Darfur (Sudan), Good Will, Salvation Army and then of course, us. My generation is basically built on this idea of social compassion. We’ve just elected Obama, will he ‘save’ us all? The Kenyans here seem to think so. And I know my generation is clinging to the hope that Obama will be our social savior. A Kenyan, of all people, just reminded me yesterday that when we put our hope in man, he will always fail us.

So this Christmas, lets put all of that out of our minds and do something we REALLY rarely do. That is, to listen for God’s direction.

We’re off on our learning now. We are still trying to determine if we will be going to Malakal or Khartoum for our first assignment for language learning. We picked up our first lesson with our Sudan director (Chris Crowder) to get our feet wet…

Can you guess who’s handwriting is which?

Many people have been asking about a mailing address for letters & ‘care packages’. Please use the address below in Kenya for all mailings. I highly suggest using USPS. They are very reasonably priced and the other services are VERY expensive and often lose things more than USPS.

SIM Sudan
ATTN: Taylor Martyn
Box 79252
00200 City Square
Nairobi
Kenya

We have arrived in Nairobi, Kenya! A HUGE praise is that all 17, yes 17, pieces of our luggage arrived with us as well! We are settling into life and have begun orientation in the SIM Sudan offices. Tomorrow we will have our first Arabic lesson which Allison is especially looking forward to. Thank you for your prayers as we start learning how to live life in Kenyan culture and then Southern Sudanese culture. 

Another item we would love your prayers for is for our location of where we will do language study as well as our placement for this term. There are many different options which all seem to have their own advantages and we desperately need God’s guidance on this important issue. Please join with us in praying for clear discernment to which location God would have us to go.

**This is not a Taylor quality film, but I hope you enjoy!