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.

Other than Aljazeera being a great news source for all things Middle East and Arab related, it gives a profound insight into the thought process and worldview of that people group.

Working in Sudan and almost anywhere in the world these days (as the whole world has become the melting pot American was once so well known for being) you come into contact with Arabs in daily life.

When I first started to learn about the Arab culture in college (in large part through Allison and Perspectives) I began to understand the differences in being Arab and being Islamic. The two are not the same. One is a people group the other is a religion. The ‘West’ often confuses these two. Much as I’m sure the Middle East confuses being American with being Christian, the two are obviously not the same. Though the majority of Arabs are followers of Islam and Aljazeera is, if I may borrow the term, by Arabs for Arabs, and they do transmit and came to prominence for delivering the radical Islam news, their news as a whole is well balanced and not religiously motivated.

So, all of that to say that Aljazeera is the best source for understanding the world news from the Arab worldview. They carry news from all over the world, written from the Arab viewpoint. I read an article on BBC.com (as it has better international coverage than CNN) and then go right to Aljazeera.net to see the same article. Often times you can see the different points of view. This is most prominent when the article is on something like the recent Israel/Gaza war. They are noticeably sympathetic to the Arab resistance as much as BBC is sympathetic to the Israeli side of things.

Soon Allison and I will be in the meat of our Arabic leasons. I look forward to learning to read Arabic so that I can read the Arabic web site for Aljazeera and not just the English translation version. I’m curious to know if the tone changes between the two or if the English translation is true to the original article in Arabic.

If you ever want to see what other parts of the world think of America and world news in general, head over to english.aljazeera.net to see what the Arab world is thinking.

Once a year, the missionaries from each country get together to have their own recoup time. It’s a time for prayer, spiritual healing/awakening/refreshment, and a time to get to see the whole team together. Many of them never see each other but for this one time every year because they work in such remote areas.

The team is extremely diverse with missionaries from Ethiopia, Wales, New Zealand, England, Kenya, Canada and America. This creates such a unique experience while doing God’s work for his kingdom.

Click the image for the larger version.

A British woman living in Khartoum, Sudan was recently put in jail for blasphemy because she named a stuffed bear Mohammed. Click here to view the story. In the Muslim faith, any image of Mohammed is blasphemy. She made the bear an image of Mohammed by naming it after him.

She took suggestions from the class and ended up naming it after a boy. So now I’m wondering, since the boy’s name is Mohammed, would he be destroyed? If you have any thoughts about this, I’d love to hear them.