One Little Old Lady

She stands alone at the front of the sparsely filled church. Her weathered face and small, wrinkly hands that shake tell of years spent in the suns of Sudan. Wisdom is etched in her features and is accentuated by the glimmering deep blue wrap she wears; her Sunday finest, fitting for the daughter of a King.
Suddenly, with words much stronger than her small frame should allow, the old woman lifts her voice to sing in a language indistinguishable to me. The song fills the room in high, shrill tones whistled through her many missing teeth. She stands alone, her face wrinkled in joy, and slowly those who understand softly sing along, unwilling to join the old woman, or perhaps simply afraid to stand beside a princess praising her King.
The indistinguishable words continue, intermittently broken by her raspy cough, but nothing will hinder this display of adoration; her boldness knows no shame, nor should it for a child of the King is not afraid.
I watch the old woman, her voice painfully off key to my ears, and I wonder if all the guitars that are tuned and all the pianos played this day will match the praise that I have heard. There are no worship teams, no bands, no projectors, no maestros here to exhilarate the senses. There is only one little wrinkled old woman standing alone, singing through missing teeth, in a language I don’t understand, to a King who is surely in our midst, smiling his approval.

Mark 12:43 ...Truely I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything-all she had to live on.

The softer side of Sudan

Sudan has a softer side. When its people are not toting AKs, firing rockets, placing landmines, burning down houses and bickering over resources a softer side emerges. It is taking some time, but slowly I am learning to embrace this softer side, throwing aside my harsher realities of the west, for the joys of endless black cotton mud or scorching, dry heat, malaria, typhoid, amoebas and (my favorite) giardia. I am still looking for the softer side of giardia – and the meds for it – but it is currently taking some serious mental conniving to convince my stomach that World War III has not started in my bowels…but hey, it really is the softer side when you consider the possibilities.
On a more serious note (not that I don’t take my stomach seriously) Sudan really does have a softer side. It is seen in the everyday man and woman’s desire for peace to last. S. Sudan recently celebrated the three year anniversary for the signing of the CPA(comprehensive peace agreement). Here, in town, there was a huge celebration to mark the occasion. The governor and many dignitaries came to town to give speeches, watch the parade, and ensure that some of the final stages of the peace agreement are carried out.
We were invited to the event and it was exciting to see the whole town out in mass to celebrate the peace that has come to mean so much to them. They were also there to watch the military march through town in all its pomp, but I prefer to look on the bright side, which is that peace has brought great changes to this part of the country and the everyday people have a lot at stake. The softer side of Sudan lies in children who want to go to school, mothers who want medicine for their sick children, and fathers who want to raise families on the soil of their fathers, not in refugee camps. It is also seen in celebration, which the Sudanese know how to do quite well. I hope you enjoy the snaps.

Family Adventuresomeness

When I was a little kid my family would almost always get together with my cousins for Christmas. The year my little sister Audrey was born, my uncle dressed up as Santa and my dad (Rudolph) pulled him behind his motorcycle in a little red wagon. The scene disintegrated into pandemonium when Santa started “whipping” Rudolph to get him to move – I guess he didn’t look enough like a reindeer and our family is full of animal lovers anyway. A few years later we all met up in eastern Zaire for a little Christmas safari. As I recall, on that trip, I managed to fill my britches with army ants, one vehicle lodged itself in the mud between two large male lions, the other vehicle was charged by an angry elephant and a snake decided to join us in playing with our new Christmas toys.
Since that time, our family has tried its level best to outdo all previous adventurous catastrophes. When I was twelve we went to the Kenyan coast and within five minutes Audrey broke her arm and the rest of us got sick from the pool water. After a long hiatus – maybe we were all still recovering from the past – this year we all got together again, this time in Uganda. We spent Christmas day in Jinja, which is where the Nile River begins its arduous journey north from Lake Victoria, and in order to spice up the event a little (remember we’re still trying to outdo the lions) we decided to go rafting at the source of the Nile and hope we didn’t drown on one of the class 5 rapids. It turned out to be one of the best experiences we’ve ever had as a family – and that includes being flipped out of the raft twice into the swirling water.
There were only two harrowing experiences while rafting – Heather losing her helmet on the first flip and Dad getting sucked down to the heart of Africa for about 30 seconds – so, as you must be able to figure out by now, our family was still looking for some sort of catastrophe to keep our hearts beating at an elevated level. We conveniently didn’t have to wait too long for our much needed “adventure”.
Following Christmas, we all went to our house in Entebbe and then on to the Ssese Islands for several days of relaxation. After celebrating the New Year in our uninterrupted dreams, we woke up, packed up camp and headed home. In fitting family adventursomeness one of the boats conveniently ran out of fuel part way home. Logic would suggest that you don’t overload a boat when the water is somewhat tumultuous but in a moment of family fanaticism – the sun was setting - logic sunk to the bottom of the lake and everyone but my dad and uncle clamored into the other boat.
Slowly, ever so slowly, we made our way toward land. And while the sun set in purples and reds reflected on the dark water, grandma clung to gramdpa, the cat clung to anyone who would hold her, and everyone else pretended that the situation wasn’t really as grave as it was. The poor little boat wondered what terrible fate had befallen it and Jimmy, the boat driver, wondered how he ever got mixed up with this crazy family. But we made it.
We made it and Jimmy and I had the appointed opportunity to head back out on the blackening water to save the day with a jerrycan of diesel. I enjoy being out on the water in a boat at anytime…except when its dark and I can’t see where I’m going. Thankfully, Mr. Sunshine was still glowing below the western horizon and we found the other boat, got it started and then just prayed we wouldn’t ground on any rocks the rest of the way home. We made it. The family was relieved. And, since no one had to swim to land, we’re probably still looking for some lions to get stuck between.

I am back in Sudan now, having spent a night in tense Kenya (please pray for that country), and I am ready for what awaits me here in the next few weeks. There is a lot of catching up to do after the Christmas break so I will be quite busy. I have also received more supplies to build shelves at the hospital so will likely spend a great deal of time there.
The weather is HOT and dry here. It is easily above 100F during the day and it takes most of the night to cool down. Around 3:30 in the morning a roaring wind starts. It feels as if my thatch roof will come off but thankfully that hasn’t happened yet, although I do have a few “skylights” in places already.

6 Months in Sudan (almost)

“I hope this thirst will not last long and will soon drown in a song not sung in vain.” ~ Rich Mullins

Today we were supposed to fly out to Kenya for our r&r and Christmas break. This all changed when we received news that the plane needed some maintenance work and wouldn’t be coming until Saturday. We were all quite disappointed by the news, but having worked so hard to be ready for today, we don’t have much to do for the next two days…so I thought I’d write a little about some lessons I’ve learned in my first 6 months here.

Here are a few of the lessons I’ve learned:

1) Driving in the mud is fun until you get stuck for the first time – after that its only fun if you don’t get stuck and the only way to insure that is to make sure you get the new Landcruizer pickup with the tractor tyres.
2) I’ll never get used to kids collecting water from roadside mud puddles.
3) Convincing people who have lived on handouts in refugee camps that working hard is important isn’t the easiest task.
4) When the rats start making noise in the thatch at night its easier to just roll over and go back to bed – getting up to kill them is way too frustrating.
5) Worm medicine and antibiotics….maybe I’ll leave that part out
6) When the rain stops – it really stops.
7) When the rain stops – the fires start
8) The wind blows at night – it blows enough to make me think my roof is coming off and I wake up covered in nice thin layer of dust.
9) When I’m most tired – that’s when four trucks full of medicine to offload will show up.
10) Beans and rice is only exciting for about a week.

On a more serious note though, I’ve learned how important fellowship is in our lives. Often, the work here can be lonely and frustrating and it is in those times that I realize how much I miss the fellowship I’ve had with my brothers and sisters in the places I’ve come from. If I didn’t have my coworkers here, I would certainly find the work here nearly impossible.
I’ve also learned a bit about how wonderful our Father is. The other day I was washing my hands and I looked down to see a Praying Mantis at my feet. One of the drops of water landed right near to it and I watched as it slowly knelt down to drink from the drop that had fallen. It struck me that it could have drank from the drop of water without kneeling down and it seemed as if the little bug was kneeling down in a prayer of thanks. This little analogy may sound really cheesy but it hit me how ungrateful I am for the many blessings I receive each day. I have a Father who is so good to me and yet I go through my day frustrated and downtrodden, not willing to open my eyes to the gifts that have been given to me. Each day is a blessing itself – I hope that I can learn to live more like that each day.

Sunday in Sudan

Sunday’s are the day that we have off from work. Sometimes, however, the work finds us. Like today, when four large trucks full of medical supplies showed up and had to be offloaded at our hospital. My colleagues and I spent four hours carrying box after box of syringes and gauze from the truck to our storeroom…and there went our Sunday.
Now I am back in my tukol, after a nice cold shower, wondering why it is that work always shows up at the least opportune times. My colleagues and I are tired. Most of us have been in the field now for at least 10 weeks, which may not seem like a lot, but when people habitually show up with work for you to do on your day off, ten weeks becomes a looong time. We all love the work we are doing, otherwise we wouldn’t be here, but at times it can be very wearing. Usually it is the small things that are wearing. For example, the rains stopped over a month ago and now we have to bring water in our trucks from holes dug in the bottom of a riverbed. It is a small task but a constant battle because no matter how many trips of water we get, we always seem to need more.
The good news is that we all get to take a break in a few days. I am heading home to Uganda to spend Christmas with my family and the best part is that I won’t have to collect any water…there’s a whole lake of it right next door. I am looking forward to two weeks of relaxation and time with my family!

On another note – I was recently flipping through a TIME magazine that was sent in to us by our office in Nairobi. It had a section on the greatest inventions of 2007. As I was flipping through it I came across one invention that really made wonder at how wealthy the US has become. It turns out some clothing stores in the US are going to start putting in some sort of camera/mirror that allows people who are trying on clothes to send images of themselves to their friends’ phones to get opinions on whether or not the clothes look good. This particular invention really disgusts me. Every day I see people who can hardly afford one set of clothing, and some who clearly can’t afford any, while people in my own country are sending pictures of themselves to each others’ phones so that they don’t pick out anything that might not be in style. Think about it. And if anyone happens to send you a photo of themselves in the changing room…do me a favour and tell them to get a life.