A Longing for Change

I have seen a lot in the last few weeks, or at least it feels like I have. I have witnessed sights and sensed things both new and old; been caught up in the euphoria of beautiful surroundings and the despair of the destitute.
I am back in Sudan now, but have just returned from a two week break in Thailand. Several colleagues of mine were traveling there and invited me to join in on the adventure, and since I have never been to Asia, I decided it would be a wonderful opportunity to see another part of the world. Thailand is an extremely beautiful country, covered in lush green forests that descend to the azure oceans and seas that surround its western edge. Its people are incredibly helpful and friendly, willing to point wayward tourists like myself in the right direction with big smiles on their faces.
I spent most of my week and a half there on an island called Koh Chang, relaxing on the beach, swinging from a hammock in my bungalow and eating delicious Thai food for absurdly cheap prices. It was a much needed break from the chaos that seems to grow naturally from this Sudanese soil and provided some wonderful times of reflection on the work that I am doing and why I am here.
Although my time on Koh Chang was the most memorable part of my trip, I was perhaps more deeply impacted by the day I spent walking through the streets of Bangkok. I was amazed by many of the elaborate malls I passed as I walked aimlessly around. There are huge, 5-6 story department stores offering expensive name-brand clothing and other items, and people wander in and out throwing away their money on the latest fashion. Outside the stores there are often shrines where people stop to say prayers and light candles and incense, and if you walk a few blocks away the extravagance quickly turns to more rundown shopping areas, chaotic with the number of people drifting up and down the sidewalks. What got me though, were the beggars. There weren’t an astonishing number of them, at least no more than any other city I’ve been to, but I think it was the contrast with their surroundings that got to me. They live in a country that is magnificently beautiful, in a city adorned with elaborate buildings, and they sit outside of the skytrain and on the sidewalks begging for the means to sustain their hopelessly pathetic lives. There was the old, blind man playing some sort of stringed instrument, the ragged mother breastfeeding her baby by the side of the road and the two little girls sitting alone on the walkway, waiting for someone to drop a coin in their cup. I have seen a lot of homeless people and walked past too many street children to count, but the faces I saw in Bangkok are stuck in my mind in a way I will never forget. I have never felt so helpless to do anything before in my life. I was in a strange country, in a strange city, full of strange people and I was heart broken by the people I passed on the street. And it filled me with longing; longing for change.
Back in Sudan now, the longings to do not go away; the longings for peace, for hope to fill this place, for people to be offered education and healthcare and a chance to grow old, for change to come with glorious goodness and mercy on its wings. Yesterday I attended the closing ceremony for the girls program we run when the other schools in town our out of session. It is a chance for the girls to stay active and out of trouble. We offer some basic classes as well as sports and craft activities and at the end of the program each girl receives a certificate and a small gift. As I sat there watching the girls and listening to various people make speeches all I could think of was how much change we need. These girls are already at odds to finish the schooling that is available which only goes through eighth grade. If they do make it to eighth grade, they have nowhere else to go as there isn’t a secondary school anywhere around and the schools that are being built are for students who know Arabic. I stood up and told them to dream big, to dream of being doctors and lawyers and the next leaders of Sudan and to stay in school to achieve those things. But in the end I felt like the hugest liar because without much needed change there is little hope that any of them will become those things. Sometimes this world is in such desperate times that it all but crushes our hope. And yet, there is still that longing – that longing for change to come because it is needed so badly, not just in this physical world that we know but in our hearts because after all we are the ones who come up with so much of the wickedness that consumes us.
I have seen so much in the last few weeks and it fills me with an incredible longing. Longing for change. Longing for the King to come at last and make all things new because that is what we desperately need – to be made new.


“Hear, O God, the prayers of all thy children everywhere: for forgiveness and healing, for courage, for faith; prayers for the needs of others; prayers for peace among the desperate nations. Whether thou givest or withholdest what we ask, whether thou asnwerest us in words that burn like fire or silence that burs like fire, increase in us the knowledge that thou art always more near to us than breathing, that thy will for us is love.
And deep beneath all our asking, so deep beneath that we are all but deaf to it ourselves, hear, O God, the secret song of every human heart praising thee for being what thou art, rejoicing with the morning stars that thou art God and we thy children. Make strong and wild this secret song within until it bursts forth at last to thy glory and our saving. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen” ~ Frederick Buechner

Being Small

I am here at the end of the day looking back at the mistakes I have made and the grace that guarded my steps. It has rained and in the fading light of evening drops of water sparkle like diamonds as they fall from the thatch of my roof to the muddy ground below. I sit here, looking out at the rain-soaked ground, listening to the distant thunder. I am small, very small.

…The morning begins with the crackling of my radio announcing a new day with the news of great men; great men raging war, great men announcing peace, great men filling the air with senseless declarations, and of course, great men making spectacles of their bodies in athletic prowess. As if in stride, I too begin my day as a great man bent on conquering the obstacles of the day; obstacles that spring, like weeds, from this land of extremes.
And those obstacles do grow, beginning with the moment my drivers and mechanic decide to not get along. That, of course, is followed by a great fall from our tractor – which doesn’t seem like a serious matter until it consumes the whole day.
I am on my way to pick up some food for the parentless boys who have left home to attend our dysfunctional school when I catch up with our tractor which is laden with a load of brick for the hospital construction. Near to the tractor is a young man lying on the ground surrounded by several people. As I stop they lift him up and place him in the back of the pickup I am driving and explain that he had fallen from the trailer when it hit a bump. I drive him to the hospital and am told that before he can be seen, he has to go to the police to fill out an accident report, so I leave him with my drivers and head off to collect the food.
An hour later I am waiting on the bureaucratic system of the UN to run its course as I wait for the food, when I receive a call informing me that my tractor is going to be impounded for “investigation”. I am, of course, a little put out by this and quickly head back to the hospital to get the scoop. There, I am told not only that my tractor will be impounded but that my driver has already been put in jail. The American in me immediately begins to question the logic in putting my driver in jail because someone else fell out of trailer he was pulling, but I am answered that this is the way of Sudan.
I visit the police station in a much more humble state and surrender the keys to the tractor.
There, I find out that my driver will be let go once it is confirmed that the injured man is ok. It turns out that he is in jail as much for his own safety as for investigative purposes – Sudan could go up in flames solely on the irrational retributive attacks that take place for simple accidents that take place. I head back to the hospital to make sure that the doctor takes a look at my injured man and while I wait for the doctor my day gains a whole new perspective. The infirmities that begin to wander past me, remind me that there are far worse things than my day going to pot because of an accident. There is the child who limps his way up the steps next to me, the middle aged man with the disfiguring cleft lip and the old man who is brought out of the operating theatre drugged up and muttering prayers in Arabic. I am reminded that Jesus walks into our days to carry these infirmities – to bear our burdens and love us, the ones who are unlovable in our own self-assurance.
I take a break for lunch and then head to the market to buy some food for my driver in jail. As I arrive at the jail the heavens open and the skies begin to fall with a ferocity that makes any effort at acting like a great man non-sense. I sit with my driver as he eats and we watch the rain pound down around us. He will spend the night in jail and hopefully tomorrow we’ll get back to driving tractors laden with bricks.

It is still raining now, at the end of the day, and I think back on all the faces of this day. The boys who just wanted a little food, the brother of the injured man, wrought with concern, the police man sure in his duties, the disfigured, cleft lipped man, my driver taking a nap behind bars….I woke up a great man and I end it a small, because that is what I am – small. I make it through days like today, full of chaos and rippling with the unreal, not in my own strength at all, but by the King’s grace. I look back at this day and I know that he was there, that he was carrying my infirmity, my own reluctance to be small.

Embracing the Chaos

For all of us, there are those days when life seems to be throwing all its got in our direction and we wonder if it will ever let up. Then there is Sudan. Sudan is a daily in-your-face kind of place, and you begin to wonder if there is such a thing as a normal care-free day. Now, this maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but the point is - Sudan has its fair share of rough days.
Example:
You send a vehicle to the market to buy onions and an hour later get a call on the radio that the truck's been stuck in the mud for past 45 minutes. Buy the time you get the tractor ready and pull the vehicle out of the mud another hour and a half has gone by and a simple trip for onions has taken two and a half hours. Not to mention the discovery that the four-wheel drive doesn't work and the bushings need to be replaced...again.

My recent discovery has been that tripping over your computer cord can have devastating consequences. I haven't decided yet if my computer cord was severed by my falling computer when I tripped over it or if I somehow had the great fortune to have a rat eat through the cord on that same night - I may never know. The point is, my computer is now waiting for some way to be charged (I guess you can't just solder the wires back together - either that or I also managed to knock the connection lose inside the computer...now that would be Sudan!). Our team here is now enjoying the close fellowship of all sharing the same office computer.

Now, I know at this point it may sound like I am quite fed up with the way things are going - and to some extent I am - but actually, this is pretty much how life is sometimes and we just kind of have to get over ourselves and keep on going. A friend of mine, who spent the last two years here, recently wrote me and encouraged me to embrace the chaos that surrounds me. He knows, and I know, that it is far to easy to get caught up in the day to day details of our work that we forget to enjoy the amazing people that are around us and the craziness that makes up our days. Onions might take two and a half hours to buy, but digging the truck out of the mud has some pretty exciting moments. It is easy to get frustrated with the logistical nightmares that exist in a place like this, and so it is good to have the reminder to take it as it comes; embracing the chaos as it envelopes me...and in Sudan it always does!

On a slightly different note: I probably won't post an pictures until my computer is somehow charged again.

Rainy Sudan

It is raining. It is that soft, quiet kind of rain that rustles on the leaves of trees and glistens on the grass when the sun gets its moment of glory in a day shrouded by a prevailing layer of grey clouds. The rains have come. They came first with thundering storms announcing their arrival, and have now set in for days at a time with the soft pitter-patter that comes and goes, lulling the world to a slower pace of life.
It is a slower pace of life for everything but the grass and shrubs which seem to know that if not now, they will never grow. Already the grasses are four feet tall and in a few weeks time they will be seven feet, and then ten. The trees are bursting with leaves and spreading in every direction; this is their chance at life before the months of rain come to an end and everywhere green has covered this earth that only a few months ago lay barren, blown with dust and ash.
The evenings are cooler, by Sudanese standards, and I find myself putting on several layers of clothing. It is only 75 degrees and I laugh because I know my friends have their air-conditionings set to 70, but still, when the temperatures have been above 95 degrees for the last 8 months 75 feels like a winter of sorts. I have started wearing gumboots because my flip-flops just aren’t up to the task at hand, but thankfully this year several of the roads in town have been repaired and I am no longer pulling vehicles out of the mud on a daily basis.
This past week has seen many changes come to our compound. My friend Fletcher has finished up his contract and is headed back to the US. He has been replaced by another friend, Angelo, who spent the last year working at another location further south of here. While I am sad to see Fletcher leave, I am confident that Angelo will be able to pick up where Fletcher left off and the work will go on as usual. With Fletcher gone, I have moved tukols (mud huts) once again, replacing Fletcher in his larger, more spacious tukol. I anticipate being able to stay in this tukol for the rest of my time here which will be nice.
We have also just received a Kenyan engineer to start the work on our hospital ward that was burned in a fire in February. This is not the most ideal time of year to be building in Sudan but we are going to go ahead with it nonetheless and I will be quite busy ensuring that the proper supplies are gathered for the work to continue.



My New Tukol - Inside
My New Tukol - Outside
My "Dry Season Bed" In The Yard
My Yard
Flowers
Out on the Road
Everything Is Very Green
There Are A Lot of Donkeys Around
We Had A Vaccination Campaign For Goats, Sheep and Cattle



Fletcher and Angelo

Refugee

Compound

Town




“Half the babies born in the world are born in Asia today. Half of the world’s refugees are in Africa today going from country to country to find bread. Jesus, born in Palestine, that’s west Asia, the African refugee, understands the problems of the people…” Ray Bakke, Urbana 06

I’ve been doing some thinking today about Jesus the refugee. In the Christmas story a lot is made about the shepherds and magi, about the angles and the worship, but very little is made of the escape; of the little boys being slaughtered while the King made a daring dash across the desert to the green banks of the Nile. Jesus was a refuge, and in Africa nonetheless!!!
Refugees have a far too common presence in Africa. Country after country has displaced its people in wars over power, entitlement, wealth and food. The people set up mini-cities made of tents, which after years become more and more permanent as hope of a return home becomes bleak. They live on rations labeled, “From the American People” or “A Gift from the European Union”, and are supported by the booming business called International Relief. After years the people forget what it was like to dig a garden or have a job and the children grow up on stories of a home they have never seen.
Jesus was a refugee. I wonder what stories he heard. I am sure he heard of Moses, the great deliver, who had turned the water into blood and later parted the sea. Perhaps he was told of the temple, where he had been blessed by Simeon, and about the green hills of Galilee. We might never know what he was told, but one thing is certain, all refugees tell stories of home.
Jesus was a refugee. Somehow I find comfort in that. I find comfort in knowing that the King understands. He understands the children who are returning home to Sudan without having seen it. He understands the years away from home. He understands that this world we live in is not an easy place, or a fair place – after all, a whole village of boys died because he was born there.

In The Tongue of Men and Angels

I am back now - back from my whirlwind attempt at eclipsing the different worlds that exists on this earth of ours. It is hard sometimes to grasp how two places and cultures so different from each other can coexist on the same planet, and yet there are actually far more than just two differing cultures and places – we live on a remarkably diverse ball of orbiting inconsistencies. Modern travel (with its unlimited movies which make 14 hours fly by in a blur of mindless entertainment) has made the clashing of cultures bizarrely easy. Walking through any hub of international travel is like finding oneself in a cultural kaleidoscope – jalabiya wearing Arabs and miniskirt clad Europeans brush shoulders with sari shrouded Asians and no one seams to notice; the world is moving, and moving so fast it hardly has time to appreciate the beauty of the mix.
It was wonderful to spend time with so many friends and family members during my short stay in the US. I wish I could have spent much more time catching up with everyone that I was able to see – not to mention those I wasn’t able to see!
As I begin this next year I have been challenged by a verse from 1 Corinthians 13. While in the states I was at a friend’s wedding (which, by the way, was very beautiful) and one of the passages read during the ceremony was 1 Corinthians 13. As I listened to the passage being read I was really hit by verse three which says, “If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing”. It struck me as a challenge and warning – I am here, working with those who have suffered and who are poor by any standard and it is easy to get caught up in the actions of helping the poor while forgetting that the reason I am here in the first place is to shine the love of my King to those around me.
I often feel guilty when people tell me that the work I do is an inspiration to them and I think this is perhaps because I recognize how easy it is to fill our lives with actions that look good on the outside but are hollow on the inside. There are countless days when I simply go through the motions of life without giving a second thought as to why I am doing those things, and yet we are called to so much more. We are told that love must be sincere and so my prayer for this next year is that I would not simply live among the poor but love among the poor; that I would not simply go through my days acting out a calling but would remember each day the wonderful love that has been given to me to pour out on others.

Recent Photos

The Road....or lack thereof