Candlelight

While in Kenya I bought two drinking glasses at Kitengela glass hoping to use them for candles because of their beautiful color. They are hand-blown and made from recycled glass.

Yesterday was a quiet Saturday night, so I lit my candles and sat down to read a book. When I saw the light coming through the glass, I couldn't resist getting out my camera and taking a few pictures.

I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Pray for Schools

A new nation means lots of changes for secondary education.

New Curriculum:
South Sudan has printed a new syllabus for secondary education aligning itself more closely with the Kenyan and Ugandan curriculum.

Extra Year of School:
Secondary school will be four years (S1-S4) rather than the three year secondary program that was previously in place.

New Secondary Completion Exams:
As far as I have heard, there is still no South Sudanese exam in place for students who have completed S4 for university entrance, but that will hopefully come soon.

This is year of a lot of transitions for South Sudan. Changes will come slowly. Many schools are still teaching from the old Sudanese curriculum that comes from Khartoum and are not offering S4. Many students are hoping to sit for the old Sudanese national exam upon completion of S3 this year and apply to universities rather than continuing at one of few schools already offering S4.

This year in particular has been difficult for schools, teachers, and students with so many changes happening all at once. It is a complicated situation.

Some teachers who were employed before the school year started decided to take other jobs and replacements have not been found. In South Sudan as a whole there is a shortage of qualified science and math teachers, so those classes in particular are not being taught. Even teachers who are around are not always in class to teach because they are growing their own gardens and providing for themselves and their families. In a community that suffers a lot of death, there are also a lot of funerals which means teachers miss their classes. Sometimes it seems to me that everyone in Mundri is related, and the men who are teachers are often important in their families and expected to attend the burial as well as the church prayers which usually follow a few days later.

Students are paying their school fees, but are often sitting in classrooms with no teachers, particularly the math and science classes. School fees can range from $30 - $75 a year depending on the school, which is a lot of cash for young men and women to come up with every year. Some students are even willing to study on their own when there is no teacher, but schools typically only have one copy of the text book for the teacher. The students can't afford the expensive text books ($10 - $15 each if you find them in stock which is rare). Even if they could get textbooks, it is not ideal since the text books from Khartoum can be confusing and often contain mistakes. When I taught Physics at Mundri Secondary School I ended up buying a textbook from Uganda to supplement the book from Khartoum.

I feel for all parties involved.


The headmaster has struggled to put a roof on 1/3 of a building destroyed during the war so the S3 Science students who were previously being taught under a mango tree can still have class when it rains. I am so thankful for that roof as I teach. The challenges that face the school are many.

It really makes me sad to walk in to my class at 2:10 in the afternoon at Mundri Secondary School and hear that the students only had one other teacher come in and teach for 40 minutes that day.


This afternoon I am heading back to Mundri Secondary School to teach my practical science lab course to the eight young men in the S3 science track. These men want to be doctors, engineers, agriculturalists and environmentalists. One young man is even studying science because he enjoys it, but hopes to be a pastor. Most students choose the easier arts track. Today we will be looking at a small solar powered car and learning about solar panels and motors. I'm excited! Solar panels are everywhere in South Sudan with the equatorial sun being used to pump water, run computers, power lights, etc.

Pray:

• Pray for the schools in South Sudan.
  
• Pray God would give me eyes to see how He is at work in a difficult situation.
• Pray that the Holy Spirit would guide me in encouraging the headmasters, teachers, and students in Mundri.

Thankful:

• I am so thankful for the headmaster of Mundri Secondary School who has welcomed our team in to his school to teach. I am always amazed at his persistence and resourcefulness as he finds a way to continue rebuilding a school destroyed by war.
  
• I am thankful for the teachers who teach up to 100 students in a class under a hot tin roof in the heat of Sudan.
  
• I am thankful for the students who come to class all day and try to do some work in the afternoons to get enough money for school fees.

Calling All Bricklayers!

One of the books I am currently reading is Wars, Guns & Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places by Paul Collier. Not exactly the best bedtime reading, but thus far a very interesting book especially since I am living in a post-conflict democracy.

I am not endorsing all of the opinions of the author, but I thought this quote was interesting.

"Post-conflict situations need squads of bricklayers, plumbers, welders, and so forth, who set about training young men. Unfortunately, it is too mundane for the development agencies to organize it. We need Bricklayers Without Borders."

So if you are a bricklayer, plumber, welder, mechanic, mason, contractor, etc., you should consider applying to the World Harvest Mission South Sudan Team! Join us in partnering with the local church and community in Mundri to bring hope through gospel-centered healing, development and discipleship.

Trade-Offs

*photo credit to Kim Berger, little black dots are all weevils*

This morning at breakfast, Bethany and I were discussing the trade-offs we make when buying food to bring to Mundri. In Uganda we buy some food that is not available in S. Sudan. This last trip we bought enough to last four months which is the next time someone will be able to shop in Kampala. We stood with our list in front of the oatmeal. You have two choices for oatmeal in Kampala.

Choice 1: The box of rolled oats. Much cheaper. Probably already has weevils (a small beetle) happily eating the oats in the box.

Choice 2: The very well sealed tin of quick-cooking oatmeal. Double the price of the box oatmeal per kilo. No bugs.

Bethany came up with a great oatmeal plan while we were loading one of our many shopping carts with tins of oatmeal. We decide to buy about half of the oatmeal we expect to use in four months in boxes and the other half in tins. We think we can kill the weevils that are already in the boxes by putting them in the freezer for a few days, and we will eat the oats in the boxes first. If we kill the weevils already in the boxes we can hopefully stop them from multiplying. When the weevils are still alive you can get them out by putting the oats in the sun since the weevils will surface and leave the food. However once dead, you just need to deal with them in the food. If the oats in the boxes are totally inedible, we still have the tins.

We have to make a trade-off between price and bugs.

This morning Bethany and I discussed how the freezing was working and the current state of the oatmeal in the boxes. When I make my oatmeal tomorrow morning for breakfast, I know I will be picking out the dead weevils that float to the top once I add water. Any I miss are just a little extra protein. A few weevils doesn't phase either of us anymore. We think our strategy is working out pretty well. =)

Anyway, just thought I would share a little glimpse into our breakfast conversation. =)

Lately

So it is kind of hard to see what is going in the picture, but there are LOTS of cattle walking down the main road in Mundri town. This has been a pretty regular sight for the last week as cattle herding tribes are being escorted out of Mundri and back to their traditional homelands. Families have been walking along side their cattle with all their belongings packed up and balanced on their heads.


This also created cattle jams on the main road. It usually takes me about 15 minutes to bike to Mundri Secondary School to teach my practical science lab class, but this week it took about 45 minutes as I passed herd after herd of cattle. I probably passed about 700 cows while weaving in and out to avoid their huge horns, the mud puddles, potholes, and the cow patties left on the road.

This morning Liana, Gaby, Larissa, and I helped our friend James mud the walls of his house. It was a lot of fun! We haven't quite mastered the technique of the wrist flick and knuckle punch, but James came along after us to make it beautiful. There will be one more coat applied once this layer dries.

As soon as we finished the Hai Salaama community water project we knew the tank was undersized. Today Michael and Caleb replaced the small 500 liter tank with a much larger 5,000 liter tank.

Michael welds high up in the air.

A group of children gathered to watch Michael, Caleb, and the water office staff work. I came in the middle of the day to drop of some forgotten supplies and take some pictures of the tank raising, so I took a bunch of pictures of these cute children while I waited for main event.


The tank raising makes a pretty dramatic picture. =)


It may not seem like a big deal, but there is now a second gas station in Mundri town! Concrete blocks are being made all around Mundri town as new buildings go up. The crisp new currency is being exchanged in the shops and markets. Prices are going up for basic things including water. The price each compound has to pay per month for water from a borehole has just doubled from 5 pounds to 10 pounds. It isn't surprising since the price of fuel has gone up as have the prices for most imported goods including spare borehole parts. We have seen some fluctuation in the US dollar exchange rate, but nothing extreme.

Well those are just a few pictures from the last few days and some of the news from Mundri town!

Meet Salah Reuben

I have been wanting to post this clip of our friend Salah Reuben sharing about the Participatory Awakening Process (PAP) program in Mundri for a while but I couldn't get the clip to load in South Sudan. Now that I have landed in Uganda, it was finally possible!

Salah works with the Mundri Diocese as the PAP Coordinator, and his office is just a few doors down from our offices, so our team has gotten to know him well. He is very passionate about this program specifically as well as all the different ways God is at work in Mundri.

In Salah's own words, "PAP teaches the community to discover their own situation and transform it using God available resources." The curriculum for this program is rooted in scripture. For example, Salah tells the story of God feeding the 5000, but he focuses on the disciples bringing what assets they had (five loaves and two fish) to Jesus. Salah also talks about how all the excess bread and fish was gathered up and those resources were not wasted.

Salah asks that we would pray that people in Mundri would get to know God more deeply through PAP. Pray that Christians would learn to live a holistic life and learn self-reliance as South Sudan moves away from dependence.

Salah also asks that you would be praying for him personally. Pray that God would provide for Salah's financial needs as he desires to help pay for the school fees of his younger brothers and sisters, build a house, and get married.

Out With the Old, In With the New

Over the last few weeks we have started to see the new South Sudanese Pounds in Mundri. In the next week a team will come to Mundri collect the old Sudanese pounds (top note in picture) and exchange them for the new South Sudanese pounds (bottom note in picture). The South Sudanese pounds have a picture of Dr. John Garang de Mabior on the front and are completely in English in contrast to the Sudanese Pound which is in English on one side and in Arabic on the other side.

Propane

Over the last two years living in Mundri, I have learned a whole new rhythm for preparing food and many new skills. I learned the art of the substitution. I learned to improvise based on what is available on any particular day in the market. I learned how to make yogurt and then how to use yogurt as a replacement for cream cheese, sour cream, buttermilk, and various other ingredients. I learned how to grind meat by hand and then decided that I never want to grind meat again. I also learned that I will grind meat and put extra effort in to preparing special birthday and holiday meals for our team.

When we arrived back in Mundri in June, our propane supply was very low, so we all learned to cook dinner over a charcoal burner. We still used our limited propane for breakfast and lunch though. A few weeks we got another large tank of propane from Juba which allowed us to go back to cooking all our meals on our propane stove. Cooking with charcoal takes a lot of extra time and planing. The whole process of lighting the coals alone takes me about 30-45 minutes. Hopefully as I pick up more pointers from my Sudanese friends, the lighting of the coals at least will happen more quickly.

Well yesterday, on Gaby's 9th birthday we ran out of propane completely. It was a sad moment. We all knew it meant a complete shift in the way live life in Mundri daily. By God's mercy, I had already finished cooking Gaby's birthday dinner when the propane ran out. His request was sushi (with no raw fish of course), so I cooked earlier in the day so that I could put the food in the refrigerator to get cool before dinner. Karen had also already prepared a dessert to enjoy while our team watched Avatar: The Last Airbender to prepare for today's Avatar themed birthday party. Karen was going to make peppermint patty's but after a few necessary modifications because of the empty propane tank we had ended up having peppermint patty filling in a bowl topped with chocolate chips. It was DELICIOUS!!! Who knew you could make homemade peppermint patty filling using potatoes. =)

It rained last night cooling things down in Mundri so I slept in sweat pants and a hoodie as well as under a fleece blanket. This morning it was still cool so many of us took advantage of the cool weather on a Saturday morning to sleep in. Once I got up, the cooking started. The first task of the day would now be to light two charcoal burners. We got a tea kettle on one burner for coffee and on the other I made up some oatmeal. After I ate my breakfast, I decide to make some pancakes that we could eat for breakfast cold over the next few days in the hopes we could keep water hot in a thermos overnight for coffee. We still had some left over hot water, so we took advantage and made some more yogurt which is now sitting in the warmer. Then Karen started the process of making brownies for Gaby's party today. Michael borrowed back the charcoal stove we had given the Bishop last year when we got the new propane stove, and he got more coals started. Our team practice to use coals while they are hot, so while the brownies were baking, Liana joined me in the kitchen to make gingerbread. Not the morning I had planned, but I enjoyed making gingerbread with Liana as well as reading while flipping pancakes and drinking my morning coffee.

In about 45 minutes we will be having Gaby's birthday party. I am thankful that despite the empty propane tank, we were able to make the foods that make him happy.

• Please pray for God to provide propane for our team. Also pray for us as we adjust to a new rhythm of cooking with out propane which will be far more time consuming and require more planning.

On a side note, just thought I would also share a funny propane related language confusion moment from last week. I heard while I was in the market practicing my Juba Arabic that there might be propane in another market a little farther down the road. I walked down to the next market not knowing exactly where the shop that had propane was located. I started asking around to see if anyone knew where I could buy propane. Well I was having trouble communicating "propane" since I didn't knew the Arabic word, so after several attempts when people brought me kerosene and matches, I finally drew a picture of a propane tank and told them they are usually red tanks. Well one shop keeper very enthusiastically told me he had what I wanted and went to get one for me while I waited at the front the of the store. I was so excited that I had found propane in Mundri! Well, when he came around, he was holding a fire extinguisher. I had to laugh. It did sort of look like my picture (my drawing skills aren't great).

Books, Movies, and Sermons

A few of the things I have been reading, watching, and listening to over the last six months:

BOOKS:

The Poor Will Be Glad by Peter Greer and Phil Smith

I got the book for free at a lunch organized by HOPE International. Aaron, a friend of mine from WEPC, is with HOPE in the Dominican Republic and he was back in Richmond for a few days in the spring. Check out his blog! http://www.aaronroth.net/ The book focuses on microfinance but also addresses broader issues in international development.

Don't Bother to Unpack: Sudan 1959-1964 by Dorothy Lowe

This book has been passed around our team for the last year. It is an account of five years Dorothy Lowe lived in Mundri with her husband and three children in the early 1960's. This book has been so encouraging to me personally. Dorothy is a very honest author and talks about the struggles and challenges she faced during her time in Sudan. There is also some beautiful about seeing pictures of people and places I know in Mundri taken by missionaries living in the same community decades ago.

I Married You by Walter Trobisch

Most of the women my age that I am friends with here in Mundri are married and have many children, so as I have been getting to know them and hearing about their experiences, this book was recommended to me. The book is based on the experiences of an American pastor and his wife who are invited to Africa to speak on marriage.


The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Steward

A fun kid's book that I read while traveling. =)

MOVIES:

Of Gods and Men (French w/ subtitles)

Based on a true story about a group of monks living in Algeria during the time of Algeria's civil war in the 1990's. I could say a lot about this movie, but instead I will just recommend you watch it for yourself.

Jane Eyre (2011)

I HIGHLY recommend the new Jane Eyre! Of course, if you know me you know that I am always up for a good period movie.

Adjustment Bureau

A romantic thriller with a science fiction slant and themes of predestination makes for a good choice for team movie night. A little something for everyone.

SERMONS:

Tim Keller - A Bruised Reed He Will Not Break

I have listened to this sermon twice in the last few months. "There is nothing easy about [...] being followers of the servant [...] who care as much about the broken and battered person and their need to have the love of Jesus in his heart as to systems of injustice in the world." - Tim Keller. It should be available for purchase at the Redeemer Sermon Store.

Learning Juba Arabic

I have been spending a little more time recently learning Juba Arabic. One of the places that I have been practicing and learning new words is at church on Sundays. The sermon is usually preached in Moru and translated into Arabic, but the rhythm of translation gives me a few moments to write down notes of what I have been hearing in Arabic and look things up in a dictionary. Later in the week I can ask someone to help me with the words I have picked up at church. Usually if I listen for repeated words I can get a sense of what the sermon is about especially if I put those key words together with the scripture passages.

Today the Juba Arabic translator spoke really clearly so I picked up quite a few words, but I always smile when I hear a word repeated a lot and then I look it up to get a better idea of topic of the sermon only to find out the word is "of", "and", "then" or some other commonly used word. Today I learned the words for "truth", "fear", and "tiredness", along with a few other words. Right as we were leaving church I also learned how to say "His/her name is _____." My current technique had been to say "My name is _____." while pointing to the person I was introducing.

I am supplementing this sort of informal vocab acquisition strategy with a language learning curriculum with weekly lessons that can applied to any language. My Juba Arabic is still small as I would say here, but it is growing slowly slowly.