Hope in South Sudan

South Sudan has dropped out of the news a bit over the last week after the news of a ceasefire agreement. While I was happy to hear this news, I wanted to share some additional points to consider for those who are praying for the newest nation in the world.

• As many as half a million people have been displaced within South Sudan and in neighboring nations
• As many as 10,000 may have been killed in this recent conflict
• The displaced are at tremendous risk for disease and severe malnutrition 
• Infrastructure that was built up in the last decade in the areas where the active conflict has been taking place has been destroyed in the space of less than two months
• Some of the aid including food and medicines being sent to refugee and IDP camps has been stolen, never reaching the most vulnerable
• Many of those displaced in this recent conflict were previously displaced by the civil war in Sudan and had returned to South Sudan with hope for peace and development sometime after the peace agreement of 2005 or independence in 2011
• It is unlikely that the displaced, who have endured long and expensive journeys to safety, will return to their homes anytime soon due to continued uncertainty and insecurity as well as the fact that many are unsure what still stands in their towns and villages

A ceasefire is a great step for the region, but it isn't that simple.  South Sudan has been a nation filled with hope following the end of decades of civil war, but in the face of these recent losses, hope isn't easy.  But the church in South Sudan is strong and filled with faithful men and women like Bishop and Rina! 

So continue to pray that this ceasefire would lead to lasting peace, and also pray boldly for a deeper reconciliation and unity that comes from the gospel.  Pray for hope in Christ who is victorious over death and brokenness.  

Also for those who have asked, Mundri is not one of the regions where there has been active fighting, but there has been an impact on the region with the disruption of services and supply chains, soldiers passing through, etc.

Disclaimer: This information is compiled from what I have read from various news outlets (including those based in East Africa) over the last weeks and filtered through my own experiences in South Sudan.  I love South Sudan, but I am not South Sudanese, so if you have a chance, talk and pray with someone from South Sudan.  

Transition Attacks

This week for the first time since returning to the U.S. I have experienced the tell-tale signs of a missionary navigating yet another transition.

I titled this post transition attacks, but that it is what it feels like, an attack.  I'm just walking along, going through my day, and all of a sudden I can't make a basic decision or I'm overwhelmed by emotion that significantly exceeds the magnitude of the trigger.  

Why this week? The whirlwind of leaving South Sudan, finishing grad school, and moving to Richmond is over.  More importantly, the recent violence in South Sudan has lasted over a month.  It isn't new, and so the shock is over and the grief has started in earnest. 

This transition in particular has come with a lot of grief and there has been little time until now to mourn the losses.  

I'm thankful that there are people in my life who are right there with me in this season.  I'm not happy that they are also grieving, but there is great comfort in being known, and these women know my heart because it looks a lot like their own.  There is even greater comfort that Jesus, "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," knows my heart.  (Isaiah 53:3)

Those who asked about South Sudan or any number of other topics related to my transition back to life in the U.S. probably found me at a loss for words this week.  It has been a Beams of Heaven kind of week, clinging to hope even when Satan's cause seems to gain.  So thank you to all who have shown me (and my teammates) grace in this season of uncertainty and transition.

Additional Note: There are hard and sad moments when I feel the way I described above, particularly after reading news about South Sudan, but it is a normal part of transition in these circumstances.  I really am doing well.

Door Half Open

If you have been reading my blog over the last few years, you may have seen that stability, or rather instability, has been a big theme.  So when I had to leave South Sudan earlier than expected, I choose to return to Richmond to be able to attend my home church and be near friends in search of a little stability.  

It has been a whirlwind few months saying goodbye to South Sudan, finishing my graduate degree, reading about the recent conflict in South Sudan from afar, driving up and down the east coast a few times, and starting my job search. Through all of this, God has faithfully been my guide, providing exactly what I needed in each moment.  This week though, I started to feel a bit lost.  

Why? Because the door to being able to move to Richmond and have some stability has remained half open. It isn't closed.  But it also isn't open.  Some things are falling into place in a way that I couldn't have imagined possible, and I'm really excited about some of the opportunities God seems to be opening up for ministry in Richmond.  As much as I'm excited about all these things, the reality is that to be able to move to Richmond, I need a full-time paid job, ideally in the non-profit sector. I've pursued several different options, but the door remains only half open.  

I've started looking for jobs in other cities, but the half open in door in Richmond complicates things for me. What does it look like to patiently wait on the Lord and not stubbornly wait for my own desires? Is there anything else I can do in pursuit of a job in Richmond? 

Clearly I long for more stability, particularly in community and friendships, so the moment Steve spoke the word stability in his sermon yesterday, he had my undivided attention.  

"The very foundation, the thing that holds us up, the thing that gives us stability, the thing from which we draw nutrition, all of that, is the love of Christ. 

If you do not feel, if you do not understand the love of Christ, there will be no stability in your life."   ~ Pastor Steve 

http://www.wepc.org/jan-12-2014-worship-guide-know-the-love-of-christ/

Talk about perfect timing.  Yesterday I needed to be reminded of the gospel and repent of the ways I had been seeking stability outside of the love of Christ.  

I'm still uncertain of a lot of things, including whether God will fully open the door to be able to live in Richmond, but my stability does not come from being a part of a particular community, my stability comes from the love the Christ. 

Of course there are believers in Richmond, South Sudan, and around the world that are experiencing far more uncertainty and instability than I am in this season.  My prayer is that they would also have the stability that comes with truly knowing the love of Christ.  

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This post seems like it could be part two of what God has been teaching me about His sufficiency in my life, particularly as it relates to community.  Check out my post from October on the reality of community if you missed it.  

http://immeasurablymorewhm.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-reality-of-community.html

Prayer for Peace

I have been meaning to write a post about the recent events in South Sudan, but honestly, I have been overwhelmed....

Overwhelmed by the daily email alerts on the current situation in South Sudan

Overwhelmed by the contrast between the last week for my friends in South Sudan and the last week for my friends in the United States

This week the gap between the already and the not yet just seems overwhelmingly large...

But as I am reminded that the world is not yet as it should be, I am also reminded in this season of advent that Jesus is the Prince of Peace.

The faith and hope of my South Sudanese friends has often been greater than my own.  Jesus defeated death, and the church in South Sudan, that has known so much suffering, proclaims this boldly.

Now as I read the recent news of violence in South Sudan, I know that the church in South Sudan is continuing to proclaim the gospel of peace as they long for what is to come, a day when there will be no more death or war.

So I ask that churches around the world join the South Sudanese in praying for immediate peace and reconciliation in South Sudan.

Truly He taught us

to love one another;

His law is love and

His gospel is peace.

Chains shall He break

for the slave is our brother

And in His name

all oppression shall cease.

~ O Holy Night

*rainbow over South Sudan from my flight out of Mundri in November*

The Equatorial Sun

The best word I can use to describe the equatorial sun in South Sudan is INTENSE.  I spend my days trying to hide from the sun under trees, in the shadow created by a large vehicle, under my hat, etc.  Some days the sun actually hurts my skin.  Michael is known for his sayings including "Never underestimate the power of the equatorial sun to reduce productivity."  

In the middle of the day when the sun is scorching the clothes on the drying line, the plants in the garden, and my skin, I try to remember the INTENSE BEAUTY that comes as a result.  I have seen many beautiful sunsets, but nothing quite compares to the glow cast on everything by the setting sun in equatorial Africa.  I wish you could all see with your own eyes the intensely beautiful sunrises and sunsets of South Sudan, but for now, a few pictures from the last month will have to do. =)

*Sunrise on an early morning walk with Larissa*

*Women greeting each other on the road at sunset*

I love the orange sunsets on the main road after a truck has kicked up some dust!

*Sunset at dinner time* 

I ran to get my camera, but I wish I had a picture of what the sky looked like just two minutes earlier.  Intense color!

The Reality of Community

I have heard that most missionaries leave the field because of team conflict. Yes, it is true that ministry can be challenging, cross-cultural interactions can be confusing, and the living conditions may be hard, but the greatest challenges often lie in living and serving with other sinful Christians.

Our team has had our share of conflict over the last few weeks, and while it has been hard, as we address the conflict, admit sin, repent, show grace, and forgive, it has also been restorative and part of God’s sanctifying work in each of our lives.  This has definitely been true for me over the last week in particular.
 
I have been rereading Bonhoeffer’s Life Together over the last few days, and it has been both encouraging and convicting.  This little book is just packed with goodness.  I will only mention a couple of things here, so I highly recommend reading and rereading the whole book.  

So what have I been learning?

First, I am weak, and other Christians can be a tremendous blessing to me in my weakness.

“Therefore the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God's Word to him.... The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brother's is sure. And that also clarifies the goal of all Christian community: they meet one another as bringers of the message of salvation.” p. 23

“Do we really think there is a single person in this world who does not need either encouragement or admonition?”  p. 106

Secondly, community is a GIFT from God.  It is not guaranteed to the Christian.  God is the All-Sufficient One.  While it is very good for me to have Christian community, I do not NEED community.

“It is easily forgotten that the fellowship of Christian brethren is a gift of grace, a gift of the Kingdom of God that any day may be taken from us.” p. 20

Thirdly, and most importantly for me in this season, comparing my current experience in community to previous experiences is not helpful.  In fact, it is very detrimental.

“If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.”  p. 29

I have failed at this in major ways over the last year.  My sinful heart wants the gifts of grace I have received from God in previous seasons of my life as I walk through today’s trials.  I have failed to see God as sufficient. I have also placed expectations on others that have made it even more difficult for the community that I desire to grow.  I have spent a large part of the last year praying for stability in friendships.  It has been a very long time since I have had a prayer partner.  I miss the reciprocity and familiarity of those relationships.  But instead of trusting God through this rather solitary season, I either tried to force community or retreated in unhelpful ways.  In hind sight I see that God was teaching me about his sufficiency.

Getting away from abstractions, I had some very challenging interactions with men in town last week.  These interactions were by no means appropriate, but because I “reacted to the circumstances of life rather than responding to the knowledge of God,” (Lord, I Want to Know You, Kay Arthur) it became a much bigger deal to me than it had to be.  I let it get to me in a way that had me doubting my identity in Christ.  And my sinful heart led me to interact poorly with my teammates as I struggled.  I both sought support from my community in a demanding and sharp way and retreated from what support was available.  After three hard days, I took a day to be alone in prayer, reading scripture, and listening to a few sermons from my home church.  God met me in a beautiful and loving way that day.  The next day, I had some good redemptive conversations with my teammates.  I initially reacted out of unbelief, and I did not deserve God’s grace to me in the days that followed, but that’s the heart of the gospel!

Satan is at work in Mundri, and would like nothing more than to create conflict on our team, to cause me to doubt my identity in Christ, and to lead any one of us to stop following God in the battle.  What does this look like? Satan uses my circumstances to accuse me of being inadequate and alone, but God has already won the battle and is victorious in my life.  I belong to God, and my identity is secure.  God will never leave me or forsake me.

This morning before I sat down to do write this blog post, do some homework, prepare my lesson for girls’ club, and work on the community questionnaire for my nodding disease study, I decided to listen to a sermon from my home church titled Grace and Peace.  Pastor Steve said, “There will never be peace anywhere in the world until grace reigns.” He continues saying “there will never be peace in your heart … until grace reigns.” My first thought was that there will never be any peace on our team until grace reigns. I am still learning a lot about grace, and I am thankful for the opportunity to learn about grace in community with a bunch of other sinful missionaries who minister from weakness.

“When the message of grace yields the fruit of peace then we possess and wield gospel power” ~ Pastor Steve

In the end, team life has its challenges, but it also has great rewards. Who wouldn't want to be a part of this crazy community?!

Do No Harm?

After reading Do No Harm by Mary Anderson, our class decided that our book on development would probably be called something more like Do Good... and as little harm as possible.

Because in research, development, missions, and so many other fields, you are probably going doing to do some harm even with the best intentions.  So what to do? Well, if you don't know what to say in Dr. B's class, just raise your hand and say prayerful discernment.  It sounds like just another cliche Christian answer, but really that is one of the main lessons I learned at Eastern.   In the middle of really complicated, messy, and grey development work, we can enter into a process of prayerful discernment, trust in the guidance of the holy spirit, be humble, do our homework on best practices, keep learning from others, and a bunch of other things, but you get the idea.

This is more a reminder for myself than anything else, but since lots of people ask me what I read at Eastern and what I learned, here it is for you to consider as well.   And I would recommend the book for those interested in development.  There is a lot to be gleaned from Mary Anderson's arguments and the case studies she presents.

Lament, Hope, God’s Sovereignty, and Nodding Disease

"The laments are refusals to settle for the way things are. They are acts of relentless hope that believes no situation falls outside Yahweh's capacity for transformation."~ Walter Brueggemann

"Lament relies on God's sovereignty and not our ability." ~ Soong Chan Rah

I have been praying a lot about lament, hope, and the sovereignty of God over the last week as I prepare to start a research project on nodding disease.  I will be focusing on the cultural perceptions of the disease, but I have also added several of Scott and Heidi’s medical questions to the study.  As a grad student, I spent a large part of the last year doing research, but this time instead of sitting in a library reading scholarly articles, I will be sitting with families who have been affected by this horrific disease.

Let me start by telling you what little is known about nodding disease.  It is found only in parts of South Sudan, northern Uganda, and Tanzania, but Mundri town is one of the locations with the highest density of nodding disease cases.  It primarily affects children between the ages of 5 and 15.  The disease is named after the characteristic head nodding that occurs when the child is presented with food and they are unable to stay awake to eat the food.  This leads to malnutrition and wasting.  The disease is also characterized by seizures, and anti-seizure medications are often prescribed but have little effect. Some patients who claim to have nodding disease actually have epilepsy or another seizure disorder, but nodding disease patients often have a distinct child-like appearance, a protruding upper lip, and significant mental decline.  In most cases, the children were completely normal in appearance and mental capacity prior to the onset of nodding disease symptoms.  There is no known cure and researchers do not know the cause of the disease.  Some believe it has a genetic component; others link it to river blindness.  There is a lot that is not yet understood about nodding disease.

It is easy to share this basic clinical information about nodding disease, but much harder to share the reality of how nodding disease affects families.   Children develop sores on their legs from the chains that are used to tie them to trees so they don’t wander into the river and drown or burn themselves in the fire.  Families are ostracized from the community because of the stigma related to the disease.

And I am not talking about a handful of children and families.  It is believed that there are at least 300 children with nodding disease in the greater Mundri area.

These families have interacted with several researchers in the past who with good intentions have left people feeling like objects to be studied.  Researchers come in on an airplane, information is gathered, blood samples are taken, and then the researchers leave the same way they arrived.  The results of the research do not often make it back to the families being studied.  But the body of research on nodding disease is growing, and that is a good thing.  Doing medical research through translators in a rural part of East Africa is complicated to say the least.  And thank you, Heidi, for helping me refine my perspective on nodding disease research! One reason why it is good to have teammates. =)

So now that I have shared that information with you, I ask that you would join me in prayer.  Pray my actions and words would reflect my belief that each child with nodding disease is made in the image of God. Pray that I would be able to enter into each family’s grief with both lament for the reality of nodding disease and hope of future glory.  Pray that I would enter into the lives of families affected by nodding disease in a way that loves, hopes, laments, affirms dignity.

In God’s perfect timing, our team’s bible study last week focused on the sovereignty of God, and this week in particular I am thankful for the book of Job and for Joseph who said “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” Genesis 50:20.

Satan meant nodding disease for evil, but God meant it for good.  I have no idea why or how that gives God glory.  I will probably never know.  But even though my finite human self may not understand the workings of an infinite God, I still trust that it is true.

I am also thankful for Psalm 88 which cries out to God in prayer, questions, laments, and is an act of worship, but does not turn to praise like the many of the other psalms, because some days lament is all I can manage.

So as I prepare to interview families who have been affected by nodding disease, I am very seriously asking that you would join me in prayer.

Familiar and Changed

Flying over Mundri, I could already see some of the changes that had taken place over the last year and half. There were more tin roofs in town and a lot more organized gardens.  The second thing I noticed is that the main road in Mundri is A LOT worse than when I left.

It is easy to spot the changes, but starting with Bishop who picked us up at the airstrip, I noticed that one thing has definitely not changed, and that is the happy, welcoming greetings of my friends in Mundri.  Even as I sit in my room and write this post, I can hear James Wani's familiar happy laugh across the compound. Some things will never change. =)

Over the next few days I got settled back into daily life in Mundri, greeting friends, slowly remembering Moru and Juba Arabic words and phrases, fixing bikes, making sorghum tortillas, buying food in the market, sweating while biking down the red dirt road, and driving the Land Cruiser or more accurately, stalling multiple times in town on my way to church and developing an audience waiting to see if I would manage to get the car into first gear. In the end a shopkeeper came and parked the car for me.  =)

So many things are familiar, but a lot has also changed.  My role on the team has also changed significantly. And so a new season of life in Mundri starts for me.  It has been such a blessing to step back into friendships that have survived my long absence, particularly at Mundri Secondary School (MSS).  Tomorrow will be my first meeting with the young women who are students at (MSS), so please pray for me as I consider what God would have for our time together each week.  

Traveling Mercies

Thank you so much for your prayers as I traveled!!!  Everything that could go right, did go right!

Here are just a few traveling tidbits:

I really do dislike packing, but I've honed my skills as I have racked up the frequent flyer miles.  And yes, I'm the girl who wheels enormous trunks in the out doors of the supermarket to use the large scale.  =)

After four long flights, I was so happy to be greeted in Uganda by the familiar smiling face of my favorite Ugandan driver, David.

The next morning six women from the South Sudan team piled into the Hilux and headed to Fort Portal for the weekend to celebrate Bethany's birthday and connect with some of the WHM Uganda team.

These pictures don't do justice to the stunning beauty of the crater lake and the tea plantation at dusk.

Even when small things went wrong, God provided little mercies to make it right again.  For example, when I realized that my sunglasses were broken, I happened to be standing directly in front of an eye glass shop in Kampala!  I was able to get them repaired in about 15 minutes for for about $2.  =)

My week in Uganda was a real blessing, but very busy with lots of travel and errands.  I am so happy to be back in South Sudan now, unpacked, and jumping back into the familiar rhythms of life in Mundri!