Wadupe

I am never completely clean but I do not really care. I am sure my mother is cringing while reading this. I do the best I can.

In Wadupe, we live in a hut down a path from the SP church. The roof is metal which makes it different from the tukuls in the village. The village is surrounded by long green blades of grass that reach my chest. Pathways snake throughout the village and every once in awhile you can see a dark head bobbing above the green. Monday we slashed the grass around the hut and replanted flowers by the acacia tree. When I tried to use the hoe around one of the trees, the school children laughed at me. Inside the hut we have dark blue curtains and neon green mosquito nets. I love it. The dirt floor keeps my feet permanently red.

Wadupe is not an easy place to live, but it is such a good place. We have it nice because we have cooks who make us rice and beans and do our laundry. The people are hardworking, tough, but incredibly loving. The children come by our house everyday to play with Monkey (yezekay) and watch us do silly white people things.

There are three girls specifically who have won my heart. Monday (10), Enestar (12), and Viola (14) are our neighbors, which means they live down the path maybe a quarter of a mile. The laugh all the time, play with my hair, teach us kakwa, give us little treats and help us with our yard work without us asking them to. Their story is complicated and sad, and although they speak English pretty well, I still haven't been able to figure out all of it. I think they are all cousins, and they live with their grandmother. Monday's father is dead and her mother is either dead too or absent. I think Viola's mother is still around but I am not sure. Anyway they cannot go to school because they do not have money to pay the school fee. The school fee is about 45 U.S.D per year. At least this is what they told us, but today they told me they were going to school. Anyway Allie and I plan on teaching them for about an hour in the afternoon everyday when they come over. We decided we would trade off, they teach us kakwa and we teach them English.

There is so much more I want to tell and do not have the words to write. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and do not believe I am actually here. But then there these incredible beautiful moments when my heart swells up inside of me and I am overwhelmed by the beauty of God in this wild, strange place. Like at night when the elders let me sit by the fire with them, test my kakwa and ask me about America. Last night Rufus asked me how Americans stayed warm in the winter time, and I had such a difficult time explaining to him what a heater was. I love to watch the stars as they pop out of the African sky and listen to the men as they speak, even though I do not understand. Or the other night, I took monkey to the edge of the SP compound to watch the sun set. There I was, sitting on an abandoned sink with African tea in my hand and a monkey on my shoulder, staring at the great expanse of sky in front of me. It looked like God had taken the red dirt from the ground and wiped it across the light of the sky.

I look at these people and this land, and I see the suffering that it has endured. Something in my heart breaks when I think of the possibility of another civil war in January. All that these people want is peace. But when I look at them, I also see their faith in a God who has kept them safe through incredible trials. I am humbled by these people, and for the first time in my life I think I have begun to reconcile God and suffering.

I am in Yei only until Thursday morning, when we head back to Wadupe. Thank you for your prayers they are much appreciated. Please pray for the people of Sudan, that God will grant peace to a nation who has seen so much pain.