post sudan

I have been out of Africa for over a month now, but Africa has not come out of me.

When people ask me about my summer, about my experiences in Sudan and about how I have adjusted, I rarely know the right words to say.

Sometimes there aren't any. It is difficult for me to tell people how I feel back in America, knowing that so much of myself is somewhere else. I think about the children in the orphanage, about my neighbors in Wadupe, about Ena and Boy and Monday and Condition... I think about them all the time. I wonder if they are sleeping, I wonder if they are hungry, I wonder if they are sick. Sometimes I picture the kids running barefoot around the compound, laughing and screaming and picking on each other like kids do. My heart suddenly becomes incredibly full... and I miss them. I miss their faces, their laughter and the all the silly little ways they would make me laugh.

It is difficult for me to walk through Target or the Pitt or the grocery store. I think it is because I feel surrounded and trapped by materialism and wealth and people so consumed with their own agendas that they have forgotten that they are still people. I miss the simplicity of being, I miss being defined by who I am as a human being, not by how much I do.

It is a struggle for me to reconcile the world of America with the world of Sudan. As referendum approaches for Sudan, tension between north and south is increasing. Peace is coveted, but not expected. I beg you to become a voice for these people. Be aware of what is going on in the world around you. It is so easy... so incredibly easy for us to become comfortable here and forget that there are millions of our brothers and sisters suffering around the world. I beg you to pray for them. Cry out for justice for these people.

Because they are people, just like you and me.

Here's some interesting articles to read:
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/30/sudan-poised-between-peace-and-civil-war-as-elections-loom.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8943745.stm

leaving africa

tonight ends my time on this incredible continent. I am so blessed to have been here and I have learned so much. My heart aches a little as I think of all of the beautiful people I have met. Africa is no longer a place to me it is faces and red dirt and brilliant skies.

I want to thank all of you for following my blog this summer! I have so many more stories I would love to tell so please ask :) Please continue to pray for peace in Sudan. Wednesday, Kenya votes on a new constitution so pray for peace here as well.

Love to you all you are in my thoughts and prayers :)

Abby

love sudan

Sorry it has been so long since an update! Rather limited internet access.

We have left Sudan and much of our hearts behind. It is too soon for me to really process my thoughts and feelings, and I want to tell so many stories, but I don't want this to become sentimental.

What I will say is God is very present in Sudan. He has been present in the war and the suffering and He is present in the current peace. But I beg you to pray for continued peace in Sudan. The people there are your brothers and sisters as well as mine, because God is a God of all people. I don't care how cliche that sounds because I haven't really understood it until now.

He loves Monday and Boy and Onestar and Condition and Wadupe so much more than I do. These people want peace and I ask that you join me in praying for Sudan over these next couple months as referendum approaches along with political unrest.

I will be back in the states very soon! Right now I am in Mombasa Kenya, and I fly out next Sunday. We are all doing well except Allie and I are feeling a little stomach sick from cheeseburgers. I am pretty positive I am lactose intolerant now. :) Love to all of you. I miss you and I can't wait to rejoin you so very soon!

Jesus came up from the ground so dirty

It is hard to write a blog for this week, and I think it is because this week has been so hard. It is difficult to write out what has been going on with all of us because it seems subtle and humongous at the same time.

We headed back to Wadupe last Friday. It was dark and rainy and the roads were terrible. We took bodas to the bus station (which is not a bus station, just a place off the side of the road where you can catch a ride out of town) and my boda got there before everyone else. The men there were being obnoxious and it was probably the most frightened I have been here in Sudan. There was no need to be, Billy, Allie and Ena got there a minute later and I could see them the whole time, but for me it set the mood for the rest of the week. While waiting for a ride, a woman approached Ena and started talking to her rapidly in Kakwa. Once or twice she tried to grab her arm and pull her away from us. We think the woman thought we were kidnapping her, but it really upset Ena and she didn't smile again until we got to Wadupe.

In the village, the rain had washed away almost all of the huge boards that make up the bridge. This halted progress on the school. It has rained almost the entire week. At night we all started having nightmares, Allie's being the worst. In the middle of one night, a drunk man came by our house, and even though he was harmless it was still scary. Physically it is very hard for me to do the labor they do here, which this week made me irritated and frustrated. The women carry jerry cans full of water on their heads from the bore hole (well) every single day. Allie and I had to start carrying them for the workers who were fixing up the compound, and it was so exhausting, even though we are the closest compound to the bore hole. I found myself getting irritated at small things, especially my listlessness. We all felt very... oppressed.

 But what has been incredible is how God has worked in the midst of it all. It's not like He suddenly took away our nightmares, cured our sore muscles, stopped the rain or gave us super human strength to get the work done. It's like in the midst of the oppression and the hard work He has given us little tastes of heaven that remind us why we are here.

On Saturday, Allie and I had to walk to the market (a 3 mile walk) to pick up supplies for the group. On the way we ran into Monday, who had us stop at her compound and rest before we headed out. She sat us in the shade, and before we knew what she was doing, she had taken a scrubbie, soap, and a basin of her precious water and had started washing our very dirty feet. In that moment, beautiful orphan Monday who never stops smiling was being Jesus to me. There is no greater love than this.

I can not count how many times Allie and I carried our jerry cans to the bore hole and walked back empty handed because the school children or one of the girls have carried them for us. One morning we went to wash our clothes and ran into Monday. She sat with us for an hour and helped us wash our dirty underwear. Billy can't pick up a hoe to work in the garden without several of the village men coming to help him, even though they have already worked many hours in their own. The sunsets and sunrises are incredible. Sometimes they are big and loud with so many different colors, and sometimes they are just quiet and peaceful.

So even though I am mosquito bitten and sometimes too hot and sometimes too cold, I am constantly reminded of the God who is very present in the dirt and sweat and smiles of Southern Sudan. We have one week left and I know it will be very hard to say goodbye. Please be praying for peace in Sudan. The nightmares have pretty much stopped, but pray that we would sleep well through the nights. I am missing you all very much.

Abby

2 weeks left

Leaving Yei for Wadupe again! Ena is feeling much better I think, although she is completely full of sugar. It has been raining nonstop and I am not looking forward to the journey in the rain but that is ok! Please be praying for the next two weeks. It breaks my heart to think of leaving these kids but I am so very grateful for this experience. God has been showing me so much of Himself and sometimes I find myself overwhelmed with His goodness. We are still figuring out ways to provide the girls with some money for school. Please pray for this as well because giving is very tricky, and we want to do it the right way. Education and healthcare are the two most basic needs here, so pray that the school building process will go smoothly. You all are in my thoughts and prayers so very often!

Abby

Ena goes to Disneyland

This is a story, a very good one too, about the coolest nine year old in the world and her adventures with the three crazy khawajas (white people). I would let her tell it, but since she doesn't speak your language I will have to do my best to translate.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who lived in a village in Sudan. Her name was Ena, and she had the attitude of Rudy from the Cosby show and the dancing skills of Britney Spears. Except she was like a million times better. She walked around the village like she owned everyone in it, she schooled all the other kids at jump rope (which they made from the long African grass), and she could add and subtract like a machine, even though her family could only afford to send her to school for a limited time.

But one day, Ena started coughing. She did not feel like schooling all the other kids at jump rope or showing the three crazy khawajas her expert dancing skills. She didn't even want to go to school. The three crazy khawajas noticed this, and asked her grandfather (Ena did not have a father) if they could take her to Yei with them to a clinic. Her grandfather said yes, and Ena went to change into her best skirt. Because going to Yei, even if you are sick, is like going to Disneyland.

But first they had to walk 3 miles to the main road to catch a ride. And once they caught a ride, they had to drive for a long time. When they finally got to Yei, Ena was hot and tired and felt worse. So the three crazy khawajas took her to a place with huts that had cold floors and a toilet that you did not have to squat over. They showed her a big box that had cold things called ice, which she liked a lot. Afterward they took her to a clinic and got some medicine for her cough. Then they showed her water that came from a pipe in the ceiling and she danced and danced around in the water until she was completely soaked. When they tried to get her to wear a skirt for dinner, she was not happy, and pulled her shirt down low enough to cover the skirt. Obviously the khawajas don't know anything. But they gave her brown sweet stuff (chocolate) that made her smile very big. At night she slept on a bed that was high above the ground, and would not let the three crazy khawajas turn off the ball of fire above her head, even though it was dark outside.

In the morning, after taking more of her medicine, she felt much better and taught the three crazy khawajas how to dance. Then she found the thing that music came out of (ipod), and she danced some more. When the khawajas gave her Fanta (orange soda) she drank it in little sips to savor the flavor. When they were at the market, some men said something to her in kakwa that made her very angry. So she picked up a big stick of wood and would have beaten the crap out of them if the khawajas hadn't stopped her, even though they secretly wanted her to do it. 

Unfortunately I can not finish the rest of this story because Ena keeps trying to steal the computer so she can look at pictures. We are currently waiting for Billy and Allie to get back from the market with food. She is impatient and hungry and keeps trying to eat my vitamins, even though they aren't chewable. She almost ate from the tub of butter before I stopped her. I've decided I love Ena like Billy loves the monkey. She could do anything wrong and I would still love her. Well, Billy lets the monkey pee on him sometimes, I don't know if I would be cool with that. We got stuck in Yei an extra day because Billy has a lot of writing to catch up on. All I can say is that there are too many stories to tell, and I wish I could tell them all. But I am in love with the children of Wadupe and with Africa and I am having a marvelously spoiled time. I miss you all so incredibly much and wish you could be experiencing these things with me.

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.