Christmas in Sudan

Hey Everyone!!!

Well, here I am in Sudan! After a lot of delays, an overbooked flight, a free night in an amazing hotel and having US$900 stolen in Uganda, I’m really glad to be here, it’s Amazing!!

As we approached our decent towards the small dirt runway surrounded by bush my excitement amplified. Finally I felt like I was really stepping into my dreams and destiny, and all the apprehensions I had, remained in the dust cloud left behind by our landing.
The airport, consisting of an old tin shed on the side of the runway was where we proceeded to get our travel permit, - much simpler than previously anticipated. I can even renew it in town! Perfect!

The drive to base was fun. The roads here are by no means flat and I still don’t know what side of the road you are really supposed to drive on. ; ) hehe… I think it’s more about avoiding the potholes that could swallow your car!
After noticing quite a few armed military personal around, I proceeded to ask Jennie what the current situation was in South Sudan only to learn South Sudan had just declared war with the LRA (Lords Resistance Army), Two weeks ago! The LRA had started raids again for Child Soldiers so the South Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA), the Congo Army and the Uganda Peoples Defence Force, have combined, to Catch Joseph Kony who heads up the LRA. So I really am in a War Zone! In saying that I wouldn’t have known it, had I not asked. As there is a strong UN presence in Yei and many NGO’s I think we are pretty safe here. Your prayers would be appreciated though as things can change very quickly and Kony’s camp is only about 50km away!
I’m not fearful though. Actually I feel a lot more comfortable and safer here than I did in Mozambique. The people so far have been amazing. Very friendly and polite. Even when walking around the markets the other day a stall holder gave me a whole bag of dates for free… which I proceeded to pass out to random people in the market while wishing them a Merry Christmas. It was very jovial and fun. I think they enjoy having white people hanging out with them as from what I hear many of the NGO’s don’t leave their compounds much. This will become a little harder for us too once we are on our new base as it is about 8 miles from town so a bit long to walk in. Chris is contemplating buying a motorbike though so that will be useful and by the look of these roads a lot of fun! J It’s like a continuous motor-cross course. Come rainy season things could be a bit different though.

The Iris Children’s Village is awesome. The kids welcomed us with songs and cooked us a special meal of goat and rice. They even went out and brought us Coke, so sweet : ) We were assigned a room to set up our tents and then left to relax.
The base itself is very different from the one in Pemba, a lot less developed and the rooms the kids sleep in are a lot more cramped. Maybe 3 to a bed, but the kids are adorable and so polite and respectful. There is a real family feel about the place with the older kids looking after the younger (and by that I mean the 5 year old looking after the 3 year olds and so on). It is really cute.

Christmas was great fun! The preparations started a few days before with the staff going out and getting a Christmas outfit for all the kids and then going to buy a lamb and a goat and some chickens. (live) The children were given their clothes the day before so they could wash and iron them, which they did so with so much pride. Then on Christmas eve the lamb and goat were sacrificed around much singing and celebrations and the blood was cooked and drunk. Can’t say I was keen to try that.
The next day the women started early in the kitchen killing, blanching, plucking, and frying chicken; preparing potatoes, rice, spinach, salad, goat and lamb (including the innards). It was quite a feast they were preparing.
At about 10am the children cleaned up and got into their new outfits, and looking very, very smart made their way excitingly to the school/church building for present giving! They were so cute in their new outfits and wore them with such pride.
Each child received a Christmas bag with a few toys and a lollypop and the girls all got hair extensions, which is a real popular thing here since no one can really grow long hair. Michele gave out the gifts individually and even I got one! Some great bell earrings (refer to photo) and lip gloss. It was great. After that the kids were straight back into their old clothes and started playing in the dirt with their new toys. Hilarious!
Lunch was a real treat. We were served a huge portion of fried chicken, rice, goat/lamb innards fried in spices, salad, chips and coke. The Chicken took me about an hour to chew through, lets say they kill them a lot older than we allow ours to get or they cook it way to hot and fast. It was entertaining though and by the time I was finished with my drumstick I could hardly touch anything else on my plate. After that I had to retire to ‘tent city’ for a movie nap with Michelle and Chris just to let the meat try begin its process of digestion. : )
About an hour after dinner everyone came together again, dressed in their best, for church and we had a few songs and Michele preached a short story on the birth of Jesus. Then we prayed for the sick. It was a sweet short service, just how I like it.. ; )
Dinner was another amazing meal of stewed meat, a chapatti and poshue but I was still too fill from lunch to even try it.
Pretty much every night after dinner the kids meet together outside for singing, drumming, dancing and prayer. It’s probably my favourite time apart from the fact I can’t understand the songs. Its just fun to dance around with the kids though, be silly and carry on.
Then to finish the night they set up the laptop with ‘the nativity’ before everyone retired with very full bellies and had a good night sleep. Bliss

So, defiantly one of the best Christmas’s I’ve had. Wasn’t high on the entertainment side but felt a lot more like what Christmas should be about. It was really special to see how much the kids appreciated and cared for their new clothes too. Fashion is a big thing here. Rather than just wrapping capalana’s (sarongs) around them like in Mozambique they actually sow them and turn them into outfits. People take pride in the way they look which is nice to see and it tends to show a bit more respect for self. They even paint up their houses nice with designs.

So, since being a child myself I have always thought it would be cool to live the simple life. I don’t know how many of you have read ‘ the little house on the prairie’ but if you have, that’s the life I could see myself living. In a way this is probably the closest I’ll get to it, put into the African context of course. The new base we are going to in about 2 weeks time is a 40 acre bush block (not yet tested for land mines!). There will be no electricity, no running water and no Internet. We do have a well on the property though which is very exciting. Currently they are finishing up the building of Michelle’s house (which will have a generator running for a few hours a day) and they have some of the children’s homes up. When we move we will be in tents along with a lot of the kids, and probably for some time. The visitor’s centre will be one of the last things built but once the offices are done, which will be after all the kids homes, we will get to move in, and make a temporary home. I’m sure this will be a welcome break as the rainy season starts again in February and doesn’t finish until November! It’s going to be fun. : )

I’ve also had the offer to help with organising the Iris school. They have a headmaster but it lacks organisation and they need to employ more teachers, since last year many of the teachers preferred to sit around and drink tea instead of teach. It sounds like an interesting and challenging project for me. I’m really interested in finding some information about alternative education methods though. I don’t think our western school system is that conducive to the African lifestyle. If you have any ideas/information you can pass on I’d appreciate it. (I know there are lots of teachers reading this!) The other thing too is that most of the teachers are not trained. They just have finished high school, which is a big thing here. Many children don’t get that opportunity. That means they don’t really know how to teach, they just know what to teach. So again, if you have any good resources on teaching methods I’d appreciate it.
The other project I’m milling over is in the creative arts department. Getting the kids and possible community members together and teaching them crafts and dance etc…That should be a lot of fun. So if you have some simple yet fun craft ideas send them my way.

I also brought a whole bunch of seeds from Johannesburg so I can start a big garden on the property. Apparently there is a big agricultural guru not too far away too, so I can pick his brains, which will be very helpful. I’m really, really looking forward to having some good home-grown vegetables. They have been a rarity since arriving in Africa.
The food here is pretty interesting. Breakfast consists of the sweetest tea imaginable. (Actually it is hard to taste the tea for the sugar.) Accompanied by fried bread, like donuts.
Then lunch and dinner usually consists of ‘ Poshue’ which is finally ground maize meal boiled into the consistency of rubbery mashed potatoes, (yet not nearly as tasty.) It then comes with an accompaniment of beans or spinach or egg or occasionally meat or fish. I can’t say I really like the Poshue, which is extremely fulling, but the rest is usually pretty tasty and we do get treated to rice every now and then. I’m happy, I’m certainly not going to starve. Then at about 11pm they serve up extremely sweet coffee, which again was hard to distinguish the coffee for the sugar. When Michele and Jennie go to Uganda next week I’m defiantly putting in an order of coffee! And if anyone wants to send a care package, nice coffee is defiantly on the list : )

The weather here is much more comfortable than Mozambique too. Not that we have entered the really hot season yet, but it cools down at night so I can actually sleep! That is bliss as I really struggled sleeping in Pemba. The air is also drier so we don’t have that sticky humid feeling all the time, which is great.

So really I am a very happy camper. I have much to be thankful for. In an environment like this one can be truly appreciative of the life they have lived.
I have had the privilege to hear some of the kids stories, children from the Nuba Mountains mainly. They were born into war and grew up in a life of war. Many times they had to flee from the Arab soldiers into the mountains and hide out in caves. They have had many friends die and grew up seeing so much death. Their fathers and brothers were the ones who had to stay back and fight. It’s a life I could never imagine, and an inspiration to see what incredible young men these boys turned out to be. As I learn more I look forward to sharing their stories with you. There is so much going on in the world it is easy to turn a blind eye. But having a young man sit in front of you and tell you his life, knowing that millions are suffering the same existence right now in the west of Sudan adds a whole new meaning to the events taking place.
Thank you so much for standing with me in this cause.

I really appreciate you all so much. Please keep me up to date with your lives and your families, your all so wonderful!

Love Amy

village photos

Village Life

Hey Everyone, how’s it going??
I’m home tonight feeling a bit sick (queasy stomach and mild cramps) while everyone else is out having a party with the mozambiqican pastoral students, and after having spent all day yesterday making chocolate cakes I must say I’m a little disappointed. Not so much that I will miss desert, which is a real treat here, but I’ll miss the look of delight on the mozambiqicans faces when they see it all! This is something they never get.
Just to fill you in on the pastoral training... every year there is a 4 month school held at the base for upcoming leaders and pastors from different provinces around Cabo Degado (where we are). Most of them are fairly new Christians and have come to learn how to start churches up in their own towns and disciple people. Most of them have left family and come with nothing but what they are wearing. They are very poor and some have been known to loose their families while there away due to starvation or illness. It’s a big cost for many of them. There is also quite a lot of younger men who will go back and lead youth mettings/outreaches etc...
Actually it’s quite funny. We are encouraged to mix with them as much as possible, which is hard as they can’t speak English and not many of us speak Portuguese or Makua (the heart language) but at the same time if you spend more than 10min talking to them, the talk of marriage comes up and you almost have a proposal! It’s a very hard concept to get your head around and as I love working with teenage boys, has been quite hard. I just don’t worry about it and am careful with my words. :)
On that same note though I think I have a little 13 year old boy attracted to me! I meet this boy the first day I arrived and feel in love with him (not literary). He was so cute and quiet natured. He spoke good english so we were able to communicate well straight away. He won a place in my heart and I would talk to him everyday and got to know his friends. I’ve even meet his uncle as his parents both died when he was 9. But just last night he gave me his necklace to wear till the end of school and was trying to lie all over my legs, which I believe in this culture is quite sexual. Its so horrible to think at this age he would be pursuing someone over twice is age. In saying this he is always trying to find me a husband too, maybe he thinks I’ll take him home with me. I’m got some talking to do with him I think ; )

so... I went on outreach last weekend. Whoa, talk about a HEAVY spiritual atmosphere. It was depression central. Firstly 30 of us piled into the back of a cameo (flat bed truck), 10 students, 10 pastoral students and a group on medical outreach.
We drove for 3 hours along the main road, occasionally having to try and hold a huge tarpaulin over us when the rain came, while speeding along at 90km/hr, quite entertaining. Then we pulled down a dirt road/path and drove another 20km or so into the bush bush. There in the middle of no-where was a village with nothing by mud huts, a few mango, papaya, banana and coconut trees and hundreds of dirty malnourished children running after us as we drove by, giving us big smiles and waves. Children yelling out koonya, koonya (white, white) as we drove past. When we finally stopped it was a very quick unpack and stick up the tents in fear of rain coming. Thankfully only a few drops feel, otherwise we may never have gotten out on that road.
As we are setting up tents on the local pastors land the kids just seem to keep coming and pretty soon we have about 100 kids lined up around the fences watching us. What a site!
The first thing I noticed about the kids was their tummies, sticking way out. So so many malnourished children. Then it was girls as young at 8 carrying around infants on their back, hopefully there siblings. There are no parents anywhere. Kids just run around all day with each other. They carry knives and machetes, kids maybe only 5 years old, not as weapons, but to get into coconuts or kasava (there staple diet, somthing like a chalky taro that they often eat raw and has no flavor) etc...! They are all looking after each other in a sense, while their parents are at home working or sleeping.
There was a really sad feel to the place.
So after unpacking the leader set up the screen ready to show the Jesus film and others set about preparing our traditional outreach meal of tuna pasta. Others went out to roam the village or play with the kids. I hung back a while to process things but then this drunk grandma came in and starting asking us for clothes supposedly for her daughters, yet just outside was a shop selling clothes. The only shop I saw in the whole village and probably all stuff sent over my some aid organisation that was meant to go to the people but ended up in the wrong hands! She was quite annoying and I wasn’t getting a good vibe about her. Then she started cursing us and telling us all to go home, then she would laugh and then she wanted to take us to her home next door .... In the end I just started talking to her about Gods love for her, in English, knowing she couldn’t understand but hoping her spirit would, and I tried speaking in tounges, hoping she would hear it in her own language, but she didn’t. ( you can join me in prayer for that one!) I had someone remind me to stop for the one, so thats what I did. Even if we didn’t understand one word spoken to each other I believe God could still communicate to her if she was open. As it turned out she kept cursing us the whole weekend and on the last night there while we were all sleeping you could hear her yelling over us from outside for about an hour. Apparently she was saying Koonya a lot so I believe she was cursing us. I just had to laugh. Our God is SO much Bigger!

So the outreach consisted of us showing the Jesus film the first night and praying for people to be saved and for healing. The film was quite old but for some of these people it was the first time they have ever heard of Jesus. We prayed for a lot of people that night. My most memorable moment though was when these 3 boys came up for prayer for drunkenness. The one I was praying for looked so cocky and it was almost as if he had just come up to be near us white girls. He looked like he had a bit of history, not nice history, so I just started breaking things off him, giving him a really stern look the whole time and his whole persona changed. Instead of being this cocky arrogant man it was like fear took hold of him everytime he looked at me. I loved it. I had someone at the conference in Beira prayer that the fear of God would surround me and protect me and I felt like that was just what was happening. It was very encouraging for me to see and I really believe God ministered to that young man in some way that night.
It was actually really horrible just how many drunk people were around. Here are a people with no food drowning away their sorrows with alcohol, while their children die. I also felt there was a strong spirit of apathy on the place and of sexual impurity. It was really strong and I think it kept effecting all of us. The second day in the village was really tough going because of it, but once I realised what it was and broke it off me I was able to go about with a bit more energy, it was a constant process though. The heat didn’t help either. It’s still spring and temperatures are in the 40's sometimes! And in that village there was NO breeze so the day dragged on SO slow and for about 4 hours we just couldn’t do anything but sweat in the shade!
The morning of day two we held a meeting in the mud church and then broke off into groups of women, men and children and held some discipleship classes. Ours ending up a prayer session though as one of the mothers brought her little 8 year old girl with her that constantly suffered seizures, which I believe were demonic. Whichcraft and the demonic is huge here. You have no idea. Even in the medical clinic that the other team were running they where finding that about 80% of cases were demonic and the symptoms often left as soon as prayer was administered. For instance one man had sufferred back ache and headaches for 3 years and after a prayer of repentance it all left! So anyway we started praying for this girl and as soon as we did she started having a seizure. It looked very painful for the poor girl. We had her start repeating the name of Jesus, which to start with she couldn’t do and then all of a sudden her whole face changed and she started looking around, and for the first time in maybe her whole life she was able to distinguish people. It was like her mind had been confused all the time. With joy she started pointing out all the koonya’s and her aunties, clapping her hands and laughing. It was the best sight to see. Then she got up and tried walking. To start with her legs would hardly even bend but by the time we left the prayer hut she walked home. It was such an awesome miracle. Unfortunately she was still having seizures so we decided a team would go visit at her house later in the day and pray over the house and family etc...
I wasn’t in the second team but I heard the whole family fell to their knees and accepted Jesus that afternoon. The fact they knelt shows true repentance cause this town was really spiritually dry! We continued to pray for the girl and the next day, Sunday she started having her seizures again at church so some took her out and continued to minister to her. I pray she will be set totally free as her family continues to pray.
I didn’t get to see a lot of the healings that weekend since we had the medical tent set up and they dealt with most of the sick, but we prayed for hundreds of people and MANY were healed. Praise God!

The saddest thing about the whole thing though was that the weekend we were there it was the initiation for girls about 15/16years old. The teenage girls were all hidden away in there homes and weren’t allowed out till night where they could dance with the women in their homes or with the men outside. What I learnt that really disturbed me though was the fact that these young girls are allowed to be abused on this day by anyone! Sick! What kind of lurid tradition is that! So thats why there were so many drunk women around, probably trying to forget about what was going on behind closed doors. In these villages children are often promised off to husbands in their early years. No choice in the matter and once they reach ‘womenhood’ they are taken and married to men that can be like 3 times there age. It’s cruel. So I guess maybe this is the night where anyone can have them before they go get married. (I guess thats why we felt such a strong sexual spirit over the place when we arrived!)

It can be a sad existence for people here, and unfortunately it’s all they know. There are so many things I still don’t understand, about their culture and way of doing things. To us it seems like the most disorganised, backward society. There whole way of thinking and looking at things is completely different, their world view is completely different. It’s frustrating to the western thinker and I have to just go to God for understanding and pray He will show me His heart for them.

So Im sorry this is so long. Hopefully you have found it interesting enough to make it to this point without having to skim read. : ) I really appreciate all your support and prayers, I know I have a lot of people interceding for me which is very comforting.
Please continue to pray that I can die to myself daily and that my intimacy with God increases daily. You really realise how much you need God in a place like this, and believe me, He really does answer prayer!
May God bless you all richly!


Love Amy

PS. Happy belated birthday Jana and Vanessa. I was thinking of you and hope you had a wonderful day!

Hey All

 

So I've been here 2 weeks and had the adventure of a lifetime. Not all of it that exciting, as we sat for 3 days in the back of a truck in the blazing sunlight in 40+ degree heat all packed together like sardines amongst our luggage. It was so intense and they weren't short days either our days on the road were about 17 hours and so so cramped. We actually got a flat tire on our trip in the middle on know where in the dark and our spare was also flat. No one stops to help in this country and you almost wouldn't want them to and it's mostly trucks full of men going pass. But after 2 hours trying to figure out what to do one of our team chased down a big truck with air brakes and was able to inflate the tire then we superglued the hole up and were on our way. Praise God someone knew what they were doing. This same guy is also going to Sudan for a year so I was pretty happy with that. Good to know someone who is handy! Anyway that night we couldn't make it to our destination so ended up camping out the back of a police checkpoint.

I think everyone wanted to die on that trip! I can kinda laugh about it now but really it was the longest drive ever!!! I'm not looking forward to the return journey.

Ok, so we have been at a conference in Beira for a week and have seen a blind person see and a deaf person hear. The blind person was healed when a girl from our group prayed for her so that was pretty exciting. I also prayed for 4 ladies and all of them were healed of various pain in their bodies. So awesome. The praise and worship is very raucous too with everyone dancing and singing as loud as they can. So its been fun, but now I am very tired.

 

The poverty here is extreme. As we drove down we saw many bush fires which I came to learn later were made to force rodents into traps for the people to eat. What the fail to realize is they are destroying the very bush the rodents live off. Education is a huge need here. I'm also told of fishermen putting poison in the water to catch fish but it kills everything in the sea. Hunger drives people to extreme measures.

I am staying with a family in Pemba. They have a small 3 bedroom derelict flat but I'm sure are very fortunate. The generosity of these people astound me, they give out of the very little they have and do so, so cheerfully. Such a servant attitude, it puts me to shame.

Water is also a luxury here so we have bucket showers which still work as good as anything. I tell you what though, after 3 days on the back of the truck, on dusty roads and nowhere to wash it took more than one bucket shower to scrub off all the dirt, maybe 3 before you actually felt fairly clean.

 

I find the Mozambique people really lovely, they are very friendly and don't hassle you. They definitely have a hard life though. We were walking through a village yesterday and stopped to pray for an old man who sometime ago and fallen off his bike and thinks he broke his hip. His one leg was a good 3-4inches shorter in the thigh than the other. There is no help here, its so sad. He had to just live with the pain and his leg was literally wasting away, all for the sake of an operation that could have fixed him. He lived with his wife and an orphan they had taken in, in a tiny makeshift hut with hardly anything. Work is not an easy thing to find and everyone sits in the markets or on the side of the road selling the same thing. It must be very hard to get ahead without education. I've seen children running around with bloated tummies and sores all over their bodies, women covered in boils, many cripples and many blind and deaf. It's a sad sight for sure.

So we must be truly grateful for what a blessed life we live. I find it so hard hearing people complain on our team with this all around them, but many a young and for some it is their first time away from home, so I guess it's hard.

Well my time is running out, I hope you are all doing super well and God is blessing you all. My love to you.

Settling the Nerves

Hello, well I only have 3 weeks left in NZ and I feel like a bit of a mixed bag of emotions. So excited about going, so sad to be leaving friends and a little stressed about all that still has to be done!

But really I cant wait to be in the thick of it. Red dirt between my toes, sunshine on my back, hundreds of gorgeous black kids everywhere and Heaven being displayed on earth. YEAH