Tuesday

I've now been in D. for one week.

Today was a good day.  I had my first language lesson under a tree with Butros.  I had prepared some greetings and responses that I wanted to learn as well as a few useful questions like "What's your name?" "Where do you live?" etc.  That led on to learning numbers 1-10.  I then had a couple hours in the morning to start looking at the written Mabaan lessons with a CD that we have from a retired Canadian missionary.

We've had a bit of excitement around here since yesterday afternoon.  51 Mabaan people from the S. refugee camp in E. arrived to tour M. county with evangelism.  They've been walking West and staying in villages and in the bush at times.  A lot of them are young people.

The place went NUTS when they arrived at the church, which is not far from our gate.  Exuberant praise and worship and dancing Mabaan style!  We all went out to the church to see what was happening.  It was amazing to see the excitement of the community.  These are people who have been away for 12 years and we got to be right there and see people greeting and hugging long lost friends.  The singing was amazing and carried on into the evening.  Then this morning they were at it again and again this afternoon.

This morning they all had these banner things on with a cross and did this march/dance from one side of the village to the church.  It was crazy!  I got some pictures and a video clip this afternoon so once I'm in Nairobi again I can share those.  They have now left for B., the market town and will be carrying on to other villages.  You can pray for them as they go out to reach out to their people.

This afternoon a few of them came to us for treatment, so we got to chat with them a bit.  One of the guys spoke pretty good English and translated for the rest.  It was interesting.

Then the local evangelist brought the leader of the group to ask us for medicines to take with them on their journey.  It was a bit of a tricky situation--we had to explain that we have to account for all the medicine we give as treatment and don't have the authority to give out a whole bunch like that and that we didn't feel we could send things like malaria medication that they wanted because there isn't a medical person in the group to assess people etc.

It was a classic cultural experience.  We talked with them for a long while and I thought Vicky, Grace, and I did a great job of beating around the bush and saying no without saying no.  In the end they seemed satisfied by our explanation and the fact that we had taken the time to listen to each of the sick members' complaints and treat them if we could and that we would continue to do so if there were others who were sick.

I had started my laundry by hand before they all arrived so went back to it afterward.  It's actually not that bad!  The sun was really hot today so it dried quickly.  I got really dark today, in spite of my sun block.  The sun was intense.

Another great thing--I have the language helper (besides Butros on Tuesdays) that I've been praying for.  Grace suggested a teenage girl named Padda that she had noticed being quite involved at the D. church.  We suggested her to Butros and he thought it was a great idea so went to find her and ask her.  She apparently was delighted and he brought her over this evening to meet me.  She seems like a really sweet girl.  I think she's about 15.  So she'll help me for an hour on Wed, Thurs, Fri and I will have to do a lot of preparation before these lessons because she doesn't speak any English!  But I think it will be really good and I'm really glad to be giving a young girl with a lot of family responsibilities a job.  Tomorrow she will be going to the market with her mother to get grain or something so we'll start on Thursday afternoon.  She goes to the school that's been started in the village in the mornings.

So this will be a challenge but if it works I will start learning Mabaan very quickly!

I don't think I told you guys that I have a Siamese cat!  Grace and I brought 2 from Loki, one for Vicki who's been wanting one and one for me.  There were lots of them at the Across Compound where we stayed and the staff were happy to be rid of a couple.  They are both male and are beautiful cats-part Siamese with something else.  Vickie named hers Frankie and he's the bigger one and older.  I named mine Tamam, which is Arabic and means something like "strong". It's a word that the Mabaan use all the time as both a question and an answer for how someone is feeling and is something of a joke around our compound.  Mine is very friendly and purrs a lot.  We think they think they've died and gone to heaven because we treat them so well.  They get milk in the morning and our leftovers in the evening.  And who knows what all they hunt on the compound!  The other night I saw Tamam catch a lizard.  We got them to catch rats but we haven't seen any since I've been here.  They went out hunting a couple of nights last week and each got into a fight with a dog or another cat or something but survived it with just a gash to the face each and now they stick around the compound waiting for their leftovers for the most part!

There are so many amazing things about being here.  Tonight I went outside my tukul for something and happened to look up and had to gasp at how beautiful the stars were.  It was such a clear night.

Oh yeah, another great thing about today...thanks for praying for Stephen, the little boy with the bad finger injury.  We've been really praying about how to make the dressing changes less painful for him.  Until today, he's been in hysterics each time.  Today we decided to try giving him some acetominophen/codeine that I have in my own medical kit, 45 minutes before the dressing change.

Grace also came up with the brilliant idea of having him listen to her CD discman to distract him.  So he listened to Spanish guitar music and was loving it!  We got some smiles from him today and all he did was whimper a little while the new dressing was going on.  His father has looked so stressed and worried every time until today but he was actually smiling today too and seemed very relieved, in spite of the fact that Grace warned him of the possibility of the end of Stephen's finger falling off.  And indeed, barring a miracle, that's what we think will happen.  The end of the finger seems dead.  However there is healthy tissue growing and he can still move the finger.  It doesn't look infected.  Keep praying for him!  He's such a sweet little guy.

Yesterday Vicki and I went to P. for the health teaching.  Mark the evangelist walked 2 hours to pick us up and then cycled to P. with us (an hour in the hot sun!) and back and walked back to P..  Wow, that's 6 hours of travel for him!  And he translates the lessons.  He borrows one of our staff bikes for the cycling part at the moment but is due to get one of the bikes that SIM is getting to help some of these evangelists in the near future.

It was great to be out in a village.  We started with only 5 people but by the end of the lesson there were 11.  There were a couple of old men, a man who did a lot of the talking who Mark later told us is some sort of witchdoctor, and a bunch of friendly ladies.  A whole bunch of kids gathered when we first came but they were sent away by the adults.  We asked them to please let the children stay and encourage them to come the next time.  Next time it will be my turn to try doing the lesson!  I picked up 2 new Mabaan words during the lesson--faeces and flies!

It was a BEAUTIFUL bike ride to P., along a good, flat road.  I was soooo sore last night.  I definitely am getting my exercise here.  At meal times, I feel famished!  My metabolism, which has always been good anyway, is in overdrive.  I eat a lot because we really can't keep leftovers and there's usually a bit too food and neither Grace nor Vicki has a very big appetite.  So I'm the garburator and the cats get what I can't eat.

This Saturday, I'll go to another village called G. where Vicki is also doing the health teaching.  I want to be out in the villages as much as possible because we don't have the freedom to be out of the compound without an escort here, because of the soldiers nearby.  If it doesn't feel like too much, I'll help her with the health teaching in G. too.

Wow, this is becoming a book and I've mostly written about one day!  I'd better go get some sleep here!

continued!

Tomorrow I'm going to a village called P. with Vicki and an evangelist from there.  Last Monday Vicki started going there for health teaching.  This week I will observe and help her with a skit and then next week we'll start alternating.  We're doing a series of lessons called "Community-Based Prevention of Blindness" about hygiene practices and flies spreading trachoma, that we got at our seminar in Nairobi.  Mark the evangelist will translate for us.

Then on Tuesday I'm going to start learning Mabaan with Butros, a sweet Mabaan man in his 70's who's been working with Vicki and Grace.  He's super cute. He lives just outside the compound and comes and translates often when we have patients.

I've asked him to help me find a lady who can be my language helper on Wed, Thurs, Fri.  Please pray that we'll find the right person.  It's going to take a lot of preparation on my part because this lady/girl will not speak a word of English most likely and we'll be starting right from scratch.  I'll need to use lots of pictures or objects in the beginning.

It will be good to have Butros on Tuesdays so I can get some explanation of grammar (I also have some exercise books to work with), ask "How do you say..." so I can have a few useful greetings and phrases to try with people, and get him to communicate with my other language helper how I'd like to go about the lessons.

I also hope to spend time each day studying my tropical diseases, in preparation for the time when we open this health center for real.  I also would like to start visiting the neighbors to try to practice my Mabaan as I learn.

On Saturdays, Vicki is teaching at another village called G. and Grace and I may or may not join in on that, depending on how busy the rest of the week becomes.

I moved into my tukul (mud hut) yesterday.  Until then I was staying in Rob's safari tent while a guy made my bed and the mud walls finished drying.  I love my little house!  The walls are actually not finished yet.  They need to be plastered still.  Normally it's done with mud but the ladies around here started charging way too much for it so Rob decided we would wait until a guy can come from Kenya in October and plaster my tukul and another one with cement.

So I have cracks in my walls which is not terribly comforting but hasn't been a problem yet!  A few moths get in but mostly swarm around my light.  There's an open space all along the sides of the room from where the grass roof ends to where the mud walls start but that is covered with screens and chicken wire so it lets the air in but keeps critters out.  My grass ceiling is covered with clear plastic which is a good thing because lizards crawl all through it!  I can see them but they can't get inside!  It stays remarkably cool in these tukuls.

Well, I could go on and on but I really need to go and do some work.

Hi from D.!

Hi Everyone,

Just wanted to drop you all a quick note, before I go and help cook the goat!

Today is Sunday and I went to my first Mabaan church service in the little grass building in D.  Wow these people can sing--I just loved listening to them this morning.  Music all in Mabaan, preaching in Mabaan and all translated into Arabic since there are some SPLA soldiers and families from other tribes.  I could catch a few of the Arabic words so that was interesting and kept me from getting bored and tuning out during the preaching.  I can't wait to start learning Mabaan--I HATE not being able to understand and talk to people.  There are a few elders who speak English and the BELC students are learning in English but most people know not a word of English.  There is also a lot of Arabic mixed in with the Mabaan.

We have had a few patients come every single day.  2 days ago the sick babies started to come so I've been involved with those.  Yesterday something really amazing happened.  We had a positive malaria test result for a 2 year old boy, the son of one of the church leaders here.  Yesterday morning an MAF plane delivered new medicines for our clinic from Voice of the Martyrs and included in those were the best oral malaria treatment for children that you can give so I was able to give him that and could tell the family that God had provided just in time so he could have good treatment.  Before the plane arrived we only had medicine that the malaria can be resistant to and more difficult to give to young children.  The little boy walked into church with his mother this morning, looking all right as rain, thank the Lord!

Please pray for a 10 year old boy, named Stephen who came to us yesterday having nearly lost his finger when it got in the way as his brother was chopping branches off a tree with an axe.  The injury was 3 days old and looking very nasty.  Grace is dressing it every day and giving him what antibiotics we can but it really is beyond what we can do.  There is no tetanus immunization available here and he really needs much better antibiotics than what we have.  He's also been in excruciating pain during cleaning and dressing of the wound and we have no strong pain killers for him.  He and his father walked several miles from another village to bring him.  Please pray for protection against infection and for his healing because this really will take a miracle.

Gotta go help with the goat...will continue later!

All my trunks are packed and I'm ready to go...

This is me in my apartment at the guesthouse, packing my locally-made metal trunks for Sudan. They're strong and durable and will keep moisture and creatures out of my stuff in my mud hut. Thursday was an EXHAUSTING day of running around to 3 massive department stores to finish buying all of the supplies I need for Sudan. Then that evening I packed my trunks up and the next day our SIM Sudan office manager Peter came and picked them (and Grace's trunks) up along with our bicycles and charcoal braziers. On Monday, we'll be sending them on ahead of us by truck to a town in the north of Kenya, which will be a lot cheaper than paying excess baggage for them on our flight there next Sunday. From there we'll be flying up into Sudan on Tuesday, July 24th on a mission aircraft--the big day for me! I'm very excited about my charcoal brazier, which I'll be using to cook. The top picture is a close up of it--the inside is clay and it has a grill over the top. And there's a close-up of one of my metal trunks. Don't worry--the pictures will get better! I just haven't had much chance to take any!

Matatu!

Today I had my first wild ride on a matatu, a Kenyan taxi van. In Sierra Leone, these same vehicles were called poda-podas and they always made me happy. They are so very Africa! I think I rode the whole way to the shops we went to and all the way back with a silly grin on my face, enjoying the moment and remembering funny times in poda-podas and taxis in Sierra Leone. They come careening down the road and slam on the breaks when they see you, very nearly running you over. They're usually quite full--a driver and a couple passengers in the front and then 3 rows of ancient rickety seats in the back. When you get in, people might be kind enough to move back so you can easily sit down--otherwise you push your way to the back and fall into your seat (Grace fell into a man's lap as the matatu lurched forward on our way home which was rather humorous). There's always a guy who hangs out the open door half the time during the drive and is in charge of collecting the 10-20 shillings from each person. On the same trip as Grace pushed her way to the back, the doorman opened the front door for me to get in and sit with the driver and his friend. I knew I didn't have time to get in gracefully as these matatus don't tend to wait for you too long, so I tried to swing my bags and one leg up onto the seat in one impossible swift motion and as I did so the matatu lunged forward and I nearly fell right out of the vehicle before I could get my other leg in. I laughed as I managed to keep my balance and the doorman closed the door for me. The driver and his friend didn't miss a beat and kept right up with their animated conversation. They sure didn't seem too bothered that I had nearly fallen out of their van! We had a good laugh as we got off the matatu and carried on down the road, passing a little taxi car being pushed down the road by 3 men with big grins on their faces, clearly thinking it was hilarious that their taxi had just died. Transport in Africa--gotta love it!

Today I also had my first Arabic lesson with a Sudanese man who lives on our compound and has been starting Arabic lessons with new missionaries for a while now. It was a blast! I learned 10 characters of the Arabic alphabet and how to connect them together to make words and sentences. In the process I learned how to say father, my father, your father, what is your name, my name is Amy, Lord, my Lord, your Lord, girl, my girl, your girl. The exciting part was learning the rules of stringing the alphabet characters together and then being able to read a few words that I had never heard before in my life! We'll do this every day until I leave for Sudan to give me a little background in Arabic so I can try to use it in the marketplace with Arab traders, etc.

It's been a very busy few days--lots of running around purchasing supplies, running errands, doing orientation sessions, etc. Tomorrow will be another busy one as Grace and I study Arabic in the morning and then go shopping again and try to get most of the rest of the things we need to take into Sudan. I'd better go get some sleep!

Karibu Kenya!

This means "Welcome to Kenya" in Swahili and I heard it several times this morning. I went to an Africa Inland Church nearby with Vicky and Barb. The service was in English but we sang several songs in Swahili. My family will get a kick out of this: I was excited to find that I knew the first Swahili song word for word because I loved the African Children's Choir when I was a kid! = ) "Yesu ni wangu ni wa uzima wa-milele!" Don't ask me what it means cuz I don't actually know except that it's something about Jesus. Wambui, if you're out there, can you leave me a comment and translate please? Anyway, it was fun to sing along and I did my best with the others too. Fortunately we had a song sheet with all the words. I was the only new visitor today so had to stand up and introduce myself. I was told that as a visitor I could enter the church through any door that I liked but could only leave through one, the one by the kitchen. After the service somebody escorted me to the kitchen and made me a cup of Kenyan tea. The sermon was given by a Dr. Such and Such, a highly intellectual and historical introduction to the book of Ephesians. It was interesting.

Then Vicky and Barb and I went to an Ethiopian restaurant for lunch. We had doro wot (a chicken dish) and shiro wot (a chickpea dish) with injera, the Ethiopian flat pancake-like bread. I've had all of these lots of times before but they were particularly tasty today. We sat outside in a little alcove of trees.

Vicky walked me home so I could learn the way and we stopped at a shopping center where there's a Maasai market outside on Sunday afternoons. It was HUGE and there was the most beautiful selection of African woodwork, paintings, jewelry, and loads of other crafts. I had to get out of there quick before I spent any money! I definitely know where to go to buy presents from now on!

Yesterday all of us nurses went shopping for supplies and I bought a lot of my kitchen stuff and towels and linens for Sudan. We went to 3 massive superstores that sell everything imaginable. It actually reminded me of the big department stores in Japan. It was such a shock to find these in Kenya! If you looked at my purchases you'd think I was getting ready for a big camping trip, which indeed I am! I'm already learning about new cooking methods that I didn't know existed. Today Vicky showed me her new "fireless cooker". It's a traditional Kenyan thing--a big insulated basket. You bring your rice or porridge or whatever to the boil (on a charcoal brazier in our case), take it off the heat and stick it in this basket for a few hours and voila! your food is ready! A slow cooker without electricity--brilliant!

My most exciting purchase yesterday was a bike. Vicky and Grace and I are going to be cycling through the bush to different Mabaan villages in the near future so a bike is essential. However, we're trying to figure out how we're going to ride a bike in a long skirt or wear trousers and change into a skirt before we get to a village...tricky!

We had a great day of planning on Friday, at the end of the community health and development seminar. We were trying to use the principles discussed during the week to plan the next steps of ministry among the Mabaan. All the members of our health team so far were there as well as our director and the 2 Sudanese pastors. Next week Dr. Rob, Vicky and the Mabaan pastor will return to Sudan and visit a couple of villages to start a process of "appreciative enquiry"--which is a term coined by Bryant Myers, author of Walking with the Poor--that we learned about this week. I haven't read the book yet so I don't know the ins and outs but basically you go to a community and meet people, introduce yourself, and observe. Then you ask if you can return sometime and, for example, talk with the women about their community. You return when they tell you to and then begin asking questions like, "Tell me about your community." "What are you proud of?" "How have you as a people sustained yourselves through...(the war)? "What kind of sicknesses are there?" In this way you have an opportunity to focus their attention on their gifts and resources (rather than their poverty) and find out what their main concerns and needs are. (ie. as a focus for community development work). You then tell them about the teaching or whatever you have available and ask if they are interested. If they are, they tell you when you should return.

I think it's simple but very profound. We come in and listen to them and respect who they are as image-bearers of God and the resources they have as a community, rather than coming in with our own agenda of what we think their needs are and assuming that we are welcome there. This really jives with me and I'm looking forward to reading the book and learning more.

So, we're hoping that these trips will uncover some ideas of what these 2 communities' felt needs are so that Vicky (with the help of Grace and I) can begin some basic health teaching there (hence the cycling through the bush) with a translator to build relationships with these communities.

Tomorrow morning we have a SIM Sudan team prayer meeting and then in the afternoon we'll continue our discussions from Friday. Please continue to pray for the Holy Spirit's leading as we plan and for unity to be built within our team.

Congratulations if you made it this far! I'm sorry this is such a long post--I just have so much I want to share!

An amazing week!

Today I got to walk back with Grace from the SIM Kenya/Sudan office compound where we're having the seminar to the guesthouse where we live. It's about a 15 minute walk. Up until today I've only been driven back and forth so it was fun to walk today and immediately experience some of the joys of Africa--walking past the stands selling fruits and vegetables by the road and stopping to buy some avocadoes from a very friendly Kenyan lady named Grace who was very excited that one of us was named Grace! We took a back route to get away from traffic and got to admire all the beautiful flowers hanging on trees branches over people's gates. So much brilliant color!

I've really enjoyed meeting all the Kenyans at the SIM Kenya office. They have been so lovely and welcoming to me. I love all the greetings with them--big handshakes and smiles all around.

The last 2 days at the seminar we've discussed a lot of tough issues like sustainability and what it really is and how we can work towards it right from the beginning. We've talked about approaches to church planting and how the principles of community development we've been learning this week apply to it. I think everyone has been challenged and convicted and that we're eager to move forward. It's been an amazing week and I know now why it was so important for me to be here. I can't imagine missing all of this!

I'm excited to see how God is bringing together the things He's been teaching me the last couple years about mission and community development and giving me a deeper understanding and grounding in them now--a real Biblical foundation for them. When I applied to SIM over a year ago, I had 2 sentences about the community health work in Sudan to go on but it sounded like the sort of thing that God had really been putting on my heart. Little by little, He kept confirming to me in different ways that this was the place for me. Now it seems very clear--this is the place where I can learn to do the things that I feel are desperately important in this broken place, with experienced team members who are being brought together with one purpose.

I am facing the reality that this is going to be excruciatingly difficult-the complexities of South Sudan keep coming up over and over again as barriers as we discuss the issues. There is a spiritual battle raging-we need an army of people to join us in prayer!

Tomorrow is an important day for us--all morning we're going to be discussing a plan for moving forward with the community development among the Mabaan, based on the principles we've been talking about this week. Please pray for sensitivity to the leading of the Spirit, for wisdom, and unity.

Nairobi Day 2

I'm sitting on my balcony and just finished a cup of hibiscus tea--yummy! It's a little chilly! (the weather I mean)

Today was another great day at the seminar. I wish I could take you all along! Today the morning devotion time was on being image-bearers of God (Gen. 1), being crowned with glory and honor by God (Psalm 8:4-5), and our ministry being one of reconciliation of this image among the people in our communities (2 Cor. 5:18-20). It really set the tone for the rest of our sessions today and I think it can make a big difference when we view people (especially the poor, oppressed, and marginalized) this way. I'm so pumped that God provided so I can be here for this seminar. I'm the youngest person in the group and several people have commented on how blessed I am to be receiving this training at the beginning of my ministry in Sudan rather than later in life. So I do feel very blessed!

Oh, I forgot to mention yesterday that I met my first Mabaan person. One of the pastors, actually the chairman of the Sudan Interior Church (SIM-related churches in Sudan) for South Sudan has joined us at the seminar the past 2 days and today another pastor (from the Dinka tribe, the largest in Sudan) joined us as well. It's been great to have their input into our discussions, giving an insider perspective, and for all of us (Kenyans, Muzungus--white people in Swahili, and Sudanese) to learn together. I think it's very exciting!

Sounds like I will be heading to Lokichoggio, northern Kenya (our launching point into Sudan) on July 23rd and then on into Sudan on July 24th! The rest of the team needs to go back in the week before so I will be travelling by myself, by commercial airline to Loki and then by mission plane (with my stuff and probably a bunch of gear for the base to fill up the plane and of course a pilot!) up into Mabaan county.

Today we also had a report from Dr. Rob on the First Annual Health Assembly for South Sudan that he recently attended. He gave us an overview of the health needs and issues for South Sudan that he learned about there and they are staggering. The most sobering thing was the maternal mortality rate, which is 2,037/100,000, the highest in the world and indeed the highest ever recorded. In addition the under 5 mortality rate is 250/1000 and there is also a huge severe child malnutrition rate. We learned that South Sudan's health facilities are very much concentrated in a few states in the far south, with other areas further north including ours, devoid of health facilities of any kind. The exciting thing is that there are plans to decentralize the health services in South Sudan and a growing emphasis on small primary health care units and centers, of the sort that we are hoping to develop. Please pray for us this week as we talk about plans for the beginnings of this health work.

Greetings from Nairobi!

I'm here! It's the end of my first day in Nairobi. Everything went smoothly with my flight, my luggage arrived with me, and I had no trouble going through customs or getting my visa. Thanks for praying!

Nairobi has been a complete shock to me, since my mind was preparing me for a city like Freetown, Sierra Leone. The airport is really nice and the part of the city I'm in is very developed. In fact, I had to remind myself a couple times today that I'm in Africa! But parts of my day were very Africa and it's good to be back! The weather has also been unexpected. I think it's about 18 C tonight and I wore a fleece most of the day.

I'm staying at the SIM Sudan guesthouse and sharing a flat with Grace, one of the nurses on my team. She's a retired nurse and a grandmother of 10 and is now doing a 2 year stint in South Sudan! Unbelievable!

The guesthouse is very comfortable and what do you know? I have access to wireless internet for $1/day through the director's wireless network upstairs! So feel free to email me--we CAN communicate! By the way, if anyone is on Skype or Messenger, let me know and we can try to connect.

Today was the first day of our community development seminar. In addition to Rob the doctor and Vicky, Barb, and Grace the nurses on my team there are several other people with other organizations, a mix of Americans and Kenyans. There are 2 ladies facilitating. One is American and one is Kenyan, both with a lot of training and experience with Christian community development in Africa. There was a lot of experience in the room and hearing all of the African perspectives, both from the Kenyans and experienced missionaries in Africa, was very enlightening. It's a great time to be here with my team, thinking through how we should approach this new work as it begins. There are many difficult issues. Vicky and Grace, who were in South Sudan over the last few months, are struggling with trying to focus on learning language and getting to know the people and their needs BEFORE starting health work while there are sick people coming to them each day or people wanting them to go and visit a sick relative. Please pray for us this week as we discuss and learn. We really want to be led by God and to ensure that this health and development work is holistic, owned by the people, and sustainable by them. That's what this week is all about.

Well, I'd better go for now. Watch this space as I intend to do a lot of blogging about my new experiences here in Kenya!