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.