Orality

One of the great things about living in Nairobi is all the different training opportunities that pop up. This past weekend I (Amy) had the opportunity to attend a one-day workshop on "Orality" or making disciples of oral learners at the Navigators Kenya. We had also had an afternoon of training on orality during our team's discipleship seminar in April and I jumped at the chance to learn more. We had facilitators from Malawi and Nigeria and a culturally diverse group of participants. We spent a good part of the day telling and re-telling the story of Jesus calming the storm in Mark 4--first the facilitators to us, then a group discussion demonstrating the effectiveness of questions such as "What was your favorite part of the story and why?", "Which character do you most identify with?" in drawing out important truths, then us to each other in small groups, and then each person to the whole group. The facilitators wanted us to see that the best way to learn to tell stories well is to practice telling stories and I could certainly see how we all improved the more we told the story.

I'm really excited about learning this method of sharing the stories of God's Word and pray that the Lord will open doors for me to use it, among women in South Sudan someday, or even sooner perhaps. Please pray with me about ministry opportunities the Lord may have for me here in Kenya while Nate is studying.

On that note, our family has so much to praise the Lord for. Early last week, Nate was able to complete his seminary application by collecting all of the various documents needed from his Bachelor's degree, etc. Thank you so much to each of our prayer partners and supporters that sent feedback about this. All of the feedback was very supportive and encouraging and has helped to confirm the Lord's will to us. Now we are waiting for his application and student visa to be processed, and hope to apply for accommodation on campus so our whole family can be part of this experience. Please continue to pray through this process with us.

We also praise the Lord for providing a good deal on a car that's in great shape, for our time in Kenya. This will enable us to live out at or near the school and get into the city when we need to as well as make things like grocery shopping a lot easier, especially with 2 kids! By the way, the pregnancy is progressing well and we're just starting the 3rd trimester. We're really excited to meet our son!

Exploration in South Sudan

The Nile River is the longest river in the world, running more than 4,000 miles (6,500 km) in length.  During the last week in South Sudan, I got to see a couple of those miles as I traveled from Malakal (pictured above) to different locations in Upper Nile State (pictured below).

The highlight of the trip was the arrival in Melut to see the campus of GTC (Gideon Theological College).  Other SIM teammates have recently arrived to start ministry.  Their website is located here with some great photos.