Meeting old friends

The first week in Germany was awesome – apart from having to get over Duenge Fever, which I brought back from Sudan. The look on my mum’s face when she saw me standing in the door was definitively worth the flight (she didn’t know I was coming for her 60th)!!! I also had a fantastic time in my church and with my sisters and friends – lots of catching up…

I got to England on the 24th of November and pretty much that day my pastor told me that he would actually quite like me doing my Master’s degree at Regents (my former college). After some discussion I met with the dean of postgraduate studies on the 26th and there seemed to be a wide open door that just fitted – I still consider Nantwich my home so it’s nice to be able to spend another year studying here. After some discussions at Elim headquarters we decided it would be best to do the Master’s full-time in one year thus I will be starting in January and finishing off in December.

I’ve had a great time over the last few weeks, which is a real answer to prayer. I was a bit afraid to come back and find that I don’t fit in anymore but I’ve just had such a great welcome and it was/is a joy to catch up with friends at college and at church. I spoke Sudan at a different church every Sunday for the last 4 Sundays which was such a privilege and I enjoyed myself thoroughly – you have to ask the people in the churches whether they also enjoyed listening to me though :-).

After all that happened this year it was really good to meet up at Elim headquarters and brainstorm and seek God’s guidance together about the future. You might have gathered from the amount of changes mentioned in my newsletters that this year was a bit chaotic regarding the number of organisations I worked with as my first contract with Open Doors fell through in April. It was never planned like this but looking back I really think God had his hands on every single moment of this year and I am thankful for all the experiences and exposure I had in Sudan. Needless to say though, we are very keen that the problems of this year will not repeat themselves over again when I go back so Elim is now making enquiries on an official/organisational level to have things ready in place for December ‘08.

Please pray for Chris Jones and for the enquiries that will be made over the next few weeks and months. There are a number of options/offers on the table and it will take discernment and wisdom to figure out the best move also keeping in mind the always changing political reality in Sudan.

I will be moving on campus on the 3rd of January straight after I come back from Germany. Please pray that the move goes well and that I settle back into student life quickly. I am a bit nervous as I haven’t studied for the last 1 ½ years so I hope I’ll be ok. Please also pray that I will build good relationships at college.

January is full now, but there are still plenty of free Sundays from February onwards. So if you would like me to come to your church please email either myself or Caroline at missionsadmin@elimhq.net

Back in Goli

I have been in Goli this week teaching as they were stuck for teachers and asked me to come out. It has been a great week of catching up with students and former co-workers. Goli looks so different in rainy season – and also when things are not burned down and black!!

The weeks previously to Goli where quiet – I kept doing my work in the office for the Sudan Literature Centre and I am glad that I will have finished my 350 documents when I leave next week. I do feel that I’ve made a contribution to SLC and Across, which is a good feeling to leave with.

Talking about leaving: I have less than a week left in Yei and preparations are running high. I was able to sell all the furniture and kitchen utensils I bought which I am really glad about. There will be a big leaving party on Saturday the 10th with barbeque and bonfire, which I am looking forward to – obviously J. Please pray for the last minute leaving arrangements and for all the goodbyes I will have to say over the course of next week.

I will leave Yei on the 15th of November flying out to Entebbe, Uganda. I have about 1 ½ days in Entebbe and then fly out with Brussels Airline midnight 16th to Munich, Germany, where I will have one week with my family. It’s my mum’s 60th birthday and she does not know that I am coming – my sisters know though. Please pray for good and smooth flights and for the time with my family – first time to see my mum in 1 ½ years!! I also have 3 speaking engagements with my church in Germany during this week and ask you to really pray for good fellowship and open hearts.

New deadline for army pull-out
There have been talks between north and south Sudan and a new deadline was set for the army pull-out which is the 15th of December. It was also decided that a joint UN-AU (African Union) force is to be deployed to the oil fields to strengthen peace there. Please pray that the deadline will be kept this time.

Again, all my Sundays before Christmas are full, but I am still free from January to May. If you would like me to come to your church please email either myself or Caroline at missionsadmin@elimhq.net

I will see most of you in about 2 weeks

The Cush Consultation

The Cush Consultation is a conference for Christian Non-Government-Organisations (NGOs) and missions working in Southern Sudan and was hosted by Across in Yei at the end of September. The theme was “The Body of Christ Working in Unity – Strategic Ministry in Southern Sudan until 2011” (in 2011 southern Sudan votes for independence from the north – a decisive year for the peace in Sudan).

The two weeks before Cush were super busy with organising things – I was doing the registrations on the Yei end and was put in charge of the worship for the conference. But I can honestly say it was a joy and a pleasure! In a whole we had approximately 100 people present representing about 25 organisations and it was a fantastic time of networking and meeting people. I was greatly encouraged by the fact that we had a working group dedicated to Nuba Mountains and there seems to be increasing interest in working there. I was also so happy to see Pastor Moris again who flew down from Nuba to attend the conference. I spent 1 week with him and his family when I went to Nuba in June.

I have about 5 weeks left in Sudan and I’d ask you to pray for a good wind-up with Across, work-wise and also relationship-wise. Please pray for wisdom and guidance as I prepare to leave Yei knowing that once again I have to leave behind friends that have become family to me.

All my Sundays before Christmas are now full, but I am still free from January to May. If you would like me to come to your church please email either myself or Caroline at missionsadmin@elimhq.net

I will see a lot of you in about 6 weeks :-)

Master's Degree

I've had a good break break in Kenya for a few days and have come back refreshed, though feeling that the break could have been longer. While I was out on break I finally got down to tackle some emails that had been piling up and realised that one of them was about student support for possible further studies. After discussions with my pastors and my missions headquarters, we have decided that it would be good for me to come back to England to do a Master's Degree, which is why I will be in the UK from November onwards for a year. I'd lose my support if I put it off any longer and once I've got a Master's degree under my belt, I can always teach on a BA level. Anyhow, I am in the process of registering with Redcliffe college for an MA in Global Issues and Contemporary Mission for that purpose and will let you know how it works out.

Coming back to the time now: We have just had a great week of Across staff retreat in Yei where everyone came together to fellowship and worship. I have attached pictures and hope you all enjoy them. Please pray for the Cush Consultation that is coming up at the end of September and which is hosted by Across as well. Cush is a conference for Christian NGOs working in Southern Sudan to come together to network and has been crucial in the past for many organisations. Please also pray for the rest of my time here in Yei that God will continue to work in me here and that I will have a good wind-up with Across. I will be flying out to Europe on the 16th of November – first to Germany and then to England.

ECS Theological Commission

First of all, thank you for prayer for the trip to Juba. It was an amazing time. I was an observer to the ECS (Episcopal church of Sudan) theological commission in Juba (Across partners with ECS in the south) and there were reports from the 5 ECS provincial colleges alongside reports from the TEE (theological education by extension) centres of south, central and northern Sudan, which were very interesting. It was a great time of fellowship with Patricia Wick (she is a British Anglican Minister who has worked in Sudan for the last 9 years) and other Bishops from ECS.

I also spoke to the TEE north coordinator and found out that they have already translated the TEE materials into the Arabic script, which will speed up the process of translating it into Nuba languages… Across didn’t have a record of this because those materials were translated in the 1980s when the war was going on which made communication difficult. The TEE coordinator also confirmed that ECS north has not really branched out into Nuba Mountains yet – they have one small class of 18 students in Kadugli and that’s it for the whole of Nuba. In addition, I got to know the principal of Shukai Bible College in Omdurman last week too and he has already emailed me the contact details for the Bishop of Kadugli (capital of Nuba Mountains), which will be a useful contact. Please keep praying for God to open a way for me to go to Nuba permanently.



After the theological commission finished, I accompanied Patricia to Lui, which is about 4 hours north of Juba – 8 hours from Yei. We met with some more CMS missionaries up there and I had the great privilege of looking at other people’s work and asking lots of questions again.

Summary of the time in Nuba

Thank you for your constant prayers and encouragement during the time in Nuba Mountains. Some of you have received weekly updates throughout my time there, though not all of you, which is why I’ll just give you a brief summary of Nuba here. The past month in Nuba has been an extraordinary experience for me and it is really hard to be back in Yei now as I left my heart in Nuba. I am hoping and praying very much that God will open up a door for me to go up there and work there permanently. I spent most of my time in Moro, which is one of the least exposed areas to foreigners and there were lots of (older) people that had never seen a white woman before – they know Chris and the SP guys but there are no women working with SP here. They would all come and touch my skin and brush through my hair and I would just sit there and smile – they are amazing people.

One big testimony for me was when we got to Moro for the second time and there were already 2 of my students waiting for me that had waited the whole day!! We were still in the car when somebody radio-called to say that they were there and then the others just turned to me and said: “You have never been here before so how come you already have people waiting for you?” I think for me it was really encouraging because 1. it shows that Goli was strategic in God’s plan for me and my future ministry and 2. because it confirmed that God has given me teaching skills – otherwise my students would not have wanted to see me again J. When I finally got there, we sat down and talked and I told them of what I’d like to do in Moro. They were very supportive and arranged a pastors’ meeting for the following week. 15 local pastors/elders were invited and 25 showed up – it was incredible. We had about 2 hours together in which I introduced myself and then the suggested work in Moro and they really took it on board. I have now left the TEE material with them for translation and will communicate with them through Chris.

But for now I am now back in Yei, but only for a couple of days. I’ll be flying to Maridi to meet with Rev. Patricia Wick on Friday, who is a female Anglican Pastor here (British), who is heading up the TEE programme for Equatoria. I’ll spend about a week with her talking about TEE and then will be back in Yei. I’ll probably spend the whole of August in Rumbek on the Across base as they have the best-structured TEE programme there so far, but also because I want to participate in an Anamed programme on natural medicine, where they teach you how to make soap, and how to use medicinal plants as etc, but its not yet confirmed. I guess I keep myself busy :-).

I had a fantastic time in Moro, though it was quite stressful staying at lots of different people's houses and meeting so many people. We had two SP church openings and one wedding. My birthday was a little weird since Sudanese don't celebrate birthdays and all the SP guys down there forgot it... Men!! :-)

I came back to Kauda yesterday for one night and I am off to Heiban today to another wedding celebration of one of the SP guys. I will stay up in Heiban for a little bit as I have some more students up there who I really want to meet. I will fly back this coming Thursday, have one day in transit in Nairobi and will be back in Yei by the 30th of June. Thanks so much for your prayers and all the emails congratulating me.

I was in the middle belt of the Nuba for the last 5 days looking at the area around Kauda and some of the projects Samaritan's Purse are doing here. I will be leaving for Moro again this afternoon and ask you to really pray for this trip. I'll stay there for 10 days with one of the pastors in the village. It's going to be the "testing time" and I am quite curious what I will say 10 days from now...

Visit to Moro

I was in Moro for the last 3 days, which is about 5 hours from Kauda. I met some students there, which I had taught in Goli - it was quite surreal to see them here but a wonderful experience to be able to visit them in their home villages...We got stuck in the mud on Saturday, and the traktor came to pull us out, but then the traktor got stuck too and a larger traktor had to come to pull the traktor out and then us... :-) It was kind of fun though it took us the whole day to get it out.

Nuba Mountains

Dear friends

Thank you for all your prayers for the time in Nairobi and for your continuous support. I have already been back in Sudan now for one week and am doing really well here. The time in Nairobi was fruitful in a lot of ways. My job description was changed, about which I am quite glad. Now I am 40 % with the church empowerment project, with which I will be organising and teaching TEE courses amongst other things. 60 % of my time is still devoted to the Sudan Literature Centre, where I work on TEE materials right now. The job description is still a little bit open and will have to be changed again, but for now I am set with the 60/40 split.

I also got a lot of rest when I was in Nairobi, which I desperately needed. I didn’t realise how exhausted I was until I got to Nairobi – maybe that was to be expected after bushfire, contract issues moving around and everything else… But I feel that God blessed me lots and that I could really re-charged my batteries. During the second week in Nairobi I was already looking forward to going back to Sudan and I praise God for that. The first week back was really good and I settled in well at Across. One major answer to prayer also occurred, which is that I got to know a lot more people – a bunch of girls staying at the compound next to the one I am living on. I also get to know the Across staff a little better, which is nice.

As part of the TEE programme, I will fly to Kauda, Nuba Mountains (central Sudan) on the 7th of June with Samaritan’s Purse (SP), a Christian NGO. I am flying to Loki in northern Kenya tomorrow (Tuesday) on a UN plane with the World Food Programme and fly up to Kauda from Loki on Thursday. The next plane coming back from Kauda will only be on the 28th of June which SP also booked me on. So, I’ll actually have my birthday up in Nuba Mountains :-). The logistics are very difficult here so please keep praying for this trip.

My plans for Nuba are to connect with the Sudanese Church of Christ amongst other churches and with two women called Marissa and Tabitha, who do church outreach – I’d like to gather information on what the church needs and also what they already have. I have also been in touch with a guy called Ryan who works for Samaritan’s Purse in Kauda, who already does a lot of church outreach there. Apart from the semi-official info that I’ll gather for Across’s TEE programmes, I am personally interested in Nuba and to maybe one day work there, so I look forward to “testing the waters.”

Nuba will be around 45­C right now and they have lots of snakes/scorpions up there – so please pray for safety and good endurance of the heat. This will also be my first time “in the bush” as I’ll stay at different houses in the villages every day and I am a little worried that my cross-cultural awareness and readiness will let me down – I think it will be a huge learning curve for me. Please pray that I can really be flexible and open to whatever lies ahead over the next few weeks.

Good Start

Thank you for the emails and gentle reminders that I have to update you again. I moved into Yei last Wednesday and have been settling into my new home ever since. After the mass accommodation of Goli, having my own space, including kitchen and bathroom, is pure luxury. The house is fantastic and I also have a really nice helper, a lady called Margaret.

I started work with Across on Monday and things are going well there. The Sudanese staffs are really nice and everybody makes me feel welcome. Right now I learn a lot of computer skills for a programme called Ventura Publisher (VP), which is a book-editing software that the Sudan Literature Centre uses (which is run by Across). I am editing Christian materials for publishing on Sudanese church history and TEE programmes (theological education by extension). I will also have Juba Arabic lessons twice a week starting in 2 weeks.

I will be flying to Nairobi on Monday the 7th of May to the 21st for orientation at the Across headquarters and for some in-house training on proposal writing – I hope that it will also be a little bit of a break since the last few weeks have been quite taxing. Moving into Yei was quite a major change and I found the last two weeks rather difficult also because I don’t really know anybody here and return to an empty house every day. I hope that will change over the next few weeks.

Here are a few prayer points for the next weeks:

1. the Nairobi trip: Please pray that everything will go well at the Across HQs and that I can also get some rest during those two weeks.

2. Living in Yei: Please pray that God will really open up friendships and that I will not feel that alone anymore.

3. Working with Across: Please pray that I find into my work quickly and that I can be an asset to the Across team.

Thank you for your constant prayers and financial support.

Change of Organisation

First of all, happy Easter and I hope you all got some rest and spiritual insight over the last few days. Alison has come and gone and we had a fantastic time together. Thanks so much for all your prayers for her trip and our time here. Unfortunately, I developed a mix of Malaria and gut infection the day before Alison came and had high fever when she arrived in Goli, though praise God, I recovered fairly quickly from it and we did manage to see all the people we had to, as well as spending many hours talking.

Unfortunately, the problems concerning the contract between Elim and ECTC could not be resolved and I will stop working at Goli by the end of April. Despite the bushfire and the problems re contract, I had a wonderful time at Goli and loved teaching here. ECTC and Elim split with no hard feelings on either side and I am sure I will visit my friends out here regularly in the future.

I am more than grateful that my contract was taken over by a Christian NGO called Across (see www.across-sudan.org), which has a base in Yei, about 20 miles away from Goli. Across has been working in Sudan since 1972, ie also during the 20 years of war, and have a lot of experience here, as well as bases all over southern Sudan of which the one in Yei is the largest. In Yei, they run the Sudan Literature Centre (SLC), which produces and prints all the Christian material for the churches in southern Sudan. They also have a large training college for Christian teachers and are involved with Spirit.FM the Christian radio station in town. The details with Across still have to be finalised, but it will likely be the following:

1. For the first 6 months or so I will be involved with the SLC, where some short-term work needs to be done
2. Long-term there are two main areas in which I will probably get involved:
- Fundraising with large donor organisations such as the EU, USAID and UNHCR
- The Christian Radio programmes: drawing up on-air bible courses, discipleship material and later on also presenting them. This work also includes networking with the churches here to identify the needs for the radio
3. There is also the option of Across using me for the teacher training, but that one should be short-term only if need arises that cannot be filled otherwise

Personally, I am very excited about the new opportunities since Across will also use my theology degree more than ECTC did. However, Across does not have staff accommodation, thus I was offered a room/kitchenette/bath on another NGO base, run by the Church Mission Society, who have a Vocational Training Centre there. I will move there at the end of April to take up my position some time in May. Since the Across headquarters are in Nairobi, I will have to fly there before I start working in Yei, to sign contracts and to get some orientation from Across. The Nairobi trip will probably be at the beginning of May for one or two weeks, which will likely be my only time outside Sudan/holiday for this year. So lots of changes ahead….

Bearing in mind all the organisational changes that we neither planned nor foresaw, we also had to look at our budget again as the costs of working with Across are a lot higher than those I had with ECTC, since I have to pay for room and board now on a monthly base which will come up to 250 pounds each month. In addition to that, we are now trying to raise the money to cover the trip to Nairobi, which was also not planned, but Across requires me to go. The trip itself will come up to about 700 pounds. I dislike talking about money issues in newsletters, but do want to ask if anybody would like to support me on a more regular basis monthly to help cover the ongoing costs or give a one time donation to cover the trip costs. Please contact me personally if you do or Alison Atkinson at acsah1960@yahoo.co.uk

Considering all this, there are a number of prayer requests that I would love you to pray for:

1. Moving to Yei: Please pray that moving house will work out fine and that I will feel at home quickly. Also pray that cooking will be ok, since I now have my own kitchen but also have to go shopping for myself, which will prove difficult. I will probably have to find somebody to do that for me everyday (there are no fridges here and food spoils quickly), as also it takes half an hour to get to the market and another half an hour back.

2. New friends: Since I am quite people orientated, I am anxious about having to find new friends again, also because the staff on the Across base is much older than at ECTC. There are a few other bases around where there are younger people, but generally, please pray that I will not feel lonely and that I will find good friends fairly soon.

3. Work at Across: Please pray that I will get to know the Across base quickly and that my work will be a blessing there. Also pray that I will get along with my new co-workers well and that strong relationships will also be formed there.

4. Financial Issues: Please pray that the flight to Nairobi will be covered and that more regular monthly support comes in.

Thank you so much for your continuous prayer and financial support. I always love to hear the news from home, so please keeping sending me your emails.

Blessings,Verena

Alison coming to Sudan

Thank you again so much for your constant encouragement via email and even on the phone (praise God for skype!).

The last few weeks have been surprisingly good and things have really calmed down here. Teaching continued as normal and I really got in the routine of teaching here – I will miss my students when they leave at the end of this week as our term finishes now. We had a big graduation service yesterday – the service was 4 hours long, but nice. I was so proud to see my students up there :-).

The situation concerning accommodation hasn’t really improved though, so I am still living in one of the classrooms with 5 other women. However, they did put UNICEF sheets in to partition the big room into smaller sections, so it actually feels like I have a single room. Unfortunately, the sheets don’t keep the noise out…

A lot of you will already know that Alison Atkinson, my pastor from Nantwich Elim, is coming out to see me here in Sudan this week, for which I ask your prayers. She is leaving tomorrow, getting to Entebbe, Uganda, on Wednesday and will fly up to Yei, Sudan, on Thursday – it always takes about two and a half days to actually get here. She will be flying back on the 2nd of April and again has 2 days travel. She is coming here to help and sort out some administrative problems that we’ve had with the contracts between Elim and ECTC, and also to see me in person – which I am very happy about! Please pray for save travel – in Africa we say that God might grant ‘journey mercies’. Please also pray that the meetings will go well and that the Holy Spirit will lead us and guide us in our conversations and decisions.

I think I keep it short for a change :-). Thanks again for your prayers and encouragement.

Updates

Thank you again for all your prayers and encouragement. This is now an update of our current situation here in Goli after the bush fire two weeks ago.

Things are settling back into normal life/routine again and I am back to my 6 classes a day schedule. The women's department closed this week and everybody breathed a sigh of relief, though this might sound horrible. However, the women and children were the biggest problem after the fire, since a lot of the things burnt and it was difficult to actually finish their term, which finishes earlier than the men's term. The men seem to pick up and fall back into the normal routine and I hope this is continuing until the end of March.

I was just looking at my blog again and read the newsletter I wrote in the middle of January, in which I quoted a piece of Scripture I felt God had given me for this coming year in Sudan. At that time I didn't really know what it meant, but reading it again now (I forgot about it actually), completely struck me in a different way:

"By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was waiting for the city with permanent foundations, whose architect and builder is God."

I guess the bit about "tents" and "God is building his permanent city" really struck me the most - since all the mud huts burnt down, we are now working to finish all the permanent buildings hopefully soon. But there is something even more significant in there, which is that God is the architect and that things are under his control. I think it just encourages me to know that despite the fact that I might not understand everything right now and face trials in my "tents", God knows and he controls.

Right now, most of us are not sleeping in tents - though about 6 members of staff are - but are still sleeping in mass accommodation in the class rooms, which will still be the case until the end of March. Please pray for strength and grace for each other to bear a situation with little privacy, which is taxing for everybody. The good side is that we really get to know each other though.

Please pray for my heavy teaching schedule that I will find my way into preparing for classes and becoming a good teacher. Since the women have left now, I am only with the men, which also bears its challenges since I am a single 23-year-old woman.

Thanks again for your support, financially as well as prayerfully. Let me say a special thanks to the students and staff at RTC, who gave a spontaneous offering, so that I can replace some of the things I lost during the fire. This was really unexpected and is very appreciated!

Journal of a bush fire

Thank you for all your encouragement throughout this week and your promises for prayers and even offers to sent stuff. Until now I was unable to sort out how post can actually be delivered to me, so right now nothing can be sent (those of you that have the address in Uganda, please don’t send anything there, as it will not reach me anymore). I hope that the address problem will be solved soon, but please pray for that as well, specially since I’ve had to ask my family to replace some of the stuff that has been burnt.

Let me now fill you in on the gaps of this week: The fire broke out Monday around noontime. I was still in class teaching when we felt the heat of the fire coming. By then, it was already too late. What had started out as a small bush fire, soon developed into a massive fire, driven on by a strong wind. The classrooms are about 500 meters away from the compound and living quarters and at first we couldn’t get there because the fire closed off the way. When we finally made it to the compound, the first huts were already on fire. Since our huts are – were - built in circles of 10 each, and all quite closely together, the fire spread within minutes to the other huts. There was no time to drive away the cars, so they caught fire one after another and the tanks exploded – thank God that nobody was hurt that day. In a whole, we’ve lost 48 huts, 4 cars/tractors and an enormous amount of furniture, bedding, mats etc.

However, none of the permanent cement buildings were damaged, so we accommodated the women and children there. Unfortunately, most of them don’t have roofs yet, none of them have windows and doors, so we pray that nobody will suffer from Malaria or get the flue. The men’s compounds was mostly still in tact – only a few huts burnt down there, so they just squeezed together and everybody had space – not all had a bed though. Our principle himself had to sleep on the porch on the floor.

Due to a serious accommodation problem for the staff, half of the staff members were taken out to Yei, the next city, including myself. When we came back Tuesday morning, I was very impressed by the vigour the students and the staff had already started tearing down the ruins of the huts and clearing out the place. Then Wednesday, everybody helped to clear away the rubble from the huts – I still have blisters. I am just so impressed about how much students and staff worked together in 40 degrees heat and about how the students responded to the crisis – in faith and honest prayer. On Wednesday, JP, the director of Open Doors Africa, came to assess the situation and the losses. Wednesday was also my first night out in Goli again, and it feels like being back in school. The members of staff now sleep in two of the classrooms, 7 females and 10 males.

We decided to get the students back into lecture mood as soon as possible and so I had a full schedule on Thursday with 5 classes. It has been better than expected. Everybody is coughing and paining from the smoke on Monday or from the work that followed. However, spirits are still high and if we can keep the devil from succeeding to discourage us, than we are quite ahead of him, I believe. For many students – and some of the Sudanese staff, the fire brought back memories from the war when their homes were bombed and finally burnt down. Please pray that God will also heal the emotional scars that the fire brought about.

Please pray for the staff and the students, for our living together and sharing of quite a close community. Pray for an extra amount of grace as everybody is stressed out and it is easy to lash out at somebody or react emotionally for no reason. Pray that God will really lead us and guide us in this situation and that we can listen and follow. Please also pray for our health as some people are still sleeping on floors, without mosquito nets or in provisional accommodation like tents.

Thank you so much again for your prayers and for thinking about us. May God bless you and keep you.

Arrival in Sudan

This is now my first newsletter from the Sudan. I arrived safely here in Goli last Thursday after two days of travelling and actually met a few more staff from Open Doors on the plane who also worked in Goli. I was welcomed more than warmly here by my friends Heidi and Heinz, who I met last year and kept in touch with.

During the course of the week I got to know the other members of staff who are all very nice. We are a good mix of nationalities I think: About 10 Sudanese, 2 Kenyans, 9 South Africans, 2 Germans, 2 British, 3 Americans and one German-speaking couple (Heidi and Heinz; he is from Austria and she is from Switzerland – I got in trouble for calling them German before). We are all responsible for different things that are run on the base: a clinic (for the community and staff), the English department, the women’s department (for pastor’s wives – they are taught English, bits of theology, Aids awareness, hygiene etc.), the theological seminary, and a teacher training course. The teacher training course is run by FCE (Foundation for Cross-Cultural Education), cross meaning the cross of Christ in this respect. They train teachers how to teach e.g. maths, English and geography in a Christ-centred way and how to include the Gospel in lessons (I expanded on this because I think their organisation is doing a fantastic job!).

For the first 3 days I shadowed all the teachers, which gave me a good idea of what Goli is like and of different teaching styles. I started teaching myself on Thursday with the advanced women’s class and an all male class of Sunday school teachers, who still have to improve their English. Right now, I am learning how to work in 40°C heat (apparently hotter times are still to come at the end of February) and not to be bothered about sweat running down my legs…

Just after I came last week the leadership changed, i.e.
George William is now in South Africa for one year and Oliver, a Sudanese, has taken over the post of the principal. This was quite an ad-hoc decision, which was made in December, and – as usual in such a situation – it always brings insecurity with it. Please pray for Oliver that he will find his ground quickly, that the staff gets used to the new leader soon and that any difficulties that might arise are dealt with in a Christ-like manner.

Unfortunately, I found out that my parcels still haven’t arrived. They have been kept in Kampalla now for almost a month and all my teaching material is in there plus a lot of the stuff that we specifically bought for Sudan. Officially, they should be sent up on an Eagle Air plane next week… Please pray that they will arrive soon and that nothing has gone “missing”.

Thank you for all your support and for your encouragement over the last few weeks, specially leading up to my arrival in Sudan. Officially, we have had wireless internet on the base ever since last Friday (I feel like I came at the right time :-), so I would be more than happy to hear your news (unofficially, it sometimes works, and sometimes doesn’t, but better that than nothing at all… ).