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 :-).