The 2nd Semester

The 2nd semester commenced well, and we are now 5 weeks into the term. I am teaching a course called Introduction to Pastoral Ministry and one on Bible Memorisation, in which we look at techniques for preparing bible studies in an illiterate culture. In addition to my teaching schedule, I have now officially taken up the role as the college librarian. We moved the library to the main building a few weeks ago (lots of heavy lifting with about 5,000 books!) and I have been sorting books ever since. The main building has power, which means that the students are now able to use the library in the evenings as well. Over the next few weeks, my task will be to catalogue about 1,000 new books alongside teaching my courses.

Visit from Wendy Atkins

It was such a pleasure to welcome Wendy Atkins in Melut two weeks ago. She is a missionary with AIM usually working in the Central African Republic as an ethnomusicologist, which is the study of the use of music in tribal communities. Wendy and I got talking at the AIM Central Region conference in January about teaching worship and music at GTC and she volunteered to come to Sudan. After some difficulties with flights, she arrived safely on the 7th of September and was here for 2 weeks. I was more than delighted to welcome her here because our students love music so much. It was great to see how they learned to compose worship songs in their own tribal languages and how they grew in their understanding of what biblical worship is.

The Referendum

Up until now, the referendum has not been postponed and it is still set for the 9th of January. On this day, Southern Sudan will vote on whether to split from the north and thereby form its own country. We are thankful that Sudan has been peaceful so far, but it seems we now receive more and more news of army movements and of tanks being put in position at strategic places. It seems that Sudan is getting ready for something but nobody quite knows what that something is. In this climate of uncertainty, it is very difficult to plan ahead for the next academic year. We hope that we can finish this term without interruption and plan to start teaching again at the end of February. Please pray for the months leading up to the referendum, for peace, stability and political wisdom on both sides. Please pray that we can indeed finish this term without interruptions.