Historic Graduation Ceremony

The last week has been a proud week indeed, as we had the first historic BA graduation here in Melut after the war. The students worked hard on finishing their assignments and theses, which made me remember my own time as a student. However, at this graduation, I was on the other side as a teacher, which was an amazing experience. We've had many important people coming, like the Commissioner of Melut County, other political leaders, and heads of different church denominations. GTC is one of the few inter-denominational colleges in Sudan and we've had graduates from six different denominations. I was so proud of these men standing there in their robes and thought that I was truely looking at the future of Sudan.

Melut was the original site of the college before the war, which had to be vacated in 1986 due to heavy fighting in the area. The college was then moved to Khartoum where it operated until 2006. When peace came in 2005, it was decided that the college should move back to its original site as the cost of living in Khartoum is very high. The students were then given the option of moving to Melut or staying in Khartoum and finishing at Nile Theological College. 16 out of the 28 students decided to be brave and move - brave because the compound was still occupied by the army , which did not want to leave and during the first two years, there was no power or clean water on the compound. I dare say that the students suffered for their decision to come as did the principal, Philip Eisa, who had moved his whole family to Melut. Having said this, despite all the hardship, last week's graduation service made it all worthwhile for them. Next year will be the first time for GTC to have a new intake after the move from Khartoum - the plan is to then have a new intake every year.

October 2010: Elim Short-Term Trip to Sudan
Elim has now approved a short-term trip to Sudan for October 2010. The trip is mainly aimed at giving participants a look-see and experience of Sudan and will be around 11-13 days with 2 days in Nairobi on either side. We have limited the size of the team to 10 people and the cost for this trip has been set at £1,750 (it might be lower but we will know more once the flights are all booked). If you'd like to participate in this trip or get more information, please contact either myself or Elim Missions headquarters at missions@elimhq.net

Have a wonderful Christmas and a blessed New Year!

Moving from Temporal to Permanent...

Often God's plan for us doesn't come to pass as straight forward as we would like it to be, but somehow he still gets us to where he wants us. Before I came to Africa, I thought I would be staying in Torit and lecture at the Bible School there. However, when I got here it became obvious that the school was not ready yet. So we looked for another temporal placement in Sudan to fill time. I've been in Melut now for 3 months and it became apparent to me fairly soon that God wanted me to consider GTC for a permanent placement. So after talking to my unit leader and praying for some time, I am very happy to announce that I will be staying in Melut to become permanent staff at Gideon Theological College. In January, another missionary couple from Australia, Gerald and Kath Donker, will come to GTC as permanent staff, which will be great for fellowship. FAR, the aid wing of SIM Canada, will also move onto the compound in January to run operations from here. So it seems that next year will be a busy and interesting one with a lot of change ahead.

Building on a Solid Foundation

With the decision to stay at GTC permanently also came a decision to build a house for me on the compound. I've really enjoyed being in my tukul (Sudanese mud hut) over the last few months, but unfortunately, there is no electricity here and it's not really big enough for my things - some of which are still in Torit and everything else is spread over 2 tukuls here.... Half of the money for the house will be provided by the AIM housing fund, but the other half has to come out of my own support. The house will have one larger bed/living room, a small kitchen and a bathroom - the estimated cost for the building is set at $12,000 with another one thousand dollars to fit a solar system. This translates roughly into £8,000, of which £4,000 will have to come from donations. FAR and the Donker's will be building next January/February and it would be economical to team up with them in order to cut down on costs.

I would greatly appreciate it if you considered helping with this project as a church or as an individual. Individual private cheques can be sent to AIM directly at "Africa Inland Mission, Halifax Place, Nottingham NG1 1QN" made payable to AIM International with a note to say "Verena Schafroth - GTC Lecturer's House". Elim church donations can be sent to Elim Missions headquarters with the same note.

Prayer Requests
+ please pray for continuous growth of relationships here
+ BA graduation (28 November) and that the students will be able to finish their last term well
+ spiritual protection and good sleep at night
+ that I won't feel lonely
+ that preparations for the new academic year will go well
+ that preparations for the building will go well and that the funds will come together

A peek into my classroom

My first 2 months of lecturing have now come to a close and I can’t believe how fast the time has passed – it still feels like yesterday when I left Torit 2 months ago. I was given a course on Biblical Theology and was amazed and deeply touched by many of the class discussions with the students as various topics bring out their experiences with God during the war and some of the difficulties they still face in their spiritual walk due to the suffering they’ve experience. Contextualisation is often taken to a completely different level here when we for example discussed Israel’s exile and the students then asked whether God was punishing Sudan for their disobedience, too...? When forgiveness came up in one of the lectures, one of the students shared that the northern army completely wiped out his village and most of his family. Often when we talk about forgiveness in the West, we talk about hurtful words or other minor things – the experiences of my students here have put things into a new perspective for me. I have come to deeply respect those I am teaching here and can learn from them probably more than they learn from me (and I am not trying to be humble here).

Of Sheep and Evil Spirits

The time here has been marked by great joys and challenges at the same time. I am the only Westerner here at the moment, which was particularly difficult during the first 3 weeks of settling in and not knowing anybody. It seems that the longer I am here the better it gets as I have formed good relationships with the staff and also with the students, although sometimes it still hits me and I go to bed feeling rather lonely. At the same time, I see how God is moving in this place and how I am growing spiritually. I am learning much about spiritual warfare as I’ve had a few bad nights with weird stuff happening in my room - I had to ask somebody at 4 am to come and pray with me. I realise anew how important prayer is and also what a blessing it is to live in a community like this – where it is no trouble to ask somebody at 4 am to pray with you.

There are also those funny stories that you will only experience when being in a place like this. One afternoon I had left my door open and was just resting on my bed. Suddenly, when I heard a loud commotion in my room, I opened my eyes and found myself face to face with a big sheep! I was so startled that I let out a scream – the sheep was probably scared to death and bolted out of the door straight away. We seemed to have struck some kind of friendship in that moment though, because for the two weeks after that, it kept on following me around everywhere!

New Adventures and Challenges

I certainly couldn’t have had a warmer welcome at Gideon Theological College (GTC) in Melut. Pastor Philip (the principal), his wife and Joyce, the administrator, made up the welcoming committee. The last two weeks were spent on getting to know the town and its’ people and setting up home in my little tukul (Sudanese mud hut), which I am very thankful for. It never ceases to amaze me how diverse places in Sudan are – different tribes, different languages, different looking people and different climates. Since Melut is a lot further north than Torit, I spent the first days and nights sweating as I still have to get used to the heat and humidity here – we are right on the Nile. I also feel a little bit like a beginner in Arabic again as the Arabic here is northern Arabic from Khartoum, which is very difficult for me to understand. On a work related note, I have dedicated many hours to lecture notes preparation and still have to prepare some more. We’ve had some difficulties here with the electricity as town power was added to our solar power. However, they have made a mistake and cut off the solar and because the town power isn’t very reliable yet, we’ve had no power for the last few days. This meant that all the offices were shut down and I was not able to prepare anymore for classes to come. I’d be grateful for your prayers for that – we do take a lot of things for granted until we realise what it means to be without them! The students arrived a couple of days ago and the first day of lectures will be the 3^rd of August. Please pray for my teaching and for good interaction with the students.

Culture Snippet: Sudanese Tribal Markings

I have now been in Melut for two weeks and am once again amazed at the diversity of cultures in Sudan. While the main tribe in Torit was Lotuko, who are usually small and do not have very obvious tribal markings, the main tribes in Melut are Nuer and Dinka, who are both incredibly tall and have very distinct markings. In the picture you can see Pastor John, a fourth year BA student at GTC, who received his facial markings when he was 16 years old as a rite of passage into adulthood and of identification with his tribe. Although the Sudanese government is trying hard to face out these markings as they are considered to enhance tribalism, they still play an important part in many Sudanese cultures. Pastor John once told me that you are not allowed to get married without them (or it is very difficult) and that people will not mourn for you properly at your funeral – without them you are considered a ‘boy’ not a man, since you have not proven yet that you can endure pain like a man. Interestingly enough, many of these markings only apply to men and not to women.

Moving Up-Country

One basic missionary characteristic is flexibility. If you don't have it when you get here, you'll soon have to learn it. I think, I brought some, but still have to learn some more and the current developments give me opportunity for such growth.

After three months of Juba-Arabic preparation, I should have started teaching theology at the Bright Hope School of Theology in Torit. However, the school which should have opened in September 2008 will now only open in spring 2010. So, for the last couple of months we have been looking around for another temporary placement for me and in the end decided for Gideon Theological College (GTC), which is in Melut on the Nile at the most northern tip of southern Sudan. I will be moving to Melut on the 20th of july and will start teaching a course on biblical theology two weeks later when the term commences on the 3rd of August. Until then, I will continue with Juba Arabic for another four weeks in Torit. We have agreed for me to teach in Melut for one term until the beginning of December and will then look at how the school in Torit is moving on and consider subsequent stepts for next year's placement. After a time of anxiety and trying to get my head around all these developments, I now feel quite excited about the changes ahead. I've been in regular contact with the principal, Philip Eisa, and with the staff of Medair, a Christian development organisation, which ahs a base right next to the school's compound. Since I will be the only AIM missionary working in that area of Sudan, I will rely on Medair for flights and postal mail, which means that my mail address is changing to the following from July onwards (I will change it in my email signature as well):

Verena Schafroth
AIM Melut - South Sudan
c/o MAF Kenya
PO Box 21123
Nairobi 00505
Kenya, EAST AFRICA

Developments in Torit
I finished my first phase in Torit well and have been on holiday for two weeks with my sister Mirjam, who flew out from Germany. I am now back in Torit and look forward to getting stuck into language and culture preparation again. Please pray for the remaining 4 weeks in Torit and that I can really concentrate on language learning while also preparing for the move to Melut. Our South Sudan team weekend is coming up from the 10th to the 12th of July - please pray for good interaction and God's Spirit during that time.

Walk with me

Well, I’ve been here now for 2 ½ months and most of my time is taken up by language study – Juba Arabic, which is a low dialect of Arabic. Every day, five times a week, I set out in the morning to walk the 2 miles to my language helper’s house, Mary. At first, I turn to the main square where the donkeys usually stand/sleep – they are really cute! While walking, I pass lots of people on the road, particularly children, who will always greet me saying: “Kowaja, how are you?” Kowaja, meaning ‘foreigner’ or generally ‘white person.’ On average, I hear this greeting about 50 times a day. I will go past the borehole where the women are usually busy getting water for their families – during homestay, I got such a bad sunburn from waiting at the borehole for an hour (granted, I had forgotten to put on sunscreen). When I finally reach Mary’s house after 30 minutes of walking and greeting people on the road, she welcomes me and gets ready for the lesson – here, people start getting ready when you show up, so it usually takes another half an hour.

I am just so amazed and thankful for how my relationship with Mary has grown over the last few weeks. She is truly a gift from God – and due to her help, I can now even say that in Arabic! Often, after finishing the lesson, we would sit together and she would make Arab coffee, drunk out of tiny little cups. The peaks are when we cook together on the Sudanese charcoal ovens – I am not good in the kitchen at any rate, but it is quite another challenge to cook on charcoal. However, she is so patient with me and after all, cooking together is just another excuse to spend some more time talking...

When I get home, my little kitten ‘Sid’ is waiting for me. He is only 4 months and was flown in from Kenya a few weeks ago. I’ve called him Sid, because he strongly reminds me of the Sid in Ice Age as he can never sit still and takes ages to go to sleep J. On a spiritual note, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote:

“We should allow ourselves only to be found where Christ is. We truly can be nowhere else than where he is. Whether you work over there and I work in Africa*, both of us are only where Christ is. He takes us along. Or, have I perhaps avoided the place where he is? The place where he is for me?" *(America in the original) Who is Christ for us, 55

I believe I’ve come back to that place where God is for me. All in all, I feel like I’ve come home, like God has waited for me here and has put my heart at rest.

Homestay

3 Women, 2 Scorpions and 1 more Verena

After having finally arrived in Sudan on the 13th of February, Catrin and I did one week of LAMP (language acquisition made practical) and then went on our homestays with a Sudanese family. My family lives a bit outside Torit on a compound that encompasses about 10 houses - all related to each other. It was a challenging and exciting week!! My family didn’t know any English and I only had my rusty bits of Arabic to fend with, so communicating was a bit difficult – as you can imagine. However, I feel like my Arabic has quadrupled during that week. Now, let me tell you more about my heading: I slept with Jasmin and Mary in the mud hut, two Sudanese women. One night, there was a sudden commotion in the room as Jasmin saw a scorpion crawling out behind the wardrobe. Sure enough, where one is there is another also, and the next two hours were spent trying to kill these two without getting stung (a scorpion sting is not fatal, but it hurts like it would be, so people don’t like them!). Anyway, the first night of homestay, we went visiting a compound nearby, where the woman (Mary) had just had a baby. Mary is a lovely woman and has now become my language helper for the time being. At the end of the evening and after much marvelling at the newborn baby, Mary suddenly looked up at me and said: “It is a blessing that you have come to my house today. I will name my daughter after you.” So now there is one more Verena in Torit – Mary will probably never know, what a gift and blessing she gave to!!!

Tales of Travel in Sudan

These past days I’ve spent in a place called Magwe, about 3 hours from Torit in the ‘bush,’ at a women’s conference of the Africa Inland Church. We had about 30 women attending from all over Eastern Equatoria and I enjoyed the opportunity of getting to know the women better and to see how and what is taught at these conferences. I have to confess that I still find ‘dried fish’ and ‘greens’ (the local vegetable) hard to digest, but God helped me eat and safe face . On the way back to Torit on Sunday, my tyre changing skills were really put to a test, as I accidentally drove over a little tree stump hidden in a bunch of flowers on the road. The first tyre burst and I had to change the tyre then. Unfortunately, the second tyre already had a little puncture in it and I had to stop again after an hour. I called the Torit base and the Nobles came out with another spare tyre and a pump - praise God for satphones as I would have been stuck there for quite a while otherwise with 6 women and two children in the car... Well, in Sudan, you can’t just call the AAA to pick you up by the roadside – at least, I now know pretty well how to change tyres :-)