On the Road - First Week in Akobo

I think the easiest way to do this will be to just post my journal, maybe once a week, for now. The newest will be on top.  Later, maybe not so often.  We will see...Enjoy and keep those emails coming!

Journal

12/23/11

IT IS GOOD NEWS TODAY!  Everyone is scurrying around all excited because the hospital is going to reopen.  They will be cleaning all day today to make sure it is clean when the patients start to arrive tomorrow. They received the word last night and the phones were buzzing and voices were filled with excitement.  I heard Dr. W call to have it announced on the radio.  I thought that was a little strange, bt I am discovering technology is as important here as at home.  Only at breakfast I learned “announce it on the radio” means someone will take a pa horn – like the band leaders use at the football games – and walk up and down the roads shouting it out for people to hear. 

I am going to be very glad there is a veranda on it, because I haven’t seen any shade.  I tried to get them to build it closer to the river where it would get good shade and the breeze, but they had a good point – the bank is falling in, so it wouldn’t take long for my house to go with it.  I checked it several times today.  Most of the afternoon, it sat in the direct sun, which with a zinc roof will be very hot.  But, by five, the area was covered in shade and there appeared to be a good breeze coming from the river.  I will have to start checking it and see where the best breeze and most shade comes through during the day so that I know which direction to face it.

It has been a pretty quiet day for me.  Everyone is busy getting ready for Christmas, but I did have fun going to the market.  It was nice to get out on the road and greet people.  Some of the children are still very afraid and cry when they see me, but we are getting to know each other.  I loved the little girl who ran screaming behind her mother’s back and very tentatively would peek her head out, only to scream and go running back again.  Before she was finished, she finally reached out one tiny little finger and touched the end of mine.

Not everyone was so afraid, I had many laughs and many greetings along the way.  And the sense of “home” as I stopped and played ball with the boys on the road and took pictures of the children.  When I went by the church tonight, Rev. Peter said “I heard you went to the market today”  “Yes, and I even bought something”.  Everyone gathered around laughed and he smiled and said “Good, that is very good”.  I thought he might not be happy because I went by myself, but he seemed pleased.  The more I get out the more people I will meet and the less afraid they will be.  It will make my job much easier when I get started.

Tonight, I am sitting in my room, thinking what a good day it has been.  I am listening to the sounds of the people gearing up for the Christmas celebration.  There is much singing and chanting and drumming in the air tonight.  It is a real sense of celebration.  Tonight as I watched the sun go down I watched the people with boxes and suitcases, travelers, begin to arrive to spend the holiday with their friends and families.  Much like we do.

I am excited for tomorrow to come.  It is indeed going to be a celebration.  It begins at the church at 12:30 with prayers.  At 1 we will begin to march through the town and come back to the church at 4:30 for more prayers.  Then everyone will disappear until 8:30 when they will come to the church and sing and pray until 12:30 to welcome the little Christ child.  Then we will all disappear again.  But at 8:00 sharp!  Sunday morning we will again come to the church to worship and pray and sing.

It sounds like it is going to be a spectacular couple of days!

12/22/11 Reality

I don’t really have a place that is “mine’ yet, but I will soon.  I have finally gone through my boxes and rearranged my room so it is more livable.  I can use the table for an office, and sometimes I can get the internet there, but, hopefully, most of my time will begin to be spent in the church compound.

These first few days have been busy days of getting settled, meeting and greeting people and learning my way around. It wil be many days of being still and knowing that God is in charge here and my job is to wait and listen and learn.  I read a prayer that really makes a lot of sense to me in this time and in this place. It is from the book “Leadership Prayers” by Richard Kreigbaum.  “…though we may not all look at reality in the same way, help us see the same reality and agree on its meaning for us, whether we like it or not.  …  somehow God, in all our difference and despite all the informational vagaries, give us a shared reality, a similar idea of how thing truly are for us. …”

That is what this time of waiting and listening is all about.  It is about learning to put aside my western eyes and learning to see through Nuer eyes, so, together, we can begin to blend our two realities into a shared reality that is pleasing to God.

For me, the hard part will be learning to set aside the American mentality that we need to get it done­- now, and the American mentality that work is only successful if you can make the line go higher on the graph.  It is remembering that numbers on a page are not nearly as important as the lives  that are touched and remembering that the results of the work I do in this time and in this place may not ever be seen in my lifetime but in the generations to come.

For me, reality means learning to plant seeds and wait for them to grow. I will have to remember what “Homeless Jesus” used to tell me on a regular basis, “God gives you the seeds to plant.  It is your job to plant them.  It is God’s job to make them grow”.

And the reality of my western eyes is that I have to remember not every seed will grow, and not every seed will be what I expect it to be.  But they are God’s seeds and they will be what He wants them to be.

I am constantly amazed by the commitment of the church to make me feel welcome and their commitment to help me adjust to living here.  Rev. Stephen comes each morning to tell me what the program for the day is. Then he returns during the break from his workshop to come and teach me the language.  The women come also.  The past two days it has been between 5 and 7 women who give up their day to learn and laugh with me. 

10 minutes until 7 pm, this is the perfect time of day.  They sky is a pinkish orange and the land around me is lit with a soft glow.  The South Sudanese colors which are ususally bright anyway take on an extra brilliance this time of day.  The people are beginning the trek home.  There is a hum in the air I don’t quite know how to describe, the hum of chattering voices; some talking softly, some singing, some drums beating in the background, and always the high, excited pitch of the children’s voices.  The air is beginning to fill with the scent of the dinner fires, the crickets are buzzing and the owl over my head is beginning his evening cry.  There is the soft lowing of the cattle as they are herded towards homes down the road.  I don’t know where the goats are that were munching earlier, but they seem to have wandered on home.  The ladies walk by with pots and buckets and bundles of sticks that are longer than they are tall balanced on their heads.  I watch the stream of people heading through the grass as they go towards home of friends.  It is that God time of day, when all is right with the world and it is easy to imagine peace prevails and there is no fear of tribal conflicts or soldiers on the roads or what is waiting in the bush.  It is a time of day that is so difficult to describe, and perhaps I am not supposed to.  Perhaps it is time to be still and know that God is here, and make room in my day for his presence as the daylight fades to darkness.

12/21/2011

Today is the day Michael left and I am alone in this new home for the first time.  It is a very strange feeling.  My eyes are full of tears that won’t fall.  Not sad tears!  Just tears of emotions that have been held inside for a very long time.  They will fall _sometime today and it will be a great cleansing.

I can’t wait for a normal to begin, and yet I am perfectly content, happy and very, very peaceful in this new life that is a series of events and waiting for the next one.  It is going to be a very, very good life if today is any indication of what is to come.

I am surrounded by a church that is committed to making sure that I am well cared for and taken care of.  The women have come every day to visit and to take me to the church for some kind of activity.  Today it is language lessons.

They are going to be very hard taskmasters!  Rev. Stephen Nyok, is a very serious teacher.  He came to pick me during his lunch break and spent most of it helping me learn new words and greetings, when he left, the women took over.  He has a big black board and writes the Nuer word on one side and the English on the other, and let the drills begin.  When he left to go back to his training three or four women took over.  We had a lot of fun laughing at the ways their mouth moves and mine doesn’t, there are some sounds I am just not sure it is going to be possible for me to make. But, we had a lot of fun with me trying.

Like women everywhere, we had to talk about hair.  One lady had to take down my pony tail and play with it.  Before she was done, I had a new hairdo.  I made the motions I was going to cut my hair short like theirs, and it was a resounding chorus of “no, no”.  They don’t have to try and wash this mop of hair leaning over a bucket with bats flying in and out and praying the guys next door didn’t decide to stay out late and come home while I am doing it – highlighted by the silhouette of me in the “shower”!

 “Shower” is a term I use very lightly.  It is a concrete room with a small window at the top, about 3 feet square with blue sheet tacked up about a quarter of the way from the top and hangs a little over half way down, just about knee level on me.  It opens to the hall where all the water barrels are stored and is a straight shot to the meeting area where everyone gathers beginning early in the morning.  I have figured out a system though.  I wait at night until I can see the light is out in the rooms around me.  Then I take my little bucket, my towel and pj’s and head down the hall.  I prop my light on one of the water barrels and start scooping until I have enough for my “shower”.  Then, I wave the curtain to make sure all the bats are out and my “shower” can begin with dumping cans of cold water over me.  The rest you can figure out!   That’s ok, it won’t be long now until I have my new house.  Rev. Stephen says they will show me the place tomorrow.

Now, I know I will have the mornings free and he will come in the afternoons.  That will help me plan my day better.

There is just something special about singing with the women here.  In the middle of my lessons we stop and worship and praise God through song.  The sing slowly so they can teach me.  Today it was “Rejoice, rejoice, I say stop and always rejoice”, that is the English words they taught along with the Nuer words.  I forget that worshipping and praising God is much more serious here than at home.  I always wonder why. I don’t know if it is because we have so much that we take God for granted and they have so little that everything is a blessing from God and they remember to give thanks for it.  I don’t know.  That is something that always puzzles me.  Perhaps I will never understand.

I guess I really haven’t said much about what I am eating and what is available in the market.  When we went on Saturday, we saw a few onions, some garlic they were selling by the clove, and one stand had a few cherry tomatoes.  I saw a handful of potatoes in another.  Definitely not the overflowing blankets of food I found in Dembi. 

I am paying 100 pounds per week for three meals a day.  That is the equivalent of about $37.  Breakfast is a cup of tea and a piece of bread.  Big pieces, not like our loaf bread – more like a small French bread flattened out.  Lunch is usually rice, pasta with tomato sauce, chapatti bread and brown lentils. Dinner is usually the same with either fish or chicken added.  We were all excited that we had pumpkin, eggplant and a tomato and onion salad yesterday along with some fresh tilapia. MMMMM!!  It truly was a feast and the biggest meal since we arrived on Friday.  I feel very fortunate that the food I brought I am not having to use yet except for breaking a couple of packets down into snacks the first few days to supplement what I was eating.  Now I am adjusting to the fewer calories and don’t seem to need them except for the Tang and milk I try to drink most days.  However, I can find “orangee” and mango in the market along with powder milk.  All are very expensive, but so is getting sick.

Most of the visitors left today, only one remains.  That left four of us for dinner tonight – Dr. Wubechet, Dr. Carlos, Kabora, the girl working on a nutrition survey and me.  It was a lot quieter than previous nights when we had Regena and Dr. Itillio here.  Dr. Itillio is this firey, passionate, bundle of energy and enthusiasm from Peru, now living in Washington DC.  I really should start keeping a list of all the countries I meet people from,  tonight there were four around our table – the US, Ethiopia, Kenya and DR Congo – two doctors, a nutritionist, and me.

After dinner, Dr. Carlos and I had a long discussion about all the very tough decisions people in this part of the world must make.  All of them are separated from their families.  All of them are making sacrifices that we can’t even begin to imagine.  Dr. C is working here so he can support his family and pay the rent while his wife continues here medical school.  He has two children and I could see the pain on his face as he talked about how hard it is to leave them all behind.

I could see the pain in his face as he discussed the closing of the hospital and the uncertainty of when it will open again.  In the US, if a hospital is closed all the patients being cared for are carefully placed in other hospitals or released for home treatment.  But, provisions are made for their care.  Here, when they closed the hospital, the patients were taken to the yard until they could be transported or claimed by family members. Some of them died.  More are dying because the hospital remains closed and they can’t receive the proper treatment.  It is frustrating to the doctors who come here to heal, sacrificing their families.  It is hard for the community that now only has a few clinics for treatment.  It is hard to hear the stories and see the pain on the faces of those committed to being here to care for the people.

There are many hard decisions in life and I have seen and heard some tough ones already.  I wonder what is in store in the coming days…

It is amazing to me – I am going to pray I don’t fall in the pit latrine in the dark, take a bath in a bucket and go fill my water bottle in a filter that has already been boiled, but yet, I can have internet, while I type by candlelight.  Amazing!!

Let the Journey Begin!

December 13/14 depending on what side of the time line I am….

I was flying into Washington DC last night and looked out the window and saw this big beautiful full moon from the side.  I don’t quite know how to describe it…almost like one of those push button night lights hanging in the sky with this beautiful shade of orange mottled bulb.  It was surrounded by a ring of rays of light bursting forth.  The sky around and below it glowed in this soft beautiful light and as we approached the city it looked like a million stars had landed. As far as the eye could see, the ground was spattered with these bright beautiful lights. I wondered how different it is going to be in the next few days. 

Tonight, I am somewhere over the ocean, making an arch that began in Washington DC crossed across Nova Scotia and we are  now at the top of the arch crossing the ocean near a place called Goose Bay,  between a place called Pourcipine Bay and Pourcipine Bank,  just north of Casablanca and south of Cairo.  Earlier today I was able to take some pictures of the ice bergs from the top – what a beautiful sight!   Tonight when I look out, all I see is black, deep, deep black, not even a star to be found.  And, now I know what it is going to look like when I arrive in Akobo.

5:06 AM Addis time 8:10 PM Dallas Ft Worth time,  just passing over the coast of Africa,  traveling between  Al-KaKharijah and Amaan or Cairo and Addis , depending on which map you are looking at.  It is hard to believe I am barreling through the air at 545 mph and a little over 1200 miles from Addis, and another 4 hours, including the layover time, from landing in Juba.  I spent a lot of time looking at pictures of Akobo, but not any looking a Juba, so I am not even sure what to expect there.

OK, Annie, Alicia and Dave Ramsey – this one is for you?  How many people can you make friends with traveling to how many different countries doing how many different things in two days in airports and on airplanes?  The answer is more than four new friends at Wal Mart!  I have met people going to Malawi, Nigeria, Kenya, Burunda, Zimbawbwei, South Sudan, and of course, Ethiopia!  I have met teachers, and builders and adult children returning home for the first time in ten or fifteen years with their children, grandparents going to visit families working in far off lands.  I think the total is about 8 now and I sill have two more hours layover and another airport to go before I get to Juba!

Sunrise over Africa

06:22 AM, almost to Addis!  My first African sunrise in way too long!  I looked out the window to a landscape bathed in black,  topped by a brilliant strip of red, topped by clouds.  I don’t know what it is about sunrises from airplanes, perhaps, it is as close to heaven as we will get in this lifetime.  I can almost see God stretching out his hand and saying “Let there be light” and as the red turns to brilliant gold flames streaking through the tops of the clouds, I am blessed by the new life I am going to live.  It reminds me of the light showing through the egg photo I used in my blog the other night.  I am bursting forth, not knowing where I am going, or exactly what I will be doing, but I am about to burst forth into this new life that God has planned for me, and tired as I am, I can’t wait to begin!

Sometimes people just bring tears to your eyes.  Sometime during the middle of the night I was in the back of the plane chatting with a gentleman.  He told me he and his wife were on their way to see their grandchildren.  We kept chatting and I told him where I was going and why.  We probably talked for about an hour, asking and answering questions from each other.  Later, before the end of the flight, he came down the isle and stopped at my seat.  With an outstretched hand, he put some money in it and told me he hadn’t been to church in a very long time and our conversation was the closest thing he had been.  He just wanted me to have a little something to give myself a special treat when I come in for R&R.  What a kind, gentle soul!  I will remember his kindness when I go get that “special” treat.  And I will remember sometimes a story is all someone needs to think they have been to church.  God’s blessings!

12/15/11 – I HAVE ARRIVED!!!

I just wanted to jump and run down the tarmack shouting “I’m home!  I’m home! Whoo-hoo!!  I made it back!”  It is hard to hold back the tears that threaten to fall as I arrive in Addis and wait for my plane to Juba.  Not the sad tears from leaving family and friends behind, but tears of sheer joy.  Tears of happiness and that feeling of coming “home” to the place God has called me to be.  It has been a long hard journey to come back, and I am quite certain that the journey ahead will be much longer and much harder. 

I can add a new person to my list of people I met on this trip, a worker with the CDC who was telling me they just completed a study and determined the country is in complete ground zero.  Well, that is what I am here for!

I am sitting on the floor in the airport waiting for the final leg of my journey.  I am listening to a montage of stories and languages, people of all shapes, sizes and colors. It is a beautiful tapestry of God’s people.  Young, old, middle age, teens.  The very tall of the Nuer and Anuak; the shorter, softer Ormo, Ugandans and Nigerians, and those of Middle Eastern descent and  many others.  A beautiful rainbow of colors ranging from the pure white of my skin to the deep, deep black of the Sudanese and Ugangans and other peoples.  I listened to a long conversation about corruption and played tops with a little boy.  

I had to remind myself this is a foreign country and there are not always the freedoms we have at home.  For instance, when we get off a plane from a foreign country in the US, we are free to go where ever after we clear customs. Today, we were escorted down a long hall to a waiting room, where line after line of people were added to the room as they disembarked going to other connecting flights outside of Ethiopia.

JUBA:  I arrived to a small airport, more primitive than the one in Granbury and better than Gambella used to be.  It was an ordeal to collect my stuff and I had to agree to open any of the boxes the soldiers chose for me.  I did, and we were on our way to MAF.  There we unloaded all my boxes in a shipping ocontaner and headed for the guest house where I am staying tonight.

So my first day in Juba what do I do?  I am on my hands and knees washing clothes in a bucket.  They made a great AC!  Hang damp clothes in front of a fan and the temperature drops automatically.  It didn’t take long for me to go to  sleep and a short time later I woke to the sounds of music, laughter and roosters crowing outside my window.  As long as he is crowing, I know he’s not dinner!  Only, later, no crowing and fried chicken for dinner!!!

Now it is off to bed and on to an early flight in the morning.  Final leg of this long journey, and the beginning of the next.  I can’t wait to see what God has in store for me!

12-16  Akobo Here I Come!

It has been a long time since I woke to the sound of monkeys racing across my roof in the early morning hours. It was either a fairly large monkey or a giant rat, so I am going for monkey.  It was followed shortly by the sounds of the first birds and the lightening of the sky; too early for dawn, and not yet light enough for daybreak.

I have a huge sense of anticipation about today.  It is the day I finally get to go and meet the people I will be working with in Akobo.  I learned last night that I will be staying in the hospital and maybe they will have a room for me.  We will see.

Waiting to enter the airport in Juba

The day started with a trip to the Juba airport.  Now, if you have never experienced a true mob scene, you should go there early in the morning.  Hundreds of people were trying to cram through the same double door to have their luggage and packages scanned.  I am not sure I can describe it other than being caught in a wave like they do at the ball parks. I was busy trying to move with the flow.  At one point, I lost my footing and knew in an instant if I did, I was a gonner, so I grabbed hold of someone near me and pulled back up and kept going with the flow.  When I got to the front, or almost, I was shoved back by an elder man who seemed to be in control, as much as possible, as I watched Michael and the rest of our group disappear into the inside.  I shoved back and said “No!  I won’t wait” and kept pushing through as another man told him to let me go.  We all met up on “the other side”, and made it safely to our plane.

Ready to board flight to Juba

This was an interesting flight, we finished loading as we arrived and learned we were stopping Pibor.  When we arrived at the dirt strip people came running from everywhere to see who had arrived.  We unloaded everything from the plane and it took off, leaving us to wait for it to return.  Sure enough, 45 minutes later, he flew back into sight. 

unloading my things in Pibor so the pilot can make another
run, he will come back in about 45 minutes

Tough Choices:  We were talking with someone about their children being there and since they had been raised somewhere else, he wasn’t sure they would know how to survive in the bush if they had to.  What is he to do?  Keep them with him or send them away again?  Will sending the away be safer than keeping them with him? 

Another one…I watched another tough choice involving children today.  When the plane left it went to another village, and returned with one of the men who traveled with us originally and several small children.  As the children were strapped back in the back a young man tried to get on the plane.  The pilot very firmly told our traveling companion that he had to choose – the children or the young man, all couldn’t go.  He chose the children as the young man looked on bewildreldy.

I’m not sure God intended for us to have to make those kinds of choices, who lives, who dies, but I know they have been happening since time began,  Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac; God sacrificed his own son on the cross.  Those are Bible stories I read about. I don’t watch the struggle on their faces as the tough decisions are made in a split second.

part of the welcoming group

Finally, we arrived in Akobo!  I had looked at the pictures so many times before getting here it just seemed familiar.  We are a day early, such is life in Africa, I don’t believe there is any such thing as “on time”.  We were greeted at the airport and had to wait for the church leader to arrive to greet us.

The Journey

12/16 – AKOBO HERE I AM!!

What a journey!  It began with a mob scene at the airport like I have never experiencedWe were packed in so tight that ever move sent a wave through the crowd threatening to push you down.  I lost my footing at one point and grabbed on to the closest person to keep from falling.  I knew if I ever fell I would be crushed and I wasn’t going down.  At one point, as we neared the door,  I was literally hanging on to a metal rail trying to keep my balance and yelling “I will not wait here” at some man who kept pushing me back while Michael and all the others had made it through the check point and shoved my way through.   

Then it was on through the scanners and out the door to the MAF plane.  What a beautiful sight!  All my stuff was loaded and waiting for us.  Soon it was off to Pibor.  We landed in Pibor, unloaded the whole plane – all my stuff included – and waited on the runway for the pilot to take off, go to another village and return when we loaded everything back on the plane and took off for the 25 minute flight to Akobo.

This is what two days from anywhere looks like...

I kept telling everyone that I was two days from anywhere.  I now know what it looked like – I flew over it. nothing except a small village here and there.

We arrived in Akobo a day earlier than planned, so we had to wait for the church leaders to come and greet us, after we unloaded all my stuff from the plane and moved it again under the trees.  We then loaded it again into a car and unloaded and hauled it to where I will be staying for now.  A room in the IMC house.

my room 

my room part 2

It is a nice room, but not my tent.  It appears that I will still be living out of boxes for the next several months.  I should be used to it by now.  I’ve been living that way since July! Like I said, it is a nice room with a water bucket, bed and mosquito net, a table and chair.  There is a “shower” here – a cement room.  You fill your bucket outside, go in the room, wash, and dry off and leave.  That is how it was explained to me.  When you go in, you wave the curtain back and forth to scare off the bats.  Ever stand wet, covered in soap, on a wet cement floor dodging bats?  That was my challenge this morning!
And I am sure the beginning of many more challenges to come.  If that is the hardest challenge, I will be truly blessed!

I am an Egg!!

I finally get it!  I have been explained the symbolism of an egg many, many times.  Now, I finally understand.  I have been an egg the past few days.  Every goodbye is one more crack. Every goodbye hurts a little more because the most important ones always come at the end.  And all the goodbyes I didn't get to say in person become even more cracks in this hard outer shell of mine.  But sitting on the plane today it finally occured to me - every crack leads me a little closer to bursting forth in the new lifr that God has planned for me in South Sudan. 

I am sitting in a hotel room in Washington DC and will begin the final leg of my journey tomorrow morning.  Yes, I am still cracking. Saying goodbye is never easy, but once I am finished cracking, in about 24 hours from now I will burst forth from that plane in a whole new life.

I don't know where this journey will lead me.  I know that it won't always be easy and I know there will be many more cracks along the way, but I can't wait for the journey and the new life God has in store for me.

I just know that you and all your love and prayers that go with me are the light that fill me.

Peace be with you until we meet again, my friends.
Love
Sharon

It’s a Time of Preparation!

“See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Exodus 23:20

“Prepare for a chance of a lifetime.  Prepare for sensational news.”The Lion King

“I did it”!  “I did it”! “I did it”!  shouted my 18 month old granddaughter, Haley, sitting in my lap, as she very carefully picked up package of food after package of food and placed them in a larger bag of food as she helped me prepare the meals I will take with me to Akobo, South Sudan in a few short weeks.

Granddaughters, Alison. Jessica and Julie spent a Saturday afternoon helping too.  We laughed and played and had fun together.  I realized those times are precious.

The dehydrator has been running full steam.  The trips to the market have become a weekly affair.  What is on sale? What is light weight?  What can I package to take with me?  Almost every trip has been with my good friend Annie who patiently walks the isles pointing out things I would have never thought of and making the best suggestions.

My friend Sherri is preparing people at my church and my Bible study group is busy preparing me by asking questions.  My pastor, Greg, has been amazing in his wisdom, insight and ideas for helping to make this mission trip more visible to our congregation.  And my good friend Fritz is mentoring me in preaching and writing sermons.  I’ve taken training through PCUSA and a great language acquisition school.  I now have a great language teacher, Naylanga, who I have come to love, is a refugee from a remote village, not too far from where I will be living. Her father sent her off with an uncle when she was 14 and after walking for 55 days, she spent five years in a refugee camp in Gambela before coming to the US. I’m not learning as much language as I am culture and how to adapt to life in South Sudan.  That is probably more valuable.

I know, the PCUSA staff is working hard on all the final details. It seems everyone is in on this act of preparing me for my next great journey, and words will never be enough to express my deep appreciation and gratitude. 

I have spent hours and days pouring over online websites looking for the things I will need to take with me as I begin my new life in my tent.  My grandson, Alex, was an invaluable help as we made the rounds of the sporting goods stores looking for my tent.  He and my other grandson Aaron spent one Sunday afternoon shopping together as we made the final purchase of the tent I will take with me.  I realized how big they are when I watched them walking through the store with a tent bag hoisted on their shoulders on its way to my car.  They are no longer the little boys I remember but are turning into fine young men.

The past several months have been a great time of preparation.  A time of preparing myself to make sure I have the skills I need to be productive in South Sudan through Orientation, language learning and Community Health Evangelism training.  I have been busy preparing my house and belongings.  Preparing to leave family and friends behind; preparing for new beginnings.

As we begin to enter the advent season and a time of preparation for Christmas, I was thinking of Mary as she prepared for her journey to Jerusalem and the arrival of her son.  I wonder, did she have the same worries I do?  Am I taking enough food?  Do I have the things I will need?  Where will this journey really lead?  Will we be safe? Like me, she was making a journey into the unknown.  My journey will be much easier than hers.  I will fly across the world in the comforts of an airplane, she traveled on the back of an animal. 

I wish I could join her in a cup of tea and share the journey from her perspective.  I would like to ask her what kinds of things she packed.  How was it traveling all those miles on a donkey heavy with child?  Was she afraid?  What joys and blessings did she experience along the way, besides the obvious – the birth of her son? And the list goes on…

I am reminded that Joseph and Mary didn’t begin this journey without a little fear and trepidation.  They too, trusted God to lead them where they were going.   Luke tells us, Mary asked the angel, “How can this be?” After hearing the answer she replied, “Here I am”.   Matthew tells us that, Joseph, being a righteous man, didn’t want to disgrace her and was planning to dismiss her quietly when the angles came and told him, “Do not be afraid”.  After waking from his dream, Joseph trusted and did as the angel had commanded.

All this reminds me of a quote I recently read and use in my presentations now, “Sometimes we know the reason why and other times we are supposed to trust and obey.” (Steven Vail_l).  Neither Mary nor Joseph knew the reason why, they just trusted God and obeyed.  That is a question I am asked frequently, “Why South Sudan”?  I don’t know why.  I am just trusting God has his reasons and I know this is one of those times in life that I will just trust and obey.

Another question I am asked is about being afraid.  I know that this is not one of the safest places in the world for a single girl to be on her own.    I recently asked about taking my dog with me.  He’s a great therapy dog and I thought he might be good for the people.  Part of serving in an unstable place is knowing that at some point I might have to be evacuated on short notice.  Could I leave my dog behind?  No.  He will stay in the US.  I will miss him terribly, but God has provided the angel that will take care of him until I come home.

As I continue to read the story of Mary and Joseph, I am reminded that they too had to make a hasty retreat – pack up what they could carry and travel to Egypt. God provided for their protection and I know he will provide for mine.  Am I afraid?  Not really.  I know that God is with me or I would not have been called to serve in Akobo. No.  I am not afraid. 

This is another time I would like to sit and share a cup of tea with Mary.  What was it like to make a hasty retreat in the dark of night?  What things did she leave behind that she wished she had taken?  What did she take that she really didn’t need?  I can think of a lot more questions. 

All the questions floating through my head are part of the time of preparation. As you enter this time of preparation and advent, what questions would you like to ask?  Who would you like to sit and share a cup of tea with?  I pray that you have all your questions answered and remember the words from The Lion King…

But we're talking kings and successions

Even you can't be caught unawares

So prepare for a chance of a lifetime

Be prepared for sensational news

A shining new era

Is tiptoeing nearer

And as you begin your time of preparation and advent I hope you will remember me and the people of South Sudan in your prayers as we remember you in ours.

May the love of Christ bless you and keep you, and may peace be with you.

Sharon

Prayer requests

1.     For my time of preparation as I begin my final days in the US

2.    For the people of South Sudan as they prepare for my arrival

3.    For Christ’s blessings on us all as we begin our new lives together

The Giving Season - It's All About Me...

The Season of Giving - It’s All About Me…

It is the holiday season and the season of giving and I am wondering is the giving all about me?

You see them everywhere the signs, the stories, the pleading to help those who don’t have enough, those who won’t have a Christmas if “we” don’t give it to them.  They come in the form of emails and facebook posts from friends asking for your old coats, because they will “go where others are afraid to go”.  The malls and stores are filled with Angel trees and ringing bells, bright colored post cards in the mail with pictures of poor downtrodden children in ragged clothes and bare feet; all designed to bring in the presents and the dollars.  But what does it do to the dignity of the receivers - the parents, the children who know that Santa won’t come this year because there isn’t enough money to even buy food to put on the table so they can have breakfast before they go to school or the mom who tells her friends she’s not going to lunch with them because she’s not hungry and the real reason is she has to pay the electric bill so her children will have a little heat that night, or the Dad who silently cries as he walks to work because the choice is gas  or food for his family.

What happens to the gifts you so generously give?  Does it really end up with the child it is intended for?  Don’t get me wrong, I am not opposed to those who legitimately need receiving what they need.  IF I know that they only receive from one organization.  What experience taught me many years ago is that is not always the case.  I will share a part of my story few people know.

It wasn’t too many years after I divorced, I had lost my job and started my own business.  Times were lean, very, very lean.  I could pay the rent and keep the utilities turned on, but that was it.  It was the week before Christmas when I went to pick up my check for a job I had done.  I was excited.  I was going to be able to buy Christmas and fix a nice dinner for my kids.  When I arrived to pick up the check I was told it wasn’t available and wouldn’t be because the person that had to authorize payment had left for the holidays and wouldn’t be back until after the first of the year.  There was not enough begging or pleading I could do to get a check released.

So, with a broken heart, and feeling like a complete and total failure I went home and explained to my daughters there wasn’t going to be Christmas this year.  No presents, not dinner, nothing.  I didn’t have a red cent left to my name.  To add to the feelings of failure and disgrace my ex could and would shower them with the gifts they dreamed of and I could give them nothing.  They were great kids and said no problem, we would just celebrate later and went to Christmas Eve at Granny’s where they were showered with love and presents and a feast of Christmas dinner.  Later, in complete desperation I was digging through all the old coats and jackets I could find in hopes that I could scrape together a few dollars to at least fix a stocking with some fruit and nuts when I pulled out a $20 bill – in the late afternoon of Christmas Eve.

I went to the dollar store and with the change I had been able to scrape from all those little places in your house that change will hide, I had enough to spend $10 on each girl and pay the tax.  Being young teenagers I was able to get makeup and other “girl” stuff, wrap it in newspapers tied with string and waited until after they went to be that night. 

We talked about it that night when they got home and I was never so proud of them.  It was ok that they didn’t have presents.  If I had the money they would rather buy presents for the kids I was working with in the worst parts of town and the kids at the homeless shelter because they would get plenty of presents from other people but the kids I was working with wouldn’t have anything. WOW!  I was blown away by their generosity but it didn’t do much for my feelings of failure.

After they went to bed, I quietly put all their presents under the tree.  What was going to be the most horrible Christmas of my life turned out to be one of the best.  It was better than two little kids waking up to a tree filled with Santa presents and stockings overflowing with toys and candy.  But the story doesn’t end there.  The holidays ended, the girls went back to school and I headed back to Stop Six and the homeless shelters.

I was greeted by excited students telling me all about the two and three Nintendos they got for Christmas (that was “the” gift that year).  I heard all about how they had so many bicycles they gave them to other kids or “Daddy sold it”.  They excitedly told me about all the presents they received and how they “disappeared”.  Hmmmm….. I can only imagine where they went.  It was there I learned that way too many families know how to work the system and register for every Christmas give away they can, and receive from multiple organizations, often times way more than we are able or willing to give to our own children.

www.sodahead.com

What is missing from this picture??

Fast forward a few years and I was working in the homeless district.  I observed first-hand the hundreds of people who showed up between Thanksgiving and Christmas to that “horrible place others are afraid to go” to help the least of these.  With trucks and vans loaded full of old clothes, coats and a plate of hot food they quickly distributed their items with a huge smile on their face and a “God bless you” they came and left.  They left, but not before I experienced the giving from the homeless perspective.  Part of my job was to go and visit with the givers and direct them to the designated giving place in the neighborhood.  I was walking the streets and visiting with my homeless friends when I was mistaken for one of them.  Several times people tried to hand me a plate of food or asked if I needed a warm coat to wear.  I politely told them who I was and why I was there and asked them to go to the proper place.  I was met with anger and resentment even when I told them they were trespassing.  Not only that, I experienced the feelings of those that were being given the items; feelings of lessness, loneliness and humiliation that my homeless friends had tried so hard to describe to me.  I had heard the first hand stories from the homeless themselves about what happens to those generous donations – they were tossed in the trash can as they rushed to the next person giving away things, taken around the neighborhood and sold or traded for drugs or left in piles on the streets for city workers to come and trash in the weeks following the holiday season.

Perhaps you just have to experience it to understand that what the homeless or the “least of these” tried so hard to explain to me. I watched it happen.  They don’t want your “stuff”.  They don’t want your meals.  There is no reason for a person to be hungry in that neighborhood there are about six agencies serving three meals a day – over a million meals a year.  What the homeless really want is for you to come and spend time with them, getting to know them, building ongoing relationships with them.  They want to know they matter.  They want to know you care.  Not just for the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

After Christmas the streets become bare and lonesome.  “I” felt good when I went home.  “I” got to go spend a few minutes making “them” feel better, and then “I” disappeared, not to be seen again until next year.

Don’t get me wrong, I spent many years on the streets at Christmas time passing out hats and gloves and warm blankets. Years ago, before all the services out there for the homeless now I went under bridges and behind the buildings and into some really dark and scary places.  I went before serving the homeless became what it is now, before millions of dollars had been poured into cleaning up the homeless district in Ft. Worth.  And, yes, it was all about me.  It was about what made me feel good because I had done something that made me feel better with little regard to what happened to the homeless after I left. It filled a dark empty place in my heart that was left during the holidays in the years following my divorce, but I did something different.

I went back.  I had been there before the holidays, committing time and energy and resources into the ministry I felt called to at the Church on the Slab, at the Presbyterian Night Shelter, the Salvation Army and just by sitting on the curb talking with people and learning their stories, week after week, before, during and after the holidays.    

And that brings me back to my original question¸ is it all about “me”, and what makes “me” feel good, or is it really about helping the least of these?  If it is really about helping them, what can I do that will bring long lasting sustainable change and not just a smile for a moment with loneliness and lessness to follow? 

So, I challenge us this holiday season to really examine our motives for giving.  Is it all about "me", what makes "me" feel good? Why not give a gift that will really help - pay a utility bill, buy a gas card, contribute to the local food bank?  Why not keep giving of your time, your talents after the holidays are over and the lonliness sets in?  Give something that will empower and sustain...

God, help me as I go forth on this journey to South Sudan to promote feelings of self-worth and empowerment to end the cycle of poverty and not the good feelings in me that only last a moment.  God, help me to offer long lasting, sustainable change that will bring about the restoration of peace and the building of dignity in those I go to serve.  God, help me to make this journey all about you, and not about me. Amen.