Sustainable Crafts

It has been a couple weeks since I last posted. Will and I have been traveling for the past two weeks and it was extremely busy. We returned to Arua yesterday and will be here for two more weeks until we close out of this season. I will post more about our travels and about what is next for us in the coming weeks. 

A couple months ago, Mama Penina, the leader of the Moru church in Arua that we attend, asked if our ministry would parter with the church in helping to train some of the Moru women in Arua in craft making. This project was going to entail purchasing supplies from Kampala and hiring teachers to come and train the women in the specific skills. The purpose of this venture was to provide the women here with a skill they can use to make money to help sustain their families. As I have posted before, most of the Moru refugees here in Arua are women who stay with their children alone while their husbands are still in South Sudan. Most of the husbands have lost their jobs due to the most recent conflict in South Sudan and have not been able to send money consistently to help sustain their families. The women are constantly struggling to find money to pay rent, school fees, and buy food for their children. So, a project like this is huge in helping the women support their children while their husbands are away trying to find work. 

The training started last week and the women meet twice a week to learn the skills and work on their items together. The first thing they learned to make were purses. The purses are made with beads and then will be lined with cotton material on the inside. The teacher taught them to do many different designs of beadwork for the bags. After the women learn the skill of making the purses, they will move on to small pocketbooks, jewelry, sandals (with designs) and then they will learn to sew designs on bedsheets and napkins. 

One thing I absolutely love about this culture is how community-oriented they are in everything they do. In America, it seems like we would learn a skill and then go off to the privacy of our own homes and work on things alone. Here, they learn the skill together and then they gather together to work on the projects as a group. 

We had the privilege of visiting the group today while they were working. Everyone was gathered under a huge mango tree and were working on their individual bags while conversing with each other and helping each other as needed. The teacher was available and each woman would go up to her for guidance and advice occasionally. It was such a great picture of community!

Here are some pictures from the day:

We are so grateful that these women have this opportunity to help support their families. After they sell the items they make, they have a business plan to use some of the profit to purchase more supplies so they can keep making more items to sell. Please pray this would be a fruitful way for the women to help sustain their families. 

You will be Inconvenienced

After this past week, I realized that if new missionaries to Africa asked me to give them advice on living life in Africa, one thing I would say is, "Allow yourself to be inconvenienced." It's inevitable that it will happen, so chose to accept it willingly. 

An example of choosing to be okay in light of an inconvenience happened on Saturday. At church the week before, I told the leader of the church and the Sunday School leader that I would like to host a training for the Sunday School Teachers. They were so excited that they went ahead and told me where and when to come that following Saturday for the training. Since they were eager for the training, I agreed to do it that week. 

I spent several hours preparing what I wanted to present to the Sunday School Teachers. Making sure the material was simple enough to be understood in English, but also got to the heart of what I found to be most important to communicate about teaching children Biblical truths. After much debate about all of this, I finally had a lesson I was excited to teach and was looking forward to using my Saturday to share this information with the youth who were willing to volunteer to teach the children. 

Will, Justin and I showed up at the scheduled 2:00 time on Saturday. Much like usual, no one was there when we arrived. We are very used to be the first the arrive at a scheduled time and took the opportunity to greet a friend who lived nearby while we were waiting. An hour and a half went by and we realized that no one was coming. Usually there are at least signs of people starting to come at this point, so we knew something was wrong. We called all of the people who we knew to call and no one was answering their phones. At first I started to get annoyed. I had given up several hours of prep and my Saturday afternoon and no one cared to show up. 

But then I chose to listen. 

We asked our friend where she thought everyone was and she informed us that it was "Rations Day" at the refugee camp. Each month, the refugees find a way to get out to the refugee camp (which is about 2 hours away) and collect food rations for the month. If they do not show up to the camp on the right day (which of course changes each month depending on when the delivery actually arrives), they do not get food for their family for the month. 

Well, poor little old me got over her complaints pretty quickly when I heard why no one was there! They plan their months around when they need to collect their month's supply of food and here I am complaining that a couple hours of my Saturday was "wasted". 

This has quickly become a theme in our ministry in Africa. Things are often canceled, people often show up hours later than "scheduled", etc. But we have learned to listen. When you are patient and listen to the reasons, there is usually always a very reasonable explanation. Friends are late to a meeting because they had to wait in line for 5 hours to get water for their family for the day. They had to walk a mile to get firewood before the could cook breakfast, and with the other tasks for the morning, it made them late, and so on. Yes, it is still inconvenient for us and often throws off things we had scheduled later in the day, but often loving people here well is being understanding of their circumstances. When you chose to slow down and listen, you realize the person was always more important than the task in the first place. Therefore, it's always worth it to be a little inconvenienced. 

School Fees

Young children in Uganda (and most African countries) speak very little English. They typically speak 1-2 other languages at this point, but English is not learned until they start attending school. As someone who loves kids, I have learned ways around having to speak the same language and typically hold their hands, tickle them and laugh with them. 

Where we are staying in Arua is right next to women's barracks for a local teaching college. There are several small children who live on this compound (probably the children of workers who stay there). One girl is named "Chancellor Commander" (yes, that is her real name). She loves to run up and greet me with a smile, hold my hand and walk with me. 

One day, after greeting her many times before, Chancellor held my hand, walked with me, and with wide eyes, looked up at me and said, "School Fees??". Aside from the usual known greeting of, "How are you?", this is the only English I have ever heard this child speak. Since we have gotten this request many times since being in Uganda, I knew right away that those two words were a plead for us to pay her school fees for her. I also quickly knew that this sweet little child who didn't speak any English aside from simple greetings, did not come up with these words on her own. Someone in her family (probably her mother) had most likely seen her walking with me before and told her that next time she saw me, she should repeat these two magic words. 

I had not seen Chancellor for several weeks until running into her today. For the first time ever, I also met her mother. Her mother told me how her husband had passed away two years ago and she was left caring for her two children on her own. We had a great conversation and I told her she was a very strong woman and I was impressed by all she was able to handle on her own. Chancellor walked away with her mom and we all said goodbye. About 30 seconds later, Chancellor came running back up to me. This time, she was holding a folded up note that had been written for her (and stored somewhere for a while) and handed it to me. The note said, "Please give me money for school fees. My father has passed away and I need money to attend school". Again, someone had clearly instructed her to give this to me the next time I was around. 

I quickly went from being excited over the lovely conversation I had with Chancellor's mother to feeling extremely guilty over not running and handing her money for school fees. You have to understand, children not having money for school fees here is a VERY common problem. Almost every mother at the Moru church has told me she struggles to pay school fees for her children each term. The need is constant and very real. Paying school fees for everyone who has requested this of us is simply not possible.

When I got home I started processing what I was feeling. My first thought was, "I just feel guilty for not helping!!". Then I (or more likely, the Lord re-directing my thoughts) realized that without a doubt, if I felt like God was telling us to pay Chancellor's school fees, we would do it in a heartbeat. No question. If God put it on my heart to bring her over the money right now, I would do it. But I knew that wasn't what He was doing. Something was telling me I did the right thing by not running to hand her money. So what was the nagging feeling that was still there? As I thought about it more, I realized it was my pride. My pride craved the attention that comes after giving someone what they are asking for. I wanted to know I was tangibly helping the mother and, therefore, making her day much easier with the stress of where to get money for school fees taken away. I wanted to know I was helpful and needed. All good things, but not when they are done for the wrong reasons. Yikes. Hello, pride. 

So, this little request from a sweet 4 year old has knocked hard on my pride today and brought me to a place of repentance. Repentance for wanting to be Chancellor's savior. I wanted to solve her problems and make everything better for her. However, when I really look at this seriously, I realize that what I really want is to be enough for her. I want to be the one who provides for her needs. This is not my job. God did not call me to the mission field to become the Provider for those I minister to. That is His role. My role is simply to point people to the ultimate Provider. Yes, sometimes this is done by meeting their needs, but this has to be prompted by God, not by my own pride or desire to help. Will and I would quickly run out of energy and resources if we just started handing money to anyone who asked for it. It might make them feel good for the day, but what about tomorrow when we've used all our resources and they are still in need? 

My prayer is that I will continue to realize that my role as a missionary is to point people to Christ. That is the goal, purpose and hope. That is done in many different ways, so I pray that I would also be in tune with how God is leading with each specific person. For some, He might direct us to pay school fees as a way of building trust and relationship and helping to provide for their basic needs. For others, He might direct us to simply be present, hold hands, cry and mourn in the midst of tragedy. The key is being attentive to His voice and following where He leads. 

Restless

Today I am feeling restless.

We have continued to be surrounded by tragedy this week. It's constant and I am completely helpless in being able to do anything to make the situations better for those I love around me.

When people you care for are hurting, all you want to do is bring comfort and peace in a way that makes the pain go away and the tears stop. However, that is usually not possible in the midst of true tragedies and deep pain. Therefore, all we are able to do is be present (in most of my current situations, from a distance) and pray fervently.

But some days that doesn't feel like enough.

I want to see change and I want to see it now.

For our Bishop who's son was most likely murdered but they haven't been able to identify the body, I want to see resolution. I want the pain to be erased and the family to be whole again. I want them to have reason to rejoice and be glad as a family of five again rather than having to sit in so much continued unknowns, pain and suffering.

For my friends who are continuing to struggle with infertility, lost pregnancies and unmet desires to be parents, I want their stories to have happy ending. I want to see them hold happy, healthy babies in their arms and to know that the long seasons of waiting was worth it. I want the sadness and pain to go away and for rejoicing to come.

For the many South Sudanese who are being forced to live far away from their families due to continued instability, I want there to be an end in sight. I'm tired of watching families being torn apart and have to suffer with very little due to the tragedy of war. I want there to be affordable food in the markets again and opportunities for children to return to school consistently. I want their fears to be washed away and healing to meet them in the painful places of their hearts.

And in the many other unmet desires and tragedies happening all over, my heart cries, "How long, Oh Lord?".

In it all, my heart feels tired. Sometimes I wish I didn't "feel" things as much as I do because my compassion often leaves me restless and exhausted. It's wearing to endure the sufferings of those around us.

But in it all, there is HOPE. This is only because we serve a good God. A God who meets us in the pain and unmet desires. A God who knows the heartache and speaks to us in that place. The One who offers us rest in His presence.

Psalm 62:1-2 says, "My soul finds rest in God alone. My salvation comes from Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; He is my fortress; I will never be shaken." 

The beauty of this truth is that nothing that is going on around me can shake me or separate me from the hope that God offers. Nothing is strong enough to push me over completely.  Nothing can steal my rest when I press into the fullness of what God offers.

Even as I write these words, I am praying for God to actually make this true for me. I feel shaken this week and very tired. However, I am reminded that being brought to my knees is not the same as being conquered completely. All of the things going on around me have brought me to a place of desperation for God to show up and bring resolutions, but that doesn't mean my faith is shattered. On the contrary, my faith is strengthened when I allow myself to fully engage in the pain, while still holding onto the truth that God is powerful enough to come through. It might not be in the way I would hope for or predict, but when He does come through, there is reason for much rejoicing.

Easter Week

If I have learned anything from the Moru community, it is how to mourn deeply and how to rejoice whole-heartedly. This week consisted of a lot of rejoicing! 

Easter celebrations started on Palm Sunday. Justin preached (his first of 4 times preaching during this Easter week!) and did a great job explaining the history of why Jesus went into down on donkey and what that represented. Everyone brought palm branches to church and it was truly a celebration of the King and the hope of what was to come. 

The next service was on Thursday. We had a Maundy Thursday celebration at someone's house. This was an amazing time! Justin preached again and then he and another pastor washed everyone's feet. After the foot washing, we had communion together. Never have I ever had such a HUGE portion at communion!!! Everyone was given a large roll to represent Jesus' body and an ENTIRE mug of kedi-kedi tea (which is made from hibiscus and has LOTS of sugar). The whole time I was eating the communion portion (which took a while!), I was thinking about how it represented my prayer for the beautiful Moru people I was surrounded by. I prayed that they would all daily partake in all that Jesus has to offer them- and that this would be enough to fully satisfy them, as the communion portions did. I prayed that God would overwhelm them with his abundant provision and that they would always walk away satisfied in Him.  

The communion rolls are on the table

Will drinking his portion of the communion "wine" 

The church gathering was on Good Friday. This was a little more somber of a service (as it should be). However, the Moru people are never fully somber, so there was still lots of singing and laughter. My favorite part of this service was that while Justin was preaching, the woman translating his English into Arabic got extremely emotional as he was describing what happened to Jesus. She is a very strong Christian, so she obviously knew this story well, but just hearing it spoken brought her to tears. This touched me deeply because it spoke to what my heart desired. I have felt very numb in this Easter season and the message has not been penetrating my heart as it should as a believer. Seeing her emotions reminded me of the weight of the story. It showed me what my heart should be feeling as I hear/ read about the brutal death of Christ. I was very touched by this and grateful for her vulnerability. 

The last service was obviously on Easter Sunday. This service was 4 hours long and consisted of 4 pastors, 2 messages, communion, 4 dances/ songs from Children's Church, over 10 Moru songs and multiple prayers! It was amazing! Justin did an amazing job preaching this service (as he did with all of the messages this week!). He explained the history of what was predicted about the coming Messiah and did a great job explaining the power of God in the Easter story. The other man who spoke also did a good job explaining what Christ's death and resurrection means for us. 

I was asked to read a passage in Mark in Moru during the Good Friday service. I practiced the 11 verses I was assigned, and then the night before, was told to add another section to the reading! Hehe. So I ended up reading around 20 verses completely in Moru! Mama Penina told me that I did so well that she wanted me to read again for the Sunday service.. haha! I didn't have as much time to practice this one, but still tried my best. It was fun to try and read in Moru. Everyone was grateful for the effort (and hopefully I didn't butcher the Word of the Lord too much... ;)). 

It was so much fun to have the opportunity to celebrate Easter week with this community. It was a gift to walk through the whole story of Christ's death and resurrection with them. Our prayer is that this message would continue to be close to their hearts (and our own). We are blessed to be with these beautiful people for this season. 

 

Marriage

Yesterday, Will led a discussion with the "Young Christian Fellowship" group from the Moru church. This group is aimed towards young married women. Most of the women's husbands are living in South Sudan and they stay here in Arua, Uganda with their children.

Will led the discussion from Ephesians 5 and focused on the call for men to love their wives and women to respect their husbands. We quickly learned that "discussion based" groups are not common in this culture. Typically, they would prefer to sit and listen. However, they responded well and gave us good insights into marriages in the Moru culture.

Hearing from these women reminded me of how much marriage is in crisis in this world. Satan loves to distort and pervert marriage away from the way God desired it to look. This happens everywhere, but it is more hidden in other places than it is in Africa.

We asked the women how their husbands love them well. This immediately turned into a discussion about how the men left them (all of them seemed to be shaking their heads in agreement, so we assumed this was the case with almost all of them) in Arua with the children and have taken other wives in South Sudan. They said they don't like calling their husbands anymore because when they call them, a woman will often pick up and start insulting them. It sounds like their husbands do not openly discuss other women, but it is just expected and known without it being something that can be mentioned. In this culture, if a man gets a woman pregnant, He is supposed to claim her as his wife. So, in a place with very little birth control, it is common for a man to get another woman pregnant while he is cheating on his wife. He then has multiple wives and multiple children to provide for. Due to everything happening in South Sudan, most of these men have very little money right now, so the money they do have goes to provide for their most current wives/ children, and the first wives are left in Arua without means of providing for their children and with a husband who stops coming around. You can imagine how this conversation quickly turned in a way we didn't expect when asking how their husbands love them well...

During the course of the discussion, one woman asked me how to keep respecting your husband even when he does not love you well. I responded from my own experience and explained that the Bible doesn't say to only respect your husband if he is loving you, but that we are called to respect no matter what. I explained this takes a lot of prayer and can only be done through God's strength. The translator told the woman everything I said and then added, "She (me) is only saying this because she has a good husband. She is a kawaja (white woman), so she doesn't understand". They went on to discuss how "white people" have an easier time in marriages and how they wish they could have married a white person so their marriage would be good. Thankfully, Justin calmly explained how the same sins exist in the West, but are just more hidden. He explained that it is not a culture that they should want to immolate, but Jesus Christ. He did an amazing job walking them through respecting even when the situation is saturated in sin and how Christ is the only one who can give them the strength to do so. He explained that God does not force us to stay in abusive, adulterous relationships, but that He can provide strength in the midst of these or provide a way out (when there are Biblical reasons for doing so). The women responded extremely well to this and said that this was the encouragement they needed to keep going. They said they knew Jesus was able to give them the strength to endure and that they needed us to continue to pray for them in this process.

Please join us in praying for marriages in South Sudan (and the world). Pray for the men to have changed heart and to love their wives well and commit to one woman. Pray for the women to chose to respect even when it is hard and to lean on Christ as their first love and their strength. Pray for the children who are caught up in all of this and often live without fathers present- and without good examples of loving fathers.

Rabuuna Fi

I have found one of the hardest parts about being in the mission field in rural Africa is that you are always surrounded by horribly depressing news. It's constant. There are always people suffering around you. You constantly hear about things like the death of children (usually due to curable diseases which aren't treated in time because of bad medical care or a lack of medicine because the family could not afford it), lack of everyday necessities like food, and water; and political unrest which causes fear and distress in the people.

Here are a few things I feel weighed down by this week.

The aftermath of an attack in Malakal, South Sudan.
Photo Source: NY Times

The political state of South Sudan. This week, South Sudan has gotten a lot more publicity in western media than usual. Unfortunately, the publicity was for horribly disturbing reasons. The UN accused the South Sudanese government of "using rape as currency" for their soldiers. This isn't new news, but it is getting more publicity right now. The government told soldiers that they do not have enough money to pay them sufficiently, so as compensation for their work, they can take whatever they want from the places they overtake, including raping the women and children if they desire. I can hardly type those words without wanting to throw my computer across the room. The reality of this is so extremely evil to me that I can't even fully take it in. To read an article from PBS that explains this a little more, click here. For a more detailed account of this (with very disturbing statistics and stories) read the NY Times article here. There was another article put out this week from Time that I am not even going to link here because it was so disturbing and graphic that I couldn't even get through the whole thing. However, I believe it is so important for those in the western world to expose themselves to what it really happening in the world. Parents are having to watch their children be raped- for no reason at all! They didn't do a thing other than be on the "wrong" side of a political crisis due to their ethnicity. It's so alarmingly disgusting that it has to bring us to our knees in prayer.

The ad that was put on social media
to try to find Joseph

Bishop Bismark's missing son. As I've mentioned before, our closest ministry partner in Mundri is Bishop Bismark. He is our "go to" resource in knowing what is really happening in South Sudan. He has had an incredibly challenging year as he has tried to inform us from afar, care for his family (who he re-located for Kampala, Uganda for safety) and care for the many Moru people he is connected to in Mundri and the areas they have evacuated to. He has been extremely busy and under a lot of stress. Two weeks ago, he got news that his son, Joseph, was missing. Joseph is in his early 20's and told his mom he was going out to a cafe in the evening to use the Internet for school. He didn't return that night and they have not be able to find him since. Seriously, this is the stuff from nightmares. Bishop and Rina have been searching Kampala in all the ways they know how. They have looked at morgues, prisons and many other places. They put out an expensive ad in the newspaper and have spread the news on social media, but still have not gotten any closer to finding Joseph.

Stories from war: We had a Moru visitor this week and she was sharing with us about her experience during the last war in South Sudan. She explained that during the last war, she and her family evacuated by foot to Congo. At one point, they didn't have any food or resources and decided to go to Uganda to see if life would be better there. They walked for 3 days straight with no food or water. During this journey, she was 5 months pregnant, had a baby on her back and was carrying everyrthing else she owned in her hands and on her head. It sounded like she did not have any shoes and was wearing scraps from a parachute because she didn't have any other clothes. This story was from the 1990's, but it made me wonder how many similar stories are happening just like this in South Sudan and other countries right now. Stories like this are common during war times in Africa and South Sudan seems to be just as unstable (if not more) than it was back then.

I tell all of these stories that are weighing on my heart this week to simply give you facts of what is happening here. However, if you were to hear these stories from anyone in South Sudan, they would most likely end the horrible details they share with you with the phrase, "RABUUNA FI". Rabuuna fi means, "The Lord is here". You will not hear a story without them ending it on this phrase of truth. This has been so challenging for me because I often don't know how God could possibly be present in the midst of such horrific tragedy. However,  over and over again in Scripture, God reminds He people that He is THERE He is PRESENT. Why do we as Christians need so many reminders of this? Probably because this world has so much evil in it, we often lose sight of how a God good can be present in the midst of it. But He is. He is there.

Joshua 1:9 says, "Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." This is not only if you go to "safe places", NO! God is everywhere.

Psalm 46:1-3 say, "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging." Despite circumstances, God is ever there.

At our pre-field training, one of the instructors used to say the line, "What does God do when the missionaries leave?" He would say this facetiously, but his point was that God doesn't need us in order to be present in a place. He is there already. He choses to use us at times, but even without us, His Spirit is moving and living in ALL places.

So, when I think about the atrocities happening in South Sudan, the pain that South Sudanese are dealing with as they try to survive in the midst of war crimes, rape, etc. When I think of Bishop Bismark and his wife, Rina as they are dealing with the heartache of a missing son and the terrors of what could have happened to him, all I can say right now is, "Rabunna fi". God is here. And just as he is here, he is there in South Sudan and he is present in the situation with Joseph. No, this doesn't mean the issues are solved and everything will be right in the world again with this reality. But what it does mean is that He knows, and He is present. Our job when we pray is not to ask God to be there in these places, He already is. Our job is to ask His Spirit to move and change hearts, to find missing children and protect those who are in harms way. His presence is a given, the question lies more with our belief of what His presence means and what He can do.

Please join me in praying that God's presence would change hearts of the leadership in South Sudan. Pray for leaders who desire to serve the Lord and see God "make all things right". Please also pray that God's presence would be with the people of South Sudan. That He would protect the innocent and provide for the needs of the suffering. Pray that because "Rabuuna fi", it would bring comfort to Bishop and Rina as they search for their missing son. Pray that God would bring Joseph back to his parents safely and alive. Pray that God would protect Joseph in the meantime and be enough for him.