let's be social!
The Monday and Tuesday that we were in Nasir were really two work days. We held the Bible School final exams both mornings, and then went out the radio tower to work both evenings. Each day after lunch, we would wrap up the exams, seek refuge from the heat, hang out with the women on our compound, and then prepare for work at the tower. We did have a tremendous amount of work to do assembling nearly 1,000 hand-held radios to be distributed at the Bible school graduation ceremony on Wednesday…that kept us pretty busy!
I took some pictures of us working out at the tower, and I wish I had taken some inside the school and of us assembling radios, but it was just too darn hot to even walk from the school to my hut to get my camera! =)
On Monday, Buay and Yen mixed cement right on the ground…it was the coolest way to mix cement I’ve ever seen! They used it to pour the pad for the satellite.
Our job (the ladies) was supposed to be to go fetch water. The nearest borehole was a mile from the tower, and I think Buay assumed that we couldn’t handle it, so Buay, Yen, and Blaise walked out there with jerry cans and fetched the water. Buay was right, we couldn’t have handled it…those jerry cans weight like 40 pounds when they’re full of water!
This was great! Okay, so Yen had asked us each for our headlamps. We all said no, but then Nancy caved and said that she would give him hers on the last night we were out there. Well, Tuesday night was our last night at the tower, but in the meantime Nancy found out that Yen asks for things all of the time. No big deal, but Nancy decided that instead of just handing over her torch, she wanted something in return (most African cultures dictate that you give and receive…you only get if you give!). She explained to Yen (through Buay) that she would be happy to barter something with him, and she preferred items that she could somehow display in her home…she collected stuff from all around the world. Yen thought that was a great idea, and he took Nancy into his hut to select something worthy of her torch. Buay went to translate and I went to take pictures of this humorous exchange. Just because I went along, I got a souvenier, too!
In the afternoons, I spent a great deal of time just hanging out with the women. It was an awesome time of fellowship, and I even attempted to read Isaiah 18 (a prophesy against Cush) to them IN NUER! They were extremely impressed that I even tried, though I did a terrible job! We laughed, they taught me new phrases, we conversed in our broken second languages, and we prayed together. It was truly an precious time, and I am so glad that I sacrificed a nap to spend time with them. Mimi and I also played frisbee with the kiddos, Nancy and I sat while they braided hair, and I played a LOT of yit!
However, missions work is not all peaches and cream, as I’m sure you’ve gathered. I LOVE the South Sudanese. Love them. But after being there three times, the rose color was fading and I was starting to notice things that I hadn’t noticed before…things I didn’t like. Last year, I probably couldn’t have told you one thing about the Nuer culture that I didn’t like…it was the honeymoon phase. And not to say that’s completely over, because I know I have more learning ahead of me; however, on this trip I reached my limit of being asked for things.
We were asked by the headmaster in Kierwan to build latrines and a teacher’s office, we were asked for food in the community, and we were asked by the Bible School students to bring them radios that were not fix-tuned…you know, so they could listen to other stations. What?!? I had reached my human capacity for compassion and I was mad. After the Bible School students left one of those days, we laid at God’s feet the things that had been troubling us or that we were struggling with. Mine was compassion. Fortunately, our God loves for us to ask for more good things to pour out onto others, so I was able to see past my own shortcomings and see things from the perspective of the Sudanese…and then I was no longer mad at them. (It helped that after we prayed as a team, I spent some time reading through Matthew and all of the times when Jesus had compassion after compassion on people who sought Him out to ask!)
They see us as people of unlimited resources, and we pretty much are. When we go in and give them things, they think it won’t hurt to ask for more things that they need. And the truth is, aside from the radio situation, they usually ask for completely legitimate things: food, medicine, water, latrines, textbooks, clothes, etc. Wouldn’t I ask for those same things if I never had them? Wouldn’t you?
