DECEMBER 2013: LEAVING AMIDST AN ATTEMPTED COUP
On December 17th, 2013 we locked the door to our beloved home in Nasir, South Sudan, said temporary goodbyes to our friends, and left our compound in the able hands of our workers. We boarded a Cessna Caravan bound for Kampala, Uganda, where we planned to spend one month over the Christmas holiday taking hot showers and eating loads of fresh produce.
We’d be back in no time. Because one month really wasn’t that long to restock our food and supplies, get some down time, celebrate Christmas, and then make preparations to head back to Nasir.
But an attempted coup had started on December 15 – just two days before we left – and it destabilized an already fragile peace in the world’s newest nation. Pockets of intense fighting spread across the country, and Nasir become a contested hotspot – first in the hands of the rebels, then in the hands of the government troops that soon moved in. The town endured heavy bombardment, and initial reports that spring were that the whole town had been burned to the ground.
We sat helplessly in Kampala hearing confusing and devastating reports of violence, damage, and instability. The cell towers had been taken out, so communications to South Sudan were limited. All of our friends and compound workers had fled, with most heading to Ethiopian once again as refugees.
As the weeks dragged on and the news became increasingly grim, we realized that it may be a while before we’d be able to get back to our home, our things, our ministry, and our friends.
We prayed for a miracle; we begged God for peace to come.
MARCH 2014: DEVASTATING NEWS OUT OF NASIR
By March 2014, our team had been forced to make alternative plans. None of us chose to return to the States, though that had been an option. Instead, while the rest of our team moved to Gambella, Ethiopia to keep up our initial ministry efforts among the Nuer, Blaise and I temporarily relocated to Tonj, South Sudan. There we lived with another ministry organization and worked on getting our radio program in Tonj up and running.
We had a very fruitful ministry time there, but our hearts longed to get back to Nasir.
Then in May 2014 – five months after saying goodbye and leaving our precious home – we received devastating news. Our friend, Gatdet, had been able to get back to Nasir to check out the state of things. He found that our house and compound had been looted. Whatever wasn’t stolen had been completely trashed.
Computers, chairs, clothing, and trunks were smashed and scattered throughout our homes. Our motorbike, solar panels, food, and mattresses had been stolen.
Everything was gone.
MAY 2014: GRIEVING THE LOSS OF OUR NASIR HOME
I cannot truly explain in this small space what a blow that was to us. For three years leading up to our move, we had prayed daily for Nasir, for our ministry, and for our life there. Moving to Nasir had been so, so hard. The compound wasn’t finished when we had arrived and it had taken us the first three months just to get everything livable.
But we had a vision of a life-long ministry there. We found out we were expecting our first baby and had a dream of raising our kids in that little house. We were only just starting to catch our breaths and really make friends in our community when we left for Christmas.
To hear that there was nothing to go back to was so bitter.
We grieved the loss for weeks (months…years), but because we were in the thick of ministry in Tonj, we handed it over to God and kept moving forward.
By early Fall 2014, our organization decided to move us to Tonj permanently. They bought land outside of Tonj town and we began to establish a new mission base there. Blaise spent a couple of months with an incredibly hardworking crew building us a whole new house, and then I moved to Tonj with our baby to join Blaise in January 2015.
Our dream of going back to Nasir was over.
FEBRUARY 2021: SEEING OUR NASIR HOME AGAIN
Then on Wednesday – February 10, 2021 – I got Little Miss down for a nap and the boys settled for quiet time. I plopped down on the couch to scroll Facebook for a few minutes and there it was: a photograph of our home in Nasir. And a short-term mission team walking through waist-high grass toward the empty shell of what had been our beloved compound in Nasir.
I clicked through the pictures and saw our little homes. The veranda in the middle of the compound where we gathered for language lessons, big meals, and prayer times with our staff. The radio station.
Somehow they’re still standing after SEVEN YEARS.
Blaise was home from work early, and all I could say through my tears was, “They got back. Somehow they got back to Nasir.” I handed him the phone and he looked through the pictures, too, just as speechless as I was.
The metal roofs, window shutters, and anything of value have long since been stripped from the compound. And clearly no one has taken up residence there, because trees are growing in the middle of the veranda and weeds are climbing up the walls of the houses.
But there was our home. A shadow of its former, brief glory. Another victim of a decades-long war that refuses to end in a land so beautiful and so loved.
I immediately began weeping – and I’m weeping again even as I write this.
GRIEF IS LIKE AN OLD, FAMILIAR COMPANION
When we received word from Gatdet seven years ago that our homes had been looted, I never expected to see them again. We tried to imagine what they might look like, but just couldn’t.
Had they been shelled and reduced to rubble?
Had new people moved in?
Were there bare foundations with no buildings?
Was everything crumbling?
It took my breath away to see the ruins of a place we had loved so fiercely, had dreamed so long and so hard for, and had lost so bitterly.
I spent last Wednesday afternoon intermittently crying and praying. It’s amazing how you think you’ve healed, that you’re done grieving something, but then just like that you’re right back in the middle of it.
I could hear the roosters and the drums, I could smell the cooking fires and burning cow dung, I could feel the sweat and dirt.
In my mind’s eye, I saw the grass thatching of our neighbors’ huts and listened to their roosters announce the morning. I could hear the friendly chatter of the women who were the at the borehole just beside our compound.
I remember that very first morning waking up in our new house in Nasir. I boiled water for a cup of coffee, and then sat on our screened-in front porch watching the sun rise. I couldn’t believe that after three years of praying, planning, and training, we were finally there.
It was the start of an entirely new life, and even though that first night had been kind of a nightmare, I prayed that we’d live in that house for years.
THE QUESTION LINGERS: “WHAT IF?”
I remember the morning we said goodbye to our friends for what would be the last time. I had no idea that we wouldn’t be able to go back. If I had known then what I know now, you better believe I would have hugged everyone tighter and not let go.
But even if I had known, what could I do that would have changed things? How could I have blessed them? How could I have stopped the pain that was coming for us all?
I weep so hard for that little house because it was a home. But it was so much more than that: it was a dream for a life and future there. It was a community, and my heart was there from the moment I stepped foot onto that airstrip in 2010.
It was hard in 2014 when we knew for sure we wouldn’t be going back. And it was hard last week when we saw those pictures and remembered just how much we’d lost.
THERE’S HOPE FOR THE FUTURE
Despite the swirl of heavy emotions I’m still trying to process, I’m thankful.
I never thought I’d even get to see pictures of those little houses again. While it was hard and it reopened scars I thought had long since healed, seeing those pictures was a little like an unexpected gift.
Because not everyone gets closure.
And while it’s not the most satisfying kind of closure, it allows me to at least close the chapter of wondering. Like, “Look, you’ve always wondered and never quite been able to imagine what they looked like. They look like this.”
Even as it’s hard to see the trees growing in the veranda and the vines climbing the walls, it reminds me that this world is not our home. Not forever. One day this will all be made new and we won’t need to fear war or trauma or death.
I’m also thankful that there appears to be a glimmer of hope for Nasir. Maybe it will take a while, and I’m sure there will be setbacks, but peace is possibly on the horizon.
And after that, we hope there will one day be a thriving mission compound in Nasir again.
Until then, we just keep praying hard for a land we love and were privileged to called home for a time.