let's be social!
Yesterday we had our final team training before the trip. Is it already so close that all of our trainings are wrapped up? Wow!
So, each time I talk to the team, I am reminded that God has specifically chosen each of the team members for a very specific purpose. There are no accidents on who ended up on this team, and I am already SO thankful for the team He has assembled…these women are so awesome and so dedicated to serving our God! I cannot wait to meet them in person and get to know them over the course of the trip!
Our training yesterday mostly focused on talking through our itinerary (it’s a doozy), preparing ourselves for Sudan living, and walking through Chronological Bible Storying. I may have mentioned it (it’s early and I’m running on 5 hours of sleep, so I cannot remember), but we are flying Lufthansa this year and after 2 days of travel, we will be arriving in Entebbe at around 1:15 am, and then getting up to leave for Sudan at around 5:30 am. Bring on the exhaustion! =) I don’t handle being exhausted well, but my motto is that I can rest when I get home…being tired is a small price to pay. Last year I thought I would fall over dead from a lack of sleep as we traveled 7 hours into the future, but I was pleasantly surprised that I sleep solidly in Sudan and I quickly made up for the travel exhaustion. There’s something about going to bed and waking up with the cycles of natural sunlight…it’s really good for the body!
Anyway, while we are in Tonj this year, we will be hosted by In Deed and Truth Ministries, and from what I hear the accommodations are top-notch! Andrew even said something about a porcelain toilet?!? No duel wadora (hole in ground) that we must squat over? Apparently, we are also not living in mud huts…what?!? This is not even going to feel like Sudan! =) I’m going to admit this…I’m actually kind of disappointed. I really LOVE the mud huts!! However, I am quite thrilled that we will also get to know the Kuj family, missionaries, and foreign nationals who work on the compound. More fellowship!!
Finally, yesterday we spent a great deal of time walking through Chronological Bible Storying. For those of you who are unfamiliar, this is a method of telling the Bible in oral form. Fewer than 1% of Southern Sudanese are literate, so printed Bibles do not reach many. Oral Bible storying is powerful for the Sudanese, because their culture is very much based on storying as a way of keeping tradition. More on that in the next post.
Can you believe that I leave in 11 days???
