Thursday: Shannon, Carrie and I went to Lomayen to see what had been happening. There were about 80 people (plus 30-40 kids) gathered while Shannon and Jacob taught about what it means to pray. The Toposa church learned that prayer is talking to God like they talk to their friends. It is from the heart, not something that is memorized. They learned that they can thank Nakuj (God) for things that He has done, things that He has created, and things He has given them. They learned that when someone is sick or their sorghum crops are suffering, they ask Nakuj to heal and to help them instead of going to the witch doctor. A couple of men and one woman stood up in front of everyone to practice talking to Nakuj from their heart.
We listened to the first chapter of Acts on the proclaimer, and Shannon and Jacob taught about how Christians are to come together to listen to God’s Word, pray, and help each other.
Friday: The whole family (Shannon, Carrie, Benton (11), Davis (9), Walker (4), me, and Alyssa!) went to spend the night in Lomayen. We got there around 6 so we had enough light to set up tents in Jacob’s father’s village and to set up a sheet and projector in a cleared area. White people tend to attract a lot of attention in the middle of Nowhere, South Sudan, so 7 white people plus a vehicle plus funny looking cloth houses plus a loudspeaker was a total freak show. In this case it worked to our advantage because by the time it was dark and we had sung a couple of Toposa songs together there were almost THREE HUNDRED people gathered to see the Jesus Film.
The Toposa notice VERY different things in the movie than I do. There was a lot of laughing when Jesus sends the demons from the man into the herd of pigs. They would all point out the camels whenever they were in the background of a scene, and they made fun of the Roman soldiers’ helmets. The Toposa don’t ride any animals (considered animal cruelty…hmm) so there were comments whenever anyone in the film would ride horses or donkeys.
This was the first time most of them had seen a video so even though I think they understood that it wasn’t real, a lot of the guys sitting in front of me scooted back a little bit when Satan came in the form of a snake to tempt Jesus in the desert.
There was a shooting star right about the part in the movie where Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey.
About halfway through the movie a guy plopped down about three feet away from me and sat the rest of the time with his AK-47 on his lap. This is normal, right?
After the film was over Jacob stood up and talked about it for a little while, and we sang a few more Toposa songs. By the time we were all in our tents it was around 10:45pm.
Hopefully you are now more aware of how you can pray for the Toposa! Ask God to encourage Jacob and the other new believers in Lomayen. Thank God for saving so many people in that area and ask Him to help these men and women understand what they hear on the proclaimer. Pray for Shannon, Carrie, Alyssa and I, that we could know how to best help these new believers and encourage Jacob. Shannon is going to help Jacob teach every Wednesday, and Carrie/Alyssa and I are trying to figure out how to do some sort of women’s Bible story group, too. Jacob speaks enough English that he can help translate when Shannon is teaching, but if we want to do a women’s group at the same time then we will need another person to help us tell the Bible stories.
Please keep praying that we can find a consistent person to help us with language! The group in Lomayen is a perfect example of why knowing the Toposa language is so important to our ministry here. Your prayers DO make a difference in South Sudan!
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