Goat Skin On the Road For Jesus

This might be stating the obvious, but everything Alyssa and I do with our HIV/AIDS stories has the ultimate goal of sharing the gospel of Jesus with the people we are teaching. We try to use the stories of the physical sickness (HIV/AIDS) that has no cure to transition to stories of the spiritual sickness (sin) that has only one cure...Jesus!

For the last few months we have been going to the Chumakori area every week to story with a group of old men who lay under a big tree all day. We originally went to share the AIDS stories with them but after we finished and told the gospel story they invited us back to tell more stories from God's Word. Some weeks there have been six or seven men and other weeks there have been almost 30. We've told about the creation of the world, Adam and Eve's disobedience, God's promise to Abraham, King David, Isaiah's prophecies about the Promised Savior, and recently we have been working our way through the life of Jesus. 

Rain and travel had kept us away from this group since the beginning of July, but we went today in hopes of finding some men under this tree. Usually there are just older men who are there but today a group of seven young men walked up right as we arrived. We fondly refer to the 15-25 year olds as "punks" because of the general attitude of entitlement and disrespect that many of them have. 

Well, these punks just sat right down with the old men and listened to the stories with great attention and interest! Alyssa told the story of Jesus healing the blind man on the road to Jerusalem and I told the story of Jesus riding on the donkey into the city. Almost everyone in the group participated in the re-telling of both stories and really grasped some of the deeper meanings. While we were discussing how the crowds put their coats on the road out of respect for Jesus one "punk" said that if he were there he would even put his goat skin on the road for Jesus. They all agreed to be under the tree again in three days so that we can continue the stories from the life of Jesus.

As slow-going and discouraging as rainy season can be for ministry opportunities, I am sitting here tonight thankful that God is still changing hearts, no matter what expectations I have.

The World

The standpoint from which the Bible speaks of “the world” is quite different from ours. It is a word that is defined in terms of God. “The world” is always, and emphatically, God’s world—the order of things which He made, which He owns, and which He rules, despite all His creatures’ efforts to cast off His sway.

The reference point of the biblical idea of the world, therefore, is not man, but God. What we have to do now is to learn to think of the world God-centeredly, as the Bible presents it, as God sees it, and as He thinks of it.

For the thoughts of God about it are the measure of what it really is.

“The World” from 18 Words by J.I. Packer

Recently I...

...crossed the river in windshield-deep water to get to the airstrip in Kapoeta.

...went to Nairobi for a company meeting with other friends serving Jesus in East Africa.

...celebrated my 25th birthday with several of those friends.

...got henna on my hand, which was a little hard to explain to a Toposa friend when I got back.

Toposa BBQ

If any of you are squeamish or overly sensitive about being nice to animals, just do both of us a favor and skip this post. If you want to see how the Toposa prep a bull for cooking, keep going.

I got woken up on Saturday morning by a girl calling my name at the fence. One of the men in a village close to us had given a bull for eating and so I grabbed my camera and headed over. 

This was what was happening when I got there. I was a little bummed to have missed the actual killing part, but maybe it's better that I ease into situations like this anyway...

First they skinned one side...

Then everybody grabbed a leg/tail and flipped it over to skin the other side.

Several people asked me if people in America eat meat and I said yes, but definitely not in the same way that the Toposa do. There is no party, no one puts on goat skin skirts and dances around while they blow whistles...we just eat it. That is an extremely foreign concept to a tribe who values bulls more than they do people so there was a lot of laughter when I said that I had never seen any of this before and that people in my village do not have a big celebration every time they eat meat. 

She was standing in front of me the whole time and was way cuter than the bull.

After they skinned it they started cutting it up for cooking, and then my camera died. Lame. But the answer is yes, I did eat some of it and it was not the best steak I've ever had. But most importantly, so far nothing has gone seriously wrong with my digestive system so I would say overall this "cultural experience" was a success! 

Ode to a Muddy Road

The Road Not Taken

Inspired by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a muddy wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And being without a wench, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it flooded in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as torn
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was clearer and had no thorns;
Though as for that the passing there
Had them looking really about the same,

And both that afternoon equally lay
In mud no tires had trodden down
Oh, I kept the first for another day
Knowing there was waist-deep mud that way
I doubted if I should ever get to town.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere on blogs or Facebook hence
Two roads diverged in the bush and I
I took the one that looked most dry
And that has made all the difference.

Hello Lokichoggio

This past week the entire Toposa team was in Lokichoggio, Kenya to pick up the Nehemiah Team guys who are here for the summer. The road travel itself was really draining, but it was nice to see Jonathan and Holly, get our gas bottles filled, and sleep in a room with an air-conditioning unit for a few nights!
Our oven and stove run on gas and since there isn't any gas to be found in South Sudan or in Loki, we drove to Lodwar one of the days to get our bottles filled. Lodwar is about a three-hour drive from Loki and we drove through Kakuma on our way there. Do any of you have Netflix? Watch God Grew Tired of Us next!
Three new experiences I had during this drive were a) driving on a paved road (the 1/2 mile stretch in Loki doesn't count), b) going 120 kilometers an hour in the truck and c) having to stop and wait for a herd of camels to get out of my way.

The Nehemiah team made it on time and with all their bags--SCORE! There are seven guys on the team and they are camping in an area about two hours from our compound all summer. Their two primary goals are to use the GPS marker to note where all the villages are in the area (to prepare for future ministry) and to share the gospel in each village that they mark. It will be a summer without many physical comforts (they are in the middle of NOWHERE) but I can already tell that God has brought them each for a specific purpose and it's going to be great! As you are praying for our team this week, add in these seven guys.

The time Alyssa didn't have malaria

I've already given away the ending with the title of this post, but I am mostly using it as an excuse to show pictures of where we live anyway. Because of Alyssa's symptoms we did a rapid malaria test yesterday and it was negative for malaria. The test was actually expired so we decided to go to the clinic by the compound, just to be sure.

When I say "clinic" don't even get any sort of picture in your mind of a clinic in America. Think a concrete room with a bunch of pills, alcohol swabs, and of course plenty of flies. It is South Sudan, after all.

This is the clinic, or natalia in Toposa.

The waiting area is outside where it is usually cooler. Walker, Davis, and two of their friends were out riding their bikes and stopped to see what we were doing.

Davis, Alemu, and Walker with their "we are sick" faces.

This is Lokoyo. He is a follower of Jesus and has learned English from school and being around the compound almost every day. He is awesome and has led many Toposa to the Lord!

There are two ladies who work at the clinic in Paringa. They are from another Sudanese tribe but they speak Toposa and are a great help to the people in our area.

Alyssa was showing Walker where they stuck her finger. He was very worried that she would have to get "yucky medicine" and "lots of shots that hurt so bad." She had neither.

Alemu watching the action inside the clinic and Lokoyo watching the action outside the clinic.

For those of you who are interested, this is the tree outside the natalia where we meet for church!