February

This is full of pictures. You know you're excited! I'm a firm believer that blogs are always better with pictures. Ladies and gentlemen, a photo essay of the month of February.

February has been the Month of the Rat. With 4 rats making an appearance in my tukel plus multiple sightings in our kitchen and bathroom areas it was time to take some serious action. Shannon destroyed all visible nets with his leaf blower, Davis continued to set his trap, Alyssa and I filled in all crevices in my tukel with steel wool, and Carrie, Alyssa and I all set out a variety of rat poisons along the fence and on the beams in our kitchen. So far the dead body count is 27 and we have only made a small dent in the population. But in my mind, a small dent is better than no dent!

Carrie gets major points for this. There is absolutely NO way I am touching one of these things, even when they're dead. Ever.

EW look at the teeth on these things! Explains how they eat their way through every kind of container in our kitchen.

School is going well. Sergeant Walker is reporting for duty at pre-school every day. Tell him a word and he can tell you what letter it starts with by sounding it out. His favorite things are gluing, wearing Thomas the Tank Engine stickers on his face, and listening to stories.

Davis loves math, history and writing hilarious limericks for people's birthdays.

Alyssa and I have been going to Nanok's village a couple of times a week to practice our Toposa and to get to know the people in this village better. This particular village is a little challenging but I am learning to be more okay with constantly being laughed at, proposed to, and told to bring them everything from beer to tobacco to shoes. Today's challenge: grind sorghum by hand. Bring it.

I swear I was doing exactly the same thing as Nanok but the second I started to grind the sorghum everyone started howling with laughter. While I admit my technique was probably a little off, I'm pretty sure the bulk of the reaction was because no other white people had come to their village to grind sorghum before.

Alyssa's turn!

Our awesome friend Renne visited us for several days. She lives in the land of delicious fruit and vegetables aka Uganda, and was generous enough to bring us things that we can't buy in town, like apples, broccoli, pineapple and ground beef.

My friend Nanok.

Don't judge the red face. It's 105 degrees or hotter every day, people.

So there you have it. Thanks for praying for us!

What A Day

Let me just preface this by saying I don't want to sound like I'm complaining and being a whiny baby. I know I'm in a crazy place and Satan is trying to do whatever he can to discourage anyone, no matter where they are, from being effective in sharing the Truth about who Jesus is. Being overwhelmed is part of the deal.

Today was overwhelming because of the little things. Have you ever had one of those days? Don't lie.

2-5 AM: Rat number THREE appeared on my bed. I have no idea where/why they are coming into my tukel but I am about done with the middle-of-the-night showdowns. As much as I would love to be the tough girl who can battle it out and catch rats, I just can't. I freak out and want to put as much space as possible between me and it. Enter Alyssa, world's best partner and rat-catcher extraordinaire. Our final solution at 4:50 AM was to give up trying to chase it out of the wicker chair it had crawled up into and we just hauled the whole chair to our outdoor kitchen area.

So we were both missing about 4 hours of sleep that we really needed to be fully functional today.

After lunch Shannon, Carrie, Alyssa and I scoped out all the possible places in my tukel that a rat could squeeze in and unfortunately, we found a lot. Most of the areas are in the roof where the tin sheets don't quite line up together against the wooden beams. Shannon then literally blew up 2 rat nests in our shower area and one in our kitchen area with his leaf blower. Alyssa and I moved our bags of laundry soap in the kitchen and two HUGE rats ran to the fence before Alyssa we could try to catch them.

Also in this time frame we discovered that water had gotten into our big cooler so there were worms all in the bottom and it smelled horrible. Disinfectant and bleach, coming right up.

Alyssa and I still don't currently have a language helper so we went to Nanok's village to practice what we know. Nanok started telling the story of Jacob and Esau but then said she wanted me to tell it in Toposa so I butchered my way through the basic version and she filled in the details for the other people who were sitting with us. Alyssa followed up with the story of Jacob's dream as he is running away from Esau. Also included in our conversation this afternoon was a discussion of how many babies I want to have (they want me to have 12), whether or not my children will go to school every day in America, why people have C-sections, why I won't buy them tobacco, and which one of the men from their village I should marry (so many wonderful options!). Oh, and when we were singing some Toposa songs about Jesus some of the women started to karot to the song, which meant I got to jump up and down in circles around them, too. And at one point a lady plopped some sorghum/nyaronyit (peanut-ish) mixture into Alyssa's hand so we were "requested" to eat it. It looks like vomit and tastes only marginally better. One of the ladies was building a new hut out of grass so it was pretty cool to see the thing half-finished.

Overwhelming day? Totally. Am I looking forward to another rat potentially crawling onto my bed tonight? Definitely not. Am I convinced God cares about the small things like rats and sitting in Nanok's village? Absolutely. As you pray for all of us in Toposaland, pray about the little things. And maybe an extra prayer that the rats stay out of my tukel!

Now Accepting Applications...

...for a new language helper.

Sigh.

In the meantime, I am trying to "redeem" my time that would otherwise be spent learning new words and phrases with a paid helper and learn new vocabulary for free in one of the villages near our compound. This only works to a certain extent because the women in these villages can't explain to me in Toposa (or English!) how to structure sentences and verb tenses...but a few words are better than nothing and at least I am developing friendships.

Today I walked to Nanok's village, which was the one in the Ngakidamdam post a few months ago. Nanok has been coming to our weekly story group on the compound as well as going with us to another area to listen to the stories again! She always has a smile on her face (rare for a Toposa) and she has been one of the few who doesn't talk to me at warp speed because she knows I'm still learning her language...I totally appreciate this! Today I learned that she is the only wife (so far) to her husband Karlo and she has two kids named Korim (the cane part of sorghum cane) and Lomoni (bush). We had Horticulture 101 in Toposa today and she taught me the differences in the thorns (different name for different sizes and shapes). I did my best to tell the basic story of Jacob and Esau in Toposa to some of the other ladies who were sitting with us and Nanok filled in the blanks since she had heard the story twice already this week.

I feel like I am being so repetitive in asking for people to pray about our language situation but Alyssa and I are really limited in our ministry when we don't have language help! It's discouraging to be back at square one again but we know that God knows what our language situation needs to be right now and for the rest of our terms so we are trusting him to provide the right person at the right time. Thank you to everyone who has been praying for us and we are asking for continued prayers for us and our ministry.

uh, this place is hot

No, this is not a joke. No, it's not somewhere else. No, the thermometer isn't broken.

And yes, it says 120 degrees Fahrenheit. The thermometer that's in the shade is reading 109.

Abraham, Isaac, and a rat.

This week has been basically a repeat of last week...which means that we still have a language helper. YEAH! John has been very helpful as he teaches us the Toposa language as well as translates for us when we are storying. Usually I feel like my brain is on overload, but at least a few words and phrases seem to be sticking!

Our stories this week have been from Genesis 12, 15 and 17 when God makes His covenant with Abraham, and also Genesis 22, the sacrifice of Isaac. Many Toposa are continuing to listen and can recall the other stories that we have told so far. This next week we will be telling stories about Isaac's son, Jacob.

Alyssa and I have also started to tell some of the stories from the HIV/AIDS curriculum that we are using. All the stories are designed to teach the truth about HIV/AIDS, how to protect yourself and others from the disease, as well as how we need Jesus to heal our spiritual sickness that causes physical sickness in the first place. It's surprising/depressing to hear what many people think about AIDS (it doesn't exist, only people from towns get it, we can only get it from monkeys, we will kill anyone who brings AIDS from town, etc), and to realize how far they have to go to be able to accept the truth.

This week as you are praying for the Toposa, pray specifically that God will help us tell the story of Jacob and Esau in a way that is honoring to Him and that brings truth to the people who hear it. Also pray that the village who will be hearing the HIV/AIDS stories this week will be full of adults who are willing to listen to some challenging information that they might not like.

I leave you with this. I woke up at 1am last week because it was crawling up my leg. Rude. The long tail grosses me out big time.

A "Good" Day

This past week has been a good week, but for very different reasons than I am used to! Alyssa and I were talking tonight while we were eating dinner that we have plenty of good days here but it is getting harder and harder for us to explain the things that make a day "good."

Here are some good things that have happened this week:

-We have met with our new language helper for two days straight and have learned some useful things! I know this is small in comparison with others who are in language school for hours every week but this is a big deal for us! We are focusing on the biblical story of Cain and Abel and the story of Noah in our story groups this week so John has taught us some sentences and vocabulary from these stories so that we can follow along as it's being translated in the group.

-There have been no more snakes in my tukel. Need I say more?

-We made lentils, sauteed vegetables and rice for dinner tonight and everything was delicious. You know how sometimes things are cooked juuuust right? That was our rice tonight. Perfect.

-Almost 30 women from nearby villages came to our compound this afternoon for our ladies-only story group. Alyssa told the story of Cain and Abel, then had them help her re-tell the story. They were really listening because one lady even remembered the part where God tells Cain that sin is crouching at his door. I told the story of Noah and then the ladies took turns filling in the blanks when I told the story the second time. They all clapped for themselves when they remembered all the different things that went into the ark!

It is SO encouraging to see how interested these ladies have been in the stories recently. We can tell by their facial expressions during the story (looks of horror when bad things happen), the number of ladies who join in the re-telling of the story and their ability to remember details as they re-tell it that they are really listening. Tomorrow some of these ladies are going with us to Lomayen to help us tell the women in those villages about Cain, Abel and Noah.

As you are praying for the Toposa, remember these ladies and ask God to help them understand the stories they are hearing. Pray that they will tell their friends these stories from God's Word. Also, join us in thanking God for bringing us another language helper. We don't know how long this one will be with us, but temporary help is better than none!

I believe I've mentioned before that the Toposa like to jump (karot). You're not "in" until you jump with them. I dare you to jump in a circle around someone else for 60 seconds and tell me you're not tired.

Here we go...again

Since our language helper has disappeared, Alyssa and I are back to square one.

Again.

In the mornings we are teaching school to the boys so the afternoons are the time we have set aside for language/culture acquisition and ministry. Without a language helper it is hard for any of that to happen so after lunch we headed out to try to get some usefulness from our afternoon.

First we went to the county commissioner's office, which is in a large village about 20 minutes away by car. Because Shannon and Carrie had to gain the local leadership's permission for me to come live here, I wanted to greet the commissioner and ask him about his job and learn a little bit about how the government works out here. We drove up and didn't see much activity in the compound. Turns out all the government officials in the area had gone to Torit and no one knew when they'd be back. Great. On to the next plan.

We went to the clinic in this village because most of the clinic workers know English. Since almost no Toposa speak English we figured the clinic workers would know of any others who did. English-speaking Toposa are in high demand to work for the NGOs as translators so it's almost impossible to find anyone who speaks English AND is unemployed. They directed us to a village about 10 minutes further to find a man who had done some translating many years ago.

Alyssa and I sat in this old man's village for 45 minutes or so, just talking to him about his life and telling him about ours. He also didn't know of anyone who could help us.

We drove back through the larger village on our way back to Paringa and stopped to ask about a lady who was friends with one of the clinic workers. We'd heard she spoke English and had completed secondary school, which is way more education than most Toposa get. The man at her house said she was currently unemployed but had gone to Juba to look for work. Darn. We need her HERE!

All of this had taken several hours so in order to salvage the rest of the afternoon and not feel completely defeated, we went to Kapoeta to fill the truck with gas. Sounds simple but actually takes about an hour and a half to get there and back.

Results: no commissioner, no language helper, BUT we have a full tank of gas so I'm going to desperately call the afternoon a success.