Worshippin' Friday

Dear Friends,
Greetings! This has been such a nice day. I was collected this morning by the family of a colleague and friend from the college and taken to the KCC, Khartoum Community Church. This is a Pentecostal service. It was very multi-ethnic and multi-cultural and reminded me of the International Fellowship in Nanjing China. The advantage to this particular church (vs the church in Nanjing) is that the local people can attend it as well. Both this service and the service at the Khartoum International Church are in English.

It appears that basically what is available here is Baptist or Pentecostal. This is not to say that there are not other options, it just means that I haven't come across them so much yet.

I need prayer as to the transportation issue. It appears that many people here in Khartoum started out living near where I live (Bahri in Khartoum North) but they have migrated across the bridge over the Nile River to other parts of Khartoum such as Odurman. The friends who brought me today will be moving to another part of town tomorrow and as such will not be able to help me out again. Ideally there would be a neighborhood church to which I could walk every week -- be it Friday or Sunday -- but where I am living now this is not the case. I trust that something consistent will appear on the horizon to one of the English speaking services in town, either the KCC or the KIC (see names above and match initials), or that I will be led to worship in an Arabic speaking service closer to home.

After service we joined with friends of my friends and went to a Syrian restaurant for lunch....I was so very excited to see humus for the second time in Sudan! Again, it may be here all over the place, but I haven't seen it! I was able to order tabouleh salad, a great favorite of mine and lentil soup that was vegetarian. It was great fun to sit with others for a meal again.

I am slowly realizing that religion and culture are intricately intertwined here in Sudan. This may be true all over the world, but since this is the place where I find myself residing for now it is the place that I am analyzing. I have learned things from The Will to Arise, a book on African theology from a feminist perspective; discussions with colleagues and others; from The Princess, the book I recently read on Saudi Arabia, and also from the Madeline Albright book which I am currently reading. The way that I am beginning to tell if something is cultural is if it is practiced by both Muslim and Christian Sudanese, although this is certainly up for correction.

Tomorrow should be laundry day. Yesterday would have been but the electricity was out for several hours and today might have been but I didn't return from worship and fellowship until late afternoon and a nap was in order.
Blessings,
Debbie