Learning, Learning, Learning....

Dear Friends,
Greetings once again! This week has been a quiet one. I have been reading and making notes and learning a great deal about both the History of Missions and the New Testament Background. I am discovering that in order to prepare to teach I almost need to write a paper -- which is fine by me because I love information gathering and organizing. This is one of the most effective ways for me to learn and to integrate in order to pass the information on to my students.

On Facebook this week at one point I had the following status update:
"...The kitchen had been quiet for a couple of days, no sightings of wandering reptiles....then as I sat to relax on the covered porch just now I saw them! TWO lizards at once running across the floor towards me until I SCREAMED! ....and then they ran away!

I've since spotted one of them in the living room. It took shelter behind a book case when I went after it. Not that I would have done anything to it because I certainly don't want to touch one of them!

I have asked several of the ex-pat women here where they get their hair cut. Every one of them has said that another woman from the ex-pat community has done that for them -- my New Zealand friend who is gone now said that she cut her husband's hair and he cut hers. Some of them have said that they have it cut once a year when they return home. I have become very grateful for not having a high-maintenance hairdo of any kind. I have seen the male counterparts to a woman's hair salon here in town. It was quite fascinating and certainly would cut down on overhead. In an alley there were men seated in chairs with a mirror in front of them hanging on a fence and the barber behind them -- cutting!

I apparently live in a part of town that has relatively stable power. Even so I have noticed that several times a week the electricity cuts out for a few hours during the day. Praise God so far it has not happened at night. Which reminds me...being from the Pacific Northwest in the states it is a real shock to be paying less for electricity right now in the winter here in Sudan. I am not having to pay to heat the house -- nor to cool it, I am simply running fans. It is good that I am saving money now because I am sure I will need that money come the summer months to help pay for the cost in double electric bills to cool the apartment!

One of the subjects which has come up fairly frequently in conversations here in Khartoum is that of polygamy. I had read in The Will to Arise, and in some other books as well, that in many ways Africa as a continent is living in Old Testament times; that the culture is like that of the OT.
It has been interesting and fascinating for me to hear about the ways that this seems to be true. Polygamy appears to be a cultural issue. It is practiced by both Muslims and Christians. Christians will argue that polygamy was practiced in the Old Testament and therefore is appropriate for Christians to practice. When a man's first wife is unable to become pregnant then a man who can afford to do so will marry a second wife in order to have children. I came here to Africa knowing that one of the issues I was/am wrestling with is that of what is Scriptural and what is my Western culture? The practice of polygamy is one of the areas where I must continue this wrestling. Of course polygamy then draws one into many other issues, including the authority that men gives themselves over the lives of women. These are issues I will be asking my students and colleagues about. I will be listening to their answers and reflections. I will continue to learn to sit with another culture's way of being.

Another issue which I have both read about and also am seeing in practice first hand is the educational situation here in Africa. Most institutions of higher learning require teachers to have at least a Master's degree. Most of the colleges educate at the Bachelor's level. Until the educational system has matured and is able to offer Master's degrees either 1. students need financial assistance to study for a Master's outside of Africa or 2. the faculties will consist of primarily foreign teachers. I suppose that since the goal seems to be for teachers to have a higher degree than their students that teaching with a BA won't be encouraged. I believe that there is one faculty member here at Nile Theological College who graduated with a BA from this college and then studied elsewhere for his Master's degree, returning to teach at the college.

I am hopeful that today I may be able to finish the preliminary work on the New Testament Background class for January and move on to designing the actual course. I also have to go grocery shopping which is a bit of a challenge. I don't of course as of yet have a car and I don't know how to explain in Arabic to a taxi how to get to my house -- and if I have a heavy backpack full of groceries my back hurts for two days. I may resort to a rolling suitcase as I did in Nanjing, even though the roads here are not as smooth as they were there. I also may have to begin teaching myself Arabic as it does not look too likely at this point that I will have a way to get to formal lessons in the Khartoum across the Nile. Please keep me in prayers for solutions to my transportation issues. I am sure that over time things will be work out. They did in Nanjing so I have no reason to believe that they won't do so here as well. It takes time to assimilate and integrate.

Time seems to slow down here in the heat of the desert and in the Arabic culture. Maybe it is just hard to be too rushed in a tobe and in the dust.
Blessings,
Debbie