So Big

Dear Friends,
Greetings. This has been a week of big things. A big disaster in Haiti. Learning more about the bigness of the problems/issues here in Northern Sudan.

Some of my students take up to four buses to get to college for classes. I don't have the heart to mark them late on the attendance sheet. How many students in the US have to wait an hour for a bus to catch another connecting bus to catch yet another bus that goes over a bridge and then get another one to get to their classes?

The students can't afford the copies I need to have them make in order to do reading for the course I am teaching them. One student asked if I could have someone in the US send textbooks for all of them, about 24 of them in all. I had to say that this was not a realistic solution.

I met yesterday with young people from the youth of the Presbyterian Church here in Sudan. They have very intentionally elected their first woman as a Chairperson. She wanted to talk to me away from the group. The youth group in general needs funding to carry out projects. They have no money. They need people to be trained, most in religious education but also the practical skills that churches need to have -- administration, finance, building and grounds. My students are a mix of ages, some are fairly young, some are fairly mature. I have heard that in Southern Sudan men were simply ordained without necessarily having special training. I think this is true of the underground churches in China as well.

The young women need funding in order to develop their leadership skills. Women are not yet ordained in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church here. They will need to have leadership skills which are honed along with good solid theological degrees, necessary at the BA level. NTC is a major partner with the church in training future pastors. The young women do not need only education at the college level, they need encouragement and mentoring.

Later myself and the PC(USA) staff person who I was with met with a women's group from a church. They were lovely and against many odds meet on a regular basis. Without a budget they make hospital visits and carry out other ministries. With sewing machine given as a gift from a Presbyterian congregation in the states they do sewing projects. I think that they are going to be willing to make me African clothes...it will be a good way for them to earn money and I will at last have found a whole groups of female tailors! They need funds too. They want to take young women, a teen-age group and a young 20's group, on separate picnics. They want to talk to them about being adult women in Sudan, to encourage them and help them celebrate their coming maturity. They have no money with with to do this.

Everywhere I look there are good ideas, important ideas. There are needs for help in developing web based newsletters and email pals. There is need for sending people to conferences. There is a need for developing English language fluency and accounting skills. There is a need for enlarging the worldview of the youth in a global community that will require specific skills and knowledge for Sudan to be fully engaged with it.

I was told that women who sell tea to the unemployed men are widows. Life is hard for the widows, they earn a few cents a day to survive on.

I was told that while there is development in the country Arab workers from other Arabic countries are brought in to do the work, thus the African workers in Sudan remain unemployed.

There is hope. There is intelligence and commitment. There is a lack of resources.
Blessings,
Debbie