teaching

Dear Friends,
Greetings. It is very early Friday morning here in Sudan. I had better do some writing before more time goes on. I've been teaching since Tuesday and I've been too tired to share anything with you.

One of the striking features, to me, of Khartoum is how much garbage is littered around the city. I asked someone about this recently and he said that while some people pay for garbage service many people do not and there garbage then ends up in the streets and trenches. The service for January was 14 Sudanese pounds. I paid it and I can only hope that my garbage was picked up and put somewhere besides the streets. If a person makes 20 Sudanese pounds a day I can see where 14 pounds would be a lot of income to pay for garbage.

I've taught three days so far. It drains me to the bottom of my toes. I am so tired I go home and take a nap afterwards. These are mature students that I have. They ask deep questions. Sometimes I have to say that the question isn't a part of our course. I am also discovering that how I am choosing to teach the class may be different from what they are used to. So what does a teacher do when reading is necessary, the course is too short to put books on reserve in the library and the only alternative is to make copies of the reading and the students can't afford the copies. They can't read at night, many of them informed me that they have no light at night. Okay, so they are living without electricity. This is a profoundly different world which I am entering into.

I had read that Africa in many ways experiences the Old Testament first hand. I now know this to be true. They have tribal conflicts, there are wars over control of resources, dowries are still paid for the right to marry a woman. In a sense the entire world lives with all of this -- I suppose in the West and in most developed countries these issues are just more hidden now under a sophisticated veneer.

I keep saying to the students that the Old Testament is stories. The stories are about human beings. We find ourselves in the stories because humanity hasn't changed. That is part of the reason for learning in this class -- how will the students help their congregations learn how to make that connection between the stories and themselves. WE are the people in the stories, it isn't us and them it is US.

I was able to attend an ordination service yesterday. There were a group of men who were ordained -- kind of like a mass or group wedding, but for service to the church. It was quite an event! My ordination was wonderful and yet it wasn't like a party as this one was! At the end a woman even walked around praying perfume on people -- the sweet scent of Jesus being poured out among us I was told. The preacher for the service talked about ordination saying that it is not "work" in the church, it is life. I believe this. Ministry is incarnational. We are to pour out of lives to those we serve. My students are doing further study since most of them already are pastors. I pray that I am one more model to them of a pastor who pouring out her life to serve her students.
Blessings,
Debbie