Autumn in Khartoum.

Dear Friends,
Greetings! It has been five months since I have blogged and I think it is high time to pick this practice up again.

I had a lovely learning vacation in Ghana and Ethiopia this summer. I have since my return to Khartoum in July been working on class preparation, and now the last few months, teaching.

It can be hard to give an accurate picture of the heat here in Northern Sudan month after month. It is intense and scorching. We seem to be headed now towards "autumn" in Khartoum. At the moment this means that the shadows in the outdoor area of my little home are changing. It also means that I have been quite ill for the past few days as my body is adjusting to the change in seasons.

At some point in time the daytime temperature will begin to drop a little bit, not enough to allow a white Christmas, but enough to give some relief to the sizzle. It is getting darker earlier at night as well. Tonight it was pitch black out by 6:45, in the height of summer the light seems to linger until perhaps 7:25 or so.

I reached my own conclusion today that Northern Africa is in a permanent state of colonialization. Technically both Sudan and Egypt are on African soil. Now, not having been yet to Egypt I cannot comment in a meaningful way on the culture there. I do know that Northern Sudan, at least particularly Khartoum, is Arabic. This is not an African city culturally although it is geographically. Centuries of occupation by outside peoples and forces have changed the character of what once was indeed African. I can only wonder what it might be like here if the Muslims had not swept down into Northern Africa from the Arabian Peninsula in the single digit centuries of the last two thousand years. Whereas Islam is moderated in, for instance, West African countries through African culture and indigenous leadership; here in the North the leadership is Arab and therefore not indigenous. Here is the Sahara the harshness of the sun is somewhat matched by the harshness of Islam. It is a different kind of Islam that I have always known in the West.

Perhaps in Western Europe and North America Islam is moderated through indigenous leadership and culture as it is in Western Africa. Christianity here in Saharan Africa is certainly different than Christianity in the states. It is indigenous Christianity. Missionary Christianity named the Gospel for the Africans, named Jesus for the Africans, however Jesus was here on this continent long before the missionaries. The original missionaries didn't understand how to see Jesus' presence already in the African culture and so they thought that the culture had to be destroyed in order to make room for Christ. Nowadays the fastest growing Christian groups here in North Africa are the indigenous Christian churches.

Just as there are differences between Western and Eastern Islam, there are differences between Western and Southern Christianity. Because of our distinctive cultures we will never be exactly the same and we are not supposed to be. In Christianity the Body of Christ is full of diversity and ever present challenges to listen, learn, grow from our context and love our brothers and sisters in Christ who are different than we are.

Blessings,
Debbie