Keeping up with the Joneses.....

Dear Friends,
Greetings from Malakal! I have been here now for about three weeks. This week I have not been feeling well. Fortunately I was able to teach on my teaching days of Monday and Tuesday and then Wednesday I had a low fever and rested.

I am beginning to make some progress on my dissertation proposal for the Doctor of Theology in Missiology program at the University of South Africa (UNISA). This is a relief as it has been several months since I have been able to focus on it.

The mud here in Malakal apparently lasts from around May to the end of October, so essentially half a year. Please pray for the government to become more responsive and responsible to the needs of its people and develop a plan for paving the streets here in the town. I have been here for, as I said, about three weeks, and have hardly left the house except for going to the school. It is just too difficult to move about.

I did find out this week that there are people who think that all Americans have access to free skiing lessons. And I have decided in my own head that not only should all American children spend time abroad in another culture, all American children should learn the basics of camping.

As the electricity here has diminished I have found that I do not have the skills to know how to survive without electricity. I wish I had brought a Coleman camping stove for instance....well, at any rate the gas is hard to find as well because it comes from Khartoum and Khartoum is not letting goods through the North-South border. The situation here has deteriorated since Independence in July and what I have come into is different than what I knew and understood to prepare for earlier in the year.

This country does need more than prayer, it needs a great deal of practical help. Most of the people walk in the mud barefoot...I am quite certain they cannot afford shoes or boots. Walking in the mud barefoot means that they may encounter glass or other things that could hurt them.

The dogs continue to howl at night and I am finding I am not sleeping well because of this. Yesterday 7 dogs broke through a loose place in the metal wall surrounding the compound and were in the yard behind my house. That unnerved me. I told my newly returned compound mates that every night I have thanked God that I am a safe place where the dogs cannot get hold of me and tear me to shreds. Now I am not so sure that this is true!
Blessings,
Debbie