Catching you up....

Dear Friends,
Greetings! Malakal is just hot. Probably dusty too but you know at some point I begin to forget everything else because it is so hot that is all that I can focus on!

My new home is increasingly organized and this is a great blessing! I could not believe that the lynchpin of the house seemed to be the overdue and much anticipated bookcase that was finally delivered last week. One of my students kindly accompanied me into Malakal town on Wednesday. We did several errands, including the tailor, and then went to get the bookcase. The carpenter located us a donkey cart whose owner and driver both assured my student that they knew how to find my home.

James and I walked a few blocks and caught a taxi for the taxi system that runs up and down a main road that is very close to my home. We got to my house and James went out to locate the driver and owner and the donkey and the bookcase and bring them to the exact location and I waited...and waited...and waited.

At least two hours later James showed up at my gate. I had decided that I misunderstood him and he must have asked ME to go and wait for the donkey cart since he had not returned earlier. It turned out he had waited at the BAM Pharmacy, a great landmark on my street, He too had waited....and waited....and waited. When the cart didn’t appear after probably half and hour he started walking down the road towards town (this is a different road than the taxi road), thinking he would meet the cart on the way and be able to direct it from where he found it.

He ended up walking all the way back to the shop where the carpenter works. No donkey cart although the carpenter assured James that he knows the people. James told the folks at the shop that when they would see the cart, if it still had the bookcase, to tell them to leave the bookcase at the shop. He wanted a different donkey cart to bring it the second try!

So he came to my gate and relayed all this to me. Then he told me that he would go back to the shop the next morning. I was amazed at this man who was going to make sure that what he had begun with me, getting my bookcase delivered, was going to be completed by George! We figured the cart either got lost, or the folks stole the bookcase, or perhaps they’d been in an accident.

The next day we found out that the cart had been lost. I’ve now had one cart make it to the house while I am and another student took a taxi. One cart where a student accompanied the cart and the other student went with me in the taxi. And another cart that got lost. I think the plan now is to stick closer to the carts....

At any rate, the drama was soon over and the bookcase was in its new home in one of the rooms in my house. And very quickly it was filled with books! Five containers full of books went into the shelves of the new bookcase! And suddenly the room became exceedingly more organized, it was like a miracle as the pieces fell together....I was able to clear out the middle of the room because the boxes were now empty....boxes are around the periphery of the room in an orderly fashion and I feel like the house is becoming a home! The bedroom is organized and really the only thing that would be different in the states is that I would have a chest of drawers (instead things are on a piece of glass with a covering that is resting on two upside down lidless containers) and in three trunks. And I would have a closet...instead the clothes are hung neatly on a clothesline on hangars across the width of the veranda on one end.

With the glass that is covered with a quilt that is covered with jewelry, etc., a smaller table was able to go to the “living room”, aka a veranda....the Katadyn went on that and the wood crate that the Katedyn had been on went over with the clothes on the side of the veranda which has a working electrical outlet. Now I can use something besides a plastic stool to cook on when I have electricity. All in all, a great deal of progress! When Mama is happy, everyone is happy! The more organized the house the more organized the Dissertation Proposal....go figure!

My students have cause for celebration as last week the Administration of the Nile Theological College made the decision to close this semester a month early. I had already planned to leave a month early as I have to get two and a half months of Mission Interpretation done in the United States and still get back to Malakal in time for Winter Semester, 2012 which begins in September. So this is not of advantage to ME, it sure is to the students though! There was a lot of whooping and hollering with joy around the college last week!

I preached this past Sunday and was honored by the congregation giving me three gifts that the women in particular had been involved in making. This was the church that I have been attending. I am saddened by the soon to happen transfer of the woman minister of the church, I had enjoyed very much having a female in charge! I hope that my own continued presence will be an encouragement for the women.

There was an unplanned (at least I hadn’t known about it) lunch at someone’s house after church and I was able to vocalize a concern that I have. I am trying to express to the leader’s of the church here that ordination is gift-based and not gender based.
Why should uneducated men be ordained but women are required to be educated? Make the requirements the same. Either no education required, but if there is education wonderful! Or education required for both and help the women with the additional roadblocks that they face as wives and mothers. There are no women that I have met yet in Malakal who are not wives and mothers.
Blessings,
Debbie