Juba. April 2015.

 Sunday the 12th:

This past Sunday, the Sunday after Easter, I went with three other Mission Co-Workers to a Presbyterian Church of South Sudan worship service.  It turns out that the church was/is an IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camp. 

The church itself is a solid canvas tent with floor, sides and ceiling in one piece and it is double thick.  There is no power, thus no fans, and so the flap doors must stay open for air.  What was very noticeable were the flies. 

There were open piles of garbage in many places, and the disease carrying flies were infesting them.  All through the service people were shooing them away and the little children had them on their eyelids and faces.  While mosquitoes bring the malaria, the flies bring intestinal problems that will result in diarrhea and vomiting. Apparently people have been taking garbage in plastic bags and emptying the bags on the piles instead of putting a closed bag on the pile.

To make matters worse someone (government perhaps?) is trying to get the people to leave the camp and the water has been shut off.  The smell of open and raw sewage permeated the air as we walked to and from the church tent. 

I learned from this experience that this is an "open" camp.  This means that there is no curfew and residents don't have to register so they are free to come and go as they please, or to move if they find something better. 

Monday and Tuesday:

I was reunited with two of my teaching colleagues and other staff at the new location for the Nile Theological College in Juba.  The new building that has been worked on is quite nice and such a vast change from the previous one that I am very happy.  It is going to make teaching much easier.  There is even electricity!

Today, Tuesday, God sent an angel to help me get back to the apartment.  Monday I was assisted in getting to and from the college by a fellow co-worker.  Today I was on my own.  Going there the bus driver remembered me from yesterday and stopped where I needed to go even before I asked!

Upon leaving the college I found the place to stand and wait for the bus.  There was a young South Sudanese man also waiting.  People kept sneaking on the bus in front of me.  It is so difficult here sometimes as I do not want to be rude, and the politeness can make a very long wait.

The young man asked if I wanted to walk to "Juba", the bus stop near the apartment.  I laughed and said no.  So then he hailed what is essentially a motorized rickshaw, I am not remembering the correct name.  Khartoum had many, many of them and I used them often going home from NTC in Khartoum.  The rickshaw brought us back to the bus stop and the young man refused to let me help pay for the ride.  Pure kindness. 

I am so aware of how often God has sent people to light my path.  In Malakal the few times that I actually had to walk in the dreadful and dreaded mud, people came alongside me and held my hand.  In Khartoum when I took buses people would pay my fare because I was a foreigner or would get the bus stopped when I was supposed to get off.  And here in Juba God is still lighting my way through the kindness of strangers, as well as friends.