God's Mercies

Dear Friends,
Greetings! The last few days have been filled with God's mercies fresh every day.

I continue to be in a time of transition as I take care of medical needs, do itineration and prepare for my return to Africa. God continues to speak to me through other people and through circumstances.

One person recently told me that she feels God is looking out for me. Another person recently gave me an option that I had not thought of for a situation. I could feel God speaking to me through her words. The dental work that I need before I go back to Africa was unaffordable for me in Seattle and yet here in Louisville it is more so. God is merciful and faithful.

I believe, help my unbelief. In times of stress I continue to need to pray this short little prayer many times a day. It is short and potent. It is potent because it is so honest. I believe. Honestly Jesus, I do believe. Help my unbelief. Help me when I fall short in belief and have trouble trusting your plan because I cannot see that plan. I need to start adding, "thank you for loving me no matter what the circumstances. Thank-you for caring for my physical as well as emotional and spiritual well-being." Amen.
Blessings,
Debbie

Packing

Dear Friends,
Greetings! I dislike packing intensely. I am in the midst of packing this morning in Seattle. I have finally figured out that it is more than trying to fit too much into too little space. It also has to do with packing signifies change in my life and sometimes that can be a little bit unnerving.

I realize that for many people packing and change means they are embarking on a new adventure and this is greeted with expectation and joy. I get to the expectation and joy eventually, however I usually have to work through anxiety and the facing of the unknown first.

It has good to be "home" in Seattle. It has also been difficult. While I have family and friends here my life isn't here any longer. At least not for now. Of course, my life really isn't anywhere right now. At least not for now. It will be eventually in South Sudan in a not too far off future and yet that will be a new place that I have only glimpsed for a brief two days earlier this year.

In the meantime I will return tonight to Louisville, Kentucky. I do have a temporary apartment there and yet my life really isn't there either. I will spend the next two months doing itineration, finishing up shopping and details for my return to Africa, catching some hours to do reading for my doctoral dissertation proposal and praying towards the journey that will take me back to Sudan in August.

I reflect more frequently on this journey that is both life and also God's vehicle for God's purposes for my life. That is, God created me for a purpose and the life that I live is the vehicle for that purpose. I was in awe at my daughter's graduation from Trinity Lutheran College this May. I saw young people whose lives have been changed by faith and academics. None of us know how God will shape our lives when we go forward to "begin" our adulthood. God has worked even in the life of Prince William who knew his role from his birth. Watching life and God's work in life unfold is an awe inspiring mystery.

There are times when I embrace this mystery more readily than at other times. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.
Blessings,
Debbie

going home different

Dear Friends,
Greetings again from Seattle! Last night I went to the Seattle Presbytery meeting. It has been several years now since I was at one of the meetings in the Presbytery whose care I was under for about ten years.

I realized that yes, I can go home, and yes, I am a different person now than I was then. It was wonderful seeing many people who are dear to my heart. It was interesting seeing again people whose views on many issues are very different from my own. And yet we are all a part of the one church, in particular the Presbyterian church; in general the catholic church universal.

I was struck by how many journeys intersect at these meetings. There were two examinations for Inquirers to move into Candidacy. There was one Certified Candidate being examined for ordination. I know how much it has taken to come to those different junctures on the journey of faith and academics.

God gives us each gifts and life is the vehicle those gifts are placed in. Our journey is on that vehicle and the means and the goal are to love and serve the Triune God forever.
Blessings,
Debbie

How time flies!

Dear Friends,
Greetings! Time flies! I am now in Seattle after seven weeks in Louisville and time itinerating in Sacramento, California.

I am on vacation, doing some itinerating, and getting some medical appointments taken care of. I am also learning about solar cooking and mosquito net tents. I will be taking two simple solar stoves back to Sudan with me along with the cooking pots that are designed to be used with them. From what I understand this new way of cooking (new to me at least) will be equivalent to using a slow cooker. I am looking forward to that; putting food in a pot and returning hours later to a nicely cooked vegetarian meal.

I am also trying to locate the equipment to have a solar fan during the hot Sudanese days. I will have electricity at my new home in Malakal, however it will be 12 hours at night. So I need to find a way to have a fan and stay cooler during the days.

Life in Malakal will be much more rudimentary than it was in Khartoum. I am having to think ahead to what the things are I will need in order to live as normal a life as possible. Fortunately because South Sudan is considered a hardship post I will be able to leave Malakal four times a year and go somewhere to shop for things that cannot be purchased there. Which, judging by my two day visit earlier this year, is just about everything. I will be living a more basic life and certainly eating a more basic diet.
Blessings,
Debbie

Back in the USA!

Dear Friends,
I had not realized how darn long it has been since I have communicated with you! Anyhow, I am back.

I have also opened a blog on WordPress because BlogSpot was blocked in Ethiopia. I am not sure how I am going to keep two blogs going, if you have suggestions please let me know.

I want to finish blogging about Ethiopia in this blog entry. I made notes to myself as some point in Addis Ababa specifically for this purpose.

I have realized over the course of the last few years that it is impossible to accurately describe what another country is like. This is especially true when the other country is in a less developed part of the world. In Europe I could wax eloquent about Gothic architecture and the feelings that were evoked in me as I experienced in being places of such historical significance whose histories stretched so far back in time. While geographically the continent of Africa is as old as the rest of the globe, many of the countries were themselves created by European colonists who had never set eyes on the people groups and cultures of the continent. This is to say that while there are cultures that are as ancient as any anywhere else in the world, the historical past is not always present in the same way in less developed countries as it may be in other parts of the world.

For instance, when I was in Egypt I asked why the city of Alexandria has buildings dating essentially from the 1600's or so, it is a pretty modern city for being so very ancient. Granted there were two devastating earthquakes which took the first two cities under the waters of the sea. I was also told that the building codes were not up to par in the ancient days. and that people did not recognize the value of conserving history and the past until relatively modern times.

So when I speak of Addis Ababa I am speaking of a culture perhaps more than an urban metropolis that is teeming with historical architecture. In Addis one day I saw two sights that I knew had I not been aware that I was not in the United States would have given me a great jolt and given me a huge clue that I probably indeed was not "in Kansas anymore". First there was a whole line of donkeys with bundles of wheat strapped to their backs crossing a street. Immediately after that as the vehicle I was in crossed a street of its own and turned a corner there was a whole row of shoe shiners. These are typical sights in Addis Ababa. They are a signal to me that I am in a less developed part of the world than most of Europe or the United States.

Passing by parks one can see some of the many homeless people of Addis Ababa. There are usually many people sleeping, and sometimes groups of people talking. Some of them look downright miserable which is quite understandable as I have recently been to Addis when it is not a warm or hot African climate. I know that the unemployment rate in Egypt before the recent uprising was approximately 35%. I do not know the unemployment rate in Addis Ababa, however I can assume that it is high. There are no government programs to help with those who are down on their luck. There is no free medical care. We don't know how good we have it in the United States, even at the worst, compared to other countries that have next to no infrastructure. Having an honest government whose desire is to actually serve the people and not itself also helps. And I do recognize the fact that the United States does have poverty. I also know that Africa is the only continent in the world left which has extreme poverty.

I was told while I was in Addis that there are many women leaving for Sudan. I don't know if the majority of them are Muslims. I say this because I think for people in North Sudan it will make life at least somewhat easier to be Muslim. Once the separation of the North and South of Sudan has become legal and binding it will be more difficult to be a Christian or any other kind of believer in Khartoum or other parts of the North. However, the Ethiopian birr (the name of their currency) continues to be devalued which makes for great prices for Americans and others, and makes for misery for the Ethiopian people. Their money is worth less. Store owners often compensate for this by raising their prices. Salaries do not increase and so people have less money with which to buy higher priced staples like cooking oil. The Sudan pound is also losing value and when I was back in Sudan at the end of February and the beginning of March prices had indeed responded to this devaluation by climbing higher. However, it could be that women, one of the most vulnerable segments of any population, feel that Sudan is still a better bet for earning a living than is Ethiopia.

Being back in the United States I can....drink the tap water. Turn on a thermostat and have heat in the whole apartment to keep me warm even while it is quite cold outside. Have reliable electricity. There are many modern cars on the roads. I can once again flush toilet paper down the toilet. Restaurants have flush toilets and toilet paper is provided, along with soap I might add. The stores are....well, how do I find words for what the stores are like? Large, well lit. Overwhelming amounts of selection. Some prices are very cheap, some prices are very expensive compared to overseas. In Khartoum I had a satellite dish that got plenty of channels including CNN, Al Jazeera News and BBC News. I had no monthly bill for this service, just had to buy the dish. Here I have to have Cable TV. I get CNN but I don't have Al Jazeera or BBC. I miss them.
Blessings,
Debbie

Alexandria Egypt

Dear Friends,
Greetings.
Perhaps because one's culture always seems in more in focus I am finding that the African and Arabic cultures are very complex and multi-layered.

I have been to the Middle East and I understood there what an Arab culture meant. Then I went to Northern Sudan and I came to understand what an Arab culture meant in an African country, I thought. Because when I came to Egypt everything underwent redefinition. Now I am in an Arab country on the African continent because in no uncertain terms Egypt is not an African country.

Ethiopia to me has become the land of the shawls. Khartoum and Egypt are the land of the head scarves. Khartoum has many tobes, the cloth that married women wrap around themselves, the traditional wear of Sudan. I have not seen many of those here in Egypt.

I know that Christianity was in Egypt in the first century and I believe it was in other parts of the African continent in the first century as well. Christianity is not an import to Africa. Now that I have come to realize that Egypt is ethnically and culturally part of the Middle East and not Africa I am trying to discern the threads of the African church in early Christianity. I know that the church moved up from Africa into the Middle East and eventually into Ireland, having an influence on the monastic communities in that country before moving back into Europe and now back down into Africa.

Augustine, a well-known church Father, was African. What does this mean? Were his thoughts formed by the African tribes or by the Arabic tribes and nomadic people of the Middle East?

Ignorance is not bliss. It is shock. I learned things when I came here to Alexandria that I probably should have known before I came, but I didn't. There have been two earthquakes in Alexandria, the last was in the 12th century A.D. The two earthquakes destroyed two ancient cities and both of them lay under the sea. The city that Alexander the Great founded and began to build was the first.

The current Alexandria, one could call it modern, dates back to the 18th century. There are very limited Roman ruins dating to the 2nd and 3rd century A.D. The catacombs date to the 2nd and 3rd century A.D.

I asked my tour guide what happened between the 12th and 18th centuries...why are none of the buildings older than the 1700's? He told me that there were no laws protecting the ancient buildings. People would tear down and build up. Tear down and build up. My consolation was that even though in terms of time the city is relatively recent, the culture is deep and very, very old.

Now, the area where I believe my ignorance was the most vast was this: I thought that there would be the ruins of the Alexandria Library that burned in the first century B.C. Julius Ceasar accidently burned it, so it is rumored. But no. There is a brand new, and I admit beautiful, library built on the ruins. The only thing old is a bust that was found under water that is either of or from the time of Ptolemy the 2nd. This sits in front of the library.

The library is designed to look as if it rises from the sea. It is breathtaking. I got quite a few pictures of it and will post them either here or on Facebook when I am able to figure out how to do so.

There is in current Alexandria a wealthy class of people, the street where the church and Fairhaven, the school for mentally challenged students where I have stayed this week, is located in the wealthy part of the city. I know in Japan when I was there the guest house was located in a wealthy part of Tokyo because the guest house was originally built in a poor area and the wealth was created around it. That may be the case here as well. There is also a middle class and impoverished areas of town. In many countries it is a rarity these days to have a middle class so I was surprised to learn this.

The architecture here in Alexandria is Baroque Rococo and it is Italian. It is quite beautiful. Last night while walking to the Julian Calendar Christmas Eve Service I was struck by the beauty of the area we were walking in. The buildings were at least 100 years old and the moonlight lit things up in a manner that highlighted the trees, the palm trees and the Italian features of the buildings.

Christians are about 10% of the population in Egypt. In Alexandria itself of course there was a vibrant community of Jews beginning with the founding of the city in the 4th century B.C. When Israel declared herself a state in 1948 the vast majority of Jews made the decision to leave the city and immigrate to Israel. It is believed that they felt there might be a better life, aka as higher wages, in Israel than in Egypt. Egypt does have an employment rate of about 35% which may make the case for a better life in Israel a strong one.

There is a large Sudanese community here in Alexandria. Some of the Sudanese have official refugee status and thus have financial support and other services. The ones who could not gain that status and chose to come to Egypt anyhow are here struggling. With a 35% unemployment rate no one from outside of Egypt is allowed to work here.

Thanks to Alexander the Great coming from Greece, Greek was the language spoken in Egypt until the Islamic invasion in the 600's. It is now Arabic. Greek spread out from Alexandria to become the lingua franca in the Middle East during New Testament times and contributed mightily to the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire.

Whenever a church is built a mosque is built facing it. It is said that this way the two religions are hugging each other.

The last thing I will address here is what someone told me about the culture. There was a mix up with the tour agency and tour guide who showed me the city this week. I mentioned to someone that it would have been courteous for the company to let me know that things have changed. He said that in this culture that would not have been considered. My response was that while I understand the need to adapt to new cultures, if a company is working with foreigners it is important to understand the culture of the foreigner and respect it. For me it was anxiety producing to get into a car with two strange men to whom I had had no introduction in order to go on a guided tour. If someone had let me know that circumstances had changed before the men arrived at the compound I am staying at I would have felt more assured in going with them.

In some ways this is a similar issue to wrestling over, what is mine to point out in another culture that in harmful? Or, how do I lead others to see the harm in what they are doing to another person?
Blessings,
Debbie

Egypt.

Dear Friends,
Greetings! Blogging is not blocked in Egypt so I am back, at least temporarily.

I am here in Egypt for a two week stay and I am just over half way through that time. There have been many thoughts and emotions that I have experienced this past week. When I think geographically about going from Ethiopia to Sudan to Egypt I realize the incredible diversity in people groups and climates on this African Continent.

Ethiopians, while African, are not the very black Africans of Southern Sudan. And neither the Sudanese or the Ethiopians are the Arabs or North Sudan or Egypt. Ethiopia and Sudan both have many African tribes such as the Anuak in Ethiopia and the Nuer in Sudan. In Egypt I find only the Arabs.

It is very clear to me having been here in Egypt for only a week so far that the Egyptians totally identify with the Middle East. Egyptians are Arab and not African by ethnicity. At the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo the seminary was very much geared to cooperative work with the Middle East, with other Arab countries. While there was at least one Sudanese student there is was clear that the seminary does not feel connected to Africa in the same way as the Middle East. I am coming to see the cultural bridges more clearly. Egypt is a bridge between Africa and the Middle East much the same way that Turkey (and to a lesser extent Russia) is a bridge between Europe and Asia; Saudi Arabia is a bridge between the Middle East and Asia.

I am now comprehending that while the Arabian Penninsula is not a continent in its own right it is certainly the Middle East and Arabic and is considered to be a part of Asia. On the other hand when I examine early Christianity I am aware that the strip of land which fronts the Mediteranian Sea (including Israel/Palestine and Syria and Lebanon) as well as Greece (Athens) and Italy (Rome) in Europe and Northern Africa (Egypt and Ethiopia) are all a part of the Biblical witness for Christians.

Part of my desire to come to Alexandria in Egypt, where I currently am sitting and typing in this blog, stems from the class I taught at the Nile Theological College in Khartoum, Sudan, just about a year ago. The class was on New Testament Background. I realized then that Alexander the Great had swept down from Greece in 400 B.C. and, among other accomplishments, had built this ancient city of Alexandria. In Alexandria was born a great hub of Jewish culture, language and literature. From Alexandria the spread of Koine Greek created the lingua franca of New Testament Times. Between the culture and language of Greece and the military might and the roads of the later Roman Empire, God had put in place over a number of centuries the means to spread the Good News, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I have desired to see this place and walk in its streets since I renewed my learning about this period of time which led up to the spread of Christianity in Europe, Asia and Africa.

In seminary I learned about Alexandria and at the same time my thoughts were distracted by a multitude of other things which I was learning. The Greek culture that Alexander the Great brought with him from Greece was modified by the existing Semantic culture of Palestine and the surrounding cultures such as Persian. This modification came to be known as Hellenistic. Hellenistic then was what happened when Greek culture came into the ancient cultures between Greece and Egypt. In Alexandria the Jewish community came to read and speak Greek to the point that Hebrew was no longer in use for reading the Bible. Thus the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek and became the Bible for the first Christians as well as for the Jews. As the Christian Scriptures were written in Greek they were added on to the First Testament to make the Christian Bible which consists of the First and Second Testaments. Because of the Roman system of roads the early Christian missionaries were able to take the Gospel to Europe and Africa as well as to every part of Asia Minor. The Christian faith became the religion of the Roman Empire by the 4th Century A.D., under the Emperor Constantine. Alexandria had much to do with the reasons for the spread and the acceptance of Christianity in the ancient world.

While I was in Cairo I saw the Pyramids of Giza. I was able to take a leisurely boat road on the Nile River. Despite the fact that in Khartoum I live near the Nile River and cross it nearly every week I have never been on a boat road in it. I was able to see the first mosque that was built in Cairo in the 7th century by the Muslim who founded Cairo. Then I was able to see the Coptic churches in the Old City of Cairo. This included the church which is built on the sight where it is believed that the Holy Family stayed in Egypt after the birth of Jesus.

Europe is old and has great history. In Rome and Athens I saw ruins which stretched far beyond the first century A.D. Here in Egypt there is history dating back millenium before the birth of Jesus. I have a heightened awareness of the work of the Triune God of Christianity in human history long before Jesus was born in Bethlehem. There are such roots and there is such tradition. These things are capable of imprisoning the Gospel in such a way that it can no longer reach out to people. These things are also capable of keeping the Gospel alive and growing when people do not try to capture it for themselves.
Blessings,
Debbie