Some "stop-press" news!

Our new college site looks as if is becoming available sooner than we thought. The two parties who currently occupy it are soon to move and make it available to us. There are currently two buildings there. A purpose built student dormitory and a a dining room and kitchen. There is also a building that needs a roof and some outhouses. The whole site will need clearing and fencing. The time is coming when we will be in a position to make a full-scale international appeal for funds to develop the site. Keep us in your prayers.
We want to open a BGC website so we can make an affective appeal with photos, updates and contacts etc. This will need to be several pages long because it will also serve to describe what the students are up to. The more "professional" this is, the more impact it will make. Is there anyone out-there with the know-how who could put-together, upload and manage a such a website for us? Reward in heaven - and the knowledge you are doing a vital job for the church and people of Sudan!
Thanks!

Prayer Points

Perhaps some of you would like to join us in praying for some specific things. We are so grateful to all of you who are praying for us around the world. We have folk in Britain, France, America and Australia, as well as Africa, who have said they would keep us in their prayers. What it is to have so many wonderful friends! Do pass on our blog address or copies of our blog to anyone who is interested.
1. Bishop Gwynne College. This is our "project". Please pray for the smooth path for the redevelopment of the college. We are specially concerned at the moment with:
a) Settling the affairs of the institution that is being terminated. The war has taken its toll. The college has been poorly administered and the academic status has deteriorated. The library needs completely regenerating. The facilities are desperately inadequate (not even any toilets for example). The financial debts are considerable, but fortunately the college has enough assets to sell to balance the books. Pray for the staff losing their jobs, and the fifteen students being sent home for a year. Pray for the committee charged with the administration of the handing over of the college to a new regime.
b) Pray for the process of new affiliation with other theological faculties and institutions in order to get a validated course and certificate/diploma qualification. This is not proving easy.
c) Pray for the process of obtaining a new site for the college. The current single building is quite inadequate. We have the possibility of exchanging with SUDRA (Sudanese Relief Agency of the ECS) to get a large piece of land adjacent to a piece the college already owns. Our hope is to move onto, and develop this site as soon as possible.
d) Pray for the appointment, later this year, of a new, fully qualified, person to take up the mantle of building a new institution on the legacy of the old.
e) Pray for the ongoing financial security of the institution, and the wisdom and guidance of the Holy Spirit as we launch a world-wide appeal for the capital investment in plant, buildings and learning materials. Pray that God will show us the right time and method for this.
f) Pray for all those who support us around the world, those who are our declared supporters and partners, those who are seeking to link with us, former students and staff of the college and those whose support is known only to them and God.
f) Pray for patience on the part of everyone (especially ourselves) as we face obstacles, opposition, apathy and simply the time it takes to get a big project like this off the ground when money, resources, experience and facilities are scarce. Pray for those who have too many things to do. Pray for the Government in the Sudan, including the Government of Southern Sudan, that they may further open the ways for the Spirit of God to flow with his peace, unity and direction. Thank God for the vision and enthusiasm of so many people here and across the planet.

2. The Episcopal Church of the Sudan. Please pray for our Archbishop Daniel as he leads the church in new and positive ways. Pray for the provincial office in Juba, for all the staff. We thank God for their patience and endurance when there was no money to pay them - and we pray that the future will be stronger. Pray for the Bishops across the province especially where the numbers of people and the ease of travel have meant the establishment of new dioceses this year. Pray for the pastors of congregations that over-fill most of the churches in southern Sudan, and the expanding churches of the north too, as they seek to feed them the Good News and lead them into personal faith. Pray for the many young people - teenagers and young marrieds - that pack into the churches, that they may grow in their new faith.

3. The Cathedral in Juba. This is the place where we worship. Pray for the Dean and PCC as they try to address the problem of overcrowding at all of the Sunday services. Pray that they may sort out their stewardship and giving so that they can support their work among the poorest in the city, and raise enough money to extend the building to seat more people beyond the 650 it can presently accommodate.

4. Learning the language. Pray that we may learn Juba Arabic so that we can communicate more effectively with people - especially the children.

Very many thanks for all of you who support us. The people of the Sudan know just how important praying is. Last Saturday we attended a meeting for prayer and fasting that began at 11 am and went through to 3.30 pm. We prayed for the country, the church and the city. We are grateful for joining your prayers to theirs.

Trevor and Tina

"What's it like? ... really?"

Human beings are always interested in how other human beings live - not just the things they are passionate about or the work they are pursuing, but their ordinary everyday lives. So in this chapter of the blog there is something from the "human interest" angle. When we moved to Dorset from West Yorkshire in 1989, there were quite a few people who regarded us as specially lucky. Indeed we we were but, since Dorset is a holiday destination, some folk had the strange impression that we would be having quite a restful time of it. In point of fact Bridport, for its size, is among the busiest parishes in the country. In the fourteen years we were there we never managed to discover half of what was happening. Sometimes there were three major events in one afternoon, especially in the Summer. So if you expect an easy, time don't go to Dorset.

The street outside our compound

So now there are those who believe the Sudan to be the opposite of Dorset - a tough, primitive place where people take there lives in their hands most of the time. A place which is hot and unhealthy and full of things that sit in wait for you. Well it can be uncomfortable on occasions, but it is no more threatening in Juba than in Bridport. Crime is very low, although poverty is high. Food is plentiful and good - unless you are without money.

A selection of the food we eat

There are decidedly less spiders here than in the UK, the flies are nowhere near as plentiful as in Queensland, and the mosquitos do not leave great itchy lumps like those you get in May in Bridport. The worse things about Juba are the dust and the litter. Huge piles of plastic water bottles and paper wrappings lie in heaps or along the road-sides. But there is no smell, and no fouling and all sewage is very carefully controlled. What you see in the pictures is litter - not rubbish (like the sea-gulls scatter in the streets of Bridport), and the reason is simply that the people have nowhere to put it. As Juba grows at a unbelievable rate, council services simply cannot keep pace. They are engaged in surfacing the main roads through the town, but the many back streets (mostly on a grid pattern) are unmade and very dusty (or muddy when it rains). Some roads just turn into lakes, and pedestrians have to creep around the edges. The dust gets everywhere in the house. We have quickly learned to cover everything with dust sheets all the time. Our windows are the ubiquitous glass louvres that you see all over the tropics so they can never be fastened against the dust - and, in case, they need to be open to allow in the breeze day and night.

The kitchen

In the inner suburbs there is piped water, but in the outer areas it all has to be trucked in with water tanker lorries. We are fortunate because we have water on tap. We have a bathroom with a sink and shower over a bathtub. It "works" in African fashion (African plumbing, electrical wiring and general building would give British health and safety inspectors a fit). It is not a place to allow children to run around - but, of course they do. There are two flush toilets in our three-bedroomed block, part of the ECS "Guests House" complex. The water is 24 hours (although if demand is high it occasionally fails, so we keep a bucket filled) but electricity is evenings only. We have bought ourselves a fan, so on hot evenings we can provide a cool breeze as we watch a film on our laptop or read. The kitchen does have a strip light - but there is no corresponding light switch. It just doesn't seem to have been connected up! It makes for a perfect excuse to leave the washing up till next day. The other thing about washing up is that no-one seems to have heard of washing up liquid, which means that washing pans used for frying is quite a challenge. Washing clothes, of course, has to be done by hand - usually first thing in the morning before it gets too hot. They do have soap-powder, but the only way to get hot water is to boil it on the stove. The great thing is that you can put it on the line dripping and it it dry in a couple of hours.

Using the electric iron in the evening

Most parties and social gatherings happen outside under trees, and much of the day, for those who are not inside working, is spent outside. Under-tree churches in the country areas are not uncommon. In Juba they are getting increasingly sophisticated and new, posh churches are being erected. Juba Cathedral has plans to expand, and the large traditional thatch building in Yei that we visited with Lord Carey is to be replaced with a permanent brick and stone structure. We have use of a kitchen with a heavy-duty calor gas hob. There is no oven - like much of the world Africans do not use them. Things are boiled or fried. We can buy fish and meat (mostly beef, goat or chicken) at the market. Unlike in some parts of Asia, the flies are kept away here. The fish comes in boxes full of ice. It is not displayed; it is produced from underneath upon request. The meat is kept completely fly free because they burn a kind of incense with fly-repellent smoke. The market works on a system of "mahaals" - a different row for each product and every product can be had. It would take a long time to explore it all. In the inner depths of the souk the alleys are covered by sheets giving the impression of an indoor world.

The sitting/dining room

The block we currently occupy is a temporary lodging. When the Archbishop leaves his temporary lodging - just across the way - it will become our permanent one. In the meantime we are enjoying the facilities of a huge sitting/dining room with upholstered cushions and a polished table. Our bedroom, too, is spacious with a normal size double bed, a couple of chairs and a bed-side table. However there are no closed cupboards so we have to keep everything covered up to keep it clean. The other bedrooms are often occupied by guests of the ECS, such as visitors from England and America, and a variety of bishops and others in town for meetings.

Our private bedroom

Immediately outside is a beautiful frangipani with its intoxicating fragrant flowers. Most frangipanis are white - this one is red. If you have never smelled a frangipani, then you have missed out on one of the world's most wonderful things. And it is in the shade of this tree that I am composing this blog. So for all of you who are worried about us, add a bit of rejoicing to your prayers!

Beneath the frangipani

The worst aspects of Juba are that sometimes it is too hot, the banks are a nightmare of bureaucracy and tedious queuing, the roads are dusty, uneven and full of holes and the litter is so disfiguring - and burning it fills the air with acrid smoke from plastic bottles. The best aspects of Juba are its trees (mangoes, acacias, flame trees, pawpaws, frangipanis and a host of others that you would have to ask a botanist the names of ...), the markets, the vibrant churches and enthusiastic worship, and, above all, its friendly smiling people who have the patience of saints as you struggle with Juba Arabic. The little shop-keeper at the gate of the compound in which we are living has started to call us "sabii" (friends) as we buy bread and occasionally cold drinks from him. (We used to buy our eggs there until we discovered that they were hard boiled - sold to passers-by to eat as a snack. We had tried boiling them but always found they came out over hard! Eventually, it was the little bag of salt beside them that gave us the clue!). So now it is back to work sorting out theological education. We think we have identified a site for the new foundation. The first things we shall plant are a mango tree, a meringa tree ... and a frangipani!

Frangipani close-up

Developmemts at Bishop Gwynne College

South-west of Juba on the road to Yei

Things have settled down somewhat from the first weeks of our time here. We are now enmeshed in the awful business of winding up Bishop Gwynne College which has provided a family for the teaching staff, cleaners, cooks and other ancillaries for many years. Despite the fact that they have not been paid for the last three months, and they are desperate for even the basics, the idea of disbanding the college family is coming very hard. Counting all the staff on the pay-role they number thirteen - only two less than the number of students. The college has run almost like a religious community except that their salaries come to around £1800 per month which is not at all sustainable. Nevertheless, trusting in God, they have stuck at it and one can only admire them for it. Finance is therefore a major reason for suspending the college for a year. The Archbishop has ordered its re-opening in January 2010 as an "upgraded" institution. For this we will need a more qualified head of college. It may be that that person will be the only academic employee until we can increase the number of students. The vision is that eventually the college has university status - but looking at the state of things at the moment, and the lack of any kind of real sustainable funding, this will take a long time. In the meantime we will try to link in with another East African Christian University.

Trevor with staff and students of the college all sent home last week

One of the problems of being in Juba is that accommodation for the students is so expensive. We have to buy in all the food for them as well as provide a house. Outside the town (and Juba is a big place extending over several square miles) a place could be found, but it would then be isolated from the rest of society. The object is to make the institution available for more than a few resident students. It should be a place with open-doors and much coming and going. In the short-term we will probably still be in the same building, but in the medium term we will, hopefully, have found a new site.
Our job here at the moment is not to lead from the front but to provide the support, encouragement and prayer to those whose job it has been entrusted to get on and do things. Important as this is, it can be very frustrating. And we spend a lot of time being "on time" for meetings and finding that, on average, we start 20 - 30 minutes late. Well, this is Africa! And, truth to tell, in Britain we put ourselves under a huge amount of pressure to do three things in the time an African would do one - and suffer from stress and do a job less well than we would want to.
And things take much longer here because we don't have the facilities. There is no power in the day-time so when the computer runs out of juice that's it until 7 pm. The Internet access is 15 minutes walk through baking hot streets. Not having a fridge means that shopping for meat and fish is hard work. The market is a mile away, so we eat more vegetables and fruit than anything else. But we have a house that is ours alone for much of the time, with a three ring calor gas stove. There is tapped water that runs most of the time (we keep a bucket filled for the times when it doesn't!), so we are comfortably situated and can manage on the money we have for the rest of our expenses. We do not have an electricity bill, and the heating comes gratis care of the Lord.
In fact, God is so much in evidence here. There are prayer meetings and chorus singing coming from a number of different directions. The Sudanese love their amplification, and while most of the singing is in tune, sometimes it isn't. Yet there is a huge amount of enthusiasm for worship. And people know God in a very personal way. Whatever life throws at them (and it has thrown some pretty dreadful things to these folk over generations) they turn to the Lord who looks after them. They would be amazed if anyone told them he doesn't - they have the evidence he does! They do not allow deprivation to get in the way of a relationship with God, but the same cannotr be said for materialism.
God is certainly looking after us as we acclimatize to a place rather different from Dorset. Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we do you in ours.

A typical street corner in Juba.

We appreciate that folk are wanting to know what its like for us living here in some detail so in our next blog we'll try and do more on the "human interest" things - the things we particularly enjoy, and the things we miss most! You will have to forgive us if we don't manage to upload many pictures. They take an an age on this slow system.