Takin' Dad's Advice...mostly

Do you remember my April Fool's blog I made a couple weeks ago? I pretended that I saw a snake and scorpion and that I tried to beat them with my shoe. When my dad talked to me later about my hypothetical defense tactics, he informed me I had it wrong. I was not supposed to use a shoe, but I was supposed to use a long stick or something that could keep my distance from the dangerous creature in case it made a lunge at me.

So this morning I went to go use my shower and there was a scorpion in the shower. (For realz this time...promise!) Once I had recovered from my initial, superhero, manly reaction (because men like me don't get scared at all; we just flex our muscles), I thought quickly of the advice given to me.

But wait, I need a picture!

Once I had the picture taken, I looked for what stick could effectively kill a scorpion. Nothing really that great.

What would Dad do in this case? Hmm, okay something to keep my distance he says. Got it.

I went with Mundri's best resource--a mango. So long story short, it worked. But it was dad's advice that kept me focused during this moment. I know it wasn't a stick, but I hope you are proud.

Here is a picture of the scorpion next to the drain plug in its last moments. Some of you might be saying, "Adam, this is small. Why would you write a whole blog post about that measly thing?"
Well, to you I say, "Go watch the most recent Indiana Jones." In that movie, Harrison Ford informs us that "when it comes to scorpions, the bigger the better." Therefore, small = not good. So there.

I am teaching at school now. Here are some things to pray for with that:
1) Patience and cultural understanding for me.
2) Teachers for the school. They are way too few. I am teaching up to 3 separate classes at the same time. I get sweaty walking from class to class all the time.
3) An overall revival of the education system here.

Mundri meets Canada

Today, Mundri encountered Canadian culture in a new way. This morning, four of the neighbourhood kids poked their head into my door. So I went to sit outside with them. As we sat there, talking was minimal. Communication is usually done in form of them touching my skin and then we smile and sometimes laugh too. But after a few minutes, I looked and found a stick. It had a slight hook on the bottom that reminded me of the stupid grass hockey sticks from elementary that I thought were so bizarre (I mean why do they only have a tiny blade anyways?)

So I got an idea. I told the kids that I wanted them to find sticks that looked like the one I had. So we went and found 4 more sticks for each of the kids. Then we found another couple short sticks to push into the dirt to stand upright to make goals. Then we found a mango. Yup, you got it, we played hockey in the yard of a church in the dirt. It was awesome. It also drew a small crowd of other children. I tried to tell them that this is called hockey. I don’t think they really cared about a name.

These are some pics of hockey. They aren't that good because I was in a hurry to get back and play but just so you can imagine a bit better. The last pic is just a cute kid name Wala that is always hanging around is quite jolly. I like him.

Prayer List:

1) Continue for the land and that all will go well.

2) Paul who is sick with something like Giardia and maybe Malaria.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Here are the good, the bad, and the ugly things about being here:


The Good – The stars.

The Bad – Stubbing your toe when you are walking at night and staring at them.

The Ugly – The bruise on my toe.

The Good – Mangos

The Bad – The ridiculous stickiness that you acquire when eating them.

The Ugly – Results of too many mangos.

The Good – Breathing

The Bad – Breathing Dust

The Ugly – Everyone pickin’ their nose to get the dust out (especially me!)

The Good – I have a real toilet.

The Bad – No seat and it only sorta flushes

The Ugly – I will spare you the details given the theme is toilets.

The Good – Eating Chicken

The Bad – Watching them lose their heads.

The Ugly – All of the chickens are funny-lookin’ to me.

The Good – Goats

The Bad – They make the freakiest sounds (similar to a child crying)

The Ugly – Their facial hair looks like mine ;)

The Good – I have a bicylce

The Bad – The brakes are hit and miss.

The Ugly – You have to have a bell on it....wait, that isn’t ugly, that is SO COOL!

The Good – Visitors (like me) are treated super awesome-ly.

The Bad – Apparently it is an honour as a visitor to be fed the liver and intestines as opposed to a nice T-bone steak or something. Ha, TIA.

The Ugly – I think I would go with the intestines again on this one...not super excited to look at it. Eating it is another battle.

The Good – Toyota Landcruisers

The Bad – The roads

The Ugly – Getting vomited on (refer to previous blog post if confused).

Prayer List:

1) We are on the brink of being given two and a half acres. That this will go through successfully.

2) For the children with "Nodding Disease" here. It can be super tough for some children.

3) For continued and further support by other NGOs, agencies, and local leaders here.

You know it's a bad day when...

A snake slithers to the foot of your bed and as you slowly get up and get ready to attack the poisonous creature, there is a scorpion just in the way of your shoe that you were going to use to attack the snake. Crazy I know!

But it gets worse when in the background, you can hear a hyena just laughing in the background at your dilemma.

Sigh...

Don't worry, I survived with my ninja capabilities.

Oh the Irony.

Okay so I just posted a blog. If you haven't read the one underneath, you need to scroll down and read it first before you read this one........

....done?

Alright. Now, I just re-read my blog after I posted it. I realized that I wrote something super ironic to the story I was telling. Something Africans do is put the world "really" at the end of sentences. Sometimes it means they are asking a question, sometimes, it adds expression, sometimes it is just in a weird part of the sentence and it would make more sense to me if it was in a different part of the sentence. Well this paragraph, I did just that and here it is....

"So my warning to you Canadians back home is this: If you ask me how I am when I get home and I say, "I'm FINE!" in sort of surprisingly abrupt sounding tone...I am not angry really. I am just speaking African-Canadian-English.

I laughed when I read it. Maybe you had to be there. ha, I dunno.

Takin' a Break

So I am feeling like I am tired of giving the regular ol' update blog and how things are going. But first...I know many are wondering...preaching was good. I wasn't even really nervous.

Okay story time. This story is devoted to all you people who have been to Africa.

Since coming to Canada, I have heard Swahili, Arabic, and Moru on a consistent basis and then when you mix that with a few other tribal languages, I have been confused more than most of the time. I have also learned that English is a different dialect here than I am used to. I have learned to speak more of what Paul is always urging me to speak. (You remember Paul...he is my favourite person...the retired pastor I am working with. Also Africa's biggest jokster and class clown. I love it.) Anyways, Paul says I need to speak African English. You people who have been to Africa know what I am speaking of.

The problem with adapting to this English, is that it is ungrammatical according to the rules that I am told are correct. In fact, they are rather confusing if you are not used to the speech. I talked to my sister and brother-in-law yesterday on the phone, and it was actually an incredibly difficult thing to speak in the Canadian English that I grew to love once upon a time. I was trying in vain to not use the African accent that I have acquired.

So my warning to you Canadians back home is this: If you ask me how I am when I get home and I say, "I'm FINE!" in sort of surprisingly abrupt sounding tone...I am not angry really. I am just speaking African-Canadian-English.

Okay, that is all I have to say.
Pray for:
1) Actually just praise God. I have been really encouraged for the past 2 days. Life is good here.
2) Discernment. People all want help. I want to help, but I don't know the best way sometimes.
3) Better ability/motivation to learn the languages. It can be overwhelming but I genuinely want to learn.

Okay, I will update you more on the situation of what is going down with our work here next time. As for now, I have to go look at the gazillion stars that I can't see at home which is the coolest thing ever!

Finding My Role

Warning: Long blog post. Sorry about that.

So first of all, I have a new number in Mundri. Forgot to say that before but you can now reach me at 011-249-925-608-779

Anyways....many people before I left were asking me what my specific goals are while I am here in Mundri. They understood that the eventual goal is to develop an orphanage centre but obviously in just a few months of being in a village in the outskirts of Southern Sudan, this process takes its sweet time. At the time, I would feel bad that I couldn’t really give people a concrete answer and I tried to avoid the conversation sometimes. But alas, I have begun to figure out what exactly my role will be here in Mundri. So this is to all you people who are confused what I came here to do...

First of all, meet Paul. Paul is a retired pastor who used to walk 3 days (each way) to do evangelism in some of the neighbouring communities. Wow. Anyways, he has a vision to develop a school that includes all clans of Greater Mundri (approximately 13). This school would teach children in the local language so that children would re-learn to be literate in the local dialect. This skill has been greatly decreased because the Northern Sudan influence brought mostly Arabic into the schools. Paul has had this vision since 1995, but no real means of being able to begin to see it take shape.

Afro-Canadian Evangelical Mission’s vision all along was to have our projects and our goals be the same as those of the community. After hearing about Paul’s vision, we wondered how we could combine the visions. Could we make the school targeted towards orphans then? So we met with several various local leaders and chiefs in our immediate area of Mundri to see how they felt about this. The idea was met with great excitement because it seems that although other NGO’s are here and doing great work, no one has really been able to approach the issue of orphans.

Orphan in this side of the world means someone who has lost a parent. As poverty is so severe in Southern Sudan, when one parent is lost, the means to survive under only one parent’s care is extremely difficult; especially if he/she is expected to provided education for his/her child.

All that to say, people really want to see development in the area of orphans. Our visions are merging. Now what will I be doing...

I will be working to document and survey the various regions of Greater Mundri and gather statistics and document stories through video and pictures in order to develop a project proposal to take to donors in Sudan and Canada to see this project take shape.

So this will take time but on the less busy days, I have found a primary school to volunteer in. Now I don’t really know, but I might actually be teaching my own class. Class sizes are huge here in Sudan. They range from 60-150 kids! So I am a little overwhelmed at that but hey, what’s life without it’s challenges right?

Oh and I think we have found a motorcycle that we are able to borrow for some of our transportation! Sweet deal.

Prayer List:

1) There is a NGO base with excellent facilities that is going to be unoccupied at the end of the month. The government will then have control who this is given to. Pray that if God wills it, we can somehow obtain this. It is a shot in the dark, but God is a great God. Never know.

2) Continued support from the community as they begin to adopt and take ownership of the project.

3a) That ice cream will fall from heaven just like manna.

3b) Just kidding. Okay that when I preach on Sunday, I won’t pee myself from nervousness. Yup, I am preaching. I was informed this last Sunday that I would be preaching in the English service of a church nearby. Hmm, okay sure...why not?

“So what am I preaching on?”

“Oh, I will give you the readings on Friday or Saturday.”

Good, at least it’s one day to prepare right? Gulp.