June 20, 2013

Greetings from Yambio, South Sudan! The classes are going well! We have moved from the Law of God (original and actual sin) to the Grace of God, the Means of Grace, and today focused on Holy Baptism. Yesterday (Wednesday) after chapel, the compound was jolted to wails and weeping from one of the girls. She was uncontrollable. Her name is Fozia, a deaconness in training, and she found out her grandmother died. She lives close to the seminary. Here in South Sudan, they bury the body either same day, or the next day. After an afternoon thunderstorm, Nicolas and Dachi (both pastors here) went to the house of the grandmother. We walk up and there is a group of men sitting in two "U" shapes. The inner "U" consisted of the older men; the outer "U" was the younger men. We went around and greeted all the older men, and they brought chairs for us to join them in the inner "U". We sat there for 15-20 min in silence. The house was about 20 feet away, and on the other side the women and children sat, mostly in silence also. Inside the house was the body of the grandmother. You could see a lot of women in there, and they were singing a chant-type song to a drum. After about 15 min, Nicolas said it was time to go into the house, so he, Dachi and I squeezed into the house --- there must have been 50 women sitting on the floor in this 15x10 foot house, with the grandmother on the bed, with people even sitting on the bed with her. Nicholas, Dachi and I all said some words of comfort and hope based on the Resurrection of Jesus. The family was Roman Catholic, but the priest never showed up. So they came by to ask Rev Dachi (the eldest of us) to do the funeral. The girl's name is Fozia who lost her grandmother, please keep her family in your prayers.