Living in Community

Welcome to Nagishot, Sudan!
Though Nagishot is only about ten miles from my former village, Napep, its feels like a whole different world.

Last year in Napep, desiring to build strong relationships with our Didinga neighbors, our team chose to live in the community, rather than on a joint missionary compound. Recognizing the benefits this living arrangement provided, Tianne, Elly and I were cautious about living on the Nagishot compound this year. However, Pastor William Laku, worried about our safety, was quite adamant about our settling on the compound.

And, I am so glad that he was!

The daily Napep stresses: the throngs of people lined up at the fence from sunup to sundown, the complete and total absence of anything remotely resembling privacy, the absolute ridiculous amount of theft....

Thanks to life on the compound, I no longer feel like a caged zoo animal. I can make bread in my kitchen-like area without 15 people watching my every move and yelling at me from the fence. And for that, I am infinitely and continually thankful!

Living in Community - Some of the Nagishot Compound
pictured from left to right: Hector Loki, Peter, Adega, me with Safari, Joyce with daughter Janie, Tianne, Eunice, William, Joshua, Lauren, Johnathan and Elly

Tianne, me, Elly with Johnathan and Lauren

We are called to live in community:

"All the believers were together and had everything in common. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." Acts 2:44-47

It's easy to think that those first church believers had everything in common. Hard to imagine their unique personalities, differences. Were they all shopping at the same trendy stores, reading the same best-sellers, was everyone into bocce ball?

Nope, I don't think so.

Wasn't their everything the same everything we share with other believers today?
That everything is the reason it doesn't matter if you are a Didinga, Acholi or, a far from home, American, with Christ in common, people as different as night is from day, can live and learn together.

Each night, everyone from the compound (anywhere from 7 to 20 men, women and children) gather together for the evening meal. Hours have been spent around that table. I've found that despite our differences, He is enough to unit us.

And now, a little bit about our living arrangements:
It was originally promised that our new houses, the mud tukals and brick kitchen, were to be finished no later than January 15th. However, on the 26th of January, when we moved back to Sudan, our houses consisted of nothing more than cement foundations. Our kitchen had not been started.

This past January - Tianne, Elly and I standing in our "houses".

Jonathan, our fellow AIM missionary, did a super job organizing and working with the kitchen builders. Our cute new kitchen was successfully completed shortly before we left Sudan for the April elections.

Our beautiful porch faces west.
We would love for you to come over and enjoy a Didinga sunset with us.

Marking our territory...

Looking South in Early April
Unfinished tukals in the background, the rest of the Nagishot compound is located behind our eventual tukals, kitchen with water barrel in foreground.
My garden is off to the right.

Looking North in Early April
Kitchen structure and garden in the background,
the foundation for Tianne's tukal in middle foreground,
Elly's weaved tukal to the right.

As our houses had not yet been finished, we were living under this open-air structure
(the mabatte is there to block the crazy Nagishot wind and divert pesky animals).

Kitchen, with Tianne's tent area in the background.

Once a closet, now our kitchen counter.

Home Sweet Home!
My tent with African grass weaved rainfly
- not sure, but I don't think they sell this model at REI -
the original was somehow misplaced.
(yeah, you can pray for that one come rainy season).

I am convinced that we can grow accustomed to pretty much anything. Things that I once thought were totally disgusting, are not even categorized as gross anymore. To be completely honest, living in a tent for three months, was really not that bad. It reminded me of car camping and I like to camp. If it wasn't for the chickens roosting on the kitchen table, the dogs and cat stealing our precious food and the fine layer of dirt on and in everything, including our drinking water, I could probably live in a tent indefinitely.

However, rainy season is approaching the Didinga Hills of Sudan. The open-air structure that houses our tents is not leak proof and as I mentioned earlier, the tent I am borrowing, did not come with a rainfly. Will we survive in the tents? You bet. Would we rather upgrade to a mudhut? YES!!!

Please join us in praying for the completion of our little African houses.
Thanks!