Giving Thanks!

We celebrated Thanksgiving on Sunday with three fellow Americans, one Canadian, one Aussie and two South Africans. There wasn’t any turkey, but there were plenty of fresh veggies and berries from my garden. 

We feasted, laughed, chatted for hours and then ended the night by praying together. 

It was a lovely. 

And I do have so much to be thankful for…

After two hot weeks in Juba, I am grateful that God called me to the beautiful, mountains of Didinga, and not the Capitol Juba city life.   Sure, those Juba missionaries have running water, electricity and baked chickens available just down the street, but they also have got the heat, oh the heat!, heaps of garbage piled pretty much everywhere and no chance in a million of taking a quiet sunset walk through fields of wildflowers (which is something I love to do here in Didinga). 

I am so grateful that we serve a God who knows the hearts of each of us… for He knit us together in our mother’s wombs.

I am thankful for Joyce and her sweet girls who continue to be a few of my greatest hopes and most consistent joys here in Nagishot.

I am thankful for our Didinga Bible study group.  May God’s word do a mighty work amongst us all.

I am thankful for my new P2-P3 class.  Thank God for little learners!

I am thankful for my family (who I will see in just a few short weeks!!!) who love me unconditionally and think the best of me (even when I give them loads of reasons not to).

I am thankful for my supporters.

I am thankful for their consistent prayers and financial gifts, their interest in my life and faithful partnership in bringing the Good News to the Didinga people.  Without them, I could never be here.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Didinga Literacy Training in Juba

Greetings from the armpit of South Sudan, the newest capitol city in the world, Juba!

I arrived here early last week (in an air conditioned Land Cruiser, no less!!!) for a two week SIL, mother tongue literacy training.

The primary focus for this training has been aimed at equipping national teachers and teacher trainers with the skills needed to properly teach a newly created vernacular primer.

Though a Didinga alphabet was somehow created in the1920’s, very little Didinga literature was ever distributed and few, very few, Didinga could be considered literate in their mother tongue.

The ability to read for meaning and the importance of expressing ones ideas, thoughts and feeling in ones first language are skills which magnitude can’t be overlooked.

My classmate, Lino, teaching in Didniga.  This man cracks me up!

Reading a Didinga story to my training class!

Dinka's written language.

My workshop classmates and I - the workshop was made up of men from Didinga, Dinka, Baka and Tennet tribes... oh and, me.

While in Juba, I literally dreamt about the Didinga alphabet. 

One of the Tennet mother tongue primers.

In the past, my Didinga students have not only been faced with the incredible challenge of learning what reading is, in an environment that is almost entirely void of written text (things like children books, road signs, cereal boxes, written recipes, magazines, texts… are just not there), but these students have also had to deal with learning how to read in a second language, a language which they just happen to be simultaneously learning!!!

Imagine!

SIL (Summer Institute of Learning), working in conjugation with Didinga Nationals, have not only adapted the Didinga alphabet, but also have created a 1^st class mother tongue primer.

SIL is also working towards completing the New Testament in Didinga, which is, in essence, the true foundation for all mother tongue literacy work. 

After nearly 2 weeks of attempting to read and write with a foreign alphabet and teach strictly in Didinga, I am all too aware of the importance of mother tongue literacy!

Can you imagine never having the opportunity to read your Bible in your mother tongue?

Perhaps, it is hard to really understand the joy and heart connections to be found in our mother tongue languages – until we have been frustrated and humbled with attempting to muddle our way through another’s.

Little Buddies

 

Yaya, Poi, Lokoro and Lakuju - they make me smile!