travels and impressions

This week I traveled to a village called Panyana with a couple named John and Poppy Spens, fellow missionaries in Yei with the Anglican church from the UK…whom I love. They are a whacky, hilarious couple who have a beautiful marriage and relationship. (Interjection: we have a Bible study every Sunday at their house for all the missionaries in the area. There are quite a few, about 20, I was surprised. I thought I’d be the only one, along with the other Iris folk, but there’s a great community here. My absolute favorite part about it is that there are several denominations represented, but I have no clue how many is because no one talks about it. No one cares. All that matters is that we all love Jesus. Right now we are going through the book of Ephesians verse by verse. This past Sunday, I led the discussion of Eph. 2:1-10, it was so great. It’s a true picture of the Body of Christ being one. The mission field and the difficulty of the living and working here, the warfare, truly brings the church together. I guess you stop caring about theological and doctrinal differences and just support and love one another). The drive was 2 hours along very bumpy, dusty roads, but fun :). We were there to help with a week-long youth conference. We walked in to joyous African worship, lots of dancing and shouting. That day we hiked up to the mountain there. The view was beautiful and it started to rain!! This is super rare at this time in Sudan, so it is a huge blessing, even though I was freezing (which is better than being sweating hot to the point of wanting to pass out). We worshiped in the rain, under a really flimsy tarp, but Jesus loved it! The next day Poppy and I spoke to the girls (about 40 of them) about, get this….fashion!!! Hahaha! As if I am any authority on this topic…some of you know how I dressed in college  Poppy is the same way, she thought it was hilarious. We ended up speaking about modesty in dress and not causing our brothers to stumble, and prayed for some of the girls at the end.

John spoke to the men about the marriage relationship and how to treat wives/women. This topic of men and women, right Biblical relationship, marriage, has come up pretty much every day this week. My eyes have been opened anew to the oppression and terrible treatment of women here. Some of the questions the youth asked were very difficult and point to how drastically different this culture is, but how we must maintain the Biblical standard even if it confronts the whole of society. One was “What if a husband and wife can’t have children? Can the man go and seek another wife?” Because infertility is always the woman’s fault. The answer was no, of course, but this is challenging here because children are a valuable possession (not that they are always treated well, but they are a measurement of one’s success). Another question was “I am a Christian now and have repented, but I have 2 wives from pre-Christian days. What do I do?” We didn’t know the answer to this one, because if he chooses one the other will be out on the street, and how can he choose one? Beating of wives was also addressed, a very common practice here. One the drive back, I noticed mostly women on the roads carrying various loads on their heads – water, straw, bananas. Now I recently tried to place a standard water jug on my head. I swear I thought it was gonna crush my skull. The thing must have weighed 50 lbs. Beira, who was helping me, was laughing and said “African women are stronger than men.” I witnessed the truth of this statement on the drive back, as these women carried these heavy loads. John and Poppy told me they walk back and forth between watering holes and markets for miles every day – to wash clothes, fetch water, sell/buy wares. Essentially, the women do everything – cooking, cleaning, raising children. Often times the men are jobless, so they just sit around because all this is “women’s work”. On top of that, like I said, they are often beaten. Then I got back to the compound and one of the girls told me about an altercation she had with one of the guys about this topic. He was saying men are better than women, because Eve was the reason for sin and Adam was created first. I don’t know if he had been joking or not. He’s a wonderful guy who loves Jesus a lot, but the fact that he could think like this again points to how deep-rooted this mindset is in this culture that it permeates even true God-loving people. She had been upset and I was like, “That’s it, we’re doing a Bible study on this!” Then I’m sitting at breakfast with some of the male staff and we’re talking about malaria (rampant here, everyone’s had it multiple times). The female mosquito carries malaria, and a comment is made “See, women cause trouble!” And they went into how women in positions of authority are so much harsher than men in the same positions. We mostly laughed about it and took it lightly, but I made sure to express the fact that anyone without Jesus is not going to act righteously (I mean look at the presidents of Sudan and the war that had raged for decades) and both men and women have weaknesses and strengths. Yesterday night we did the Bible study with the older kids (I say kids, but some of them are my age), and it was great, I think the best Bible study thus far. It went for about 2 hours, there were many questions and all were attentive. I taught how men and women were equal, how both were at fault in the Fall, and the Biblical marriage relationship/roles of husband and wife (Eph 5). I spoke about the importance of choosing wisely whom you marry, with a lot of prayer and observation of the person’s character, not hastily. We talked very openly and candidly, which was refreshing. The kids want to do another Bible study on this topic, wanting to learn what it means for a man to lead his family, what he must do, etc. I think there was breakthrough, and I am very confident that they will be wonderful husbands and wives.

In light of these issues of female oppression here, I’m starting to get a real heart for the women here, especially our girls. I can see that because of the culture’s treatment of and perception of women as slaves and property, even those who know Jesus are under the yoke of this mindset. They are not confident like the boys are. It is mostly the boys who talk in Bible study, and it’s like pulling teeth trying to get the girls to talk. When I speak to them, a lot of them won’t look me in the eyes. They carry a lot of shame and insecurity. I want to tackle this head on and speak over them their beauty, identity, and purpose. I’m gonna be doing a Bible study with the girls separately and hitting on these things.

Thanks to all of you for reading my blog and praying for me, it means a lot to me :)