thoughts on the Referendum

the week-long Referendum voting ended on Sunday. the people of South Sudan were voting to determine this region's secession or continued unity with the North. results are not out but i am sure, from conversations over the last few months, that the people voted overwhelmingly for secession. it was such a privilege to be here during this time. this is a history-making time; a new nation may be created in the next few months, and i am here to see it! it was 2004 that the Lord broke my heart for Sudan (because of the genocide in Darfur). i wanted to go to the worst place, where people were really suffering. i wanted to stand with them, to show them that they were not alone, that God cared and Christians from around the world cared. i wanted to weep when they wept and rejoice when they rejoiced, to be embraced as one of them and as part of their lives. i've been here for a year now, getting to know the people, listening to their stories, showing them that they matter and their sufferings are not in vain. i came not knowing that i would be here for this historic event, witnessing one of the most important political phenomenons of our time.

the vote began on January 9th, my birthday. my name means peace. that's exactly what marked this week - peaceful. it was like being in Sudan on any other normal day. no tension, no violence. (there were some skirmishes along the North-South border, but these were very small and few, and nothing like that happened in Yei). most importantly, i witnessed the countenances of the people as they voted. there was joy and dignity on their faces. they were proud to be Sudanese. after decades of being treated like slaves, dehumanized, they were finally able to express their views, to make a decision for themselves, to express what they thought was best and what they wanted. they were human again, free. i stood with them as they rejoiced. i feel honored, grateful.

results will be announced February 14th. please pray that the will of the people would be respected and enacted. i am gearing up for the biggest celebration i have ever seen.

it's not in vain

i was in the IHOP prayer room a few days ago (one of my favorite places on earth) listening to a chorus being sung - "i know it's not in vain, to suffer with You." i had just been talking to a friend about longing, about how God places passions in our hearts that most of the time either take years to be fulfilled or will never be accomplished through us alone. we were talking about human trafficking, my friend's longing to liberate all the slaves right now, and the pain of the realization that she can't. i was thinking of how badly i ache to adopt children and see every Christian couple doing so, and how it hurts to know that i can't do it right now and that not every Christian family will. it wouldn't make sense that the Lord would instill these desires in us and allow them to go unfulfilled for so long, if ever, except for the fact that He Himself longs so. i like to think of my longing as a small slice of His, but a taste of what He feels. longing is painful. i cannot fathom the longing of the Son of God, the one who is most passionate, who sees and knows all but must also wait. the desires within us are pieces of His. if i feel pain, how much must He feel. and so when we long, we are partaking in His longing, fellowshipping in His sufferings. this chorus struck me from a new angle. suffering is not only persecution for the faith or the fires and trials of the Christian walk on the road to perfection. it's also seeing what He sees, desiring what He has called good and righteous, pining for it, and having to wait. i believe longing is intercession. when our hearts yearn deeply for something, that in itself is transformed into prayer arising to the Lord for that thing. Hebrews 7:25 says that Jesus always lives to makes intercession for those who come to God. i think in large part, His longing is His intercession, and Jesus will get what He asks for. therefore, so will those who long with Him. it's not in vain; it bears fruit; God responds. blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

these are a few of my favorite things

i was lying in bed 3 nights ago and my mind was flooded with thoughts of things i've seen and experienced here in Sudan that have warmed my heart. i began to smile to myself as the recollections came, and i felt tangible peace in my soul...

we have about 10 toddlers who go from playing together, to slapping each other, to crying, to playing together again, in 5 minute cycles. they can sometimes be so mean to each other, but they are never slow to forgive and forget. i'll watch them walk in a line, all holding hands, across the compound. i'll hear them singing worship songs and dancing together. a few days ago, 4-year old Ema blatantly stole a scrunchie that 4-year old Iko was playing with. She began to cry, i took the scrunchie back, and Ema began to cry. i scolded him and told him he could sit over there if he was gonna act like that. to my great surprise, he actually obeyed. not 5 minutes later, i see Iko walk over to him and hand him the scrunchie. her attitude was not vengeful, like "you stole this from me. now that i have it back i'll make you suffer by never giving it to you." she knew he had wanted it, so she gave it to him. i wish we were all more like this...

my favorite thing about African culture is the priority status that Africans give to relationship and conversation. loneliness does not exist here. houses are only for sleeping. people sit on their porches and eat all meals together. there's always someone to talk to. i love eating dinner by Abuba's fire. (she's one of our house mamas. "abuba" means "grandma"). she'll often share her food with me. many of the kids congregate here, because she's amazing and everyone loves to be around her. there will be a radio playing and all of us bobbing our heads to the music. occasionally, one of the kids will get really excited by a favorite song and jump up and start dancing. there's a lot of laughter, and Abuba's deep, gutteral laugh resounds above it all. one day, i slept over at a friend's house in town without telling Abuba. i came back to the compound the next day, and she proceeded to scold me (playfully) and told me to lie down on my stomach so she could cane me (the Sudanese form of spanking). it was hilarious.

one of the high school kids, Malik, LOVES the movie Stuart Little. we watch it regularly. he'll come over, i'll make some tea. after the movie, we talk about school, soccer, Sudanese politics, future plans, God. he's a very intelligent young man who went through the worst of the civil war, running into mountain caves to hide from the dropping bombs. i love hearing his thoughts, his dreams for the future, his hopeful outlook on life, his love for his nation.

i love Safari (20) and Kennedy's (16) laughs. i want to record them and play them back when i need to smile.

Justin (25) is amazing with children. he is such a rare gem in this culture where fatherless-ness is pronounced and many men don't have active roles in their children's lives. Justin is a true father after the Lord's heart. he loves the kids, and they adore him. he's always playing with them, talking to them, holding the babies. one day, 3-year old Vicky was throwing a tantrum and was wailing out in the pouring rain. an older girl carried her to the house, but she just wailed harder and went back out into the rain. Justin was sitting on his porch and said, "Bring her to me." she wailed, he took her inside, grabbed a stick, and said, "Do you want to get caned?" she was immediately silent. he then sat her on his lap and wrapped her in the jacket he was wearing. it was so beautiful.

our compound manager, Tito, is probably one of the most amazing men i have met in Sudan. he is hard-working, diligent, honest, compassionate. he has 8 beautiful kids and works tirelessly to provide for them. out of no where one day, he approached me and said, "There are some small cakes in town from Juba. I am going to buy you some" and bought me 6. no other Sudanese has done this for me. he doesn't see my white skin; he sees me as his friend, like any other.

when i lived in a room in the office, every morning, Betty our accountant, would arrive to work and shout "Rinaaaaaa!" in a high pitched squeal to greet me. it sounds like it would be annoying, but i loved it.

i am touched that Mama Eudita, our head house mama, calls me her daughter.

i wash clothes Saturday mornings. there are normally 10 grubby little toddler hands reaching into the basin "helping" me. they'll take a shirt the size of their whole bodies, put soap onto a small piece of it, scrub scrub scrub, twist out just that small piece, and throw the shirt into the clean clothes basin. when they're not looking, i sneak the shirt back in to rewash. i love their hearts.

i love the sound of rain on the corrugated iron roof. it is the most calming sound.

i love swinging in the hammock on my porch, sipping a Coke, watching the wind in the trees or the sun set. African sunsets are the best in the world.

in a harsh environment like this one, where i feel lonely sometimes and weary in heart, joy is to be found. you have to search for it at times, because it's hidden away in a word or a small action, like a treasure. but it's there, and i love when i find it.

forgiveness

i haven't written in a little while because i haven't had much to say. nothing too exciting has been going on here, and nothing too profound has been happening in my brain. i'll share some recent thoughts, though. i've been thinking a lot about forgiveness and how difficult it actually is to carry out. i'm thinking of one of my friends specifically, a Congolese refugee and child soldier who witnessed killings and brutal acts of all sorts as he grew up in the midst of war in Congo. on top of that, he is a Tutsi and had to endure the heartache and pain of his people being massacred in the Rwandan genocide in 1994. he has been massively restored by the Lord, healed of a lot of anger and hatred. but there are still places of unforgiveness in his heart, people towards whom he feels vengeance, events he can't seem to forget. the initial Christian reaction is to call the person to forgive, which is right, but easier said than done. we who have not lived in war and witnessed friends, family, neighbors raped, hacked to death, murdered simply because they were of the wrong tribe cannot comprehend how difficult it must be to forgive.

i got my own tiny taste of the battle called forgiveness when i was harassed by a soldier at the Sudan-Uganda border. he called me into his office, for no official business (because i had already passed through immigration), just "to talk to me", and when i refused to come, his ego was hurt and he proceeded to demand my passport and threaten to throw me in jail. nothing infuriates me more than corruption, and i retaliated. i finally just walked off, with him still shouting after me, and for days afterward, i felt so defiled to have been treated so, like my humanity had been compromised. i wanted revenge. it took me about a week to forgive him, and this incident was not nearly as traumatizing as what my friend has endured.

forgiveness takes some serious Holy Spirit enabling. it defies the tendency of the human heart. i am awed anew at Jesus' ability to cry out "Father forgive them!" with perfect sincerity as His persecutors were driving nails into His hands. it was a direct confrontation to every natural human inclination and emotion. He was demonstrating His inherent power to forgive the worst deeds...and the ability to forgive the worst deeds that He gives to all who are in Him. i guess we pray for that ability, and ask for the working of that power in us.

adventures in Lohutok

last week, i visited a friend who works in the Lopit Mountains, in a village called Lohutok. it was my first time in any place in Sudan other than Yei. i thoroughly enjoyed my relaxing visit, consisting mostly of movies, reading, and much needed conversation. Lohutok is a beautiful area comprised of several villages neatly nestled into the rocky mountain side. to get around, one must navigate steep stony paths. it's quite a demanding and exhausting task, especially in the heat of the afternoon sun, but not for the children, who are so accustomed to this terrain that they effortlessly run up and down the mountain.

my favorite past-time was going to what the people call the "river" (in reality, a stream that runs down the bare rock and gathers into a pool about thigh-deep at the bottom). the people come here to bathe, wash clothes, and generally cool off. it was so refreshing to lie in the water gently trickling down the rock, and sliding into the pool with all the kids was a lot of fun.

the children of Lohutok are a lot like the kids i know. they love visitors and immediately learn new people's names. within a few days, most people knew i was Irina, and the kids made up a funny, cute song and dance that they would perform every time they said my name. the long-termers there are given Lopit names that reflect something about them. my friend was named Iyodo, which means "the one who's stomach is missing" (because she's thin). most of the villagers are accustomed to white people, as missionaries have lived among them for years. but some toddlers still have not gotten used to the sight and would wail hysterically every time we approached on the path. their older siblings loved messing with them and would carry them right up to us, exacerbating their hysteria. it gave us all a good laugh.

the several missionaries working here live in simple houses among the people right in the villages. spending 10 days there, i realized how difficult this is and began to appreciate anew living on a secluded compound. people talk, children play, radios blare until late into the night. roosters begin crowing at about 3am, and there are hundreds of roosters. the people are up and about at 6am. it's loud all the time. there is no town and no market. the missionaries have their food flown in from Kenya by missionary airlines once every 3 months, and they can only get things that won't spoil without refrigeration. the Lopit people are largely unreached. there is a lot of witchcraft and witch doctors, theft, fighting. one of the villages' main industries and sources of income is beer production, and consumption of it is completely normal, even for young children. i thought living in Yei was hard; this is much harder. i gained huge admiration and respect for the missionaries that live and work here, some who have been there for 4+ years. their faithfulness, patience, boldness, and commitment to the Gospel is truly astounding.



the Lord is doing great things in Lohutok. a good number of people have come to Jesus throughout the years and have left lifestyles of sin behind. these ones are shining lights and examples in their communities.

i flew out on one of the missionary planes and got a little tour of Sudan on my way to Yei. the pilot had to pick up pastors and their wives from various cities and bring them to Yei for a conference. we flew all the way up to Agok, which is about 20 miles from the North-South border and the land of the Dinka people, the largest tribe in southern Sudan. it was really cool seeing different terrain and different-looking Sudanese. it got hotter and hotter as we went further north, again causing me to be grateful to live in Yei, which has the coolest climate of all of Sudan. (dry season is pretty brutal for me here; i can't imagine what it must be like in these areas). the pilot let me sit in the co-pilot seat and even allowed me to fly and land the plane! no joke; it was so fun.

i returned to Yei and was warmly greeted by all the children and staff throwing their arms around me as i exited the car. it felt good to be loved. i am glad to have spent some quality time with my friend and to have seen some more of this land that i live in. and i am grateful to live in Yei and have a new appreciation for this town and our compound.

(see Facebook for photos)

free

one great thing that is/has happened to me in this hard season is such freedom from obligation and pressure. i didn't even realize i had lived like this for so long until i got so tired i could not sustain it anymore. ever since i became a Christian, i've led Bible studies, done outreaches, discipled people, held prayer meetings...i've always been doing something ministry-wise, i'll call it official ministry. i loved Jesus and i wanted to make Him known to others. i read His commands and wanted to follow, to please Him. my heart was sincere. but most of the time, i felt obligated to do the official ministry stuff because i was a Christian and this came with the package. there was not much enjoyment in it for me.

once i came to Sudan and the comforts and legitimate pleasures i was used to were removed from my life, i just could not keep doing ministry. obligation alone, my own self-inflicted pressure, was not enough to keep me going anymore. there were so many times when i would say to myself, "ok Irina, do a Bible study for the kids tonight. they love Bible studies and they'll grow from it, just do it." but the evening would come around and i just could not pull myself together to do it. i was too exhausted in my heart. i was not being poured into, filled up, encouraged because my friends were not around to talk to, i couldn't access IHOP webstream, and i couldn't drive down the road to an amazing worship meeting...when these sources of strength and infilling are present, even if i truly don't want to be doing a certain ministry thing, obligation is a strong enough prompting to cause me to do that thing. even though doing the ministry things did not feel life-giving most of the time, because i was filled up in my spirit and prospering in my heart, i could manage to exert the effort necessary to do it. out here, obligation lost its power. i completely stopped doing everything official, organized ministry - Bible studies, outreaches, prayer meetings. once i stopped it all and completely removed myself from it, i understood the pressure that i had been living under my entire Christian life. i came back to Sudan and all i wanted (and still want) to do in the area of ministry is talk with the older kids and play with the little ones. that's it. i have no desire and no energy in my heart to do anything else....and i realized i don't HAVE to. Mike Bickle said an amazing thing in his Song of Solomon teaching that i'm currently listening to: "Everything you do won't ultimately matter if its roots weren't found in passion for God. The biggest ministry means nothing if it wasn't flowing out of love for God." this was the most freeing statement i have ever heard. God, you mean i don't HAVE to do weekly Bible studies? i don't HAVE to go on outreaches and evangelize? Exactly, i don't have to. i am loving simple, life-on-life ministry these days, the kind where you just talk with people, laugh with them, tell jokes, talk about Jesus. i am not at all saying Bible studies, outreaches, etc are not valid. they are totally necessary and good and Jesus clearly calls us to disciple, preach, teach, minister. but if it's not coming out of desire and true enjoyment of what you're doing, if the majority of the fuel is obligation to the Gospel, then it's just not worth doing. it will make you tired, unhappy, and anxious for the thing to end.

i feel very free. every day i do what i want to be doing. of course issues and conflicts arise that must be resolved and of course no one ever wants to deal with that stuff. of course there are things daily that i have to do that i may not feel like doing - that's life. what i'm saying is, in my work and ministry, i only do what i want to do, what makes my heart happy, what gives me pleasure and satisfaction, what feeds my soul. this is a much better way to live, and i think i'm gonna keep it.

yelling about the Father's love

i'm on a journey of learning about the Father's heart. it's funny and ironic to me that the place where God starts teaching me about this is in Sudan in the midst of a difficult season that i'm in, probably the most difficult season of my Christian life thus far. i think that is intentional on His part. if we can get it in the hard times, we will surely know it in the easy times.

there are several facets to the Lord. there's the Bridegroom, the Suffering Servant, the Comforter, the Judge, the King, to name a few. i have always felt the love of God but i only recently realized that i haven't really ever felt the love of the Father, that specific facet of Him. different seasons bring different revelations of His nature, and He reveals all of Himself to us in time.

it's important for us to really grasp deep the love that the Father has toward us in times of hardship, when circumstances aren't necessarily exemplifying this truth to us. it's so powerful when we reach, against all circumstances, toward His heart and cry, "I know You love me!!" it's similar to praising in the midst of disaster; something transformative happens within us when we do. our hearts are supernaturally strengthened and we are thrust deeper into Truth. the enemy consequently and progressively loses more and more of his influence on us.

like i've said before, in my early years as a Christian, the Lord taught me about the suffering element of the Christian life. what i'm learning now as He's revealing the Father to me is that an understanding of suffering as a reality of following Jesus in this life is not going to get you through hardships. take me. i understood it, knew the Scriptures about it, knew countless stories of martyrs and saints that have gone before us and what they endured, even Christ Himself...but encountering a very difficult season almost shattered me completely. it's knowing that THE FATHER LOVES US that will get us through. it's screaming at the circumstances and the powers and principalities that debilitate us with lies, "I AM LOVED!! NOTHING CAN SEPARATE ME!" and it's accessing this love in hard times and pushing to believe it and feel it that solidifies this truth in our hearts.