A letter from the Rev. Debbie Blane in Sudan
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Dear Friends,
Greetings. It is very early morning here in Sudan. I am going to write to you while I have the time to do so.
One of the striking features, to me, of Khartoum is how much garbage is littered around the city. I asked someone about this recently, and he said that while some people pay for garbage service many people do not, and their garbage then ends up in the streets and trenches. The service for January was 14 Sudanese pounds. I paid it and I can only hope that my garbage was picked up and put somewhere besides the streets. If a person makes only 20 Sudanese pounds a day I can understand why 14 pounds would be a lot to pay for garbage service.
I’ve taught here now for a week. It drains me to the bottom of my toes. I am so tired I go home and take a nap afterwards. These are mature students that I have. They ask deep questions, and sometimes the question isn’t a part of our course. I am also discovering that how I am choosing to teach the class may be different from what they are used to. So what does a teacher do when reading is necessary, the course is too short to put books on reserve in the library, and the only alternative is to make copies of the reading, but the students can’t afford the copies. Nor can they read at night, because, as many of them informed me, they have no light at night. They are living without electricity! This is a profoundly different world that I am entering into.
I had read that Africa in many ways experiences the Old Testament first hand. I now know this to be true. They have tribal conflicts, there are wars over control of resources, and dowries are still paid for the right to marry a woman. In a sense the entire world lives with all of this, although I suppose in the West and in most developed countries these issues are simply more hidden under a sophisticated veneer.
I keep saying to the students that the Old Testament is stories. The stories are about human beings. We find ourselves in the stories because humanity hasn’t changed. That is part of the reason for learning in this class, so that the students can help their congregations learn how to make that connection between the stories and themselves. We are the people in the stories. It isnRsquo;t them and us; it is us.
I was able to attend an ordination service yesterday. There was a group of men who were ordained, kind of like a mass or group wedding, but for service to the church. It was quite an event! My ordination was wonderful, yet it wasn’t like a party as this one was! At the end a woman even walked around spraying perfume on people — the sweet scent of Jesus being poured out among us, I was told. The preacher for the service talked about ordination saying that it is not “work” in the church; it is life! I believe this. Ministry is incarnational. We are to pour out our lives to those we serve. My students are doing further study since most of them already are pastors. I pray that I am one more model to them of a pastor who is pouring out her life to serve her students.
Blessings,
The Rev. Debbie Blane
The 2010 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 47
