A letter from the Rev. Debbie Blane in Sudan
April 24, 2010
Dear Friends,
Greetings! April is a month in Sudan in which the weather gradually gets hotter and hotter. This April has been no exception. I am extremely grateful for fans and swamp coolers and refrigeration to help me stay cool enough to function here!
We are moving towards the end of my first semester here at the Nile Theological College in Khartoum. There are three more weeks of classes and then a week of finals scheduled. A certain rhythm to the days, weeks and months has formed, helping to make sense of a culture that is so different from my own North American culture.
In History of Mission class, we are reading about missionaries who respected cultures and worked to change only those things that were harmful. For missionaries in India this included widow burning, for those in China it included foot binding. For me, here in Sudan it includes polygamy and the payment of dowries to procure wives.
There is a knowledge inside of me that has been informed by the reading I have done which indicates that it is not wise to hope for individuals within a culture to change. Instead the change should bring transformation to people groups. There is a better chance of having a permanent collective transformation within a culture than to have individuals trying to live differently on their own.
In one book that I read, female circumcision was discussed in this way. A single family could not decide to have their daughters remain uncircumcised because when this was attempted the family was ostracized. Instead the people who were teaching about the medical, psychological and spiritual trauma to circumcised women realized that whole villages would need to be educated and come to an agreement on the issue.
This, I believe, holds true of any change that it is hoped will come to a tradition in a culture.
And so it with the people of God. Change is slow but God will bring it.
Blessings,
The Reverend Debbie Blane
The 2010 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 47
