A letter from Debbie Blane in South Sudan
April 2013
Dear Friends,
Greetings from Malakal! This morning I woke up to the sounds of a creature in my bedroom and upon investigating I found a little bat that had gotten stuck under one of my trunks. It managed to free itself and then led me on a “wild goose chase” around my room. I finally decided it wasn’t worth trying to squish the little thing to death and went back to bed.
The bats here are small and kind of like jellyfish; they do not have hard or solid bodies like cats and dogs, for instance. After I had played hide and seek with the bat the water man came. We have two types of water delivered here to the guesthouse. One is river water, which I assume comes straight from the Nile River. It is used for putting in the toilet, for washing clothes, baths and sometimes for washing dishes. The other kind of water is “clean” water. It has been treated and is apparently clean enough to drink; I however still put it through my Katadyn water purifier. The water that came this morning was the clean water. This is the water that I purify further for drinking; I use it for washing my hair and sometimes for washing dishes. The water is kept in two large water barrels and we scoop it out with plastic pitchers for using.
I got my electric kettle and my large thermos cleaned, so today if we have power tonight I am at last prepared to boil water and keep it till morning so that I can once again have hot coffee. I have depended on others to provide me with hot water, because anyone else who stays in the house seems to be able to heat water on charcoal quite sufficiently. I do not have that talent and have finally realized that I am going to have to do it when we have electricity if I actually want hot coffee because there is not always someone else around to supply me. Otherwise I put my instant coffee in a bottle and shake it up with my Katadyn water. Yummm-ummmm. Not!
This week is the last week of classes for this term, and the last week of classes forever at the Nile Theological College for the seniors. The following week is finals week and then graduation will follow quickly on the heels of the finals on the 18th of May. Then our new graduates will disperse into the new country of South Sudan and perhaps to other parts of the world as well as they pursue ministry opportunities and graduate studies.
Please pray for the seniors as they finish this season of their lives in which they have earned their Bachelor of Arts degrees. Please pray for our juniors, as they will become the new seniors on the 18th of May.
PC(USA) World Mission is asking mission workers to work toward raising their full support. If your congregation is not currently supporting God’s work through my ministry at the Nile Theological College, please consider doing so (there's a red "give" button on my PC(USA) website that has a link for donations: http://gamc.pcusa.org/give/E200453—or you can use the "Give" link at the end of this letter).
This link will also take you to a link for my blog (or, again, you can use the link at the end of this letter), and I invite you to join me on my journey as I blog and post the blogs whenever I have access to the Internet that is fast enough to support that.
Mission co-workers have also been asked to mention the Big Tent in our newsletters. Below is information we have been provided to share with you:
The Power of “We”: The Call to Collective Impact
The World Mission Partner Conference at Big Tent 2013
August 1-3, 2013
Louisville, Kentucky
Register: pcusa.org/bigtent
800-728-7228, x2417
Thank you for joining God’s ministry through me in prayer and in financial giving.
God’s Blessings,
Rev. Debbie Blane
The 2013 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 103
Read more about Debbie Blane's ministry
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