A letter from Debbie Blane in South Sudan
Fall 2013
Greetings!
The mud on the road
I am back in Malakal in South Sudan and want to catch you up with life here in the town and at the Nile Theological College. It has been a long time since I’ve sent a letter, Internet is intermittent, and power comes only for a short time at night, so keeping in touch with the outside world is difficult at best, impossible at times.
Here at the end of October we are thankfully reaching the end of the rainy season. As I have written in past years, rainy season brings the agonizing mud that Malakal must deal with. This is due to a lack of paved streets and good drainage. To give you an idea of what the mud is like here, the only thing I have ever seen that comes close to it is snow. I am unable to move, literally I cannot walk through it! People here manage by going barefoot. They are “used to it” as they have been walking in it all their lives. The college break occurs during this time—from May until August—because it is generally the worst in terms of flooding and inaccessibility.
Drummer in training
A concentrated course is normally held in August and again in January—two-and-a-half weeks focused on one course before the regular term begins. This year the concentrated course was not held in August. Regular classes began in early September. We have a new group of seniors, the former juniors, and a new intake of students who have become the new juniors. The capacity of the college for numbers of students has reached its limit with the new group consisting of over 50 students.
There is a growing awareness in both Malakal and in South Sudan in general of the importance of education. This awareness extends to the understanding that females as well as males must learn to read and write and to think critically in order that their gifts can be tapped for the service of the church and of the country in government service.
Due to 50 years of civil war there is very little infrastructure in South Sudan. Educational facilities and people with qualifications to teach are very limited. The literacy rate for females is under 20 percent. When girls must spend their time hauling water from the Nile River in jerry cans on their heads and finding firewood for cooking fires and hauling that on their heads, it is difficult to find time to attend classes that may be available. In Malakal I see groups of people, particularly in the late afternoon, under trees. Open-air classrooms are the only venue that most people have in which to learn how to read and write.
Class picture with my ‘Theology I’ and ‘Women and Men in the Bible’ seniors.
At this point in time we have no female students in the college. One of my prayers is that this will change with the next intake in two years’ time. One of my students told me early in the semester that over summer break he had taken his illiterate wife and his three children to a refugee camp and registered them there. He said he did this because of my emphasis in classes on the importance of education for girl children and women. Recently he told me that his wife has reached Level 2 and loves learning.
Please pray that the coming generations will see an improvement in literacy, in educational opportunities, and in gender equality and justice. Thank you for your prayer support and for your financial support. I invite your continued partnership with me in God’s ministry here at the Nile Theological College. If you are reading about our ministry for the first time, or if you have not yet engaged in God’s mission in South Sudan, please consider coming alongside of me through your prayers, correspondence and financial gifts. It is by your support and God’s grace that our mission continues.
In Christ,
Rev. Debbie Blane
“Wherever I go, there I am.”
The 2013 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 103
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