When The Saints Go Marching In

Well greetings once again from the beautiful country of South Sudan. It has been an entertaining couple of days here in Mundri. Mainly I have been entertained by various traditions of Mundri culture. Yesterday while pretending to help a friend fix his truck I heard a bunch of noise coming from the football field. This time it was not a football game though. This time as I wandered out to see what was happening I saw a bunch of children dressed up in uniform, and when the music started (a very basic piano rhythm of classic Christian songs they started to march). It turns out this was an outreach event put on by the Seventh Day Adventist Churches version of Boys and Girls Club. Needless to say it gaveme a good chuckle to watch these children march to the beat. It still blows me away that no matter what the event people from the community will come out to watch. Many people came out to see what was going on and heard the message of the cross shared. Turns out it was a wonderful event for all.

What really made it special in my mind though was a single little child. While the uniformed children were in the middle of their marching routines a single child started to march out on his own from the side. He got his knees up high and had a special flavour to his stride. Once he got to the middle of the opening where the marching was happening he began to spin. The entire crowd burst out laughing at this child as he had the time of his life almost oblivious to the fact that people were marching around him. I guess some people just want to be the center of attention. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tgARLKtuM8

Then today, after attending English service at the cathedral right next to my house, I headed up to a thatch roof church: Mini Kilanga. As a white person at this service you get marched right to the front and say on the stage along with the priests and other clergymen. Today there was a big group of white people, as a team from World Harvest Mission is visiting and were also in attendance. As a result of this big crowd of visitors, the Sunday School students came up at the end of the service and sang us a welcome song and some other hymns. It was wonderful, loud, high pitched, and beautiful. The hospitality of the people here in Mundri is unbelievable. I wish I had a camera today to film what happened, but next week I am going back at their request to film some stuff because they are trying to raise money to build a new church building rather than constantly having to fix the grass roof. So I am very excited to see the entire congregation of people come together and worship and pray next week. It should be a big celebration and I get to be right in the middle of it all. Afterwards I got to have lunch with the Commissioner of Mundri and went to his house for tea. He is the real zol kabbir (big man) of Mundri, so it was a real honour.

This brings me around to my prayer requests. Yesterday a large collection of believers and preachers gathered together to receive some training and also to begin praying for a day of mass evangelism that is happening next Saturday. In teams people are going out next week (I get to tag along with Esther my cook) to share the good news with people in areas all around Mundri. This is a very important thing to be happening, so can I ask you all to please join us through your thoughts and prayers. Secondly as I go into this week, I am hoping to take some important steps towards implementing some of the projects that I have been working on. Please also pray that I can communicate my ideas clearly, and that any steps we take towards implementation would go smoothly and effectively.

Thank you all so much for your prayers and support. They are very much appreciated and felt. May the peace of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ be with you all.

Thomas