8 Days in South Sudan.

I promised I would give you a report of Blaise’s recent trip to South Sudan…and I’ve successfully been able to get Clark asleep and have a small window of time to blog before I need to also sleep. 🙂

A short-term mission team came over on the 11th of November, picked up Blaise, Brad (our new teammate, whom I will introduce soon), Christina, Laura, and Jared, and headed into South Sudan. Their first stop was Mvolo, where EV will be putting up a new radio tower (our 4th) this dry season. The team purchased land for the tower and studio, scouted out the airstrip to assess the amount of work that would need to be done on it to make it a suitable landing strip for future missionaries to get in and out, and met with leaders in the community to continue to build those relationships.

Here are some pictures from Mvolo…

The terrain in Mvolo is pretty awesome, with HUGE trees and these boulders everywhere…

Where there’s shade, there you’ll find khawaja…

Drying fish…

Juxtaposition of life in South Sudan: cell towers and mud huts…

See what I mean about the shade…

Rainy season is over, but the roads are still a mess (these are the exact same roads Blaise and Brad have been driving on for the last 4 days to get to Tonj)…

No trip would be complete without a flat tire…

Newborn (a twin, actually)…

Church under a tree…

After just a few days in Mvolo, the team flew to Tonj, where several big things happened. First, they met with the commissioner and land office to purchase the land for our new compound. Once the land was purchased, they began staking the compound boundaries and getting GPS coordinates to plan the new location for the radio tower, studio, and our homes. They also had a chance to get out to some Luo villages (we’ll be serving among the Luo people), meet Albino’s mother and brand new bride, and survey area water wells to assess need. Blaise and Brad also were able to do some of their own errands, such as checking out the supplies in the market, visiting HiMango (an organization that does job training for adults) to price out locally-made furniture), and dropping in to say “Hey” to the IDAT staff.

The trip also served as a vision trip of sorts for Brad, Christina, and Laura. Brad and his wife Kate, along with their two young boys, will be moving with Blaise and I to Tonj this month (actually, as I type this, our husbands are driving to Tonj in our new Land Cruiser). Brad had never been to Tonj, so he got to see his future home for the first time. Christina and Laura will most likely be joining us in Tonj, as well, after the first of the year. This was their first time back in South Sudan since we all left Nasir together last December!

Praise God that the team was able to get so much accomplished in such a short time! This kind of forward progress is rare in South Sudan.

Here are some pictures from Tonj…