Pentecost 2009

Twenty years ago 'today' it was May 14, 1989: Mother's Day, Pentecost, my birthday, and Laura's baptism. Felt kind of like the sun, moon, and earth all lining up, or something, at the time. Just fyi...

We had some excitement today. I returned from Pentecost services at Lui Parish and headed for the office, where I was to teach Vasco the little I know about Excel and show him how to upload photos from his camera to the computer. I found the office closed and the gate locked, so I started back to our compound.

I had noticed a huge gathering under the laro tree (for those who don't know, this is the 'Laro Abdullah,' the slave tree where the Arab trader Abdullah demanded 10 boys from every Moru chief for many years, taking them to be sold into slavery). Thinking the gathering was a group playing games or something ordinary like that, I decided to wander over and check it out. Before I was much beyond the shade of the mango tree in front of the cathedral, Vasco had covered the distance from the laro tree to meet me.

He said, "We are having an unexpected public rally." You can probably imagine the series of calamitous possibilities that went through my mind. It turns out that a delegation fromthe Sudanese Parliament and some other county, state, and national officials had come to town to hold a forum on the upcoming elections. I asked straight out if I could go, and Vasco said I could neither attend the meeting nor photograph it from afar. Too bad, as I think it would have been a great chance to practice my Juba Arabic listening skills! Our friends came back and reported that the meeting was helpful, but like all speeches from government officials here, it seemed to go on a bit too long for them, and they all made their way back before it was really over.

I meant to write about a similar meeting I saw under the laro tree some days ago. MRDA (Mundri Relief and Development Association, I think) was holding a meeting to discuss with the community their MICROFINANCING scheme! Funny how nobody mentioned that to me when I started talking about microfinance shortly after our arrival! I have to ask if there's any reason to duplicate their effort.

Lui Parish this morning was fun. Having just been there in December, I remembered them and they remembered me. I was happy to be able to tell them how well received the bow and arrows they sent Wayne have been, not to mention what fun it was to be able to say that Emily, who preached for them at Christmas, has finished her program of theological education, has an ordination date, and will begin work at St. Timothy's -- their sister parish -- next Sunday! They send their greetings to our diocese and St. Tim's and want us to know they pray for us as we pray for them. By the way, if anyone from Godly Adventurers at St. Tim's is reading this, the Sunday School kids had a great time with the airplanes the boys sent and loved Sophie's pictures, too.

Sylvester Mazawa isn't the pastor at Lui Parish anymore, at least for now. He has entered theological college at Mundri, but he was with us today, and I got to meet his daughter, who's in P6 at Lunjini School. So now Repent and Christina are the pastors at Lui Parish, but today Festus, the archdeacon of Lui Archdeaconry, celebrated the eucharist.

I keep meaning to mention -- and I think I keep forgetting -- that besides CUAMM working at Lui Hospital, a German organization called Malteser (after the Knights of Malta -- look it up and let me know!) has undertaken to rescue the TB ward and treatment program.

Despite the long day at Lui Parish and the public rally, I got a lot done. Margaret and I discussed school fees for some pastors' children in secondary school, and then she showed me the poultry farm and discussed what the Mothers' Union is learning from the project. I get to give a little talk about this to the ECW Triennial meeting in Anaheim in July, so I shot some video and recorded Margaret talking about it. Then Margaret and I met with Vasco to discuss the grinding mill project funded by UTO. I have written reports and receipts for both. The people here are so grateful for the help they receive from organizations in TEC, and so anxious to provide the records requested and do everything in good faith. Finally Vasco and I got around to uploading photos to his laptop, and if I can follow directions, you will see below his new baby daughter, Asant (Swahili asante, which means thank you, he says), and his next son up, Inpain, so named because he was born on 9/11, not 2001 but an anniversary -- 2007, I would guess. And now here I am blogging. It's 7:10 pm, all but dark here, which sparks our nightly refrain, in which Jim says it'll be dark soon, and I say Is it eight o'clock yet?

(OK, I downloaded the resizing program and tried to upload the two photos, but it doesn't seem to have worked. Back to the drawing board... tomorrow! BTW, tomorrow we are going to see the well in progress at Miriloco, where the new office will be. They hit water today and will be constructing the platform tomorrow. The Sumadhura guy, Naag, is coming to drive us there himself!)