Monday - it's time to get started!!

What an amazing, long, wonderful day!!!  Let me first start off by saying that we serve a great God!!  He is worthy of all praise, glory, and honor!!

First, we started our "1.5-hour," or 40 mile journey (which rapidly turned into 2.5 hours because of the conditions of the roads here in South Sudan) to the village of Witto.  As we were driving down the road, we could see the excitement in the faces of the kids and hear them yelling "mondele, mondele" (white man, white man) and waving to us.  Pretty much everyone that we saw, we waved to and I would say about 98% waved back and smiled at us.  It's so great to have such a greeting committee on the side of the road.  We can see the school children walking down the road with bundles of elephant grass on their heads or in their hands.....tuition!  One image that I wish I couldn've gotten a picture of was a group of 4-5 kids walking carrying their elephant grass and this 1 little boy (couldn't have been more than 5-6 years old) running behind them trying to catch up and trying to hold onto 1 backpack that was about to fall off his arm while another was on his back.  It was such a cute picture!  

We were greeted in Witto there by the people who live there as well as those who live in a nearby village, Matta.  As was the plan, they greeted us and we introduced ourselves to the local church and told them our plan for the day.  For the most part, shockingly, everything went according to plan (except for following the time frame - since we had already gotten 1 hour behind because of the journey).  During our greeting, Bethany got stung by a wasp and thought she was going to die.  Thankfully....she didn't die (we don't even think that the stinger was in her arm....it was really an almost sting, but the place did swell, so we'll give it to her that she was stung by a wasp).

Bethany and I were ready to meet the ladies that we would spend the next few hours with sharing the gospel and teaching how to make an oral rehydration solution

Bethany and I were able to spend some valuable time with the ladies by telling them the gospel story (in true Sudanese fashion with pictures and stories that they can relate to) and then by telling them a story about "Emmanuel" who contracted diarrhea and how to keep him safe and hydrated while he was sick.  The ladies expressed understanding and were so prepared for the things that we had planned that we finished in a mere 3 hours - before lunch!  They already had the sugar, salt and clean water available, so this part of our plan worked far better than expected.  And, because the ladies were able to finish so quickly, they were able to loan their interpreter to some of the men to get an assessment of their knowledge of the gospel to teach them how to use the Sawyer Water Filtration System as a back-up to the well.

These are the ladies that were able to join us....more came in throughout, though.

During lunch, the men in the village presented us with a gift of honey.  In this culture, honey is a very sacrificial gift to give/receive.  They have to wait until it's dark at night, then go to the tree where the bee hives are.  They take a torch to basically smoke the bees out of the hive as much as they can.  Then, they harvest the honey and the comb.  It was A LOT of pure honey!!  It's such a sweet blessing to be here with these people.

We were able to get 3 different assessments of the people's understanding of the gospel and as we discussed tonight, this was very burdensome to us because most of them expressed a belief in faith in God PLUS works.  This also gave us fuel for items to focus on throughout the remainder of the week and helped serve as a reason for rearranging our days a little.  Now, our plans are no longer to complete the assessments with the in the afternoon everyday (after the teaching), but rather in the morning (to lead into the teaching).  It also served to help us evaluate how we can come home and best share the story of the Moru tribes in South Sudan, specifically the tribes with which we are working.

We decided to get 1 last picture with as many of the ladies as we could.  :0)

While we were in this village, Bethany and I had an opportunity to use the latrine.  Ummmmm.....interesting is about the only word to describe this experience.  VERY INTERESTING!

As we were getting ready to leave, a lady named Wilima came up to me and gave me a gala (it's a small gourd filled with something to make noise that's used in African worship services) and it has her name etched into it!  I'm pretty sure that she made it after we completed the assessment with the ladies and before we left.  Such a sweet, special gift!  Wilima actually spoke good English, but she kept this a secret until about an hour before the team left the village.

Probably my favorite picture of a sunset that I took today!  Isn't it beautiful??

While, yes, it was a long and stressful day, but it was wonderful!  I wonder what tomorrow will bring!