Journey on

Greetings from Gumbo!  Life continues on safely in South Sudan as another week of teaching, learning, playing, and praying is in the books.  It is amazing how I look back on each day and say to myself "Wow, this was such an amazing day with so many awesome experiences...how can it get be better?"  And yet it does.  Teaching has gotten a lot better this week, as the weekend before I read a lot about teaching ESL and that really helped out a lot with some basic things that I honestly took for granted with the English language and how I was speaking in the classroom.  Their favorite thing and thing they thirst for the most is learning new vocabulary words, and more about Don Bosco!  It has led to some fun and interactive classes.  It has been a great apostolate for me.   My arabic vocabulary continues to grow, although at a very slow pace!   I am excited as this week I will begin organizing basketball drills on Mondays and Wednesdays, and lead a bible study with the youth.  While I have been missing a lot of American things lately- family, food, watching sports with friends while enjoying a cold beverage, fall festivities and weather, I have been blessed with many other unique and awesome experiences.

For the month of October, since it is the month of Mary, one of the sisters has been traveling every Monday-Thursday to villages in the area to pray the rosary with the communities and children.  Today, I had the opportunity to go with her and three other youth.  On the way there, we played "dodge the puddles" as we had just received a fresh rain and the dirt roads were quite messy and muddy.  As we passed houses made out of anything found in nature (mud, grass, sticks, bamboo) and lots of children with torn or no clothes on, I was reminded of my walks/runs back home and how blessed we are and the differences in the "neighborhoods".  It was neat to see variations of games played in America.  There were kids playing stick ball, and a game of tetherball- only it was a water bottle on the end of the string and you had to kick it back and forth.  Along the journey, we were greeted by ALL of the children as they yell out one of my many names- "A-boon-ah", "Ka-wadda", or "Luka".  Aboonah means father, as that is what they call any male associated with the church, Kawadda means white foreigner, and Luka is the African version of Luke.  After a 30 minute walk, we gathered with over 100 children and mothers and prayed the rosary together (in 3 different languages) underneath a tree and we sat on some rocks and the ground.  It was a really cool experience seeing all of the community members gather to pray together as one. 

I thank for the the continued prayers and support!  God bless you all!