Saturday, October 20, 2012

Salaam Aleikum!

Salaam Aleikum!  This is the common greeting in Arabic that is translated "peace be with you."  It is essentially how they say "hello".  As I hear about the wonderful fall weather and fall activities back home, temperatures seem to be rising a bit here.  We have been blessed with a little bit of rain to cool it down a tad, but sunny days have been over 100, or at least they felt like it!  I have started to adjust to the African weather though, as I was actually a little cold one morning!  One of the brothers even joked that it might snow!  

Now for the story of the week:

Last Friday, I asked my class to write an essay answering the following three questions: 

1.  If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be? 
2.  How would you change it?
3.  Why would you change it?

After writing the essay, they would then present their answers to the class in a short speech of just a couple of minutes.  The essay (only 2 pages) was due on Wednesday, and the speeches were going to be on Friday.  I was also going to answer the three questions myself and give an example speech on Wednesday, to give them a base to work off of.  This assignment provided to be the best learning experience by far, for both them and me.  Everyday, I asked them if they had any questions about the assignments, and there were only very minor ones predominantly about the sppech.  On Wednesday, I asked for them to bring up their essays.  They responded with nothing but blank stares.  I asked again for their papers and again got nothing but crickets.  Finally, one student spoke up. 

"Teacher, we don't know how to write an essay". 

Talk about a wake-up call and a lesson in only 9 words.  I had completely taken for granted that the students, equivalent to high school freshmen, knew how to write an essay.  Yet another example of things taken for granted and the differences in culture and level of education.  This week, I will be teaching Essays 101.

For the speeches Friday, nobody wanted to go first, but once one brave soul broke the ice, there was a nice flow of volunteers who wanted to voice their opinion and get their first taste of public speaking.  While I could go on for hours about their answers as it gave me a great glimpse into their lives and history, I will give you a summary and what it taught me.  Feel free to email me if you want more details on anything (Ebenerlukem@sau.edu)  For the first question, the most common answers were:

1.  They would put an end to fighting, war and violence
2.  They would put an end to corruption

The history in South Sudan is filled with violence.  For most of the students, war and violence is all they know and has affected them in so many ways.  There was a Civil War from 1983-2005 (the second one of the country) and there was still a lot of violence and fighting from after the Civil War had officially ended.  While things have improved since the separation last year, there is still conflict and a lot of the tribes are in constant battle.  Corruption is also a big problem with the government.  There are a couple of my students who are "Lost Boys" (a great movie about this is "God grew tired of us"). 

That led to the question of why would they change it.  Because innocent people are dying, families are broken, and progress towards a peaceful and truly free coutnry are slowed.  The people of South Sudan are torn up both on the inside and outside because of war but they are SO PROUD of their newfound freedom and country.  They use the term "new beginnings" a lot when talking about their country and lifestyle.  What an appropiate term as they continue to move forward with their new life as a country and as individuals.  It reminds me of a Braveheart line "I've lived long enough to live free".  And they couldn't be any more proud. 

How would they change it?  The most common answers, to any of the problems and not just the two mentioned above, were that they would pray everyday, preach the Gospel to the people, and BE and live the example of the change they wanted to see.  How proud this made me of them!  Here is a group of young individuals, who have been through more than most ever will be, who have an unbreakable faith, want change, and are willing to change themselves.  Wow.

After the speeches, I asked for feedback about the assignment and how the speeches went.  They talked about the initial fear they had, but how happy they were after they got up to speak and finished!  We then had a great discussion about they just overcame the greatest fear in the world today (public speaking), which brought many smiles to their faces. I then added that they should have nothing to fear when they change the one thing in the world from their speech.  After all, the number one phrase in the Bible is "Do not be afraid."

I pray everyday for peace in our world, peace in our communities, peace in our families, and peace in our hearts.  I ask you to please do the same for my students.  God bless and Salaam Aleikum.


      

   

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

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!    

Monday, October 1, 2012

Happy Feast!

As I write this on the Memorial of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, a wonderful saint who I have been reading about the last couple of days in her auto-biography, there is another saint that has made a big impact on me this past week.  The saint is Vincent de Paul, which was celebrated in a big way at our local parish this past Thursday, as he is our patron.

Since we got here almost a month ago, preparations were being made for the big feast day on the 27th of September.  For hours every day, the choir was practicing songs, children and various goups were practicing different dances, and money was collected to help cover expenses.  I was getting excited as the antipication and mystery continued to build as I could tell right away that this would be very different than a typical celeberation in America.  I was quite right.

The festivities started Wednesday when a live bull was brought to our compound.  While we did not get to witness it, our friend would be slaughtered that night as the official kickoff.  We could hear lots of singing and dancing from the joyous celebrants.  Thursday morning we had mass at 10:00, which was led by the Vicor General of the Diocese.  The church was busting at the seams, and there were large tents and chairs set up outside.  The almost 3 hour long mass was filled with constant song, dance, and the Holy Spirit!  It was such a joy to watch and be a part of!  After mass, we had a huge lunch (with the bull being the main course), and it was shortly followed by the afternoon program, which was four hours of songs, dances, skits, and speeches.  It ended with a traditional Bari (the local tribe) dance, which everyone participated in.  It was amazing to so many people and so many communities come together to celebrate and enjoy each other's presence and wonderful talents. 

On Saturday, we had a mini-retreat in the morning and our Rector spoke a lot more about St. Vincent de Paul.  When he initially wanted to become a priest, his primary reasoning was that he wanted to have his own office in the church and to be able to retire early.  However, he later had a change of heart and realized the reasons that God wanted him to become a priest and lived a saintly life.  He soon discovered though, that his initial motivations about becoming a priest were very common in the Church at that time, and his mission became to change the hearts and vocations of priests to serve to people, not just to have the coveted corner office.  The priest concluded with, "in order for him to change the people, he first had to himself change." 

This has led to lots of prayer and contemplation the past couple of days.  How have I changed since I've been here?  What do I need to change about me in order to bette serve the people of South Sudan?  How have I changed the people I am serving?  I have discovered that I have changed quite a bit over the last month- in my thoughts about people and the world, my words- both what I say and how (slowly) I say them, my actions and habits, and even my appearance (still rockin' the missionary beard!)

As a last thought and official movie quote of this blog entry, we watched the Hunger Games a couple of weeks back.  This was my first exposure to the famous series, and there was a quote from the movie that really struck me- "The only thing greater than fear is hope."  As I continue to change, I hope to instill hope in the people of South Sudan, and that both they and I can overcome our fears as we both hope for change to create a better world.

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