I am sitting down to write this fourth letter from Nzara knowing full well that I will not be able to send it out, due to the difficulties we are experiencing securing reliable internet access. When we get back to Iowa and to our home on its border in Galena those for who it is intended for and who may want to actually read it will find it in their in box. There are so many things and expierences to write about that it is hard for me to choose which one I will write about at this point. Let me tell you about some of the sounds of Sudan that we hear each day.

In the morning there are the sounds of swish, swish swish. The young girls in the compounds where we and others find their home are out in the areas surrounding the tukals or 4x4 meter huts bent over at the waist sweeping the ground clear of all that they find there. During the previous 24 hours ants have come out of the ground and left little piles of sand and along comes the broom made of dried straw that is tied together at the top and suddenly they are no more. I wonder if any of these, had the broom not sweep them away, would turn into the giant ant hills one sees everywhere and that rise typically to the height of six or seven feet. Gone also are all the leaves that have fallen off the mango tree right outside our compound. Interestingly the sweepers clear all and everything (paper, bottle caps, twigs, etc.) that lie on the barren ground but they do not bother to pick up the trash that is caught in the nearby grass. The newly swept red earth surface bakes in the sun and becomes quite hard. When the frequent rains come much of that hard dirt surface is for the most part impervious to its wetness. The rain finds low spots to run to and it is those areas that become soft and muddy.

Another morning sound is the rooster’s call. Our rooster gets up a little later than the others in the neighborhood. He gets the sun up at about 6:45 AM and then, as if on a snooze alarm system, he lets go with another “cock a dootle do” about 6:50. It is at this point that he flys down from his roost (a covered platform with solid walls and a small opening that is on a platform about 6 feet off the ground) and goes about his daily business. His two hens follow shortly after he has descended from his throne. swish, swish swish. The young girls in the compounds where we and others find their home are out in the areas surrounding the tukals or 4x4 meter huts bent over at the waist sweeping the ground clear of all that they find there. During the previous 24 hours ants have come out of the ground and left little piles of sand and along comes the broom made of dried straw that is tied together at the top and suddenly they are no more. I wonder if any of these, had the broom not sweep them away, would turn into the giant ant hills one sees everywhere and that rise typically to the height of six or seven feet. Gone also are all the leaves that have fallen off the mango tree right outside our compound. Interestingly the sweepers clear all and everything (paper, bottle caps, twigs, etc.) that lie on the barren ground but they do not bother to pick up the trash that is caught in the nearby grass. The newly swept red earth surface bakes in the sun and becomes quite hard. When the frequent rains come much of that hard dirt surface is for the most part impervious to its wetness. The rain finds low spots to run to and it is those areas that become soft and muddy.

We hear drum sounds all day long. At about 7:00 AM the drum (a very large hollow tree with a slit in the top) sounds to tell us that in one half hour we can gather for morning prayers in the cathedral. The same drum sounds again at 7:15 AM and at 7:30. A large animal skin covered drum accompanies us in the one hymn we sing in Zande at the beginning of morning devotions and on Sunday its beat is heard at the Eucharist at 9:00 AM and then it is in the background with the electric guitars at the 11:00 AM service. When the choirs practice in the late afternoon we again hear the drums. In the morning I can hear drums announcing a new day. I’m almost sure one is sounded at the nearby Roman Catholic Church complex. There’s sounds is at least one half hour earlier than ours. The other night there was much drum

beating and repetitive chanting that could be heard coming from someplace to the East of us. When I asked about it the next day I was told that Fr. Mark Peter’s brother had died in the local hospital of AIDS and that the drums accompanied the mourners.

As I write this I can hear the man made noise of the generator that we bought in Kampala so that we could have electricity to power our computers, cell phone, recharge our camera and flashlight batteries and provide light. The generator has been placed in its own special house with large screened in areas so it can “breath.” It is not a pleasant nor modest sound level noise. It used to be far worse, however, when the generator was temporarily placed right across from our front door. We could hardly hear one another’s words at dinner time. The generator is usually only on from 6:30 to 9:30 PM but today it is on in the afternoon so the bishop can use his printer. This means we can enjoy our fan in the hottest part of the day. Every where one goes in southern Sudan one hears generators because there is no electrical grid system. Yabio, the nearby capital of Western Equatorial state, is in the process of putting in electrical lines but even there the electricity provided will come from a diesel fired generator which will probably not operate during the night.

The sound of bleating goats is often heard. Goats are raised by many persons primarily to provide a meat resource and not so much for their milk. Most people tie them up by placing ropes around their necks and staking them out near large patches of grass. Their ropes frequently get tangled in the branches of a bush and so the goats start bleating instead of eating their way to greater freedom of movement. The other day one of them ate its way through the palm leave fence in the back of our compound and then could not figure how to get back to greener pastures. His bleating drove us crazy. Some people just let their goats run free. Karen is forever chasing them out of our compound lest they eat the crops of various types that grow in small patches outside our doors. One goat was bold enough to just wander into our home the other day through the open back door. Chickens are frequent house guests until their presence is detected and they are shooed out the back portal.

The sound of the hand pump at the hand dug and hand operated water well or “bore hole” is omnipresent. Only at night is the pump locked so that the sound stops. Lines of people are gathered there all day long with various kinds of pails or mostly yellow “jerry cans” that they fill with water for washing clothing or dishes, drinking or bathing. As soon as the containers are filled they are lifted to their heads or hand carried back to their compounds. One sees small children and women carrying these 40 pound jerry cans of water everywhere. Often their homes are 1, 2, or 3 kilometers away from the well. Sometimes men or women will strap them to the backs of their bikes for carrying longer distances. Recently we were told that the cathedral bore hole goes dry in late February at the end of the dry season and doesn’t refill sometimes until early May. We are fortunate in that there are other bore holes within a relatively few kilometers. We have visited two places where there is no bore hole for three or four kilometers. The people are desperate for safe, reliable and plentiful water.

A unpleasant sound, at least to my ears, is something people in the United States are quite familiar with and that is teens and others playing their radios so that everyone within two blocks can share in what they believe is wonderful music. Since arriving in Sudan we have heard snatches of lyrics and tunes from almost every American pop artist and group. We also frequently hear familiar religious tunes sung in both English and in one or another African tongue. So far not one rap song has been shared with us and our neighbors. Much of the music is sung in Arabic or in a local Ugandan, Kenyan or Sudanese language. Frequently the Bishops wife will come out of her house and suggest that the volume of the radio be turned down. In direct contrast to these electronically produced sounds are those which emanate from the cathedral every afternoon as the various choirs practice their songs for Sunday. The youth, church school and Mother’s Union choirs all sing at least three very spirited songs at the second Sunday service which lasts about two hours. These songs are usually original music sung in Zande and accompanied by electric guitar, drum and various shaker instruments. They are often of a “call and response” type of music in which one lead singer offers up a phrase that is then repeated by the choir. Maudie, who helps us in our house, is the lead singer for the Mother’s Union choir. Each song is accompanied by unison and often quite complicated foot and hand movements. As they sing various parishioners will sing with them, clap, sway back and forth and often women will issue forth with a very high shrill of joy and delight.

Then there are the sounds of the children. Children playing, talking or yelling at one another in the area in between our home and the cathedral, pumping water at the well, walking by on the road beside our house and children on their mother’s lap crying in the hope that they will be given more milk from her breast or laughing as she or another child plays with them. The air seems to constantly pulsate with the crying, laughter and conversation of the children. The sounds of the children are all, even the crying, pleasant to the ears of the Lord.

Yours In Christ Jesus,

Fr. Bob and Karen

We are finally on the internet but most of the time it is not working so I am not at all sure when I can send this missive. I thought I’d try this evening to start the compositionof a letter with the idea that I would send it when I am able. As I write this I am literally drenched in sweat even though the sun has been down for an hour and a half. My saving grace this evening is a fan that I have aimed directly at me.

I thought I might give you some idea of what Karen and I are doing on an average day. Today, however, was a kind of very special day that mocks that word “average.” .” We both got up this morning when the rooster, whose roost is directly out our bedroom window, did his thing of welcoming the rise of the sun. We had endured a torrential rain storm the night before the effect of which was much amplified by the tin roof on our house. The rain made the cleared ground outside the house a sea of mud so I did not try to go to the cathedral for morning devotions. The devotions start at 7:30 and we are called to prayer by a drum that beats at 7:00, 7:15 and then at 7:30.

The house (pictures below and above) we live in consists of a screened porch area where we eat followed by a sitting room with a couch, chairs, desk and bookcase, followed by a bedroom followed by two small rooms that are used for storage and a closet. Our bath house and our latrine are both located some distance from the main house and our kitchen tukal or house is right out the back door. There is a “piote” or 4x4 meter house with ten chairs and a central table outside the front door in which we can entertain guests. A generator house that I had built, which is made of brick, completes the list of buildings. There has never been electricity in the building we live in or in the bishops compound next door. We purchased a large generator when in Kampala that now powers our beloved fan and lights as well as recharges our cell phone, computers, flash lights, batteries, etc. The generator operates three hours each evening. All of the 6 small buildings in our compound are surrounded by a palm fond fence within which there are also gardens for growing vegetables and a parking space for the diocesan 4 ton Isuzu dump truck. This is our current home in which we are quite comfortable.g when the rooster, whose roost is directly out our bedroom window, did his thing of welcoming the rise of the sun. We had endured a torrential rain storm the night before the effect of which was much

amplified by the tin roof on our house. The rain made the cleared ground outside the house a sea of mud so I did not try to go to the cathedral for morning devotions. The devotions start at 7:30 and we are called to prayer by a drum that beats at 7:00, 7:15 and then at 7:30.

We cook over a charcoal fire or two small kerosene powered burners. All water for washing clothes, dishes or ourselves has to be hand pumped. We daily purify our drinking water. “Maudie” is the name of the woman we have hired to help with the household chores, which if Karen had to do them with my help would leave her no time for teaching.

Today as I have said was not an average day. We began by attending a service at 11:00 with the bishop and with the clergy, youth leaders, mothers union and evangelism officers from most of the Diocese’s parishes in attendance. After opening prayers, a sermon and a talk from Bishop Samuel representatives from each arch deanery stood up and introduced their delegations to Karen and myself and we in turn did the same for ourselves. After the service and meeting we went out into the space between our compound and the cathedral where the 4 ton Isuzu truck, the two motorbikes and the 52 bikes we had purchased with funds from churches in Iowa and Illinois had been set out. We gathered around the bikes, cycles and truck and all laid hands on them to bless them for God’s work in Nzara diocese. Chairs were brought out from the cathedral and placed under an enormous Mango tree and then in groups of three and four people came up to claim their bikes and to have their picture taken. Then came a period when people got out pliers and screw drivers to adjust mirrors, pump tires full of air, tighten bolts, etc. Then, just as in the US, out came the food for the festive meal which people ate in the shade of the tree. The bishop invited us during this time to have a conversation with the principal of the Theological College in nearby Yambio. He wanted to speak with Karen about possibly teaching English at his school.

After everyone left I walked across the road to inspect the work that had been done on a building project we have just begun. This site is the location of five mud walled Tukals or 4x4 meter buildings that are roofed with thatch made of dried grass. They have mud floors and each has only one very small window. The diocesan nursery school/kindergarten was displaced from where it used to meet and so we are reconditioning three of the tukals for their use. We are putting concrete floors in each of them, plastering them inside and out with cement, painting them inside and out and putting additional windows in them that will be covered with screening and bars for security purposes. The tukals are very dark and the new windows and white interior paint will allow the students to see their books. One of the thatch roofs, that the white ants have completely destroyed, will be replaced. We are buying small chairs for the children to sit in and making a blackboard for each tukal for the teacher to use. When we are done the school will have much better facilities then they have had previously. An excellent teacher from Uganda has 52 pupils divided into three groups by ability and age.

The other two tukals in this group of five will be used to house nine guests that are coming from England on Sept. 29th from a group called Flame International. They will train 50 to 60 people from the diocese as councilors for those who have suffered major trama due to the murder, raping and destruction of property that they have personally witnessed at the hands of a group called the Lord’s Resistance Army or LRA. This group has no political, religious or ethnic agenda other than power and personal gain. The last major raids were about a year and one half ago but the memories still run very deep and are very painful and occasionally there are still minor raids that leave everyone terrified.. About 40% of the dioceses parishes are no longer functrioning because all the people and their pastors have fled to safe areas like Nzara.

On Monday we will be distributing food to Internally Displaced Persons (IDP)in live nearby. We hope to distribute some 23 fifty kilo bags of beans and 30 such bags of corn meal or flour. This is enough food to feed some 24000 families for three or four weeks until their gardens can produce more food. The money for this feeding program came to the Diocese from the Diocese of Salisbury in England. Evidently there was a BBC news story about this camp that caused them to raise $4000 dollars. In the afternoon, after the ceremony dedicating the bikes was over, I went to nearby Yambio to order the food. I got a local merchant to give us a significant discount given the amount we were ordering and where it was going.

While I was over in the area of the 5 tukals we are refurbishing I looked in another tukal that is located nearby to see if the torrential rain of last night had affected the 40 bags of cement we have stored there. Three weeks from now we hope to begin the manufacture of cement blocks using two machines that we purchased in Kampala. Each of these is capable of producing two such blocks each time the chambers are filled with cement and the heavy duty levers are pressed down to eliminate air spaces and thus produce a uniformly shaped block. These blocks will be used to build a small office building with four 4x4 meter rooms for the diocesan officers. The Trinity Foundation in New York will give the diocese up to six computers, a printer, a satalite dish, solar panels, internet connection and training IF such an office with a cement floor, iron bars on the windows, and a solid roof is built. They want to safe guard their considerable investment. Currently the bishop and staff have to operate out of their back pockets and without any office equipment. Because it’s a new diocese they have lost access to their former office building in Yambio which is located 27 Kilometers from here.

This “average” day was so busy that I completely forgot that we had talked about showing a film using a video projector and speakers I brought with me. It was to be shown at the Cathedral at 7:00 PM when it is dark enough to see a film. So far I have shown a Jesus Film twice to about 600 persons. It is based on the gospel of Luke and is dubbed in what I have learned is the modern version of the Zande language that is spoken in Sudan. It is slightly different from the Zande spoken in the Congo and the Central African Republic. I have also shown the Disney cartoon film called “The Lion King,” which is in English, to about 300. On 10 upcoming parish visits I expect to show it to 2400 more people.

The main part of the day ended with a meal of greens, beans, r ice and two of the very small Sudan bananas, that I just love, augmented by a glass of the freshly squeezed juice from some passion fruit and a hand full of ground nuts (peanuts) that were roasted in our own little kitchen. I had a cup of “African coffee” with lots of powered milk and sugar and Karen had decaffinated tea as we reviewed the day. Then came the writing of this way too long email and bed at 9:30 when the generator was turned off. I hope this gives all of you some idea of what life on a typical day is like. Keep praying for us. We believe that this is where God wants us to be right now and we are doing well.

Bob and Karen

Our trip to Nzara was truly an adventure! The country we passed through on our six day journey (by road it would have been about a 750 mile one long day trip in the U.S., but more of that later) was green and beautiful. There were lots of palm, banana, teak, mango mahogany and other trees and various bushes and grasses that came right up to the edge of the road. There are square (4x4 meters) or round one room homes made of mud brick or woven sticks plastered with mud. Occasionally there is a “burnt brick” house. Sometimes the walls are plastered with mud or cement and sometimes they are painted. They are typically roofed with thatch made of various grasses. Occasionally one can spot a tin or zinc roof. One family will have three or four of these structures called “tukals” in their compounds. One will be for the parents to sleep in, one for the children, one for cooking and storage and one for guests to gather in when they visit. As we traveled we saw some typical scenes that reminded me of sights I saw in 2006 and in 1963. Numerous young men and women holding hands as they walked down the roads and women balancing impossibly huge baskets of bananas or heavy water containers on their heads. There are bikes everywhere carrying passengers or with cargos of bags of charcoal, water containers, live goats etc. on their back fender carrier. There are smiling, talking and laughing children and adults walking along every road in great numbers and at all times of night and day. Since most of the clothes that are worn are second hand or overstock items shipped from the U.S or Europe one sees Cub and Green Bay Packers shirts, Hawkeye logos on sweat shirts and, of course, shirts with the images of various pop or sports figures. Some shirts are produced locally and advertize a particular local political party or candidate. Omni present are various types of Obama shirts. Yesterday I saw three shirts that boldly proclaimed “I know my HIV status, do you?” People pay very little attention or can’t read what is printed on their shirts. The bishop told me of a young man with a shirt that said “LESBIAN AND PROUD OF IT.” The Sudanese towns we passed through, with the exception of Juba the capital of Southern Sudan, were typically no more that a few government offices, a school, churches, numerous tukals and a variety of very small wood shacks or cement arcades in which three or four small shops were located.

Let me now try and describe our overland trip. Let me begin by saying I am so happy that we opted to go by land rather than the far quicker and easier 1 and 1/2 hour flight. In our six days on the road we were able to catch the merest of glimpses of the overall character of southern Sudan as well as experience on a first hand basis the incredible frustrations that ordinary Sudanese have to face every day. We spent the morning of the Wednesday we left packing all the things we had purchased in Kampala onto a freight truck we hired and then getting the bishops car and the 4 ton used Isuzu dump truck we had bought all ready to go. Because the Isuzu was in effect being exported to Sudan it had to, for reasons only a Ugandan bureaucrat would understand, go to the border empty of all goods. Once that was done we drove for seven hours over good roads and stayed overnight in a town 60 kilometers from the Sudan border.

We arrived on our second day of travel in the late morning at the Sudan border, paid various fees, cleared emigration control, changed our money from Ugandan shillings to Sudanese Pounds, unloaded the hired “Lorry” truck and reloaded everything into our Isuzu truck and finally got permission to travel to the regional capital where we could pay the customs duty on the truck. It was at this point that we got our introduction to Sudanese roads. We ended up traveling at night over roads full of ruts and huge potholes. It took about 6 hours to go 80 miles. Having personally driven with the help of one other guy over 3000 miles in E. Africa, some 45 years ago, I was not at all surprised at the condition of the roads. I had no idea, however, of what was yet to come!

The morning of our third day we spent in the customs compound waiting for officials to appear, arguing over fees to pay, getting Sudanese money to pay those fees, paying all kinds of extra fees and then finally being able to get on our way. We were thrilled that it ONLY took half a day. We had met a bishop in Kampala who had all the necessary documents exempting a car he had purchased for his diocese from all fees and taxes. He had spent 6 full days to clear the border customs. That afternoon we headed down a road that the bishop warned us would be the most difficult road we had to use. It was truly unbelievable. The first thing I noticed was that there were no other cars on the road such as we were driving in and very very few trucks of any sort. The ruts and potholes were often deeper than the height of our car. At one point we all got out of the truck and car and walked a couple of blocks on a path through the jungle-like terrain. We stopped to see the bishop and the truck driver dive into a succession of about six very deep water filled holes. It was like watching a car on a roller coaster. We all cheered wildly as the two vehicles emerged in muddy triumph. A kilometer or two away from that spot was where the car got bogged down in mud up to the axels. We were prepared in that we had brought along a very thick chain to help us out of such spots. It was at that moment that a pickup truck full of SPLM (Sudan People’s Liberation Movement) workers came by and pulled us out of the hole we were in with some difficulty. Then we all sat back and watched the truck try and get through this same spot. It also failed to make it. The six younger men in our party of eleven (the Bishop, Bishop’s Chaplain, Diocesan Secretary, Diocesan Development Dir., truck driver, two helpers, one mother and her infant baby, and the two of us) spent about 45 minutes getting us out of the mud. We continued down this road at the rate of about ten miles an hour through various mud holes until we reached a spot about 24 miles down this 49 mile stretch of really horrible road where we found the road completely blocked by a very large truck with 18 tires that was hauling a second trailer behind it hopelessly bogged down in a hole filled with mud and water that rose above its wheels. Beside it was a large petrol truck. On either side of this road blockage were long lines of large trucks preparing to get stuck in exactly the same spot if and when the first two ever got out. We turned back and by late evening reached the point where we had begun the day of travel.

On our fourth day of travel we headed down a fairly decent but longer road that avoided the truly monstrous road conditions we had encountered the previous day. Three hours into our journey we ran into a road block of logs placed across the road. It seems that one tribe was angry at another tribe who they accused of poisoning their parliamentary member who was elderly and had been in a critical care unit in Juba for some time. They would not let anyone pass and told Karen that she was not to get out of the car when she tried to do so in order to stretch her weary limbs. They told us that we would have to go to the Southern Sudan capital of Juba which was the only other way at that point to get to Nzara. So it was that we traveled over bad roads and at a very slow rate to Juba which was about the last place we wanted to go. At the end of the day we ended up further from our destination by a good two hundred miles than when we began that day. At the entrance to Juba we were stopped by the police and told that we had to pay a very large tax. We spent at least two hours arguing with the police. We called the Juba newspaper, the archbishop, and finally two different national government cabinet ministers who Bishop Samuel knew personally. Finally the police let us pass through on the condition that we return on the morrow to pay the tax. We went to the Anglican Cathedral in Juba and stayed in their Guest House (very expensive) because in the duy , nighttime, construction blocked streets we could not find Bishop Samuels cousin’s home where we were invited to stay. Two hours after arriving at the Cathedral the cabinet minister’s personal bodyguard arrived with our permission papers to proceed out of Juba without paying the fee that was earlier demanded of us.

On our fifth day (actually fourth and one half on the road) we headed out of Juba

very early and traveled to the town of Yei. The roads were not very good once again but at least they were passable. At one point we were stopped for about 20 minutes because the UN was clearing land mines from the sides of the roads. There were big signs everywhere to stay on the road which we at first did not understand. NOW we did. We arrived in Yei and stayed in the best Diocesan Guest House we ran into on our journey. It was the filled with UN personnel. The sixth very long day of travel brought us to Meridi. The last portion of this day’s trip occurred in the middle of a pitch dark night. We traveled for about an hour and one half during a torrential rain storm on a very narrow lane through a tropical forest. From the point that we left that road we had good roads from there on thanks to a USAID program to improve southern Sudan roads.

From Meridi to Nzara is a relatively short distance of about 150 kilometers over relatively good roads. So it was that we finally reached Nzara about 1:00 PM in the afternoon. As we turned down the road towards the Cathedral and our new home I saw some people blocking the road just ahead of us. As we drew closer I realized it was our welcoming party. There were two hundred people waving palms above their heads and singing in English “We are so happy to greet you Fr. Bob (then Mama Karen) and then on the second verse ”Nzara receives you in Jesus’ Name.” Floral wreathes were placed over both our heads. We just stood there on the open road unable to speak and with tears running down Karen’s cheeks as the welcomer’s parted and formed an arch of palm leaves over our heads as we walked through it to the cathedral. When we got near the cathedral many of the palm leaves were placed on the ground for us to walk over. Once inside the cathedral there were several songs and speeches of welcome. All the travails of our long journey were forgotten.

The trip had given us a chance to see a very broad swath of Southern Sudan that we had never expected to have seen. Our difficulties gave us the experience of having to confront and live with the difficulties that Southern Sudanese deal with every day of their lives; bad roads, bloated underpaid government officials who often have their hands out asking for fees (we ran into no less than three road blocks each day and each one had someone wanting money to let us pass (the Bishop always refused), misunderstandings fostered by tribalism, the lingering effects of two civil wars lasting almost 30 years in which the northern Islamic government tried to crush the largely Christian South and extreme poverty. We are deeply grateful to God for granting us a safe journey and a warm welcome!

Well we finally got here to Kampala (capital of Uganda which is South of Sudan) last Thursday evening or exactly one week ago now. So much has happened that it is hard for me to even know where to begin. We are living in the house that the Bishop Samuel’s children occupy with one of his wife’s sisters, who acts as their guardian, while they attend school here in Kampala. Simon (Diocesan Development officer), Mordicai (the Diocesan Secretary), Ezekiel (Bishop’s Chaplain), the bishops children and several children and teenagers that he allows to stay here are about 15 in number. Our meals (mostly beans, rice and greens for supper and bread, fruit and tea for (picture is of main street in Kampala, Uganda) breakfast) are cooked on a charcoal burner in an outside courtyard and we have three bathrooms and many bedrooms for all these people. It has been hard because of our schedule to find time and more importantly quiet for my daily prayers, bible reading and meditation but I have managed.

We have been busy buying things which can be difficult at times. Our biggest purchase has been a four ton 2002 Isuzu dump truck for hauling cement, rocks, sand, and tin roof materials for various building projects as well as, on occasion, people. We have also bought two electric generators: one is a very large one for the diocesan buildings and the other is a smaller and more portable one that Karen can use to teach English with the Rosetta Stone program and I can use to show a film about Jesus that is dubbed in Zandi the language of the people as well as the Disney Film “The Lion King.”

We have also found and purchased two cement block making machines that are capable of producing together some 500 blocks a day. It is a very simple machine that church volunteers can use to produce the blocks that we will use to build a church office, a training center, some guest rooms, and a diocesan school in Nzara. The machines can then be transported to the sites of various churches to make the blocks to build new church buildings, infirmaries, and schools. Because we have the truck we can easily, using church volunteers, haul sand from nearby areas for cement making (five parts sand and one part cement) to building sites. Volunteers will be used to hand dig foundations and brake up the stones for those foundations. The individual parishes will be challenged to pay for the timbers to support the roofs and for the workmen to lay the cement blocks. Because the diocese would only be paying for the cement and “zinc” roofs, with money raised from USA churches, and because of all the volunteer labor the cost of constructing good size permanent buildings would be very little compared to what it might normally be.

The Diocesan Development plan that we are using as a blueprint for our actions was developed at long meetings held over the last six months. These meetings involved church lay and clergy leaders as well as various community elders and calls for the building of many new permanent buildings. Every church building, except the cathedral, in this diocese is made with mud bricks which disintegrate when it rains and of grass roofs that have to be replaced frequently. There are no decent health infirmaries in the smaller communities and many of the school operate under trees and do not attempt to meet when it rains as it frequently does. The development program also includes various evangelism initiatives to bring the gospel to those who have not heard it, micro financing programs to empower women, the training of health care workers, and various educational programs that are much needed.

Just yesterday we purchased 22 footballs (which in the USA would be called soccer balls) as well as three nets and six volleyballs and 12 whistles for umpires to use. The diocesan officers that are here came up with the idea of forming what we would call a youth football league among the parishes that already have soccer fields or access to them as a way for the church to reach out to youth in a more highly visible manner. The balls they now use are frequently nothing more than plastic bags that are tied together in the shape of a ball and the volleyball nets are a single robe strung between two trees. In time we would buy simple uniforms for the teams that responded to the challenge of organizing themselves more fully and we add more teams. As far as this project is concerned I would mention the importance of such things as simple volleyballs in the lives of the youth and adults of St. Andrews which is located right on the border of the Congo in the town of Sungondo. It once was a parish that had six chapels around it. All of the people of this entire area have fled further to the North or are staying in a camp organized by the United Nations which is guarded by Ugandan troops. This area was raided by the troops of the so called “Lord’s Resistance Army” about a year and a half ago and the people are afraid to return to their homes. They only venture out into the surrounding jungle like area to plant, weed and harvest their gardens, The Bishop traveled to this area in the company of 34 Ugandan troops a few months ago. He was the first “outsider” from the church, government or charitable organization to visit them in 18 months and to see their terrible plight. There were over 1600 people at the service he held and the service lasted about five hours. There is nothing for the youth of this camp to do all day after they finish their garden tasks and sooooo the bishop made sure we ordered two volley ball nets and four volley balls plus two footballs for the youth of St. Andrews. When Bishop Samuel made this dangerous trip he brought with him a new highly competent pastor to begin to see how the diocese could effectively minister to the people and provide for their needs.

There have also been two trips to what we might call a Walmart-type store in a very large mall to purchase all kinds of household supplies from toilet paper to slotted spoons for cooking as well as some food items like pasta and spices. We have also bought a small refrigerator, two fans (it wasn’t possible to use such things without a generator) and two kerosene burning burners which we will utilize to cook our food instead of charcoal. We also have purchased a bed and other kinds of furniture for the Bishop’s House which is where we are staying temporarily. I think we will be quite comfortable.

We plan to leave sometime Saturday for the three or four day trip to Enzara from Kampala. After we get to Enzara we will go to nearby Yambio, the provincial capital, to order the 52 bikes we will be providing the clergy of the diocese. Each of these bikes is capable of hauling 100 kilos of freight or another person. Because of the generosity of so many congregations in Iowa and Illinois we went way beyond our original goals for the 52 bikes and so we were also able to fulfill the Bishop’s dream of buying two brand new, but very rugged, motor bikes that are made in India for the diocesan secretary and development officer. These are the men that have to organize the volunteers and the building projects and these new bikes will make such projects possible. We have put an entire diocese on wheels and have revolutionized their lives and opportunities to further the work of our Lord God among ALL the people of this area.

I am writing this first communication as an email and it is very long. Future emails will be short and there will be a longer blog with pictures. My cell phone number in Uganda is +256 718 587 535 and my number in Sudan is 249 955 506-769. Buying a calling card for Sudan as the cheapest way to call. Remember there are 9 hours difference. So call from 8:00 AM until 2:00 PM your time. My email is robertdavidnorth@gmail.com and Karen’s is karenaknorth1942@gmail.com. Checks for donations in support of God’s ministry in Nzara can be sent to the Nzara Development Fund, US Bank, 115 Perry St., Galena, IL 61036

GETTING READY!

Friends,

We're only a few days away from getting on the plane for a July 28th flight that will take us to Kampala, the capital of Uganda, where we will spend a few days before leaving for Nzara in Southwestern Sudan, our home for at least the next year. While there we will be meeting Bishop Samuel's children who are in school in Kampala, opening two bank accounts (one to handle the development funds and one for our living expenses), registering at the United States embassy and buying a variety of things we will need.
In the last few weeks we have traveled to MI to leave our pets off with our two girls who live in the Detroit area. We have purchased teaching supplies for Karen, had all our numerous shots, gathered together necessary medical supplies, learned some new tricks on our computers and solicited much needed funds for various development projects. Those projects include purchasing bikes for the clergy to help them in their ministries, improving an existing house that will become Bishop Samuel and Santina's home, buying a used truck for the diocese to use in its various building projects, and building a training center/office. Our preparations began in earnest when we attended a national church sponsored two week long orientation and training seminar in Toronto in mid=June. See the picture above of the 15 youth and 5 elderly persons attending the seminar.

We are both, of course, going through some major greiving. As you know I have resigned my position as Rector or priest of Grace Church in Galena. It will be very very hard to place the bread of the Eucharist or Holy Communion into the hands of all those wonderful folk who are the Grace family on my last Sunday. What a joy it has been to stand at that altar and in that pulpit these last nine plus years. At such times I sometimes wish that the tears did not flow quite so freely. If we did not feel so truly called by God to this particular kind of service in this particular place at this particular time we would have been quite content to stay at Grace Church.
I'll try to update this blog each week in additon to sending out very short emails to those who we think might be interested.

Fr. Bob+