Upper Nile Report
A boy showing his calf to us. Wealth in this area is in cattle. The entire dowry system is built upon cattle as well.
A tukel in the area....
A view of the Sobat River.
A boy plays with his slingshot.
The earthen vessel was in a tukel (home) before it was torn down. This is where the owners stored their grains.
These kids sang and danced for us. They were from John Monychol’s church.
Yes, he will drink that water...straight from the river. In all the ground I covered, I only saw one operational bore hole (well).
Training, with a terrible beard, in Baliet. We hid out from the sun inside this church.
We trained quite a few women.
Discipleship training....everything was geared towards the practical (doing the work, not just hearing it)
They called this a quell tree. It is gigantic. Before the war, Dinka warriors would gather here before fighting. They would sacrifice and worship idols and ancestors, be sprinkled with blood, and sent out to fight. Today few practice idol worship under this tree any longer.
Cooking fish in this pan for dinner. Caught fresh from the river that day by young boys.
James Abwong on the left (John’s primary disciple) and John on the right. In between are orphans John has taken in to his home and church to care for. There are a tremendous number of orphans in this area.
This photo is evidence of good intentions of NGOs and government. The large water system in the background has never produced any water from the river. The filtration barrels in the foreground were built, sans actual filter, and have never been used. Total wastes of money. This happens all the time in the developing world. Be careful who you donate money to.
The town of Abwong was making bricks. This is the people’s way of contributing to the construction of a school in their community. They were hoping an Non-governmental Organization (NGO) would fund teacher salaries and pay for a metal roof.
A young boy sets out his net for fishing.
In Banglei, home of over 7,000 people, this is the pharmacy. There is no clinic, no hospital, no doctors, no nurses. This is it.
The medicine cabinet in the “pharmacy.”
Medical supplies (for a town of over 7k) in the “pharmacy”
The table inside the pharmacy.
More inside the pharmacy.
Boys improvise with plastic bottles to create homemade toys.
Taylor posed John Monychol.
John shows me a clinic operated by his NGO, GOAL, in a neighboring village. None of the few clinics I saw have a microscope. That means they can’t definitively diagnose many of the diseases prevalent in the area. Malaria, typhoid, TB, cholera, and other water-borne diseases dominate the list of top problems.
It’s a desolate land, particularly in the dry season.
Josh shows a snail shell we saw by the river bank.
How did you get to work this morning? This is how we visited Abwong our first full day in the area. John planted a church here. Now there are five churches. One school under construction, but no clinics.
The craters in the ground are from bombs dropped from Antonov planes during the war.
This building was hit by a bomb.
In John’s home, this is the only fully functioning school: an Islamic one. They are also taking in orphans, teaching them Islam. The community wants a Christian school and is asking the churches why they don’t have one. We left a little funding to help get a simple classroom built to start a Christian school started by John.
John giving us a tour of his hometown.
Behind the fence is John’s home. The framed structure is the beginning of a home for the orphans in John’s care.
Me showing John and Abraham (a clinic worker) the HIV/AIDS cube from e3.
Our initial classroom for the church-planting training. We moved with the shade throughout the day.
More toy improvisation...driving his car.
Josh Hynie, along with Taylor my partner on this trip. Josh helped me teach and organize things. Terrific guy from California.
The newest orphan. This little boy is one month old. The lady holding him nursed him and took care of him. She also had a four-month old to care for. This little boy’s father died a while back and his mother didn’t make it through childbirth. The extended family was going to give him to the Northern Government...until John asked the church to step in and take care of him.
Tea time for the folks in our training.
I’m always amazed at the Sudanese women. They work tremendously hard.
Walking along the river, we came across two boys with a fresh catch. We bought them and had great fish that night for dinner.
John, his little girl, and wife who is six months pregnant.
Our second training site.
Our sound system.
Josh teaches how to prayer walk in the community where you want to plant a church.
Me and Simon, a terrific pastor, church planter and translator. He has an prosthesis where he was shot in the war.
John in the boat Josh Muse purchased last summer. The church fishes with it and uses it as a taxi. They feed the orphans with a portion of the funds from this boat.
What the area looks like. Those cattle are for sale.
The Muslims are putting funding into this area. Where is the American Church??????????? Too busy building “life centers” and coffee shops?
An incredibly stupid thing to do. These are often booby trapped with mines. But I did get the pic.
Posted by on 03/11 at 02:27 PM