What a blessing it was to witness southern Sudan’s best kept secret: the Didinga Hills. Our team was a pastoral training team sent to continue training local pastors and continue with women’s ministry.

BJ and Kirk were blessed and overjoyed by the opportunity to share scripture based truths on the Personal Spiritual Life. Module 6 was the 5^th of 8 courses FEFC is teaching to the young Sudanese pastors in training. Nine pastors, including two women who will become school teachers in local schools attended five 6-hour days of reading scripture and exploring God’s calling on their lives as shepherds and leaders. God used time in the community to help us understand and address cultural challenges specific to the Didinga people group including evangelism in their marketplace and outreach to traditional enemies such as the Dinka tribe. The fruit of this was evident when some of the trainees reached out to a local alcoholic who was fed, prayed to receive Christ, and attended Church on the Sunday prior our departure.

Asking Didinga women to leave their homes for several hours each morning is no small sacrifice. Each woman is responsible for cooking, cleaning, watching the children and sometimes working. But every day, we were humbled by 40+ smiling faces. (Five of these women came from the neighboring village of Napep!) Over the course of these days, we added to their picture Bibles.  The theme was teaching stories with Jesus’ power and authority. Each day we also took the opportunity to pray over these women. In addition to teaching lessons, we enjoyed activities of embroidery, beading and dancing. As with all Didingas, the women were such a delight in every way.

by Kirk Taylor & Katherine Hill

Well, the trip to Sudan is complete. This is the first of two updates and will focus on the well-drilling effort.  The next one will focus on the teacher training.

Whether or not the trip was a success depends on how you look at it. On the one hand, we were not able to complete a working well with hand pump. But on the other hand, we found that the drilling technique was successful to a point. And we learned a lot about the geology of the Didinga Hills that was previously unknown to us or anyone else. The water table there lies in a thick gravel layer that we were not able to penetrate very much. At least not enough to get a casing and pump in.  But, now armed with this new information, we hope to continue to refine the method so that the Didinga can drill their own wells for themselves.  (See left - that’s Hector and Dario running the drilling.  Both are strong Christian believers who want to see the physical and spiritual health of Nagishot improve).

One of the benefits of returning to an area multiple times is the trust that is established. We were able to tell our Sudanese friends that though we didn’t completely succeed, we intend to continue working on it. We promised to return soon, and since FEFC has been going there for years, they know we will. In some ways, this trip seemed like we were trying to do the impossible. Drill a well in a place that has no wells and no geologic data for where to even begin. We intend to persevere in our task though. There are over 100,000 people in this area who are still in need of clean water. Several hundred wells will be needed. And I believe we are one step closer to that now. We are praying for others at FEFC who would want to join in this endeavor with us.

To see a slideshow of photos from our trip, click here.

Since my first trip to South Sudan, I have been struck with the inability to access clean water. Many of the diseases that wreak so much havoc are water-borne and could be easily prevented with a clean water source. It takes one well to provide clean water to about 500 people. Nagishot is a community of around 10,000. Which means it would need 20 water wells - at a cost of around $15K each. You can do the math, and this is just ONE village in an entire country that is in desperate need of clean water. These people will never have that kind of money, and so they are forced to wait on some agency to come and do it for them. But here’s the problem with that: we (that is, the “aid agencies”) don’t have enough resources to do that either.

Enter “appropriate technology”. This term refers to methods of doing things that are appropriate to the resources and skill level of a particular community. Percussion well-drilling is one of these “appropriate tech” methods. Using it, a well can be drilled with very simple tools at a cost of only a few hundred dollars. In areas where percussion drilling is being used, the community itself is drilling their own wells, without waiting for someone to come do it for them!

Another glaring need in South Sudan is the education system.  Many of the schools are simply thatched roofs, and some simply meet under a tree.  If the community is fortunate enough to have a school building, it may be lacking in desks, chairs, books, and school supplies.  As far as teachers, they are likely to be unpaid volunteers who have little training at all.  Last year, we were able to take some teachers from our church to train the Sudanese teachers.  We want to partner with them in teaching the Sudanese children, not do it for them.

So, next week, a group of 7 of us are going to Nagishot to teach percussion drilling and continue training teachers.  We are excited about the opportunities to partner with our Sudanese brothers and sisters.  We hope to go as learners, not just doers, as we learn what works best in their culture.  Please pray for a fruitful trip and that God would be glorified as we serve alongside these precious people.