Thanks!

The 24 hour countdown is about to be underway. Which is a little scary seeing how much I still have left to do, haha. But, if there is anything I've mastered over the years, it's procrastinating on packing by cramming in as much possible social time as I can, and still managing to get where I need to be on time.... or, at least shortly thereafter :) Good thing I'll have lots of time to sleep on the plane rides, 'cause I don't think I'll be getting any before then.

Before I leave though... just wanted to say a HUGE thanks to all of you for all the support and encouragement you've given. It definitely means the world to know that I have such an incredible community of folks back here who are wishing for the best for me and my team. Whether you gave money to help with my fundraising, or helped hook me up with supplies, or toasted a drink with me, or committed to praying for us, or even just asked about the trip and offered encouraging words --- I'm truly grateful for all the care and love. In whatever way we may be able to support the work of the Didinga people to see their homeland restored... it will be in large part because you all made it possible for us to go. So thanks for joining in the task at hand, and for believing in my dreams with me.

Looking forward to sharing about it all once I'm back home in a few weeks! Much love y'all...

Recommended Reading

For a really wonderfully written account of the affects of the wars in Sudan, I'd recommend reading "What is the What" by Dave Eggers. It's based on the story of one of the "Lost Boys", and is incredibly touching.

Also, here's a small collection of news articles about Sudan, for those of you who would like to know more about the circumstances we're getting into...

The latest on Darfur: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7534353.stm (A lot of you have mentioned concern about us getting into all of that... but we're going to be in South Sudan, not near Darfur, so we'll actually be in one of the safest parts of the country.)

A Q & A with some basics about Sudan: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3211002.stm

Brief update from back in March on the refugees returning home: http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2008-03/2008-03-28-voa47.cfm?CFID=19554324&CFTOKEN=49901161

Lots of information, particularly about the ICC's case against Sudanese President Omer Al-Bashir: http://www.sudantribune.com/

Gates of Hell

So obviously when people find out I’m going to Sudan, they are often curious about why I want to do such a thing. And usually I refrain from mentioning anything spiritual… since 1) a lot of people are leery about the idea of “missionary” work, and 2) given my own hesitations about evangelism, I’m not exactly leading the pack on “reaching the nations for Jesus” zeal. However, the truth is, a lot of my motivations are spiritually grounded – though I could spend hours writing on why that is and how my religious convictions have developed and been re-shaped over the past years. No time for that now, but I did want to share some thoughts that are relevant to answering the questions of “Why Sudan?” and “Why go some place so dangerous and broken?” The following is an excerpt from “Jesus for President” by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw – two guys who grew up in a similar religious culture as I did, and who are now bringing some valuable perspective to re-thinking some of those truths we learned as kids in the Bible Belt. (Sorry if the train of thought is kinda fractured.. but I’m gonna skip around some for the sake of brevity.)

“There’s a lot of bad theology out there. Some folks tell us we shouldn’t worry about caring for creation since it’s all going to burn soon anyway. Other folks have a fatalistic view that the world stinks, so we just need to prepare people to die. But we are convinced that Jesus came not to prepare us to die but to teach us how to live. The kingdom of God is not just something we hope for when we die but something we live ‘on earth as it is in heaven.’ And we’re not willing simply to promise the world that there is life after death when the world is asking, ‘Is there life before death?’ We are thankful for heaven, but we are not willing to stand by and watch people live through hell to get there…

We remember as children hearing hellfire and damnation sermons… we all went forward to repent of all the evil things we had done over the first decade of our lives, motivated by the fear of being ‘left behind.’ The preacher literally scared the hell out of us… But have you ever noticed that Jesus didn’t spend much time on hell? Really there are only a couple of times when he spoke of weeping and gnashing of teeth, of hell and God’s judgment, and both had to do with the walls we create between ourselves and our suffering neighbors. [Commentary on the passage in Matthew 25, and the parable of Lazarus and the rich man]… God is in the business of rescuing people from the hells they experience on earth. And God is asking us to love people out of those hells. Hell is not just something that comes after death, but it is something many are living in this very moment: 1.2 billion people groan for a drop of water each day; more than thirty thousand kids starve to death each day; and thirty-eight million folks are dying of AIDS. It seems ludicrous to think of preaching to them about hell when we would do better sitting at the well asking them for a little water. We see Jesus spending far more energy loving the hell out of people, and lifting people out of the hells in which they are trapped, than trying to scare them into heaven. And one of the most beautiful things we get to see in community here in Kensington is people who have been loved out of the hells they find themselves in – domestic violence, addiction, sex trafficking, loneliness.

C.S. Lewis understood hell not as a place where God locks people out of heaven but as a dungeon that we lock ourselves into… With this new perspective, we gain new insight when we look at the parable of Lazarus or hear the brilliant words with which Jesus reassured Peter that ‘the gates of hell will not prevail against you.’ As adolescents, we understood that to mean that the demons and fiery darts of the Devil will not hit us. But lately we’ve done a little more thinking and praying, and we have a bit more insight on gates. Gates are not offensive weapons. Gates are defensive – walls and fences we build to keep people out. God is not saying the gates of hell will not prevail as they come at us. God is saying that we are in the business of storming the gates of hell, and the gates will not prevail as we crash through them with grace.

People sometimes ask if we are scared of the inner city. We say that we are more scared of the suburbs. Jesus warns that we can fear those things which can hurt our bodies or those things which can destroy our souls, but we should be far more fearful of the latter. Those are the subtle demons of suburbia. As Shane’s mother says, ‘Perhaps there is no more dangerous place for a Christian to be than in safety and comfort, detached from the suffering of others.’ We’re scared of apathy and complacency, of detaching ourselves from the suffering. Just as we are building walls to keep people out of our comfortable, insulated existence, we are trapping ourselves in a hell of isolation, loneliness, and fear… Let’s pray that God would give us the strength to storm the gates of hell and tear down the walls we have created between us and those whose suffering would disrupt our comfort.”

There’s no question that the people of Sudan have already lived through hell on earth. After 50 years of civil war, of death and fear and sorrow and hate – there is no doubt that many of the Sudanese have been trapped in a cycle of horror that would rival any nightmare we could imagine of fire and brimstone. And so if I believe that Christ calls us to love our neighbors and to pursue His Kingdom, there’s no way I can believe He merely wills us to share with the Sudanese about some promise of heaven-after-you-die. Would I hope that they would want to pursue a relationship with Jesus? Of course – because I don’t think anyone can ever truly experience Life Abundant apart from Grace. But surely loving our neighbors also means joining the fight against all the things that would steal life from them – including war, poverty, hatred and fear. And I think it’s hard, if not impossible, to fight against those things from a distance. Obviously not everyone is called to go to the front-lines of tragedies – to the war-zones or hospitals or inner-cities or nursing homes. But I DO think we are called to do our part to join in what God is doing to bring love and healing and hope and grace to those places. I think it’s a gift the Lord gives us actually – an invitation to play some small part in seeing redemption happen, in seeing restoration take place. And in fact I think it’s impossible for us to ever experience grace and healing in our own lives if we refuse to find commonality in the suffering of others.

And so am I going to Sudan to “share God with people”? Yes. But that’s because I think God isn’t just in the business of “life after death” – I’m pretty convinced He’s in the business of bringing life before death too. And Sudan could definitely use more folks striving to see more life there. More peace there. More joy there. To me, it’d be totally worth risking a little danger, if in the end we get to conquer some of death’s grip on a weary land and replace it with life and hope.

Final Preparations

Only a few more days till departure! We had our last team meeting yesterday, and all the final details are falling in place. We’ve all got our malaria pills that we’ll start taking this week. I got the rest of my vaccines last week (besides shots for Hepatitis A & B and Yellow Fever, I ended up going with ones for Meningitis and Typhoid Fever -- so, hopefully I’m good to go for protection from the most risky ones.) I drove home and got final hugs from my grandma and dad – who are both a little worried about their baby girl going to a war-torn African country, but who are thankfully still supportive of me following my dreams. There are still lots of last-minute things to do in the coming days – securing travelers’ insurance, buying a new sleeping bag, getting extra camera batteries, etc. But, all in all, I’m feeling ready to go, and ready to get this long-awaited adventure underway.

Counting Down...

So in just over a week, it's going to finally be time to take off for Sudan. Still lots to do before we get on the plane -- but I'm ready for the wait to be over and to actually be on our way!

Today I had the great joy of welcoming home one of my dearest friends who has spent the past two years living in Egypt. As I chilled with him and two of my other favorite "brothers", Kelly shared about his experiences working with Sudanese refugees whom he got to teach in Cairo. (First off, I freakin love the fact that I have friends who can sit and discuss African politics with me. I'm continuously amazed at how God has woven our hearts together with such similar interests and parallel journeys.) Hearing about the lives of the Lost Boys who have resettled there in Cairo, it made me even more excited to go to Sudan and engage some in this incredible event of tragedy and restoration. And when I say "excited", I mean that in a "what the hell am I getting myself into?" kinda way that stirs both joyful hope and sober contemplation. I know this trip will be life-changing, but I can't predict in what ways. It won't be a "Omigosh, I can't believe people live in this kind of poverty!" moment -- that was Haiti in 2003. I have a feeling that visiting Sudan is going to break my heart and yet inspire my soul. But who knows how those two situations will come about.

For a sneak peak though of some of what we'll be involved in, I'm passing along this message that was sent to our team from our leader. Check out the school project that we're going to helping out with!

"This video was taken by tom thomas from FEFC. We have been communicating with one another about the school concept and he has been kind enough to take this video for us while he was there just last week doing some teacher training.
You will see the site of the City on a Hill school and it's starter rooms being constructed.
William Laku (the pastor) is the man guiding the tour of the compound. Exciting!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THvp3VpQ0Jg

You will have to copy/paste that into your web browser as embedding has been disabled by tom."

Basketball and Faith

The other day I was re-reading through some of my old journals – an activity I take up sometimes because it’s good to reflect back on the journey of life, and to recall lessons from the past that helped make me who I am today. The journal I picked up most recently was from September 2004 – during my first few weeks of Mission Year in Atlanta. It’s so funny to read about my arrival there – completely unaware at the time of how amazing that year would turn out to be. I happened across some thoughts I wrote down after one of Leroy Barber’s inspiring talks, and wanted to share what I wrote back then…

“At training we got to hear from Leroy – great speaker. He gave an awesome analogy that really stirred my heart. He was talking about how a guy can show up at a basketball court for a pickup game and look like he’s the deal – great jersey, the best shoes, can talk like he’s a baller. But then he can step on the court and have no game to back the image. So then Leroy turned that on us – how right now we all look good, or else we wouldn’t be here. But can we play?? There are a ton of critics who will say we can’t – that a bunch of twentysomethings can’t be serious enough to do this -- to leave the fast-track and live in the inner-city, learning what it means to love your neighbor as yourself.

That totally challenged me. Ya, I look good. I can throw around terms like ‘holistic well-being’ and ‘social justice’ – and I can quote passages of Scripture that talk about serving the poor. But can I take all of that head knowledge – like the recognition of a pick-n-roll or the figures of Lebron James’ contract – and actually live it out? Actually execute the play or pop the clutch trey? Can I follow Jesus throughout a year in Atlanta?? I don’t know. I want to. I want to so bad.

My thought with that though too was how even if I don’t have what it takes right now, I can still succeed IF I’m coachable. If I listen closely to Coach and trust Him to change my ways and my heart. Then ya, I can play this game. I can experience Christ. I can take part in the Kingdom.

So here’s to beginning the season…”

Looking back with hindsight, that season was incredible. Probably the most I’ve ever matured and learned in one single year. It made me critique how this season in my life is going. Am I still bringing my A-game to life every morning? Still trying to suck all the marrow out of each day, still trying to love God and love people with all I am, still feeling the urgency and passion to fight for goodness and truth in every relationship I have? Well… I’m not sure. In some ways, yes. There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think about seeking after the Lord and striving to see His Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. But in other ways, not so much. There are definitely times when I feel like I’m just kinda cheering on others from the bench, or that I’m complaining to my teammates about not being in good enough shape (meanwhile I’m grabbing Snickers and Sunkists before the game instead of a chicken sandwich and wondering why I’m out of energy in the first half.) But then, I know that none of us are really “off the court”, and that perhaps this stage I’m in is just part of the process. Maybe these months and years of questions are like being in the lockerroom watching film on an upcoming opponent. It’s not exciting in and of itself, but it’s needed in order to understand the challenges to come. My perspectives on life continue to change with pretty rapid speed, and I’m trusting that all these varied experiences in the past years are only going to develop me more into a better follower-of-God and a better lover-of-humanity. Still, if I’m honest, there are numerous ways in which I’m not bringing my best to this journey, and I know I need to stop settling for mediocrity. Too much glory at stake to play with anything but reckless abandon. Time to step it up.

Provision

So, I have a confession to make. Of all the so-called crazy adventures that I've been on, this whole trip to Sudan has been the one I've been the least confident about going on. Looking back on previous times in my life when I made the decisions to 1) go on a trip to Haiti, 2) move in with strangers to a house in innner-city Atlanta, and 3) sign up to volunteer for a year in post-Katrina New Orleans -- I always made those choices having had a pretty sure conviction that that was the step God was leading me to take. In lots of different ways, it had truly seemed that the Lord gave me pretty tangible confirmation in each of those circumstances that He was in fact opening a door for me to walk through. Which of course gave me a lot of peace once I was in those places, knowing that even if things were difficult, I was where I was supposed to be.

But this time, things have been different. When I first heard about the trip, I immediately WANTED to go, but I had no reason to think I actually SHOULD go. I'm pretty sure that I'd want to go on almost any opportunity that presented itself to travel to another country, so it's not like desire itself was much of a confirmation factor to me. But once I found out that my AmeriCorps project was going to end 4 months earlier than it was originally supposed to, then I actually seriously started thinking about going since I no longer had a job commitment keeping me in Austin this summer. And yet, as I pondered and prayed about whether I should sign up or not, I never received any major "signs" directing me to go or not go. No convenient Bible verses during my devotion time that read "Go to Africa." No seemingly Divinely orchestrated conversation with a stranger that mentioned Sudan. I didn't know if I should really be going or not, or if this was just an example of my desire for periodic adrenaline rushes or new and exciting adventures. Eventually it was commit-or-miss-the-boat time though, and I finally just said "yes" - feeling like it was a good work to be a part of, and that if I really wasn't "supposed" to go, then God would have made that known.

But then came the question of how to pay for the trip. My AmeriCorps job for the past year had pretty much just provided a living stipend, not an actual salary... so the savings I'd been able to put away had been pretty slim. Even if I emptied my bank account, I wasn't going to have enough to pay for all the expenses on my own. The rest of the team was raising support (the Christian term for fundraising), but I really wasn't so hot on that idea. After having done that so much already in the past few years, I felt like it was time to stop asking people to fund the work I was doing... particularly when I couldn't say definitely that God had "called me to go" on this trip. I truly do believe in the members of the Church taking care of each others' needs and each contributing their part to the work of the Kingdom, so I think I would have been much more alright in doing traditional support raising if I'd had more "spiritual direction" for wanting to go. But truth is, I'm probably less confident in evangelism now than I've ever been… and my reasons for wanting to go were much more personal than ministry-oriented. (Well, actually, that gets into the whole idea of WHAT ministry is, which is an area where my beliefs have changed a lot in the past few years. In a different way, my heart is completely ministry-oriented in why I want to go, but not religiously-oriented.) But nonetheless, plane tickets weren't going to buy themselves, so I had to figure out how to cover my expenses. In the end, I decided to not do fundraising in the way that I had before… with the exception being a few folks who I knew would want to give if they knew I was going, so I felt o.k. letting them know what was up. Instead, I simply told folks that I was on a team going to Sudan, and trusted that somehow God would indeed provide the money if this was supposed to happen.

And… incredibly-but-not-really-surprising-because-God-is-gracious-like-that… all the money was provided. And it definitely happened in ways that I would never have guessed. Almost a third of the money was given by people in my church small group – folks who I didn't even know 7 months ago, but who have loved me so much as we've learned about Sudan together these past months, and who really believed in me being on the team. Almost another third came from a handful of generous people who I see less than once a year, and yet who wanted to be a part of this work. I was able to cover for another third on my own by picking up some extra shifts at my job. And the rest came from some good friends who, while young and themselves not well off, are passionate about fostering goodness and Life – and thus gave what they could to support our trip.

Looking back on it, my faith and my heart are so encouraged to see how God has been more than faithful to extend His provision to me through the generosity of others, particularly during a time in life when I've done my share of spiritual questioning. It increases my confidence in the grandness and goodness of the Lord – that He's not going to stop caring for me just because I'm taking less traditional roads to Him lately… and that while my skepticism of organized religion may be well-founded, I'm not a fool for trusting that Christ is indeed Truth and Life. Doubtful of cultural Christendom?, perhaps. But my soul has been made too alive for me to ever renounce the reality of Jesus Himself, and the amazing Restoration that I continue to see played out every day.

Spiritually, I remain in a place where the questions continue to come, and where I long for greater wisdom and am eager to learn so much more than I know. But tonight, I've experienced Provision, and am thus grateful to the Provider.

And it makes me all the more excited to see what else lies ahead once we actually get to Sudan. :)