South Sudan from Katy Beth's perspective!

Our sister Katy Beth Searls and her family (WGM missionaries to Hungary for the past 20+ years) are staying with us this month and we are delighted to be sharing in ministry with FAMILY!!! This is her perspective from a resent training in South Sudan!

 

What was South Sudan like? Here are a few quick reflections: We were with the Dinka tribe, doing pastors training with about 30 South Sudanese pastors, university aged students, both men and women who were there to learn Bible Stories. The Dinka are TALL—like their arms and especially their legs go on forever….it’s sooooooo fascinating—they are just lanky!! Amazing. Beautiful people!! God is sooooo amazing! I kept looking at their scars on their foreheads from their initiation rites and thinking, “This is for REAL!?! I’m sitting here in real life?!!” Really special. The women wear beautiful sari type scarves over their dresses—lovely. The women don’t tie their babies on their backs like here in Uganda, they kill a goat and put their babies in the skin and sling them over their shoulders, so you think the women are carrying goats around and they are their babies! They really have cows and the cows are amazing with their BIG horns. Cows are their money and often of more importance than their children, especially their girls. The boys don’t go to school, they take care of the cows and when they are young men, they go to school. They make clicks to say, “Ok…Yes…” They smile when they talk to you and they are hilarious—the pastors laughed a LOT! They talk a lot. Outside like in the market, they would look at us, but not friendly-like. It makes a difference if you love Jesus or not. The Dinka have twins and keep their twins, unlike here in Arua,Uganda. They called us Mandiet (mother of twins) and Mundiet (father of twins). Of course, that is Billy’s name too so they thought that was hilarious too!!! We all did. There was one Pastor Augustino who has 5 twins living out of 6. That is an amazing thing for this part of the world—a gift.

We were deep in South Sudan. It was an honor to serve alongside those who live in a place that is difficult. Almost ALL the food has to be flown in! We took fruits, veggies, chickens and eggs when we went! There are almost no roads in to Tonj and the ones that go are HORRIBLE!!! You literally fly to the end of the earth and there Jesus is working!!!!

We LOVED the pastors’ training—LOVED it! Loved seeing my brother Billy in action—he’s sooo loved, not a surprise. He’s so gifted at communicating the Word in a way that they can understand. The Power of the Gospel is amazing. We loved seeing them learn the stories. They are CONCRETE thinkers. I loved looking at the stories through their eyes. Jesus was sooooo good to us. LOVED the small group interactions of learning the stories, delving into the stories and finding the treasures—loved what they saw, giggled at what they didn’t see, grieved a bit at ALL they can’t see, but rejoiced at anything they could comprehend and PRAYED that Jesus would take it and let it germinate in their hearts and minds and that the Holy Spirit would water it and bring to their understandings in new ways deeper things of God.

I was in a group that studied Genesis 3. There are only about 20 Old Testament stories translated into DInka—they have them copied and bound in a spiral notebook. They only had one copy in that group of 30 of this Dinka OT. I just cried when I saw it, not to have the OT in your language—so much you can’t understand! They asked for OT stories. So one in the group who had an English Bible would read them a couple verses and then they’d translate it into Dinka. Then the group would memorize those verses and then they’d add another couple!!!! We were on holy ground. My group was working on Gen. 3 and they had no idea that the crafty snake was Satan. They were fascinated by his craftiness and spent a lot of time talking about that…finally, they turned to me and said, “One way TODAY people might be crafty would be to try to get a pastor to take another wife. They could say, ‘God said to multiply and fill the earth… and your wife is getting old. Get another one, a young one.’ That would be crafty.” Yes. I agreed that would be craftiness TODAY! They LOVED getting it into practical application today. We loved watching them work on digging into the stories for the treasures and then putting the treasures into applications! They got better the more we practiced! Jesus is so good to have let us be a part of sharing His word with these ones who had never heard these stories before—and they are the pastors!!!

Dan and I told the story of the Prodigal Son. I told it—it’s long—and Dan did a one man drama acting it out. THEY LOVED IT!!!!!! When we were done, we had them tell their neighbor the story while Dan re-enacted the drama part of it. They LOVED it and when they were done, they all stood up together and burst into a song of praise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That’s the power of God’s word!! SO neat!!! We had such fun teaching the treasures of the story and the applications—we did a part two on the last day as there was so much. Then one of the men stood up and said, “This story is true today. My brother took our property and left and has gone away to a far country. I want to pray that he will return and that I will be ready when he comes back.” We had such a sweet time of prayer praying for the ones who are far away and for us to be ready to welcome them back when they come. They prayed over us before we left—Pastor Ruben who is old and has had leprosy, so one of his hands is only a stub—he prayed over us in Dinka. Talk about a holy moment—how did WE get to be chosen of all the ones on earth? Jesus is sooo good to us.

One final LOVE gift—it was really at the beginning. We flew in a little 5 seater missionary bush plane and Dan got to fly a ton of the way there!! The pilot was a former navy pilot who let Dan fly and explained about anything he wanted to know about. Dan did great flying—not just model planes but now a real live one flown over the African bush! Throw yourself into the will of God and He will give you the desires of your heart!!!

Thanks for praying for us. Jesus helped Billy’s wife, Joanna, and the girls as they held down the fort in Arua. The girls had a great week and taught the Bible Club by themselves. They did Noah’s ark and guess what? It rained!! Perfect!!!

We felt your prayers. THANK YOU!!!

We have a FULL week of VBS outreaches ahead. We return to Hungary Aug. 18^th. The next 2 weeks will go quickly. We’re determined to enjoy every moment and thank Jesus for making it possible for us to be here.

In Him with Great JOY,

Katy Beth Searls for Dan and the girls as well as Billy and Joanna Coppedge and their 4 girls J