On January 29th I departed for Maridi, one of our other Salesian sites about 150 miles west of Juba. I went to represent our community for the ordination of Fr. Paul Tung, and was expecting to stay just two days. After eight long hours through the rough terrain of South Sudan, we finally arrived in the cool and scenic Maridi, the place I had been hearing about for five months. It was truly a beautiful place, with rolling hills filled with green trees and beautiful landscape. Though I was hoping to catch up on a bit of rest while away from Juba, I was quickly put to work the first day helping prepare for the ordination (I didn’t really want to rest anyway). The ordination day was much of the same busyness as well, as I was in charge of the soundboard and videotaping the ceremony. I finally got to relax in the evening as we celebrated Father’s ordination, and the festivities ended around 10:30pm. As I was saying my goodbyes and getting ready to head back to Juba the next morning, Grace (one of my fellow SLMs) realized that she was going to be all-alone in the dispensary for the week. One of the Sisters that worked in the dispensary was going to a conference for the week, so Grace made a last second push for me to stay for the week and help her out. The Fathers talked for a while and decided I could stay.

In my time in Maridi, I mainly worked in the dispensary taking patient registration and helping in the pharmacy, however, my duties did not end there. I helped clean-up Father JP’s computer, facilitate land transactions, played a song for the school morning assembly, and refereed a football match. Though it was certainly a working vacation, I felt surprisingly refreshed when I left. The change of scenery and lifestyle was just what I needed, but more importantly it was the visiting/conversations with Grace, Cait, and the whole Maridi community that restored me. They were so welcoming to me and made me feel like a part of the community, and I was saddened when the time for goodbyes came. In the morning assembly when Father JP said I was leaving, the kids let out a collective sigh, which was quelled when Father said I would be spending the next year volunteering in Maridi (we will see about that).

The time in Maridi also confirmed that my home is in Juba and how much I missed everything about it, from the kids to the community to the work. After two weeks I was really longing to sleep in my own uncomfortable bed, eat the same meals, and sweat all day long in the heat. The saying, “You never know what you've got until it's gone” never rang truer in my life.

I will try to get some pictures from the trip uploaded soon!

My Christmas in South Sudan this year was a bit different than any of the others I have experienced. Instead of shopping in the mall, making Christmas cookies, playing in the snow, or visiting with family, I spent the days before Christmas preparing our program and decorating the church. We had Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, and afterwards a small celebration with our community. In the morning I woke up early to set-up the sound system in the church, and later on attended the 11:00am English Mass that did not start until 12:30pm. Since Mass ended around 2:30pm, I was secretly hoping that Fr. David would not remember my promise to go with him for Mass in Mafao in the afternoon, so I could take a much needed nap instead. However, just about as soon as I finished my last bite from lunch, he walked in the door and asked if I was ready to go. With a smile I let out an exhausted “Yes” and hopped into the Land Cruiser.

Once we arrived, I rang the bell and waited for the people to come to our Hanging Church (tree). After a few minutes, we started the Mass with five people (three of them young kids) in the congregation. At first I was annoyed that we traveled all the way for such a small crowd, but I quickly realized this was what Christmas is all about. Despite being exhausted, I was filled with the Christmas joy sharing the birth of Christ with a few more people. In the evening we had a nice Christmas dinner with all the Fathers, Sisters, Brothers, and other community members. After dinner, I Skyped with my family, and was able to share in a bit of the Christmas celebration with them. On the 27th when Luke’s father arrived, I received a beautiful package from my family, including letters from all my siblings, a few small gifts, and even fake snow from my Advent Pal Audrey. All in all it was a unique, yet wonderful Christmas.

Though it was difficult to be away from my family during this special time of year, it was the first Christmas where I really focused on the birth of Christ. Maybe it was the heat, lack of Christmas Music, or absence of family, but it never really “felt” like Christmas here. But it all changed with that intimate Christmas moment with in Mafao. Around the States I would always see signs that said “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” and “Keep Christ in Christmas,” but they are just slogans that virtually no one take to heart. However, this Christmas is certainly one that I will never forget, not because of all the gifts I received, but rather the true presence of the One Gift we all received.

PS- My Aunt Kelly suggested that I do a mailbag for my next blog post, and answer any questions you (the readers) might have. I think it’s a great idea and will give it a shot, so if you have a question you would like me to answer, comment on this post, Facebook, or email me and I’ll do my best to provide an answer.

Happy New Year and God Bless!

Last week Fr. Ferrington, the Delegate Superior of the Salesians of Sudan and South Sudan, asked me to attend an Introductory Course of South Sudan. Since he received word about the seminar last minute, I represented the SDBs and will be presenting the material to the Salesian communities of South Sudan in the future (I will also try to share the information on this site when I put everything together). The topics of the seminar were all very interesting, and included history, media, ethnic groups, the church, the government, and women. It was a fantastic opportunity to learn more about the country and people that I am serving, and it opened my eyes to many challenges and opportunities.

Even though the speakers gave great stories and information, the best talk was the impromptu anecdote of Br. Valentino, a 90-year-old Comboni Missionary. He first arrived in Sudan/South Sudan in 1949 when the country was still controlled by British colonists, and lived through two civil wars over his 63 years here. As you can imagine, he has quite a remarkable story. With many laughs intermingled with some amazing experiences, his words were great advice to me, a 22-year-old kid who has been in South Sudan for three months. Much of what he said was great guidance for life in general, so missionary or not, I leave you with a few lines of his that impacted me and might have the same impact on you.

“God, bless me to understand how to deal with the people.”

“It's all about the people.”

“Be brothers… we are all the same.”

“Pay wages honestly and respect the workers. Give them their dues before the sweat becomes dry.”

“There is no second class.”

“Be happy with the people and love them.”

Thanksgiving is an American holiday, but Luke and I brought it to South Sudan today. We spent the afternoon in the kitchen preparing our version of Thanksgiving dinner. We made mashed potatoes, stuffing, and a small chicken that we pretended was a turkey. Every Thursday our community gets together for Mass and dinner in the evening, so we brought our “Thanksgiving Feast” over for everyone to enjoy. During dinner I shared my family's tradition of going around the table and saying something you are thankful for. I led saying a few words, and after I thought about all the blessings in my life and all that I have to be thankful for. Here is what I came up with.

I’m thankful for…

• my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He died so that we may have eternal life. Remember, in the sacrament and sacrifice of the Eucharist (which means thanksgiving), Jesus becomes truly present in our lives. There is nothing to be more thankful for.
  
• my family. They have shown me so much love and support throughout life. I would not be who I am today without my parents, brothers, and sisters.
• my Salesian family here in South Sudan. Especially after hearing everyone tonight, I realized how lucky I am to celebrate thanksgiving such great people.
• my relatives and friends. They share updates and laughs despite being 7000 miles away. Though I love it here, know that I miss and love y’all.
• the people of South Sudan. They welcomed me with open arms and have changed my life.
• the Salesian Lay Missioners program. Without SLM I would not be in South Sudan and would not be on this amazing journey.
• being an American. Tonight Fr. Francis, a native South Sudanese, mentioned he was thankful for America for helping bring freedom to his country. Too often we take our country and freedom for granted.
• anyone who reads this blog. I hope you get something out of it, and enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it. I thank you for your prayers and encouragement.

God Bless and Happy Thanksgiving!

Last year around this time when I decided I wanted to volunteer for a year, I began looking into many different programs. I was going on my eighth year of Jesuit education, so naturally I looked into the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. However, since I was going to be a free agent again, I also explored the market of religious volunteer programs through the Catholic Volunteer Network. In addition to JVC, I looked into programs with the Vincentians, Franciscans, and the Salesians among others, and after a great deal of prayer and mutual discernment, I signed with the Salesian Lay Missioners in South Sudan.  My Jesuit friends, though very supportive of the program, jokingly wondered why I did not decide to continue with them. While on orientation back in July/August, whenever my past with the Jesuits was brought up, I would get heckled quite a bit by the Salesian priests (all in good fun). Being the second largest religious order behind the Jesuits, I think the SDBs have the little brother mentality. Anyway, while the Jesuits we mad about “losing” me, and the Salesians were giving me trouble about my previous coaching, I thought I was going to get away from the drama while in South Sudan. Not so fast.

Last week, we received word that a Jesuit priest was coming and staying with us for a year. Fr. Francis SJ arrived and is helping out as an administrator at the Don Bosco Senior Secondary School. Like many of the Jesuits I have encountered over the years, Fr. Francis and I hit it off. However, after talking about my past with the Jesuits, but now being with the Salesians, he lightheartedly said, “You betrayed us!” Not again I thought J.

Though I seem to be in the middle of a heated rivalry, I feel like the luckiest guy on earth. Not many people get to form such close relationships with these two great orders. While they love to joke about one another, the more I spend time with the Salesians, the more I see how similar they are to the Jesuits, and vise versa. At their cores, both focus on educating the youth and being missionaries of Christ. Seeing the two orders work together here shows me they are first and foremost Catholics serving the Lord, and that trumps any affiliation they have to their order. They both want to spread Christ love and bring people closer to him, and they rely on each other’s strengths for help. Think about it… with Jesuits’ strength in education and the Salesians’ forte in youth formation, the kids here with have no choice but to be amazing students and followers of Christ. Plus, now we all have both St. Ignatius and St. John Bosco watching over us.

Sunday was a packed day. It began with a trip to Mori (one of our satellite parishes along the banks of the Nile) after breakfast around 9:00am. I was asked to assist Fr. David with the baptism of about 20 children. About halfway into the journey, we picked up a few about 20 kids who were heading to the Mass.  We had 28 people in the car for 15 minutes as we traveled through the bush, following the dirt road over massive bumps and mud pits. We were no more than 200 meters away from the church, when suddenly one of the mud pits was too big and too deep for our Land Cruiser; we were stuck! After trying to push and pull for a few minutes, we decided to wait until after the Mass to worry about it.

The celebration began at St. Dominic Savio Parish around 10:00am in the brick and mud church. Upon taking my seat, Sister Antoineta asked if I could be the lector for the second reading, so I quickly looked over the Letter to the Hebrews.  Young dancers led the procession and the choir sang beautiful songs in the tribal language of Bari. It was similar to the feast we had at St. Vincent de Paul a several weeks back. These people take their celebrations seriously! The Mass was said in a combination of English, Arabic, and Bari, and though I didn’t understand much (seems to be a theme), there is something to be said about being in the presence of the Lord in such a unique situation. After the readings, gospel, and homily, I helped Father with the baptisms. After each child was baptized, the congregation broke out into song, complete with drums, claps, and Africa yells. It was quite an experience to be a part of the celebration.

After Mass, with the assistance of several parishioners, we were able to push the car out of the mud. We piled back into car and headed to Gumbo. Upon arriving home, I grabbed a quick lunch and took a nap so I would be well rested for our big soccer match. Our Salesian community decided to challenge my Don Bosco Senior team. I played with the Salesians for fear that I wouldn’t have a place to eat and sleep if I went against them. To be honest, I was worried about our Salesian team getting humiliated/injured, as many of our players had not stepped on the pitch in years.  Fr. Mathew thought we would lose “no less than 0-6.”  Our team was a ragtag bunch, consisting of two priests, one brother, five prenovices, three volunteers, one evaluator, and one solar technician, and we represented six nations- USA, South Sudan, India, Nigeria, Kenya, and Spain. We were outplayed in the first half and luckily only down 0-1, but at halftime we made a few adjustments and took the field determined to make a comeback. With the crowd on our side, we fought hard and scored three unanswered goals in the second half, and came away with a 3-1 victory. It was an amazing atmosphere to have all the sisters and villagers rallying around the underdog. I just hope I’m not kicked off of the Senior team for being a traitor. We celebrated the win with a feast in the evening.  For a nightcap, Luke and I played Gin and chatted about life over a cold beer, a rare treat. As you can see, it was truly an awesome day!

On Friday, Fr. David, Luke and I went to the “Hope for a New Nation” Festival in Juba. Our parish was asked to come and bring 100 youth to the festival, which was supposed to “help lay a strong spiritual foundation as the world’s newest country faces spiritual, economic, social and political challenges.” We arrived at the festival grounds around 5pm, joining thousands of people gathered to hear music, prayers, and speeches. Despite a very lackluster talk by the headliner Franklin Graham (definitely living off of his last name), I was very impressed with the turnout and attitude of the people. The park was packed, and people were actually standing on cars in the street to join in the celebration. The whole crowd got completely silent for the moment of silence and prayer. They sang and danced during praise and worship songs. They demonstrated the importance of having that strong spiritual foundation during this time of hope.

And it really is a time for hope in South Sudan. In a way, I liken the feelings here to those of the United States of America in 1777, a year after the Declaration of Independence was signed. Our founding fathers believed that all people are created equal, and they hoped that everyone would have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They laid out the grounds of hope for others, and their hopes came to fruition in our great nation. The South Sudanese hope for many of the same things. In their national anthem they sing of peace and harmony, justice, liberty, and prosperity. Not only are they hoping for these things we Americans are so blessed with, but also they are putting their hope in Christ.

A few months back I read a great article on the hope of this new nation, and this blog post reminded me of it, so I figured I would share (http://edition.cnn.com/2012/07/06/opinion/archbishop-tutu-south-sudan/index.html)

On Thursday, Pope Benedict XVI announced the beginning of the Year of Faith. How perfect that my year of missionary work coincides with this important time in the Catholic Church. To be honest, one of the reasons I was interested in service upon graduation and ended up with the Salesian Lay Missioners was to deepen my faith. Several months back before knowing about the Year of Faith, when asked why I joined the SLMs, I wrote “I want to be a friend to the youth and to share the love of Christ with them. Through the SLM mission, I hope to be the light of Christ to South Sudan, and in turn become stronger in my faith.” After a few weeks in South Sudan, I know this year presents the opportunity to do all this, and the outcome will be extraordinary if I am willing to work for it.

Today at Mass, Fr. David preached about the Year of Faith, however he noted that having faith is not enough. Fr. David just returned from Rome yesterday, and was actually in the front row of a conference given by the Holy Father on the Year of Faith (I think he might have a good grasp on what it is all about). While it is in fact a year for us Catholics to deepen our faith, it is also a year for us to put our faith into action. I am currently reading Pope John Paul II’s Encyclical Letter Redemptoris Missio (Mission of the Redeemer), and though only through a couple chapters, one line really stuck out to me, “Those who are incorporated in the Catholic Church ought to sense their privilege and for that very reason their greater obligation of bearing witness to the faith and to the Christian life as a service to their brothers and sisters and as a fitting response to God.” If this is not a call to action, then I don’t know what is. We have the obligation to live our lives in the service of others by living our faith. While the physical work that I do here is important and needed, even more important is making that physical work spiritually driven though faith in action.

I have now been in South Sudan for a month. Wow does time fly! If you have been reading this blog, you are aware of all the amazing things that occurred in this past month, and how much I am enjoying everything. I want to share a few more things that are going on in my life. I am learning to play guitar, something that I am very excited about. I have never been musically inclined, and the only things on my “musical resume” are playing the recorder in grade school and the occasional karaoke performance (ok it was more than occasional the last semester of college), but so far so good and it will hopefully be a good way to connect with the children in the future. I have also become more involved on the Don Bosco Senior Soccer Team, practicing with them a couple times a week and even playing in a few games. It is a great opportunity for me to interact with some of the men my age, and play competitive soccer at the same time.

Though I gush about all the great things here, I have to admit there have been some struggles. Teaching high school level English to five pre-novices is not something I expected or “wanted” to do before coming here, but that is where the need is and where I am called to be. Relearning the material and then trying to teach it is difficult and exhausting. The language barrier is certainly frustrating at times. The weather continues to get hotter as we see the mercury reach triple digits (as if the 90s everyday was not hot enough). And the lack of variety in daily life is taking time to get used to. However, this week I was given a not so subtle sign of the importance of these struggles.

During our Jesus Youth prayer group on Friday, where teens from the community get together to pray, sing, and share, we read the bible passage for the week and some words really stuck out. Philippians 3:7-11 says, “But whatever gains I had, these I have come to consider a loss because of Christ. More than that, I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, depending on faith to know him and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” Two main points really stuck out; gains considered losses and sharing in Christ’s suffering. One of the reasons I was really excited for this year of mission was to get away from the so called gains in that I was used to in daily life in order to truly gain Christ. St. Paul additionally suggests that gaining Christ comes not only from faith to know Him and the power of His resurrection, but also the sharing of his sufferings, something which I am quick to forget. This passage is a perfect reminder of why I am here and strong encouragement to keep on keeping on.

One of the big things I worked on this week was a video highlighting the parish feast, so I though I would throw it here for you to enjoy. God Bless!

On Thursday, the parish here in Gumbo celebrated the feast of their patron, St. Vincent de Paul. While I had no idea what to expect, I knew it was going to be big. The choir practiced everyday for what seemed like hours in preparation for the Mass and program that followed, and a bull was slaughtered during the ceremony the night before. Several tents were set-up outside the church for the overflow of people and for the events. The Mass was amazing, with lots of singing, dancing, and African yelling throughout the three hour-long ceremony. Many guests came, including the Vicar General of the Juba Diocese, the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry on behalf of the Governor, and several groups of religious sisters, and after Mass they all came back to our house to enjoy the bull for lunch.

The program began around two, and included many speeches, traditional dances and sketches. After a long day outside, the final event was a Bari (the local tribe) traditional dance. The dance consisted of a few drummers in the middle, with lines of men and women slowly shuffling around in a circle. Several minutes passed watching the dance, and seeing more and more people from the crowd enter, Sister Antoineta told me to go join. When she tells you to do something you do it, so I got into the line of men though I’m not particularly fond of dancing. With the laughs and hollers of the people, I began to get into it, and decided to attempt “the jumps.” I had no idea what they meant, but I saw a pre-novice and seminarian doing it, so I figured I was in the clear (after I found out you are trying to out jump all the other men to marry the tallest girl). As my adrenaline started to pump, I kicked off my sandals and went for it (I’m in a light green shirt in video below). It was a moment of joy letting myself go and joining in the traditions of the community that so graciously welcomed me. As you can see and hear the crowd loved that I was involved, especially the women at the bottom of the picture.

After Mass the next morning, a middle-aged woman called me over and began talking to me about my dancing from yesterday. I only understood a few things that she said, but Brother Jackson translated for me. She essentially said that I was a natural, should join the Bari Tribe, and marry a tall girl from the village. I smiled and said thank you, not knowing what to say. At the breakfast table, the priests and community shared quite a few jabs and laughs as I told them what had just happened, but I was happy to know I was no longer thought of as a guest, but rather a member of the community.