Since the beginning of these erratic dispatches I’ve tried to maintain one simple rule:  Don’t ask for money.  This collection of messages and emotions and thoughts was never meant to act as a way to raise funds for Cornerstone.  Yes, I’m naïve enough to imagine that writing – under surly circumstances and in peculiar climates – is an art form that can live and breathe without the aid or aim of capital.  If in the course of posting some of the details of my life I’ve happened to stir up in someone the desire to give – well, that’s splendid!  But fundraising was never my thing, because the thing – the crucial impetus, the thrust, the wildness – at the center of these sporadic letters has always been my need to express what’s happening in and around me so as to avoid going insane.*  Until today.

Today’s the day where my unwritten regulation is being thrown out the window.  We have ourselves a serious problem here at Cornerstone, which is the fact that our scholarship program has received less than a fourth of the yearly amount that’s required to keep it going.  The program sponsors high school kids within our home as well as deserving kids whom we’ve identified in the Nimule community.  It’s also the fund we’re using to send Awi, the young man with the guitar in the photo, to a music school in Kampala where he’s being given the chance to develop his talents in various instruments while being exposed to the likes of Bach and Mozart.  And, as a side note, if there’s a Sudanese equivalent for shredding on the guitar then Awi is learning to do just that.

The scholarship program is meant to provide for all the educational needs of Janet, the tall girl with the electric smile in the middle of the group.  It’s the fund that ought to get her through four years at a roughhewn assortment of classrooms near the banks of the Nile River.  And it’s the fund we’re praying will still be available when she graduates and jumps to the next stage of her life, which will involve pursuing a nursing degree (or so she dreams as she scans the future from the vantage point of this variable, yet hopeful moment in her late teens).  It’s the fund that ought to open the door for Alex – the Italian soccer fan making the funny face – to attend a university and eventually receive a bachelor’s degree in telecommunications.  (I mentioned a little about Alex in my last message, and we recently learned that he won’t be receiving a government scholarship due to a technicality on his application form.)

All the kids you see in the photo and a dozen more are depending on this scholarship program to keep their dreams of education alive.  And, to put it bluntly, if we don’t receive more support very soon then we’re going to have no other choice but to start trying to figure out who gets to stay in school and who doesn’t.

A high school education costs $150 each year and this figure pays for the student’s school fees, school uniform, and learning materials.   A university or other post-secondary institution (such as a vocational school) can cost anywhere between $500 and $2,000 each year.  To ensure that all of our kids will be able to finish this calendar year we need approximately $6,000.  That’s the nature of the beast and I would like to ask you to play a part in taming it.

You can send your support to the following address:  FULAA, Care of Cornerstone EFC, 3901 Gallows Rd, Annandale, VA 22003.

Please write “Ministry” in the memo line of your check and attach a note specifying that you would like the donation to go to the scholarship fund.  If a check is just too analog for you then please stop by www.fulaalifeline.org where you can make a contribution via Pay Pal.

Thanks for tuning in and have a wonderful day!

_______________

*That and craftily converting all of you to Christianity.

Despite an honest effort to spike these dispatches with hope I think you might be getting the impression that Sudan and my own psyche are on some kind of downward spiral.  Well, I can’t speak for the entire nation, but the home where I live and serve – my little corner of Sudan – is still a stunningly bright place to be.  As for myself, I’m definitely not a poster boy for sunshine and bumblebees and fluffy clouds.  (On second thought, maybe I do accurately represent the essence of bumblebees.  But sunshine and fluffy clouds – ridiculous!)

The point I’m driving at is this:  my melancholic state of mind certainly doesn’t prevent Cornerstone from living up to it’s name.  I’m not the center of this home; Jesus is at the heart of all of this.  And so, in the interest of showing you the divine imprint on this home, I’d like to offer you a few excerpts from a recent newsletter.  And if reading isn’t your thing then just check out the photos!

In the “Home” Stretch!

In the first quarter of this year we’re continuing to run as fast as we can to finish the Cornerstone Kids’ new home.  We had hoped to see the kids in the building by the end of last year, but it wasn’t to be.  Nevertheless, we remain steadfast in our belief that God will shepherd this project through to its end, and we are setting our sights on opening the home within 2010.  The roofs have been completed and tiles have been fixed in the wings where the children will sleep.  Currently, the glass windows and the electrical wires are being installed in the kids’ rooms.  Please pray with us for the full completion of the home so that the children will finally be able to move out of their huts and into a much nicer and safer house.

Gaining Speed and Success in the Drive for Academic Excellence

One of Fulaa’s big priorities is making sure the Cornerstone Kids are able to achieve success in their academic pursuits.  In 2009 we saw some huge progress in the kids performance, which is exemplified by the results of two of our children, Daniel Atwali in Primary 1 (1^st Grade) and Mono Alex in Senior 6 (12^th Grade).  Daniel was the top performer in his class, receiving nearly perfect scores in all his final exams.  [I realize you might be saying to yourself, “Shouldn’t that kid be in 4^th or 5^th Grade?” And yes, he should.  But there was a war here in the South for two decades, and it’s taking a little bit of time for the people and the nation and the education system to recover.  So I say let’s celebrate what is being achieved despite all the damage left from the longest civil conflict in Africa’s recent history.  And now I’ll get down off my soapbox and allow you to continue with the good news.]    

Alex received what are termed “first grade results,” scoring a combined 22 points in his subjects.  The most points that a student can possibly receive are 25, so Alex was 3 points shy of a perfect performance.  In other words, he knocked it out of the park!  The results were so good that Alex is now in line to receive a government scholarship to continue his studies at a university.  He plans on pursuing a degree in electrical engineering later this year, but in the meantime he’s acting as a volunteer tutor at a local school as well as organizing after school math classes for his younger brothers and sisters at Cornerstone.

Shared Pain and Shared Joy:  The Story of Lagu and Vicky

James Lagu (17) and Vicky Atto (15) have been members of the Cornerstone Family since 2006.  Though they don’t possess the same last name, they are brother and sister.  (It’s common for parents in Sudan to not give their family name to their children.)  While they don’t have a shared name, they do have a shared history, which is composed of both pain and joy, defeat and victory, radical change and divine recovery.

Veronica Auma, the mother of Lagu and Vicky, contracted a disease that was never properly diagnosed and she passed away in extreme anguish.  Gabriel Okello, the father, is an alcoholic and never took much interest in caring for his kids.  When he learned of his wife’s death Gabriel quickly abandoned all parental responsibility, leaving his sister-in-law, Regina, in charge of bringing up the kids.  Due to her commitment to her immediate family and her inability to find steady employment, Regina faced difficulties in bringing up Lagu and Vicky.  Both children were physically and spiritually malnourished when representatives from Cornerstone discovered them.  After taking a careful look at the children, the leaders of the home chose to accept them into the family of Cornerstone.

James and Vicky are flourishing in the Christ-centered environment that is Cornerstone.  Occasionally they can be reserved in their demeanor, which is probably due to the hardship that they experienced early in their lives.  However, most of the time you’ll find them laughing and joking with their sisters and brothers and acting in way that shows that Jesus is in the process of healing the deep, emotional wounds that could’ve destroyed their spirits.  Both James and Vicky desire to one day serve in the medical field, James as a doctor and Vicky as a nurse.  In response to the way the Lord has graciously provided for their lives, they want to dedicate themselves to helping others who are in need.

]]> http://www.deepsouthsudan.com/?feed=rss2&p=170 http://www.deepsouthsudan.com/?p=166 http://www.deepsouthsudan.com/?p=166#comments Mon, 29 Mar 2010 17:43:21 +0000 ross everyday what-what http://www.deepsouthsudan.com/?p=166

Amazing…the kid is smiling and laughing again.  He’s reaching out his hand to touch my hand.  He’s slapping my forearm with giddy force or giving me low-fives twenty times per minute or just staring at me like I’m the most wonderful thing in the world…

                                                                        – June 13^th 2009

a promise for joseph opoka

you knew when his sister walked into

   the waiting room

in february you knew right away

  he was dead

and he’d been dead

                             for a while

a delay in the system

learning now of the passing

                                     of joseph

it happened when you were

                                    still away

he kicked the nurses with his stick legs

bared his teeth and bit their hands

and they couldn’t draw blood

but why didn’t they sedate him?

take his blood when he was half

conscious?  test it and start him

on something?  or in the absence

                                             of blood

why couldn’t they treat him

based on his history?

such questions don’t even rise

to the tongue they slide beneath

the heart like unsent letters

pushed back into place

when you’re asking them

                                                 in sudan

he died without anyone

he loved by his side and you see it

                                                so clearly

his wasted body his skeletal grimace

and you don’t know what to say

to God about all of this

you remember curtains of night

falling fast last year and finding him

in convulsions in the lightless

ward and finding him no nurse no

drug to stop his shaking

you took your girls home then ran

into town and your kids thought you

were crazy to be running like this

you searched the pharmacies lit

                                           by candles

  in nothing but

a metal shed beside a creek

of rubbish you got your hands

on the injection you wanted

then rode a motorcycle back

with the vials clinking in your pocket

a patter a promise against your chest

but when you came rushing in you saw

his figure sketched across the forest

green mattress placed upon the quiet

cement floor you saw his fever

tremors had ceased

if you weren’t so far away

the second time

he checked into that

place you would’ve run

for him you would’ve run

until your legs

                                                 gave out

and then you would’ve crawled

or so

  you tell yourself

when you got to him

you would’ve let him

bite your hands

into tattered nameless

                              things

if he wanted to

and kick your face

into black into bloodless

   if that’s what he felt

like doing  

until clamor until crimson

all this crimson breathplucking

                                  clamor until

  memory until fury all this

fury spun heavenward

                            into memory

and the two of you

                  were found

laughing

        and laughing

like young brothers high up

in the currents the repetitions

of a cassia’s body

deciphering tiny yellow flowers

   from yearning

tweezing them out and then

the blood of petals on fingertips

the two of you so

                   carelessly

dropping blossoms

   luminous abstracts           fleeting

motifs in the distance between

your letting go and the skin

      the shock of touching

 the skin of eternity

                         even down

here in calluses in split open

                             nails in heaving

breaths of earth

I.

There’s been some upheaval in my heart, which is my excuse for not writing.  I made some plans in America, but after a month in Sudan I chose to set them on fire.  In the recesses of my palms they burned slowly.  I’ve never seen anything take so long to turn to cinders.  After the fire itself died the residue floated up into the air and blended with the ashes of the fields.  Eventually I couldn’t distinguish the remnants of my thoughts from the remnants of the flesh of the land.

This was meant to be.        

This is the dry season.  This is the time to watch fires skinning the horizons at night and to feel, in the observation of the trajectory of flames, a bleak kinship to the man in The Road, even though he’s a work of fiction.  I feel an affinity for the character because the pain by which he was formed is authentic.  It’s as real as it gets.

II.

You wake up in this season and find ashes have come to rest on your sandals, your books, your shaving kit, and the clothes you’re wearing today.  The wind brings these unwanted decorations in through the windows.  The wind brings in all sorts of things that fly and drift in the dark.  In the afternoon you find a small bat sleeping upside down in one of the upper corners of your room.  You talk to him.  You tell him he doesn’t have to leave, at least not right now.  You tell him you know it’s still daytime and you tell him you know the sunlight would probably make him go insane.  The bat opens his mouth and seems to tremble.  From his tightly shut eyelids to his rodent lips to his folded wings – the passage of a shudder.

You tell him not to cry.  Just don’t start crying.  Seriously.  Don’t get hysterical.  I mean you don’t have to leave right now.  Later.  When it’s night time.  Then you can go.  If you start crying right now I might start crying, too.  Just find someplace else to sleep tonight, OK?  You can’t sleep here anymore.  You can’t.  I won’t let you.  So listen to me, because I don’t want to have to kill you.  The bat closes it’s mouth and adjusts it’s tiny feet and seems to understand and accept your heartfelt advice. 

III.   

I’m not saying things are bad.  It isn’t the apocalypse after all!  So what if I’m talking to a bat.  People talk to their dogs all the time; I talk to a bat.  Perfectly normal everyday stuff. 

There’s always enough food on the table and there’s a wealth of joy and singing within the church.  There are sky blue tiles covering the hallways of the children’s new home and soon there will be glass windows filling up the empty spaces in the walls.  There are five new sisters and one new brother and each one of them is a blessing.  In less than a week I found myself forgetting that they hadn’t always been here, that we hadn’t always had a Sharon, a Judith, a Dorothy, a Joyce, a Michelle, and a Drichi Emmanuel.    

IV.

Most of the new kids have thick eyebrows that express both their shared heritage and their shared loss.  The person who gave them those eyebrows isn’t alive anymore. 

Apart from the concise and lovely and tragic narrative written in their brows, each brother and each sister has a smile like a perfect couplet.  When they stand together you might see their mouths – one after the other or in unison – alight with happiness.  A series of verses on their faces, each one similar, yet distinct.  The way it’s meant to be.  A way a family remains a family even in the wake of death. 

I’m sorry I’m so late in posting these photos of Christmas.  I hope they make you terribly jealous.  I hope they make you want to spend some time in Sudan.

     I’ve been back in the States since the first of the month.  I went into hibernate mode in Kansas for about two weeks (morning coffee in the afternoon, happy/sad ventures into the land of junk food, limitless, brain-liquefying access to tv and internet, penetrating questions of self-worth and existence resulting from a casual investigation into the lives of my parents’ numerous pets), then I emerged from my zombirific condition and traveled to Colorado to be a part of Seth and Sarah’s wedding and to see my sister’s new baby, Mason Patrick Black.  The Day of the Knot was extraordinary for at least five reasons: 1) Seth and Sarah’s handwritten vows brought me – and many others in attendance – to tears; 2) The weather could legitimately be described as heaven sent; 3) At the reception I got the chance to catch up with a handful of our most esteemed visitors to Sudan while enjoying a plate of outrageously tasty Indian food; 4) Near dusk two of the guests stood up in the pavilion and executed an electrifying rendition of “Business Time” by Flight of the Conchords; and 5) I succeeded in not getting drunk.  However, the real revelation in Colorado wasn’t the wedding, the mountain vistas that still captivate prairie folk like me, or the medical marijuana (not that I tried it or anything).  The real eye-opener is Mason Patrick Black.  He’s my new BFF and I told him so and he replied, “Gwaagoo!” after which I’m almost certain he farted. 

      I haven’t experienced a full-on American Autumn since I lived in the Delta.   I saw pieces of it in and around Portland, Maine back in ‘07 before hastening my return to Africa, but nothing quite as uncut and cinematic as this.  Showers for days then sudden and glorious sunshine, the trees all dolled up in their changing fashions and the perfume of wet and burning leaves.  The boastful and gaudy approach of Halloween, the quickening night, the panoply of heartfelt sentiments and images that aren’t any more mature than the ones I might have composed for a high school writing assignment.  A return to innocence perhaps?  No, innocence will have to wait till death.  Coming home tends to necessitate a kind of capitulation to the mercurial nature of reality, which (surprise, surprise) doesn’t remain static while I’m off in another reality.  We’re all part of the same fabric, but it certainly doesn’t feel that way in Sudan.  It feels like the 18^th century with a few anachronisms peppering the scene – radios, cell phones, motorbikes, and toothpaste.  Or it feels like a ruined future.  Interstates and Wal-Marts got vaporized long ago and replaced by goat paths and mud huts.  Luckily, you can still get your hands on some tech-relics from that mythical age of monstrous consumerism.  Not everything was destroyed.  You can SMS your friends, so what else do you really need, right?     

     Arrival in the land of the free – the Best of the Best in Authentic Reality since 1776 – usually demands I empty my pockets of any presuppositions, then submit to the process of accepting the strangely everyday things along with the transformed and broken ones.  And this time I’ve found there’s more damage at home than ever before.  Collapsing marriages within my family, an early and bittersweet Halloween party for my youngest cousins, and no idea when I’ll see them again.  No ideas at all from the guy who doesn’t live here anymore.

      I’ll be around until the end of November.  There’s extensive and exciting paperwork before me (summaries and reports that I couldn’t pull together in the midst of my sixty children) and there’s a grad school application waiting to be written. 

     Contact me if you get the chance.  I’d loved to hear from you (and I might even send you an immediate, unsudanerated reply)!

o More than 90% of the population lives on less than a dollar a day;
o 1.2 million people in Southern Sudan are food deficit and will need assistance during this year;
o One out of seven women who become pregnant will probably die of pregnancy related complications;
o There are only 10 certified midwives in all of Southern Sudan;
o 92% of women in Southern Sudan cannot read and write;
o Only 27% of girls are in school and there are 1,000 primary school pupils per
teacher;
o 97% of the population has no access to sanitation;
o Polio, once eradicated from Southern Sudan has reemerged;
o Some of the deadliest diseases in the world are prevalent in Southern Sudan,
including Cholera, Meningitis, Rift Valley Fever, Ebola, Haemorraghic Fever and Guinea Worm; Polio has re-emerged.
o And perhaps the two statistics that capture it all: a 15 year old girl has a higher chance of dying in childbirth than of finishing school;
o The maternal mortality rate is the highest in the world and the child immunization rate the lowest.

I’ve been trying to create a link to the full report, but Firefox keeps crashing and I really don’t know why it’s so hellbent on wasting half my day. So, in light of the fact that I have a few other things to accomplish this afternoon, you can e-mail me if you’re interested in the report and I’ll forward it to you.

Take care. I love you.

The work shut down for a spell, but it’s about to restart. Two truckloads of materials arrived late last month. Santos spent three weeks in Kampala gathering the stuff and processing the necessary documents to get it out of Uganda and into Sudan. At the tale end of his trip he was robbed at gunpoint and we lost a sizable (but not crippling) amount of cash. He was heartbroken and saw the incident as partly his fault. I told him we don’t blame him for anything. The devil has been running up and down for the past several years, endeavoring to prevent the home from being built, and yet, time and time again, he stands back from his toil, horror-struck and scorched by our relentless failure to give up. The Lord’s work will go on and we’re beginning to believe that the kids will receive the gift of the new home by the 25th of December. You can pray with us that this will come to pass.

     As one group of missionaries (Emily, Adella and Christian) were preparing to head back to the States, another team arrived.  Murielle along with Sarah, Ini, Alie and Drew devised a completely insane two week love festival.  There was one sunset, early in their stay, in which love abounded so abundantly that I thought everybody might just start throwing up from the pure, unadulterated something or other that was going on.  There was hugging and laughter, feats and signs of love.  Children spun and lifted and turned upside down until they were happily worn-out, but wanting more.  The chronically delightful sky falling all over itself in reckless violets and giddy yellows.  A guitar being strummed by the nimble fingers of a kid called Tombe Justin Victory.  Inappropriately loud choruses.  Restless feet.  Off the cuff dance numbers.  Reason after reason to be alive.         

     Our extended family arrived from Nigeriorado (Nigeria-Ohio-Colorado) and this was their first Saturday in Nimule.  Members of the church brought their best dishes for a late lunch and we all got fattened up before the big welcoming ceremony that involved gifts and gospel songs, a performance by Mandela’s alter ego Lucky Boy, and a decent amount of dancing in the name of the Lord.  Upon exiting the church each and every one of us was pleased to discover a lovely conspiracy of favorable conditions, even if we weren’t consciously aware of all that went into its making:  a mildly flirtatious breeze, a setting sun hinting at the wine and plum undertones in the children’s skin, a spirit yearning for us to manifest on earth the untamed affection it experiences with the Father and the Son. 

     Murielle and I smiled at each other and laughed; we were both being embraced by several kids at once.  I think she called it a love fest.  I called it an outbreak of love.  We were infected.  We were very, very sick. 

     And we had no cure…

I feel I owe you an apology.  I haven’t written anything in months and my silence is a great source – a Parisian fountain in fact – of personal guilt.  I know I ought to be telling you about my life, but my life seems to constantly be getting in the way of the telling.  I’ve come to realize that one person isn’t capable of managing so many accounts (a school, a children’s home, a construction project), nor caring for so many children (just shy of sixty now).  I don’t mean to suggest that I’m completely alone in my ministry.  God knows I’m not flying solo.  However, the everyday operations – the immediate responsibilities – rest on my relatively thin shoulders. 

I’ve come to discover that one person in charge of so much will burn out and he’ll break his own heart and every once in a while he’ll allow himself to fall into a dreadfully precarious romance, an ill-advised invention that will lumber to its end in two months or less.   Rapid obsolescence, dismal phone calls and disconnections, trembling circuits of regret that must be cut or hidden.  He’ll try to remain cool.  He’ll try to preserve his peace of mind…

He knows he needs to receive as much as he gives, but he forgets that Jesus provides more than he could ever conceive of or contain within himself.  He forgets that the Lord of Lords has made an open invitation to his table, and his table can be set anywhere and at anytime.  He has to write down the instances where God shows up, because otherwise he’ll disremember.  He’ll quietly go about erasing the facts.   

Joseph was discharged from the hospital in early July and now he’s living with his sister’s family.  His health is far from perfect and his living conditions are far from ideal, but he has a home.  The goodness in having a safe place to rest is immeasurable, and he has this comfort (even though he lacks so much else). 

Emily, Adella, and Christian spent two and half months with us and I’ve not written a one word about them, and yet they were a great blessing to the kids and to me.  I’m ashamed at this meager praise, but I know they don’t need it.  They didn’t spend the summer in Nimule in order to receive a flowery tribute from me.  They spent it in the grip of a living God, serving his people and nurturing his earth.  (Besides teaching at the local schools and hanging out with our kids, they reforested half of South Sudan.) 

One of our girls – a choir leader with a voice as clear and incandescent as the stars above town – was nearly deceived by a married man in his twenties.  We put an end to the liaison before it became life-altering, and since then we’ve been working out what forgiveness looks like.  On a teary Monday night, we forgave her as a family, and I believe we’ve been strengthened by our head-on collision with darkness and our subsequent encounter with a bountiful and fiery grace.

There’s a big red roof on the children’s house now and it’s August and it’s been four years since we started this gig.  Watching the roof finally take shape was like viewing live footage of a dream.  It was happening in real time, but it didn’t seem real at all.  I sometimes find myself just staring at the house.  Often at dusk after I’ve turned on the generator, I’ll stand there in the slow loss of light and I’ll take in this massive building, from the verandas to the eaves.  I think about how many people have played a part in its rising.  I think about Jason and Robert and that easy camaraderie we felt in the first year.  If they were standing here now, what would they say?  They probably wouldn’t say anything; we’d gaze at the work and wonder about the lives that will be lived out inside of it, all the joy and all the sorrow of growing up, all the possibilities.  We’d be at a loss for words, which is the finest sort of failure that anyone can ever hope to achieve.