hey....back into Bonjoge. My old stomping grounds were once again trampled underneath my size 10 Harleys. For two days i was able to visit the area of western Kenya where i taught for two years. The drive into the country of kenya from up north was bumpy, very dusty and filled with bruises and even a flat tire. Typical Kenya. God certainly is to be thanked. How great it felt to visit everyone that I lived with for two years. The Chichir family, my headmaster Elias Cheriuyot and also many of my fellow teachers had the pleasure of being the recipients once again of my sarcastic humor. I was the recipient of their great fellowship an company again. Great ugali, a wonderful wedding ( Congrats Elly ) and what a terrible drive back to finish it.....accept ....naw. It all was a blessing. Even the bumpy Matatu ride back into nairobi. The Lord was generous to me. Matthew

LIFE in Torit..... November 2007

“ A Vision with a Task makes a Missionary”

Lord, may this be the case. “ Torit, is becoming the small Babylon.” Said Julius, a local Kenyan worker who I saw reading on his own the book of Thessalonians.

How right he is. At night here in Torit you can hear the drunkenness and debauchery. It’s everywhere. Even last night we were all praying here in Torit. Phil and Linda, The Nobles, Meghan, Kelly and I, when we heard the outside bell ring. Phil returned about five minutes later and said, “ There is a young lady, saying she is looking for Matthew Lovelace.!” I am thinking, OK. Hmmmm.

I went outside in the darkness with Phil and sure enough, there was a young, pretty high school aged girl, looking quite intoxicated and lost. She kept repeating my name and emphasizing that she wanting me for……. Eventually, we convinced her that she needed to return home and not be hanging outside the gate. She did, then returned shortly later that evening. It is sobering the level of need for the young in Torit .

A day later Linda Byler and I were walking to the local Torit Hospital. There is an AIM doctor from Uganda coming this next week to perform eye cataract surgeries. As we were outside the hospital I saw a young teacher from the Torit Day School shouting my name from a far. He came close, grasped my hand and immediately I could see that Vincent was extremely intoxicated. I took his hand, kept looking into his eyes and asking him how he was…really was? It was only maybe four in the afternoon. Literally two hours after school had just ended. And this guy was already smashed sadly! I have noticed other teachers as well leaving school, then returning with bloodshot eyes after lunch. Sad. Anyway, the teacher and I talked a little then he left me, returning to his home. He boasted then about the four beers he had and said as he left, “ Matthew, we are preparing for battle, we are prepared to fight!” Perhaps he was a former soldier. I would say though that his attitude reflects a growing number of young men around me.

The Torit day school resembles a bombed out collection of large outhouses.

Well, not exactly, but close. The area itself has about eight main buildings. Each has a nasty, gray color to the outside and all are very outdated. This contrasts to the extreme with the Torit Primary elementary School that is brand new, named after the late Sudanese leader John Garang and is beautifully constructed. How this happened? I would reply in Arabic “ Ana ma aruf?’ I have no idea. Sudan!

One of my prayers recently has been immersing myself into the Sudanese culture. Language, relationship building, and teaching. Africans and African educational leadership highly values the sciences. When I met with the Deputy Educational Leader of the Government of the South Sudan, James Amoko, I joked that my father was a science and biology teacher! And then I said, “ Yeah, he didn’t pass any of those science genes onto me though!” Mr. Amoko looked sternly, though not angrily at me, and stated bluntly…“ that is too bad, he should have!” End of discussion. Thankfully, the Lord has given me the chance to be persuasive and persistent in seeking that which He puts on my heart. God opened the doors into the school system amidst the initial refusal of two men. The Government of South Sudan Educational Deputy Minister, and then the Principal of the Torit School itself. Without the Lord’s help, those would be two pretty big no-no’s into working. When Phil had originally met with these men at first many weeks earlier their initial reactions were…not good toward a missionary/foreign teacher “infiltrating” their school systems. Especially, a teacher with no science background!

I love having my back against the wall. In the sit down discussions/interrogations with both men I was honest, forthright and truly trusting that Christ could remove any boundaries that laid in the hearts of these two important men. But yeah, I was sweating a little bit. I asked God to allow me to be a trailblazer for His work here in Torit. As AIM, we need inroads into the local community here of Torit. Teaching is the first step into the city really. Now, I have a job and base of work, acceptance, and relation to the community. I fill a tangible need and a respected position at that. We can continue to lift up and pray now for the salvation of the men within the school system. Mr. Perligreno as the Torit Head teacher has since been very welcoming to me and our relationship has blossomed. God, God, God all the way!

I of course am not certified in any science field. Yet, I had been praying much recently over becoming a more vital part of teaching. This meant looking into a science field for me. Biology is about plants and animals right, how hard can that be! So I borrowed a copy of the Sudanese Secondary Education Curriculum book and copied out the entire syllabus outline for years one and two. I then prayed about asking into teaching the field of Biology. I finished writing, reviewed everything related the Biology field, then walked into Mr. Perligreno’s office and approached him with the syllabus booklet. I offered to teach Biology! And thankfully, he accepted. A new challenge for the coming year.

The Torit staff is split in two sections. The teaching staff is half Arabic, meaning teachers from the Northern Sudan ( Khartoum ) and the other half is Sub-Saharan African instructors. The Sudanese curriculum is in shambles. There are NO books to be used by the students. And there may be two hundred or more students. The past few days after returning from Ikotos my entire task was to understand the Sudanese system of education by asking questions of the Deputy Headmaster and the staff. To my surprise, this only complicated the situation. No teacher is even sure of when the exams will show up. The staff of about thirty have/share maybe one textbook for the entire school!

Further confusing the situation is that the law requires an Arabic curriculum and English curriculum. So literally half of my teaching co-workers are Northern Arabic speaking, sent by the Northern government to instruct the Southern Black students in Arabic. Another motivation for me to immerse myself in the local Arabic. So there is an Arabic stream of students and an English speaking and learning stream of students. Learning Arabic now is a great value. I do believe that part of truly loving people in another culture is learning the language.

I have made this my goal to be done so completely, even to the point of walking around the town with my notepad and memory cards for using not just Arabic, but funny, Swahili as well. The rest of the Torit Day School teaching staff comes from Uganda, Kenya, and nearby areas of the South Sudan. Outreach is right in front of me now!

One of the difficulties that we have encountered to a degree here in the Sudan is developing a strong, outreach mindset with the Africa Inland Church leadership.

So much of the local AIC leaders are interested only in local church planting and missionary staffing at their local institutions. Adding to the problem I believe is the AIC concentration on their own people groups and local areas. Phil has felt this “pressure.” When the AIC leaders discovered that a new, young missionary teacher was coming into the Sudan their was an overwhelming sense of agreement, made without my consultation that I would be “placed” in Ikotos. The local AIC leaders were very, very much desiring the new, young missionary man ( me) to be in Ikotos. My opinions and heart felt leadings were not in the discussions. Phil courageously stated to the AIC Church leader of the Eastern Equitorea State of the Sudan that he couldn’t just demand and mandate that an AIM missionary go to a local place. But that God would call that person to the location that He willed. Many of the AIC South Sudan leadership staff were themselves former soldiers. The military mind set goes deep, even amongst the believers in the country. So a personal prayer request of mine has been the AIC Torit Church to see the VALUE of outreach. Not just church planting and local tribal school ties…. This needs to develop for true reconciliation.

After arriving back into Torit I immediately returned to the Torit day School. Phil and I met with Mr. Perligreno, the Headmaster and we clarified the nature of my work. We set up a contract agreement that he thankfully accepted without questions. Seeing faith in action amazes me!

More about Ikotos.... the blind & the lame

November, 2007

Ikotos was also amazing for the following

I met a young, single blind man named Willie. He stopped by in the morning and once sunny AM I took the liberty to describe for him what colors feel like.

Black people are the color of the heat of the sun, white people are the color of coolness. We laughed then played thumb wars together. God has blessed me by allowing me to see; How does Willie See? Laughter is definitely healing to the soul mom and dad and family. Willie laughed and laughed at all my antics and botched Arabic numbers, and just joking around in English.

Ambrose, a man who lives in Ikotos met me. Ambrose has legs which were born deformed. He cannot walk. Each day, he crawls on his two arms throughout the town and also to the huts and house where we stayed each morning. He knows English well and one morning we got into a discussion on singleness. Why am I single? Ambrose wondered why I had not yet married? I like to think the Lord will provide, but why no now, I honestly feel He has work that will reward the Kingdom still as a single man. He wants me to be.

Ambrose is single because he is lame. He cannot walk. Women do not want a man that cannot work and support them, he is not valued as masculine. But he is so masculine, a tough, Godly man that must crawl on hands and knees in the hot, Sudan sun every day. So we talked about purity, singleness, and our desires for a mate. But wow, are perspectives were as different as our skin colors and life experiences. Very sobering. “Lord, thank you for the use of my legs.”

Reverend Tobiolo shared with us the deadly encounters with he Lord’s resistance Army. A few years ago the LRA attacked his local Sudanese village. They destroyed the area and murdered many of the people of Ikotos. Tobiolo said that after witnessing the bloody murders his faith was almost gone. Only his wife brought him back, back into an attitude of forgiveness and reconciliation. How can I not quickly forgive a Sudanese police officer that humiliates me for fun. Tobiolo has to wrestle with the complete murder of a group of friends and family. The stories that many of these people LIVED is heartbreaking.

Snakes bite. Scorpions sting. Thankfully, I have never experienced this first hand. But two local Ikotos people did visit our home while we were there after experiencing these dangers. The local missionary family, Jordan and Andrea Scotland, have a battery that can be used as a sting/bite shocker. How exactly it works??? No idea. But it does work by administering a shock that radiated through the person’s infected leg or arm and helps remove the toxicity. Medically it is said to be not possible, but after witnessing the treatment first hand two times. Once I was the battery charger guy, I believe in it’s power.

Events of Nov 15, 2007 .. Journey to Ikotos

Events of Nov. 15, 2007 Journey to Ikotos:

Romans 8:28 “ All things work out for good for those who are called.”

Where Lord do you want me? How many times had I asked that question? After this past week God has answered numerous prayers and spoken clearly as to His path for this stage of my life. After a year of praying and communicating over the assignment possibilities in both Ikotos ( rural Sudan ) and Torit I finally had the chance to see in person the Ikotos area and community.

As with any journey anywhere into Sudan the time was exciting, confusing and slightly unnerving. Ikotos is a small, market centered community that has a small but growing Africa Inland Church mission’s school for the local Sudanese community. As the school is associated with the African Inland Church, many of the local pastors were strongly pushing for another Kuwanja ( Arabic for white person ) to be the teacher, or head teacher at the school. As I have been looking at returning into Africa, and knowing my skills as a teacher, Ikotos was heavy on my heart and mind. Much of my prayer life the past year focused on whether the Lord was asking me to join a rural community again in Africa and help start and run this school.

On the 15^th of November we flew into Ikotos. We took a small, chartered missionary plane and left Torit. The flight itself was short in duration and allowed me to view the whole of the countryside. Much of this area of the very South Sudan had, at one time, been completely run by the Lord’s Resistance Army of Northern Uganda. So much of the Southern Sudan has been engulfed in two separate and terrible conflicts. The LRA and the Civil War. Many large hills and mountains dotted the area and the beauty of the colors will hopefully be clear in the photos. It was a short, but beautiful flight.

Ikotos is a small town set into the local mountains. We arrived and I stayed in the Tukul hut of Meghan Baird, an AIM short term teacher in Ikotos. Meghan, along with Kelly Miller and Linda Byler, were subjected to my male presence for the better half of four days. And all are still alive and well as I write this letter from Torit. As a guy I had been wrestling with the Lord as to my presence still as a missionary in the Sudan. Torit was home, but I also needed peace in my heart over visiting Ikotos and seeing the school. It was a very unexpected, and to an extent, humiliating confrontation with a power wanting Sudanese security official in Ikotos that reminded me of Christ like humility.

On Saturday, Linda, Kelly, Meghan and I walked to the local, small police district headquarters in Ikotos. We brought our identification papers, the ladies their passports and me the photocopies. The man sat us down, smiled often, then began writing out the passport information in a little, old fashioned notepad book.

No problem, he writes, we smile, we go…on into the day. However, after he wrote down the passport numbers he then looked at the one young man in the audience, me, and his turned red. “ You my friend, where is your passport!”

Passport! I’m thinking, “ My passport, we’ll you got the photocopy right there man, what do you mean?” It was not dawning on me, with all my personal and interpersonal skills ( spiritual gifts anyone ) that he was ticked! But I had done nothing ‘wrong’ so I was struggling with why this man’s blood pressure was becoming clearly evident through his scalp. Along with us the Ikotos head AIC Pastor, Tobiolo came to escort us. Thank the Lord for that development. Soon, the angry Ikotos security official was speaking in Arabic with the local, Ikotos pastor; Reverend Tobiolo is a very Godly man, well respected in Ikotos and was there speaking now on my behalf. The Sudanese police chief finally relented and allowed the three women to go back to the huts and collect my passport.

My emotions. I apologized profusely, was genuinely sorry that now there was a strained relationship in the local area between the police and missionaries. He tried repeatedly to humiliate me, in front of the other four people, and then gave grunted permission for the women to go. “ My friend, if you are lying to me….”

His threats all followed this train of communication. When the ladies left reverend Tobiolo asked for his permission to hear me. For ten minutes I finally expressed everything that he seemed to be accumulating for eight weeks of time in Africa.

“ I am sorry,” I said. “ But I did nothing intentionally wrong, and have also spent one year, praying for the Sudan, praying for HOW the Lord will use me to help rebuild this country! Your country! I have left my family, my schools, my house, my car, everything I knew.!” I continued like this for about five to six minutes and instead of digging myself a hole I seemed to come across finally as a person. I quickly shared my entire life, ( basically ) emphasizing the Lord’s guiding me into the Sudan, my heart for his people and the sacrifice to just come. His eyes looked everywhere but at mine, he at times pointed his pen at my face but always kept quiet. It wasn’t anger, but genuine hurt I felt.

Twenty minutes later the ladies returned, with the passport. The police man took the passport, reopened the book and wrote down the exact same information he had written out earlier. He was surprised to find that I wasn’t eighteen years old!

His entire thinking was that I was not even twenty year old, just a young, punk from the America that needed a good kicking in Sudanese respect. Now. As our Father works this is how the story ended. After writing out the passport information, I started joking with the police officer. Within a few minutes the following things happened: He started to smile, he began laughing, he took my hand and we walked outside together, hand in hand! In Africa culture, men hold hands as comrades and friends, personal touch between men in this way is a strong symbol for friendship. We parted as respected friends. Only God could answer those sweaty, mental prayers for help. Lord willingly, I may again see him.

The remainder of the time in Ikotos was eventful afterwards more for spiritual clarity then mental wrangling and waging with a police officer. The headmaster of the Ikotos AIC School is a man named Job Otieno. Job is a Lou man from Kenya. I immediately liked him when we met and over the next few days we had much time together. My Swahili started to get a lot more use all over again. Thankfully, the home stay in Mathias Akabati and Bianca Akabati’s house made all the language of Swhaili fresh in my mind. Job felt called by the Lord to go to the Sudan and help rebuild a school. He didn’t know for sure where, until he providentially ran into Phil Byler on a trip to Juba, Sudan. The men met, spoke, then traveled together. Then, as often happens in Africa, they both got stuck together on a terribly muddy road. It was here that Job and Phil communicated over the need for the Ikotos AIC school to have a leader. Job felt this was the school and area the Lord wanted for him.

For how long I had been praying for Ikotos. Now, to be here in person, to meet the local people, pastor, and now headteacher…and to miss the ministry in Torit. That was everything. The local Africa Inland Church leaders strongly pushed Phil Byler to send me, on command almost, to Ikotos. After visiting the area, I am so thankful for God placing me into the heart of the Torit school system, community, and missionary family here. Also, Meghan Baird is doing a wonderful job at the school, learning the Arabic and blending into the community in great ways. The Lord clearly showed that my new ministry and location is the city of Torit. Not the rural, secluded county of Ikotos. That is spiritual clarity!

Finally, I feel confident that the Lord is moving me on. And not only that, but God used the confrontation with the police man, to allow Linda and I to talk, really talk. I was upset, and still unsettled personally from all of the travel and newness and ‘freedom’ everything. That was the greatest blessing of the whole trip. To now be in true fellowship and friendship with the AIM Co-ordinator.

The Bylers and I will be staying together in Torit. Partnering together in Torit. And now, this is finally a home and family to me. God definitely worked ALL these things out for good. It just took patience, praying, roughing up and some small humility pills taking.