Goodbyes in Gumbo

      Hello Everyone! I hope you are all having a joyful and peaceful Advent and are getting pumped for Christmas! This past weekend our family here in Gumbo got a little smaller as we said goodbye to two dear friends, SLM Tom Kelly, and the great mustached man from India, Robin one of our fellow volunteers. It was very sad to see them go but I am very thankful for the time I was able to spend serving with these two selfless and holy men. Since Mike and I arrived in Gumbo at the end of August Tom and Robin have helped us get acclimated to life here and have been our closest friends. If you compared our life here thus far to a bicycle Tom was our training wheels and Robin was our father who fixed everything we broke along the way including school bells, doors, fence gates (it’s a long story… but I drove a motorbike into it.), and the list goes on and on unfortunately (Mike and I are apparently really good at breaking stuff around the compound, its one of our many gifts).

The Boys

          Now we have no dad and no training wheels so its time to see how we do on our own which will be exciting yet I am sure will entail some falls here and there but such is life. It is also getting to that point on mission where we have been here for some time but there is still plenty of time left on the clock. It has been difficult to get over that hump and stay focused on mission especially as we have entered the holiday season during which home has been on my mind often. Yet the Lord has really blessed me and helped me to refocus on why I came here and on trying to be the best missionary that I can possibly be. This has changed my feelings of impatience and exhaustion into feelings of peace and joy in the fact that there are still many days ahead of me with many opportunities to serve God’s people here in South Sudan. I look forward to the many adventures to come.

            At the secondary school we have one exam left and then the school year is finished. The exam results have been much better than last term’s so I am glad to announce that most of our students will be promoted to the next grade in January, thanks be to God! The first few weeks following Christmas will be mostly spent in preparation for the 2014 Academic Year. The secondary school will be welcoming many new students, as we will have Senior 1, Senior 2, and Senior 3 next year opposed to just Senior 1 and 2. This means I will have to put my African name-memorizing cap back on as we welcome the new students and will be getting back into the routine of teaching everyday. But for now I am excited about having a short break from the classroom and celebrating Christmas and New Years with the community here and the people of Gumbo. May God bless you all during this time of great joy!

For Robin's departure from Gumbo I decided to grow a sweet stache in his honor...I will never be able to compete with him, and thankfully this bad boy is coming off very soon.

Don Bosco Senior Secondary School is the place to be!

          Hello everyone! So as I mentioned in my last post we are currently preparing for final exams at the secondary school, which begin the second week of December. This also means that it is about that time to start thinking about the 2014 academic year. I was given the task of making the new brochure and an official Don Bosco Senior Secondary School Facebook page to market our school as we try to bring in new students. So if you are on Facebook please like our page, I was lucky enough to snag the url facebook.com/donboscoseniorsecondaryschool  so you can find it that way our search Don Bosco Senior Secondary School Juba. Both the Facebook page and the brochure require photographs so yesterday I went around with Mike’s camera (thanks Mike!) and took some pictures. We also took class pictures and a whole school picture. In this post I wanted to share some of them with you so you can see for yourselves!

            This is one of our whole school pictures including our Senior 1’s, Senior 2’s, myself (white guy on the right), Michael (white guy on the left with the beard), Fr. David (front left), Fr. Jacob (front and center), and Brother Chisomo (front right).

        I also took some pictures of a few of the students pretending to do experiments with our new lab equipment even though the laboratory isn’t set up yet for next year. They were really good actors!

       On the left is one of my Senior 2 students Nyoat and on the right one of my other students Paulino. They are really convincing.

        Here we have Nyoat, Rebecca, Gatkuoth, and Denis, they are all Senior 2 as well. It took my over two months but I think I finally have all the names down!

        Lastly, here is a picture of some of students enjoying themselves after school, most South Sudanese people don’t smile in pictures so I had to keep saying to them “Smile! Smile! Show everyone you love going to Don Bosco so they will come join us next year! Don Bosco Senior Secondary School is the place to be!” It kind of worked, but still not as much teeth as I would have liked but its all good.                           

If you happen to see this post and are looking for a great place to grow in faith and knowledge, join us at Don Bosco Senior Secondary School next year! God Bless!

Building Relationships

          Hello everyone! It has been over a month since my last blog post so I thought I would sit down and finally give you all an update on how life is going here in South Sudan. For the most part things haven’t really changed since my last post as far as my schedule goes.  However, things have definitely been interesting! I am finally settling in to life here and the once very foreign land of South Sudan is beginning to feel a lot like home. I am settling into my role as an English teacher as well and am building strong relationships with my students, which has been a great blessing. In the past I have been on short-term missions to Mexico, Ecuador, and France and they were great but after only two and a half months of being in South Sudan I can see how different they were from this experience. On short-term missions you get to go spend some time with people of another culture for a week or so and it’s a beautiful thing but you don’t really have enough time to build relationships. I have been blessed with the chance to become friends with many of my students and other people in the community and it has been a great joy.

          In other school news, two weeks ago Brother Chisomo (one of the Salesian brothers who lives here and works at the secondary school as well) and I went into Juba to represent Don Bosco Senior Secondary School at a South Sudan Ministry of Education meeting. It was a great experience to see how passionate the government is about improving education here and the Ministry gave us some great ideas for ways to continue moving forward with our own school. Some of the projects we will be working on include making a budget for the school and implementing the new Ministry of Education online student database called “Anna Fi Inni” which is Arabic for “I am here”. The program’s main use is for monitoring attendance across South Sudan’s schools and they also started a program to help promote women’s education, which is great. It has definitely been exciting to witness a brand new country’s initial development firsthand and I look forward to continuing my work at the secondary school. The academic year ends in about a month so we are busy with finishing up with the term and soon we will begin preparation for final exams which I can’t believe is already right around the corner.

          It is definitely going to be a bizarre experience celebrating the winter months here considering it is going to be the opposite of winter in America weather-wise here pretty soon. From what I have heard from everyone around here the rainy season does not usually last this long so the dry season should be upon us very soon. The dry season can take its time getting here for all I care though. I am enjoying having a few extra weeks of nice weather! Anyways that is about all I can think of at the moment but I will try to be more frequent with these posts in the future. Enjoy the last week of the Year of Faith and God Bless!

Month of Mission / Oktoberfest

“Faith is God’s precious gift, which opens our mind to know and love him. He wants to enter into relationship with us and allow us to participate in his own life in order to make our life more meaningful, better and more beautiful. God loves us! Faith, however, needs to be accepted, it needs our personal response, the courage to entrust ourselves to God, to live his love and be grateful for his infinite mercy. It is a gift, not reserved for a few but offered with generosity. Everyone should be able to experience the joy of being loved by God, the joy of salvation! It is a gift that one cannot keep to oneself, but it is to be shared. If we want to keep it only to ourselves, we will become isolated, sterile and sick Christians. The proclamation of the Gospel is part of being disciples of Christ and it is a constant commitment that animates the whole life of the Church.” –Pope Francis (Message for World Mission Day 2013)

            Pope Francis has proclaimed this October as a Month of Mission and I feel very blessed to be a part of this in a special way by serving here in South Sudan.  In his message for World Mission Day Pope Francis continues to talk of the new evangelization and how together as members of Christ’s church we are all called to spread the Good News with joy.  We can set the world on fire, not alone, but together backed by the Church: “The Church – I  repeat once again – is not a relief organization, an enterprise or an NGO, but a community of people, animated by the Holy Spirit, who have lived and are living the wonder of the encounter with Jesus Christ and want to share this experience of deep joy, the message of salvation that the Lord gave us. It is the Holy Spirit who guides the Church in this path.” 

            This is something I know that I can never lose sight of as I continue to serve here in Gumbo.  Already there have been many times where I have thought about how nice it would be to be home right now but then I remember why I came here.  Because Christ has given me so much and has brought me so much joy and peace and I want to share that with others, especially those in most need.  I have been given so many opportunities to grow in my faith and encounter Christ due to my strong Catholic upbringing (thanks Mom and Dad!) and I want to share what I have learned with the people of South Sudan. 

            Another great thing about the Month of Mission is that it is in my favorite month, October!  My fellow SLM’s (Mike and Tom) and I have already had many conversations about how we miss fall with a great passion.  The leaves, Oktoberfest beer, and of course the great weather.  Here it is getting hotter with every week but we have many other things to be joyous about so its all good.  October is also a month of many great Saints.  We have already celebrated the feasts of St. Therese (I just finished reading “Story of a Soul” which was absolutely amazing! I would like to thank my fellow SLM’s Holly and Caitlin for recommending it to me on orientation!) and also of St. Francis who will always have a special place in my heart and spirituality due to my four great years at Franciscan University.  Later this month we will also celebrate the feast of St. Teresa of Avila (October 15^th), who happens to be my birthday saint!

            Also this week we are having end of term 2 examinations at the secondary school so please pray for all of our students.  They have been working very hard and it has been great to see their desire to learn and succeed.  Anyways, Happy Oktoberfest! Happy Month of Mission! And God Bless! 

Fr. Patrick, Pray for us!

          On September 16^th Fr. Patrick Soreng, Salesian priest and principal of Don Bosco Senior Secondary School passed away at the age of 61.  Two Mondays ago Tom and I were walking to morning mass when we heard that Father has been found unconscious in his room and not too long after it was confirmed that he had died.  We found out later that it had been of a heart attack.  Though I only knew Fr. Patrick for a couple weeks before he passed away I feel very blessed to have been able to spend time getting to know him.  He was such as faithful and selfless man of God and his passing hit the community hard even though he had only been in Gumbo for a few months.  In that short time he had made a huge impact on everyone here and all had grown to love him.  Working at the secondary school Michael and I were able to witness his love for the youth firsthand.  Fr. Patrick was a true Salesian and gave all of himself to the students at Don Bosco.  He believed in them more than they believed in themselves and devoted everyday to letting them know he loved them and wanted the best for them.

        The week of his death was probably the longest week of my life.  Not because we were necessarily always that busy even though there was lots of work to be done with the planning of his funeral but purely because it was just a lot to take in.  I think the day of Father’s death had to have felt like a week in itself.  Yet with all tough situations God’s light shined in Gumbo more than ever during that long week.  It was so beautiful to see everyone come together after the death of Fr. Patrick to honor his life.  The night before his funeral and burial a few of us drove out to the gravesite to help dig Father’s grave.  When we arrived most of the digging was finished but I was able to witness something amazing.  Among the gravediggers were a handful of students from the secondary school.  They had come to the graveyard at 9pm on a Tuesday night to help dig the grave of their principal.  I don’t think I have ever heard of anything like that happening in my life and I will never forget that night.  

          That Wednesday Fr. Patrick’s funeral was celebrated at St. Theresa’s Cathedral in Juba followed by his burial in Rejaf, South Sudan.  He was buried along with other religious of the Archdiocese of Juba though he had only been in Juba for two months.  Yet in only two months he had impacted the community here with selflessness and a joy that will stay with the people of Gumbo and the Salesian community here forever.  I am convinced that with the loss of Fr. Patrick we have gained an intercessor in Heaven.  So Fr. Patrick Soreng, please pray for us!

                                                                                       Fr. Patrick Soreng, sdb