My Cold Shower

For all you Scrubs fans, the title is meant to resemble the title of a Scrubs episode… they are all ‘My [Something]’.

So! I guess I am kind of keeping with the goal of writing once a week! The work here in Wau has begun to pick up, and I am passed the stage of 1 week, or the length of missions I have done in the past! It is starting to feel more routine and like a home instead of a short term mission trip or vacation, where I know I will be going back to the US soon. I have been teaching a class of religion once a week, OT history. I will begin teaching 3 sections of math and 3 of English, in addition to 2 sections of Microsoft powerpoint. I also had my first adlib math class yesterday! They said the teacher was not there, so I went in, looked at their notebooks and went from there. I taught about area, volume and unit conversion. It went really well, considering the second official class I have taught in my life was a spur of the moment thing.

My favorite part about life in Wau is the schedule I have: The morning consists of daily mass and Morning Prayer before breakfast. Then there is a morning and afternoon work session with lunch in the middle, running from 8:00A to 5:00P. The afternoon has youth center from 5-7, where I usually go to play basketball, badminton or on the playground. After youth center I have about an hour to read before evening prayer, rosary and then dinner. I sleep soon after dinner! (One of the reasons the blog has been lacking is dinner is usually around 8:30P at the earliest, and finishes after 9:00P, so by the time I get ready for bed, it is 10:00 and I have to wake up in 8 hours! So there is not much time in the evenings, when I do my best writing!).

The biggest challenge is the language! There is so much I want to say, but I do not speak Sudanese Arabic… or any Arabic for that matter! I try charades, but that can only get a man so far. Many people speak English, but the kids I work with do not. The positive side of this is, everyone is always friendly about it, and patient with me… and watching the new guy attempt Arabic always brings a good laugh and a smile to peoples faces!

However, it is now time to discuss more important matters. My cold shower. I have very reliable running water that comes from a shower head, but it is not heated. It is common knowledge than we all do our best thinking in the shower… as is perfectly portrayed in the Hampton Inn commercials from a few years back. So here’s what I was-a-thinking: But first, let me paint 2 contrasting pictures for you: First- Dan comes home from a hot day of work, I was just playing basketball for the past hour, I made the 10 minute walk home from the youth center feeling great, loving the community, seeing all the kids out playing soccer on the field as I pass by. I have about two hours until evening prayer, so I decide to take a shower. I think to myself, “SCORE!! NO hot water. It will feel so refreshing to jump in the shower and clean up before reading, prayer and rosary!” Life is good. Second- Dan comes home from a day of work, I was out playing on the playground with the kids because it is raining, and no one is really playing any sports with balls. I head home in the car because, again, it is raining. I am loving life looking out at the houses and seeing some kids in uniform still coming home from school. I have my afternoon tea with the other volunteers and see that there is about an hour to read before evening prayer and rosary, so I do. After dinner, as the clock hits 9:00 I am thinking about bed… but wait! I have not showered yet! I look into the bathroom with a grimace on my face, and tell myself to ‘man up’. An internal battle rages within me… should I ever shower again in life? At that moment, the option of living without showering seems pretty good. But I know I have to shower and clean up. So I do. I silently ease into the shower as I am crying inside while asking ‘why?! WHY?!’ After a few minutes I get used to the water and it is not so bad.

After I am used to the water and on days when the shower gets the best of me I always think of this analogy: How incredibly similar is my relationship with the cold shower like my prayer life?! Hear me out: So, when I am feeling great, I want to do nothing else other than pray. I cannot wait to get home or go into the chapel and pray. It is truly the highlight of my day when I am in the right mood! However, I hit those days sometimes when I am having a hard time. I hit those days when my mood feels a little ‘colder’ and the thought of prayer makes me grimace and wonder if I should ever pray again! We all have those days when we do not want to pray, when other things are on our minds and we tell ourselves that we are too busy to take the time to pray. But in those times, we need the prayer even more! We have to take the time and make the effort to talk to God and tell him what is on your mind! I feel like in 5 minutes of quiet prayer and reflection, God can tell me more than I can concoct in my head in 5 hours! And that is precisely why it is in those times of distress or discomfort that we have to pray all the more! I think that is one of my greatest weaknesses when it comes to prayer… So during the good times, I have to pray that I will stay strong in the bad times! J

Once I have finished using my $1000 dollar bottle of baby shampoo (I didn’t bring shampoo, and all they had available here was baby shampoo for a ridiculous price… and I have to go to a pharmacy to get it, not just a regular store… Any readers who went to Ghana with me? This might seem like de ja vu to you!) I lay down to listen to my three songs (Country Roads, John Denver or Keep On Loving You, REO Speedwagon; Lord, I Need You, Chris Tomlin; and Hosanna, Hillsong) before I go to bed and realize life is pretty darn good if I am blessed enough to have access to consistent running water!

This was a bit longer… But I hope you made it through the whole thing! J

Love Always!

Now Time for a few pictures of my room and where I live! :)

 My room: Complete with an A+ mosquito net (no holes, and is very long to tuck under my bed with out having to worry about me kicking it out at night!)

My Building: You cna see some of the fruit trees that are growing. We have passion fruit, custard apples (my favorite), guava, papaya and limes. 

Putting the Dan In South Sudan

WOW! I finally made it… to WAU!

It was quite the journey. For a guy who has traveled quite a bit… I would have to say this was one of the most interesting and longest adventures I have been on! So, how does one get from Malvern PA to Wau, South Sudan (SS) you ask? I will summarize-

First, the logisticals:

Drive from Malvern to Philly airport. Fly from Philly to DC, layover in the airport for 3 hours, fly for 13.5 hours to Addis Ababa, layover in Addis Ababa for 3 more hours (fun side note: our ticket said departure time was 1050, but boarding at 14:45… this caused some confusion later! …our bags arrived 4 hours later on a different flight after sitting in the rain in Addis for that time). Then fly for 2 hours to Juba, SS. Once we were all in Juba, we stayed at the Salesian site in Gumbo for 2 nights while we had a little orientation and learned some basics about SS and the mission here. Then, Wednesday morning Steve and I woke up at 6 to make our way to Wau, but because they are redoing the run way in Wau, we flew into a town called Aweil. Once in Aweil, we got in a taxi with a supreme court justice and a nice lady and drove 3 hours to Wau where we were greeted by father, who drove just Steve and I to the Wau site! So, it was very tiring, and not the easiest to get to… but I am here! And I could not be more excited for what is to come! J Total time: 41 hours of physical journeying over 3 days. Luckily, although I was tired, I was not out of it, because I was able to share this journey with 5 amazing SLMs, who made even a layover in Addis after a 13 hour flight seem fabulous! J

Second, the REAL reason I am here:

This one is a lot shorter. It is because ‘I said I CAN because I trust in God’. If for even one second I would have doubted myself… I might as well not have even packed! Okay, so that was a bit dramatic. But really, when we say “I can’t” we will never get anything done. How many times do we just say, “I can’t do that”, “it’s not for me” or “I’m not able to”? All those things are just us hiding behind the reality that we are scared to try and put our trust in God. In scripture, we are told over and over again that we can do anything if we put our trust in the Lord! Example: Peter walking on water. He said ‘I can’, and then walked on the water… As soon as he started to say ‘I can’t’, he fell in! Of course, we all know the end of the story, The Lord saved him as He always does… but think about it, how often do we stop having faith and saying ‘I can’t’? Or, even worse, never take that step out onto the water because we never say I can to begin with!? The important thing is the trust in the Lord part… Just saying I can, and then jumping in will cause you to sink… so really, it is more of a faithful “We can!” not an “I can” (We being you and the Lord).

So, to sum up: Don’t ever tell yourself you can’t do something. It is a lie. If we have true faith and trust in God fully, we can do anything. If you hear the voice telling you that you cannot do something, quote the famous John Locke (the Lost character, NOT the historical character)… “Don’t tell me what I can and cannot do!” It has been a very tiring 4 days of travel, but I am so blessed to be where I am here in Wau because the community has done so much to ensure that I feel at home and am able to catch up with myself after all this traveling!

I will be sure to update as soon as I start working, for now I have been acclimating myself to the different centers and projects they have before I fully begin working with them! 

I love you all!
~Dan