May 31, 2012- Drilling Our First Well

We are in the process of drilling our first well! We are currently about 110 feet down using air compression drilling. Every morning we have a time of devotion, worship and prayer. Before we pray, we sing this song:

You are holy x12
You are mighty x12
You are healer x12

It was awesome to sing with these men on the drill crew. When voices join together here in worship, it is a beautiful thing. This song before our prayer was the sweetest moment of the trip so far.

Robbie and I have been laughing about the food they feed us. At first, we were pretty convinced that we weren't going to be fed our first day. We started counting the Clif bars we had in our packs to determine how many days we could survive. Luckily, they fed us that first night, but it was late. The food in the field is consistent. Beans and posho are two common dishes here. Posho is a hot, moist, sticky, dense bread that they use to eat the other food (it acts like a utensil). So if you have beans and posho, you break off a piece of posho with your hand to scoop up the beans. There are no utensils in the field.

Last night, we showed the Jesus Film. Robbie and I were exhausted, so we only lasted about 40 minutes into the movie. We wanted to stay and watch it, but we were still jet-lagged. The Jesus Film is a movie about the life of Jesus, and it has been translated into hundreds of languages and is shown all around the world. When I went to Haiti in 2010, we showed the Jesus Film translated into Haitian Creole four or five times. Haitians are very dramatic and expressive, so their responses to the film were similar. From my experience so far, the South Sudanese people that we have met are less expressive.

I feel very welcomed here. The children are very confused by the color of my skin, and it makes them afraid of me or shy. I wish I could speak the local language, Bari, so that I could talk to them. But for now, the only phrases we know, "good morning", "good afternoon", "how are you?" and "what's your name?" will have to do.

In the field, we bathe outside with a plastic shallow tub. We bathe at night in the moonlight, and people can potentially (do) see us bathing, so I wear a bathing suit when I bathe. Because of my Western mentality and my introvert nature, I crave privacy. There is little privacy here in the field, and it bothers me. But I know that the Lord is working on my heart to make me more like Him. As we prepare to go to sleep, I have plenty of things to be thankful for. I am safely in South Sudan and am helping drill my first water well. I have a host of family and friends that are lifting up prayers on my behalf, and I have a Lord who has conquered all things. I am thankful to be here; now the adventure begins.

-Brady