AIC Church Yei

    Yesterday we walked about 20 minutes to get to the AIC church (Africa Inland Church)... So many little children!... It is held in a relatively new  brick and cement  building situated amongst the mud huts on the south of Yei. There is no glass in the windows, but behind the security bars are nice wooden shutter doors. Many rows of close spaced teak topped long stools are provided for the seating. (teak is used for everything here... roof trusses, fencing rails, furniture)
     Scheduled to start at 9am... we arrived at about 9:30 and the preliminry singing was well under way. A petrol generator out the back powers the Amplifier and Yamaha piano... we were very glad the speakers were not any larger... "evangelism by amplification" seems to be there ear shattering method!!
The children sung and danced as the Africans love to do, and we sang quite a number of Arabic songs, to the same old familiar tunes  from home. The preaching was good... Peace with God through Jesus Christ... Spoken in Arabic, translated to English. Other parts of the service were spoken in English and translated to Arabic.... More loud music to accompany another Sunday School item, and we were on our way out, shaking hands with EVERYONE in a long line which doubles back on itself. The people are very friendly and welcoming... we 4 were the only whites there out of about what ended up being a capacity crown of probably 150. The little children seemed to take in turns to come and sit alongside us, whilst the slightly older ones nursed the babies throughout the crowd.
    The primary translater was Walter, a well educated man, who works here in the Radio project, and lectures at the Teachers college next door.
They will have another service on Good Friday at 3pm, I'll try to get there as I feel more at home there than at the "Cathedral"
    Sunday afternoon was a bit of a sharing time with other non Sudanese folk from Reconcile, Samaritan's Purse etc.... it was good to be able to sing in Engish for a while!..
The picture is of a toprate kitchen which actualy has an oven... heated by charcoal, at the house of John and Poppy, here the pm meeting was.
    Today, Monday, it was back to the more damaged of the Riso printers. I completed the repair of the ribbon cable, and fitted up quite a few bits.. still some more cable repairs for tomorrow, and then it will be about ready to power up... how many error codes will I get?... you might pray that we will not only get these machines working properly, but that they will be reliable for the future... it's a long way to come back!
    Nat has been back to hoeing Rhondda's garden...(more blisters on his blisters!) and typing in local languages again, for the Sudan Literature Centre... Quite impressive how he and the team do it... Touch typing on a modified keyboard in a language they don't know!
    This afternoon he went off to Arabic class, and came back with some words so that he can now go shopping!
I only know one word... Salaam (hello), and then I can't remember it at the times I need it!

Till next time... Colin and Nathanael


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Colin Mills