Since the guest house I was staying in had no electricity or running water, I had spent the majority of it in the toilet area filling up buckets of water to wash down my own vomit. Between the cramps, diarrhea, vomiting and chills from the high fever I had, I was battling the fear of the rats residing above me coming down to visit me. Now, just as I had caught sight of one of the rats pilfering one of my bags, my impeccably bad timing showed its dark colors as the light in my flashlight slowly faded to complete darkness. Fumbling around in my pitch black room, I scurried quicker than the rat to replace the AA batteries required to rescue me from the hellish rodent hazing I was experiencing.

It was a miserable night and though I moaned and groaned louder than Job must have, I believe God was personally tutoring me through a one-night seminar that now a few days later, I already count as priceless. When I arrived in Southern Sudan, one of the first conversations I had with a few of the various denominational church leaders centered on the fact that the vast majority of the population is still traumatized by what had happened in the previous 22 year civil war where two million Southern Sudanese were killed. On top of this, the genuine prospect that peace could easily be interrupted by either the national elections in 2009 or most likely in 2011 when the Southern Sudanese vote on whether or not they want to become an autonomous country weighs heavy on all the hearts and minds of those who live in this desolate land.

To my surprise on the first day of the EC discipleship seminar, there was a formal African opening ceremony which they had prepared for us to kick off the week of lessons. What was unexpected though was not the ceremony itself, but rather who showed up to participate in this opening ceremony. On top of the forty youth leaders representing various churches, there was the denominational heads of all the five major churches in Southern Sudan, including the Archbishop of the Catholic Church in Southern Sudan. Recording the happenings of this opening ceremony was the one and only television station in Southern Sudan, the main radio station in the region, and all four local newspapers.

During my twelve years of ministry with Eternal Concepts I had occasionally participated in a short television, radio or newsprint interview, but never had all these media outlets all at once converged to cover one of our little gatherings. There are a variety of reasons as to why they did, but more importantly their coverage served to provide small vignettes for all in this Southern Sudanese capital of Juba to peer into to see what God was teaching these students through this little discipleship seminar. Not only did the nightly news broadcast interviews and portions of the opening ceremony, and not only did all the papers run stories on the EC seminar, but every day the local radio station would interview various students to inquire from them as to what they are learning and gaining from this experience. For an entire week, God allowed the testimonies from the mouths of the students going through the seminar to be broadcast throughout the entire city of Juba.

Though I was received with a warm welcome by all and despite all the initial media attention, the first day was somewhat of a struggle. On that initial day, as the students and I entered into the dance of getting to know one another and understanding what we hoped to accomplish during the week, I could tell there was a reluctant embrace of it all. The protective shield guarding their hearts and emotions seemed to stiff-arm any attempt I made to draw them into intimate and meaningful dialogue. I wasn’t completely discouraged though because after an entire day spent with them from morning to evening, I did see some cracks begin to form in their emotional armor.

That’s why at the end of the second day, an even greater surprise than that of the initial media coverage awaited me. As we concluded the day, the students didn’t want it to end and began to spontaneously sing and dance as only Africans can with such beauty and grace. After quite a bit of jubilant celebrating, we ended up exiting the seminar hall that day by singing and dancing our way outside – all with hearts full of joy unspeakable. Granted, I was just thrilled that there were no video cameras around to record my attempt at dancing, or what looks more like me “jogging in place” as my sweet wife likes to gleefully point out. Needless to say, my heart was overjoyed as God seemed to breakthrough the hardy exterior of these students who had experienced so much sorrow in their short lives.

The rest of the week followed the script of that second day as God seemed to be genuinely speaking to hearts and lives in fresh ways.  Then 1 ½ days before we were scheduled to conclude the seminar, this nightmare of a night struck me. Throughout the night, I complained to God mainly over my own personal discomfort, but also over the fact that the big conclusion to the EC seminar was now in jeopardy. I had planned that the last 1 ½ days we would have teachings that pertained only to the cultural context of living in Southern Sudan-teachings that would help to provide pragmatic applications to all of the spiritual foundations we had discussed and pondered throughout the week. Now it looked as if that wasn’t going to happen.

I knew that even if I miraculously began to “dry up” at both ends that I was too weak physically to be of any good for the grand conclusion of this memorable week. So I had to actually do something that I often speak about, but probably in reality rarely do  -- I had to relinquish control of the situation back to God and allow Him to do with it what He wanted. We ended up cutting the seminar a half day short.  But the truth is that the last day God spoke to many hearts.  Even though in my arrogance, I assumed He needed all my meticulous preparation to facilitate this happening, He didn’t. I showed up for the last two hours of the closing for that day and heard story after story of what God had taught them on this particular day and throughout the week.

It is impossible to convey in words what God did in the hearts and minds of all of us who were fortunate enough to participate in this seminar, just as it is my inadequacies as a writer which prevents me from relating back to you how difficult life truly is for these Southern Sudanese people. I have given up this side of eternity attempting to understand why a loving God allows places like Southern Sudan to exist, but I do believe God loves these people as much as He has ever loved you or me. God taught me that nightmare of a night not only that I needed to relinquish control to Him, but He also gave me a tiny taste for one short night of the misery that the Sudanese people experience on a daily basis. Sudan is a land where every night and day is seemingly out of any person’s ultimate control. I learned for one night, at least, what it is like to lay my head to sleep in the same place every Sudanese lays his or her head down to sleep - in the nightmares of painful present and the fretful future to come. Please pray for these precious Christian students.

Please pray for resources to abound in a land with so little and please pray for the peace of Sudan.    Shalom, Dave Tippit