The Week in a Blur

This blog entry is way overdue. I hope it will become clear why below.

Left to Right: Fr. Sylvester, Roger Blanco, Fr. Herald, Carol Restaine and Joseph Kauflin.
The photo was taken after Mass yesterday morning in the small courtyard next to the chapel.

On Wednesday of last week (Oct 13th) a number of things converged. The contract for the first phase of renovations on the House of Mercy was finally completed, we settled with the builder and we were able to begin to move in and sleep in the residence that night. In anticipation we had bought a few preliminary supplies the day before. We had our regular Wednesday afternoon youth faith formation meeting, only it was a bit more poignant than usual because it was the farewell celebration for Dennis Kiyimba. He was leaving the next day for Uganda (travelling with us as far as Juba) for the proximate preparations for his wedding on December 4th. It's not clear yet whether he will be returning to Sudan next year to continue his missionary work or not. Fr. Sylvester and I had a special dinner for him later in the evening. There was a final late night meeting with someone from the diocese. I hit the mattress after midnight.

We were up again well before dawn at 4:30 am, had Mass at 5:15 and were on the road to Juba shortly after 6. It was a smoother ride this time, with fewer checkpoints along the way. Apparently a lot of southern troops have been deployed along the north-south border as a precaution in advance of the referendum. The three lay missionaries who arrived in Nairobi earlier in the week - Carol Restaine, Roger Blano and Joseph Kauflin - flew into Juba that morning at 9:15 am. Our friend from Honduras, Tom Purekal, who currently serves as the CRS Peace Building Program Coordinator for South Sudan, arranged to have them picked up and taken to a local Catholic parish. We arrived shortly before 11:00 am.

We took advantage of the trip to Juba to try to pick up as many supplies and articles that we knew we would need for the House of Mercy (and which are not available in Torit) as we could. That meant stopping at the Amen supermarket, Jit "department" store, a hardware store and a propane gas supplier located near the Nile River that took us more than an hour to find. Tom joined us for lunch at "Sisters'" restaurant (run by the Sacred Heart Sisters in Juba), and in the afternoon we took care of a few more errands and got on the road back to Torit a few hours later than we would have liked. Most people are surprised when they find out that we do the roundtrip Torit-Juba trek in a single day, but the fact that the cheapest accommodations there run more than $50 per person provides a strong incentive. Again - thanks be to God - the drive back was pretty uneventful. Our only stop was to help pull out a vehicle that had been stuck in the mud since late morning. We came across the vehicle after nightfall; I think the driver was preparing to spend the night there. The Toyota "wonder winch" did the trick again; it's now three for three! Since the guest quarters were still not finished, we sorted people out as best we could for the night.

Sudanese young men at Eucharistic Adoration in
the new chapel at the House of Mercy. 

For the past week we've been extremely busy trying to equip and arrange the house, chapel and guest quarters starting pretty much from scratch, while still keeping up with our regular apostolic activities. Phase two of the repairs (chapel and guest quarters) was completed on Wednesday, October 20, so Carol was able to stay in her designated room that evening. The Blessed Sacrament was reserved in the chapel the following day. It's amazing how many small but still pretty important items are needed to make a house functional. We tried to find as many as we could in the local market, improvised where we could and will do without the rest until our next trip to a major city. Some of what we consider "necessary" but could not find in Torit reflect cultural and dietary differences; for example a can opener or a cutting board were not to be found anywhere. Some of our improvisations include a kerosene lamp for a sanctuary light, using Kenyan khangas and kitenges hung on electric conduit pipes supported by roofing nails as window coverings. Since there's no water supply in the house, every couple of days we've had to fill about 15 five-gallon jerry cans at nearby boreholes for washing, cooking and drinking.

Hellen reading a passage from the Gospel of Mark
during Lectio Divina at the Mercy House Chapel.

Even though there's still a lot to do, and many post-construction details to take care of, we are really happy and grateful to finally be in our new home. The greatest blessing is to have Eucharistic chapel where we and others can pray. The outside doors are open morning to evening (there's an gate that divides the chapel inside) so people can come in to pray. And it's an ideal setting for our Friday Eucharistic Adoration / Lectio Divina prayer meetings with the youth group. Yesterday there were about 20 who came.

In the next week or two we plan to post profiles of the lay missionaries so you can get to know them, and photos of Mercy House, which continues to be a work in progress.

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