Trip to Sudan (2 of 2)
Toward the end of the week we began to wrap up the profiling and interviews of the children and staff and prepared for the Christmas celebrations. Even though Sudan has no electric grid and no Internet and very few computers, the staff made invitations somehow and invited many church and government leaders to share in the fun.


We visited the leper colony at Magiri - just north of Kajo Keji - and delivered the news that there would be assistance coming soon from donations for their medical conditions. The men, women, and children were very grateful. We are figuring out how to work with the local medical staff of Sudan to enable a proper diagnosis and distribution of the medication. Lyla, Josh, Meri, and I took profiles and Nate took photos.

Back at the orphanage Meri continued to design paper chains and other decorations with the kids. She had quite an assembly line of Christmas crafts being created at various spots!

We also spread back out into the community to give donations to some of the most needy widows and lepers that we met. I personally delivered some goods to Peter Jibi (see part 1) the old leper with very little assistance or hope. We rode up with a bike and began unloading sugar, beans, tea, vegetables and other goods (donated through the Christmas leper pack with Lahash). I think Peter couldn't really believe his eyes. He waited until we explained what we had brought, and then he erupted in "Tinate! Tinate! (thank you, thank you!) and curled up in his little chair in happiness clapping his diseased hands and showering his blessings on us. It made my day to experience the joy that he got from the little gift of basic food items.


Christmas Day was really amazing. We woke up and headed out to church at a local assembly. The majority of the people sat under a mango tree and we sang praises and heard a Christmas sermon. The four hour service was a tad long for our group from America, and toward the end we were given a chicken as thanks for visiting the church.

We hiked back to the orphanage and we got ready for the Christmas program. The kids did several songs, we heard several speeches from the local leaders, and also had a chance to share our hearts with the people.

The staff had butchered a bull on Christmas morning (that Meri and Nate woke up to watch) and the meat was served to the kids as a special Christmas treat. Our staff was able to part in some of the serving of the food.


After the Christmas program we had a Amazing Grace Vs. St. Bartholomew soccer game that ended in a nice little happy draw.

We drove back on the 26th to Adjumani after a quick goodbye to the kids at St. Bartholomew's. We ended up misplacing 2 of our trunks, so one of the staff kindly went back to Sudan to collect the items.

The morning of the 27th we left Amazing Grace to head back to Kampala's capital. It was the hardest times of leaving those kids. We had been with them for two weeks, and many of us were crying as we said goodbye.

As we arrived at the bus station we found that a bus was broken down, so two buses worth of passengers had already crammed into the bus we were supposed to take. We ended up bargaining to ride in the back of a cement dump truck half of the distance, and then boarded another bus in Gulu town (where Invisible Children has their headquarters). The transportation is so bad here, it's practically half of the journeys where we break down. This was one of those little patience building exercises where we sat in the hot sun as they took off a broken belt and replaced it before traveling on.

We arrived in Kampala (the capital of Uganda) tired and exhausted in many different ways. We had seen a lot, and the day had been very long. We had a quick sleep before picking up a few items around town and seeing Josh and Nate off at the airport.