October News from John and Poppy, Yei, Southern Sudan

January 2008 news from John and Poppy, Yei, Southern Sudan

Dear friends and family,

We really enjoyed our four weeks in the UK over Christmas and the New Year, spending time seeing so many of you and catching up with all the news. The contrast between the UK and Sudan is enormous – smooth roads, running water, daily postal service, Ebay and Amazon, coastal footpaths, cheese, milk, roast lamb, sausages and television! We flew back with Kenya Airways two weeks after the election but our plane was nearly empty. We sat in the rear portion of the plane, just three passengers in 126 seats, so there was no difficulty in getting the seats with good legroom! In fact there were only 31 passengers altogether, probably a tenth of the capacity. Most tourists were keeping away from Kenya. The hotels were empty and the human and financial impact must be terrible. We spent just a few hours in Nairobi airport before flying on to Entebbe in Uganda and we flew up to Yei two days later, having first purchased in Kampala a new second hand 4WD vehicle for the college, which was then driven up to Yei by a Ugandan instructor.

The new Martha Clinic building is nearly completed and we are planning that it will be officially opened by the Irish Ambassador on 29th February. 10 of the students selected by Poppy for training in Kampala have returned and Poppy has employed 8 of them to help both in the clinic and with a programme of preventative outreach work. The next step will be to distribute the 2000 free bednets (pictured arriving) to homes with a pregnant mother or a child under the age of 5. Poppy has also received a generous donation which she will use to instal a borehole for a community that had little access to clean water and where her new staff will carry out a programme of health education and child immunisations. As well as this, another donation received will fund the purchase of a motorcycle and Poppy will try to develop a mobile clinic to outlying villages, giving access to better health care and immunisations for those who cannot easily travel to Yei.

There have been some staffing changes in the Martha Clinic. The new clinical officer, Confucius, whose training was funded by the Salisbury Medical Link, has begun work, taking much of the day to day responsibility from Poppy’s shoulders. On the other hand, one of the excellent young nurses left last week, having secured a place in a medical school in Khartoum, where he will train to be a doctor. Poppy is absolutely delighted for him but disappointed to have lost such a capable and friendly member of staff.

The shop in town that we opened in October has closed. We never managed to sell enough from that shop to make it viable and the end came when, despite what the lease said, the landlord said he wanted the shop back so he could redevelop the site. We didn’t argue too much as it gave us an excuse to wind up and a few days later Poppy came up with the idea of opening the bookshop on our own College compound, thus avoiding both rent and staff costs. Last weekend, the shelves were made and we should be open for business again at the start of February, selling a range of Christian books and Bibles. While in the UK, we received a donation of a good selection of new books and through the generosity of Kenya Airways and MAF, half of them are now in Yei, the others to follow as required. Please don’t forget that if you’d like a brightly coloured table cloth for your patio table or some new oven gloves, table mats or apron, you can buy these on line at www.johnandpoppy.org.uk.

The Vocational Training College was closed over Christmas but resumed in mid-January. That gave us two months to prepare ourselves for the new intake of students. The plan is to grow the College significantly in 2008 and, thanks to a donor from Winchester, we have builders on site building us two new classrooms and an enormous new workshop for the carpenters. The donation will also fund the start-up of two new courses in electrical installation and plumbing, water and sanitation, and John has appointed two new instructors to lead these new courses. Other improvements are planned including some new houses for female students and staff and in the next couple of months we plan to re-thatch our staff dining room (pictured) and our staff tukuls. Electrification is also on its way, with poles being installed in our road, and so we may shortly not be quite so dependent on our large generator to provide power to the College and all our machinery. Our aim this year is to recruit up to 100 students for the five courses, up from 43 in 2007.

We mentioned in our last letter that John is helping the Diocese of Yei with its programme of building new Primary Schools. The funding has come from churches in Ireland, with the local communities here providing materials such as bricks and sand. The first new school building is at Payawa, 9 miles from Yei, which is nearing completion. We flew over it on our way home at Christmas and could even take an aerial shot of its new roof. We hope to start building the second school, which is at Mongo, in March. John wants to emphasise that he is not building the schools – just handling the finances and accounting for what is spent! You can see photographs of the old and new school buildings on our website.

We have been invited by the Dean of the Cathedral to run an ALPHA course for the two English service congregations. We hope to launch this in February and run it about 10 to 12 weeks. We are not sure how to modify it for Sudan but we now have the DVDs with sub-titles, thanks to Christchurch, and we may to find a building where we can show them. But we need power!!

Both of have remained very healthy. Poppy believes this is partly down to John having fewer business lunches and him losing 10 kilos weight. But seriously, we are both very grateful that we have remained so healthy and that all our travels have been safe and without serious incident. We plan to be back again in the UK for most of May and we shall look forward to seeing many of you once again.

We have listed some prayer requests and do want to thank you for your prayer support, which we so appreciate. This work really needs your prayers.

With our love, John and Poppy Spens

website: www.johnandpoppy.org.uk

For prayer

1.  For the church of the Sudan. The previous Archbishop retired in December and the election of the new Archbishop will take place on 14th February. Please pray for those standing for election that God’s will be done.

2.  For the Diocese of Yei where the Bishop is now studying on sabbatical in the UK until September 2008. He will be in London for the Lambeth conference. Do pray also for the Caretaker Bishop, Bishop Daniel Deng and for all the Diocesan staff as they try to manage in the absence of Bishop Hilary.

3.  Pray for John as he continues to manage the College and seeks to recruit new students for the next academic year. Pray about the appointment of new staff, the design of the new courses and the new buildings under construction. Please continue to pray about the spiritual life of the College, that we may remain a place where Christ is central to all we do.

4.  Pray for the new ALPHA course at the Cathedral and for the re-opening of the Christian bookshop at the College.

5.  Pray for Poppy and the new clinic staff as they move into a new phase with a community outreach preventative programme. They are investigating using “CHE” which is a programme of evangelism with health education and hope to work with a representative from Samaritan’s Purse on this.

6.  Please pray for the peace of Sudan and for the re-building of the country in this immediate post-war phase.

7.  Please pray for our family in the UK and for our continued good health and safety.

8.  Please pray about what our next steps should be. We know we should be here until September but are now seeking to know what we should do next. We are increasingly feeling that South Sudan should remain our focus but that we will probably be mainly based in the UK making regular trips lasting several weeks to Sudan. Some interesting ideas are developing but we are praying for clarity.