November 2008

Dear Friends

Greetings to you in Jesus name, we hope you are well. We are fine here in Yei and growing stronger and stronger in the Lord.


In September the security situation was not so bad, the only problem is that a number of robberies were reported in and around the town, like a motorbike was stolen from the diocese of Yei, a barrel for water storage was stolen from the Moru congregation’s pastor in charge, two people were killed and their bodies were thrown into a river. But the most worrying thing is the number of accidents due to reckless riding of motorbikes. Almost every day we get to hear about accidents on the roads. People around here do not respect traffic rules, so lives are lost easily.

We want to thank God for the start of FLY SPORTS Mundri, we travelled from Yei to Juba on the 14th of October and proceeded to Mundri on the 15th, but unfortunately, we had to spend the night in Lui and proceed to Mundri on the 16th.

The roads in the south are terrible, most of them are inaccessible during the rainy seasons, and people only make use of them after the rains. When we left Juba, we travelled well until we reached a few miles to Lui, there is a point where more than 50 vehicles were stuck or waiting to cross. When we reached there, our bus was like the tenth in the queue and the vehicles were being pulled by one of the vehicles working on the road. When our bus got into the mud to be pulled, the people working on the road said their time was up, so they promised to pull the bus the following day. We were bound to sleep in the middle of nowhere if we were not going to find an alternative means of transport from there either to Mundri town or Lui. We prayed and told God we were not prepared to sleep inside the bus, and then we heard that someone with a lorry was driving back to Lui because he could not proceed to Juba. We met him and he agreed to take us as long as he was paid 5 US dollars by each passenger.

When we reached Mundri, we discussed with the church leaders and government officials our aim, they received our ideas well and agreed to support FLYSPORTS in its work among the youth. On the 23rd of October people gathered at the cathedral compound and FLYSPORTS was launched. There was entertainment from a local drama group and the Sunday school presented a song as well.

We are now back in Yei, trying to write reports and rest as well, because our bodies are paining from the long journey.

I (Manny) have started a discipleship class called Salt and Light. I am planning to use the G12 vision, the number in my group has not yet reached twelve but I guess Jesus did not get his twelve in one day, so slowly the number is increasing. We have been meeting under a mango tree every Wednesday from 3 to 5 P.M.

On my side (Grace), I have now settled down in the Radio department of Across, I am producing programs mainly concerning women. While we were in Mundri, I managed to conduct a number of interviews for my programs. I have also been helping out in the FLY SPORTS department twice a week. This includes compiling photos for reports and next year’s calendars. We are thinking about producing pamphlets or magazines as well but we are not sure of when we will start the work.

Prayer Points

We give thanks for the start and end of the FLY SPORTS League
We give thanks for the start of Salt and Light (discipleship classes)
We give thanks for the FLYSPORTS talk show which is going on one of the local FM radio stations.
We give thanks for the start of FLYSPORTS Mundri
We give thanks for the safe journey to and from Mundri

yours in Christ

Emmanuel and Grace