mychristmasstars

i would like to say that i spent this first christmas alone with my nose in the Bible finding strength and joy in the fact that God came to us as a baby to show us true life. i wish i could say that this Christmas i studied the word and grew closer to the Lord. i wanted to start this blog with something like, "i had no presents, no family, only God, and that made it the best Christmas ever." but i can't. actually this Christmas was a rollercoaster ride of emotions, due in part by the fact that in a time of loneliness i didn't rely on my Rock, my Savior, to fill the emptiness in my heart. the hot dusty days mocked what christmas feeling i did find in listening to "frosty the snowman," and the goat intestines and rice(those are the holiday goodies--yay for me) just didn't bring the smile to my face that a nice turkey would have. of course, i could have done what we are supposed to do at christmas time and spent the holiday praising our Savior. instead i found comfort in anything that felt like home...Christmas music, soda, red jello, and the emails and cards you sent me. but, believe it or not, my Christmas eve meal of rice and beans to the tune of "White Christmas" just didn't fill that hole in my heart. oddly enough i don't even think a hug from my mama could have completely filled it. i needed Jesus; but i was too lonely and depressed that i was in Sudan over Christmas to realize it. i put on my smile and preached the Christmas service at wadupe on Christmas day. i preached about "coming back" to Jesus if we have gone astray. i talked about how the wise men and kings humbled themselves and bowed to a baby in a manger. i said that as we start the new year we should start it on the path that God has made for us, by "coming back" to and following Jesus, and christians we should be like the star above the manger showing those who are "afar" the way to Jesus. but i preached all this with emptiness in my own heart. i wasn't buying what i was selling. i wasn't "coming back."

"i cried to the Lord with my voice. many cry to the Lord that they may win riches, that they may avoid losses; they cry that thier family may be established, they ask for temporal hapiness, for worldly dignities; and, lastly, they cry for bodily health, which is the patrimony of the poor. for these and suchlike things many cry to the Lord; hardly one cries for the Lord himself! how easy it is for a man to desire all manner of things from the Lord and yet not desire the Lord himself! as though the gift could be sweeter than the giver!"---St. Augustine; taken from "On Prayer and the Contemplative Life" by St. Thomas Aquinas.

sometimes we just need that star to show us the way back. i was able to hand this kid the only gift he got this christmas from you, the only family he had this christmas. this smile was the star i needed. he showed me the way back to the manger. through all the loneliness and homesickness i saw Jesus in his eyes. as St. Augustine says, we should desire the Lord Himself not just His blessings. as i handed out hundreds of cards at wadupe and at Harvesters orphanage the fact that i was away from all the pumpkin pies, snowy nights, cheesey christmas movies, and my family stung a little less. all those blessings i once knew i could now lay at the Lord's feet, for i had, as the shepherds, wisemen, and kings of long ago, seen the messiah.

i told the people at wadupe and the orphanage that there were hundreds of people at home that wanted the sudanese to know that they are loved and prayed for. one sweet kid at the orphanage, after receiving her card said to me, "thank you meesta beel (mr bill) and we pray for you too." i tell you this as a messenger from the sudanese to you. all of the smiles and thank yous that i was blessed by will be waiting for you in heaven. i deeply thank you for sending me over a thousand christmas cards to give to the wonderful sudanese. every single card was delivered to a very happy man, woman, or child.

Greetings from Sudan:

--your greetings are received. i greet you. God bless you. Galatians 3:27-28--Marchello Lugala

--we receive your christmas greetings. let this spirit of communication continue. 1corinthians 13:4-7--Grace Ngusuman

--i receive your greetings. i thought we were alone, meanwhile we are with you in Christ. i don't have gifts but let God bless you.--Joseph Andrew

--i send my greetings to all of you in the church in america. we are praying for you so that we have a relationship in prayer. John 15:4--Joseph and Betty

--i am by name pastor Rufus Anyibu wishing you in America merry Christmas and happy new year. peace to the brethren, and love with faith in Lord Jesus Christ. grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, Amen--pastor Rufus Anyibu (my dear friend).

my friends, whatever your christmas star may be thank God for it, and follow it back to the manger, back to the beginning of it all, the birth of our Savior and Lord. it is possible to live even without the wonderful things of christmas time if we have love and grace from our father. in fact, it is life more abundant.

i personally thank all those who prayed for me and my family this christmas. and once again, thank you for all the wonderful cards. please, also remember all the missionaries who, like myself, spent this christmas with the people they serve. love you all and Merry Christmas.

quickupate

i haven't posted any updates in a while i know, and this is not even going to be a real in depth post, but i wanted to say thank you for the tremendous response to the christmas card project. we have received over 600 and more are coming. i know the kids at the orphanage will love getting the cards and all of the churches will appreciate them very much. i do have some stories to tell, but not enough time tonight to tell them. i head out for R&R thursday so i will write them then and let you know how things are going. love you all and appreciate your faithfull prayers and giving.

be sure to check out the prayer quests i have posted. a tragedy has struck boone n.c. and a dear friend has been taken from us. drew newell and his family were hit by a drunk driver, killing drew and leaving the father in critical condition. drew lived in the same dorm as me my freshman year and was a dear friend to my roommates from boone. in the short time i knew him, drew welcomed me as a friend and greeted me as if he had known me forever. we will truly miss his spirit and his love of life. his friends have created a blog to keep people updated on drew's father's condition and to post prayer requests for the newell family. pray for the family and check out the blog at http://www.newellreport.blogspot.com/.

cryforthem

if tonight is a quiet one, and you lay down to sleep with no fear in your heart, if tonight you only hear the crickets and bull frogs, and the soft chatter of the neighborhood kids, or a late passerby on his way home from work, if tonight you read this and can hear my cry, please i pray, please shed a tear. never a tear for me, for i am in the presence of the Lord, but cry for the sudanese, for they are like a cooing moses being placed in a basket and shoved into a raging nile.
my world was silenced today on my way to celebrate another meeting with several churches. the conversation of my passengers was lost as the rumble of truck after truck after truck, filled with soldiers and ak47s, passed by us on their way to the northern states. "they are moving soldiers to the northern border," said my sudanese counterpart. "the south is demanding immediate independence." with every truck that passed my throat closed into a knot and my eyes filled with a cry i am asking you to have for me, for at that time i had to hold back the tears and maintain a joyous demeanor to greet new churches and make new eternal friendships. because these villages are cut off from the majority of the outside world, many of them are ignorant to what is happening in their country. the refugees are returning from the first war to be resettled in a new peaceful home, the people are rejoicing as we come in to build them a "permanent" church, but the clouds are getting darker over sudan and the winds are changing. i can imagine the pain moses' mother felt as she looked into the eyes of her smiling child, who only knew the innocent peaceful moment he was in, and not the dangers he was floating towards. today as the trucks rolled by, all the wonderful people i have come to love smiled at me and shook my hand the african way, and sang their wonderful songs. i then imagined myself standing between the two charging armies with my hands stretched to heaven crying to God. why do guns and bullets silence the crying and not love.
do not be afraid for me. i promise i am not in any danger. but i am begging you, i am calling you to prayer and fasting for the country of sudan, the "gateway to africa." please pray for the arab and christian alike, for the northerner and the southerner, that they will find peace, and know the love of Jesus. don't send a christmas card to them saying you have prayed if you haven't, don't send me an email saying the sudanese are on your hearts if they are not, for this is a serious matter. so tonight shed a tear, thanking God for His mercy and for the wonderful sudanese.

Christmas Cards

***Please send christmas cards to sudan as quickly as possible. it takes a while for them to be mailed all the way here. so to keep my family from being bombarded with hundreds of cards all at once, please send them in the next few weeks.

they will need to be mailed from the U.S by the first week in Dec. so try to get them to my family before then. again the address is

153 Gibson Way
Mocksville NC 27028

be sure to make note that it is for sudan***

awesome

these kids were welcoming us to have an official meeting with a church in which a contract is signed between us and them. this took place a few weeks ago, actually when i had malaria, but i just now figured out how to post it. it may take a while to download, but i promise it is worth the wait. they are singing, "welcome to ****** we are happy today."

nakedlady'sgoat

most of my job, as i may have mentioned before, is spent driving. the nearest church that i work with is two and a half hours from our base. the farthest is four hours. needless to say, driving four hours one way to meet with a church, who isn't prepared to meet or worried the least bit about time, makes for a long day.
the early morning trip to the gas station tuesday foreshadowed how long of a day it would be. in sudan, gas stations work like the rest of africa, survival of the fittest. the biggest, pushiest, and most demanding gets gas. these are times when you have to remind yourself to be a christian. i pulled my truck up to the pump at about nine o'clock. and as though they had planned it, about 40 motor bikes rushed to the pump at the same time to refuel. no line or organization, just chaos. around ten we had had enough so we inched our truck through the pack to get closer to the pump. there is no such thing as personal space here. if you stand in a line expect the person behind you to be jammed into your back. same with vehicles. if there is space enough to fit a sheet of paper, they will park a motorbike. finally after convincing the pump man to stop filling the motorbikes who just pulled up, and fill our truck that has been waiting for an hour, we filled up and hit the road. that put us about an hour late to our meeting with the church, which is not close to being a big deal in africa.
when we showed up to the church they weren't even there or ready to have a meeting, as if it had never been scheduled. so we sat with the pastor's wife while he rounded up the congregation. like i said, this church is four hours away from our base so after a two hour meeting and a four hour drive, we hobbled in well past eight.
wednesday outlasted tuesday by an hour putting us back after nine at night. two days in row we were out past eight. so thursday i used my administrative privileges and declared a compound workday. so we planned for the rest of the week, built a cage for my chameleon named paul, and i carved a sweet knife completely out of wood (pictures to come).
but friday, well friday was a first. i was trucking along a pretty smooth part of the road about 45 km per hour when a baby goat, which i have come to believe is the dumbest animal ever invented, decided to dive under my tire. he was safe and sound on the grass off the road, but i guess he figured he would like to wrestle with my tire. he twitched for a few minutes and then took his last gasp as we stood around and waited for the owner to come and beat me up. just kidding, but seriously it could happen out here. luckily the owner was in uganda this week. unluckily his sixty year old naked wife came to see what the problem was, which at this point ceased to be the dead goat. not that sixty year old ladies can't be beautiful, but at this time in my life i personally don't desire to see them naked. maybe that's just me. anyways, the extremely topless lady told us to go on to the church and she would figure out what to do. i had a few suggestions of what she might first want to do, but thought it inappropriate to speak up. after all i had just killed her husband's baby goat, and it was kind of hot out.
on our return my translator, the nearby pastor, me and the lady, who thankfully thought it to be more professional to put on a shirt, sat down to discuss the goat. after some bargaining we finally talked the lady down to seventy pounds, or just under thirty five dollars. pretty expensive for a baby goat i thought, but us NGO's (non governmental organization) have dollar signs on our chests. fully clothed chests i might add. like i said, friday was a first and hopefully a last.

justabitofwriting

well this week was work as usual, four wheel it out into the bush, deliver some food, talk to some amazing people, and see beautiful kids. the snake we killed on our compound this week was a little one, and the chameleon we are keeping as a pet just sits around and eats crickets with his ginormous tongue. so nothing really to get excited about. so i figured i would just do a bit of writing. this actually is taken from a journal i like to doodle in every now and again. it doesnt really have a title but here goes....

i am but a vapor.

i am a moment of freedom choosing the way in which i rise. the world around me shapes this blip of time and space that i will call my life. but above all there is a calling, a truth, a purpose that will exalt me to unknown glories. there is one path to this truth and it is burning in my soul. as my body, soul, and mind are constantly at war, wrestling to become the single factor that guides my life, i am twisted, mangled, and split. i search for peace and a life unified with this calling. and when i am most broken and my world is a dark one, then i find light. i find a heavenly light that sings to me and leads me once again down the path of truth. i call this light grace. i look forward into the light and all i can do is love the Gracious.

merrychristmassudan

so many people have been asking how they can get involved in helping with WhyTheWoods, which is amazing. so thanks to a dear friend serving in malaysia giving me this idea, i am suggesting christmas cards for sudan. last sunday when i preached i made mention that people were back at home praying for me and the people of sudan. they started clapping and shouting and cheering. it was a glorious sight. i was so thankful in that moment for all of you who are praying. so to further show the sudanese that americans love them, admire their strong faith, and are really praying, send them a christmas card telling them so. if you want, include a picture so they can see the face of someone across the world who is praying. it is such a cheap and easy way to show them that someone cares, and i can only imagine the joyous celebration this will bring. Thank you for helping. please send the cards to...

153 Gibson Way
Mocksville NC, 27028

...make sure it is clear that it is going to sudan or is for WTW. my family will collect them and mass mail them to me around christmas time, and i will deliver them over the christmas holiday. i do ask that you include 2 dollars for shipping costs.

by the way, the past few days i suffered from malaria or something like it. we don't really know if it was malaria because i never got my blood tested, but it acted just like malaria, and it makes for a much cooler story, so as far as i can see it was malaria. but i'm fine now. i got treatment pretty early so it was knocked out pretty quickly. but let me tell you, malaria is not as fun as it sounds. but like i said, im ok now. i met with the chief of wadupe today and played some volleyball at the compound. so it was a great day. i am speaking at a church opening tomorrow, so keep me in your prayers.

wouldi?

"lay down!! i have burned your village, killed your people, and now i must cut off the head of the snake. you are the reason christianity is here!!"
"you can kill me. do what you want. but i'll never deny my God."
the arab soldier put the pastor face down on the ground and put the gun to his head.
"may i first say a prayer?"
"ha, do what you want. your blood is about to be splattered on this ground."
the pastor prayed to his Lord. his Saviour. he would never ever deny Him, and he was ready to see Him face to face.
when the pastor finished his prayer he looked up to find that the arabs had left. this pastor has preached in his village for forty years now. he sat across from me as we had tea and told me his story. i was honored to be in the presence of a real man of faith.

notitleworthy

often i sit down to write about my day and leave with nothing on the paper. not because i have nothing to say, but simply because words are not powerful enough to relive moments that forever change eternity. how can i fully explain what a hug from pastor rufus means to me? how can i use the english language, words invented by men, to explain a friendship with the people of wadupe, given by God, that will last forever? i can only tell you what i saw and describe what i felt, but not until we see the face of Christ will we know what it all meant. we embraced on the steps of the new church, pastor rufus and i. then i was greeted by the congregation, first with looks of surprise which then turned into a rejoicing sort of "he really does love us" kind of look. many people come to sudan and other foreign lands and promise big things because they like to make the people happy, but few follow through with their plans. the sudanese know this, and to see that i actually came back to them triggered a time of praise and celebration. before the service pastor rufus and i were able to sit and discuss my vision for wadupe and whythewoods. his responses and the look on his face said, "finally someone really hears us." i explained to him the notion of "teaching a man to fish." he said, "that is what we have been crying. for so long we have been chained by war, and we have fallen way behind. we just need to know how to catch up." after our talk i spoke to the congregation. i shared with them matthew 9:37-38. i pointed out that Jesus tells us the harvest is there but no one to do the work, so the first thing he tells us to do is to pray (vs38), and this is the first step to changing sudan. i told them that many people at home are praying for me and the people of sudan; the men started clapping and the women started cheering for all of you who are remembering us in prayer. one day you will meet them in eternity and they will thank you personally. i then shared acts 1:8, and told them that this is a big leap of faith for me, but the Holy Spirit will give me power. and finally i shared colosians 2:6, and said that we must train our children in the ways of our Lord so they will be founded on the gospel and so they can pull sudan out of the trouble it is in. i spoke in both churches, explaining to them what i feel God is calling me to do. pastor rufus told me the community will give me a plot of land to live on and help me build a tukul. this, as you may remember, was one of my prayer requests before i left; that God would supply for me land to live on, and on which to set up a base of operations. and here is my answer, free land in wadupe. praise God for His many blessings.

pray for me next sunday as i meet with the chief of the area and the entire community to discuss the issue of the school size and building design, and to officially denote my plot of land. i have already talked with an engineer from samaritan's purse who has agreed to help me draw up the design and find the right people to help build it. like i said, how can mere words describe all of this. i thank you for praying on my behalf. God's hand of blessing is truly on this ministry.

flashlightneeded

thank you so much for all the emails. i sat in tears today overwhelmed by so many friends offering up prayers on my behalf. i feel so unworthy of your praises and your prayers but i thank you for fueling the fire that is in me.

my new base...
one would think a ten meter walk to shut off a generator wouldn't be too dangerous. i didn't think so anyways. so about 11 o'clock a few nights ago i started out the door to turn off the power as i had many times before. "it's a short walk," i thought, "i'll just feel my way along the wall." about half way i stumped my toe on a rock and got mad so i went back in to get the, you guessed it, mini-maglight. i turned off the generator and had a good night's sleep. doesn't sound dangerous huh. well i didn't think so either, until the next day when our guards killed two cobras on our compound. i promise you i will never walk outside at night without a flashlight again. cobras and mambas are on the prowl and i don't want to find one with my bare feet. on the more positive side i saw a monkey that day too, that was cool.

so anyways i have basically been riding around on extremely muddy roads, which is a lot of fun in our landcruisers as long as you're the one driving and not riding in the back baking in the sun. just kidding, fortunately that is part of my job, but i have been doing a lot of work on top of that. we are officially starting 8 new churches this upcoming week. which means for every church i have to go make a speech about the church's responsibility of gathering the natural material, and explain to them what SP is going to supply them with--hammers, shovels, picks, wheelbarrows, etc. usually the pastor and local leaders give speeches and then we have a feast. the last church we started greeted our truck with dancing and singing. we died laughing and jumped in and danced with them. so everyday i have to give two speeches and have two feasts. these churches are over a two or three hours drive from our base so it makes for a long day, but seeing them excited and getting them so encouraged to work is more than worth it.

i am extremely excited about tomorrow. i finally get to make it out to see my good friends, the people of wadupe. one of our engineers told them i was coming back to sudan but he didn't know when i would be back, so they have no clue i'm here. it will be so nice to surprise them at their church service tomorrow. pray that all goes well and we have a great reunion.

movingout

well i finally have my assignment and location. i am moving to the sub-base i was hoping (isn't God so good), which is close enough that i can come back to town on the weekends and use the internet. i can't wait to get out into the field and start working with these wonderful people again. my job has a little more responsibility with it this trip as i have graduated from an intern to the head of operations at my base. i know that title may sound big, but really it's just me and another guy mobilizing our area, and my job is to make sure we get enough churches ready for construction by the time the construction crew comes in. so im not really in charge of a lot, but responsible for a little more. if you guys email me, give me a week or so to reply because i don't have internet out there, so all my blog work and emailing will done on the weekends. so you can start looking for more posts on saturdays or sundays. a big thank you to everyone who wished my 22nd year a happy one. i spent sunday celebrating with the other guys at a new sudanese "restaurant" in town. this one was a little nicer than previous experiences. it at least had a concrete floor. we had chicken, roasted goat, chips(fries), salad, and of course rice and beans. one of the ladies had gone into town and gotten some cake mix, so we even had birthday cake. i guess it's pretty cool i can say that i celebrated my 22nd birthday on a different continent. well, anyways, pray for the churches i am going to meet these next few weeks and the upcoming months, and as always the children of sudan. if any of you are wondering, i am going out to wadupe this saturday or sunday. last sunday got rained out.

drivebyfaith...notbysight

talk about jumping in and getting my feet dirty. this adventure is one worth writing home about. most of the new guys spent their second day in sudan getting over jet-lag or touring the town. but not me. about 6:30 thursday evening we get a call at our base about an emergency, i can't mention, so matt, my boss, grabs me and says, "we're going to [a location i cant mention on the internet]." this is a town about 2hrs northeast, and we have a sub-base there. so i grabbed enough supplies for a couple days and jumped in the Land Rover. our first heart pumping moment came about five miles outside of town. matt was trying to talk to the Lainya base on his satellite phone but it kept cutting in and out so we pulled over so he could get out and get better signal. by this time it was dark, so we couldn't see the two soldiers approaching our truck until they got right on us. matt stayed on the phone but got into the truck and shut the door, acting like he didn't hear the soldiers, who were saying something to us. normally soldiers are fine, but at night in sudan, why chance it. they couldv'e been drunk or something, and there was nothing stopping them from taking our phone or robbing us. we don't exactly have the safety net of a stable and fair judicial system out here. one of them started tapping on my window, so i nonchalantly locked my door and then matt quickly sped off, leaving them in the night. well, things were fine after that, bumpy, but fine. until about an hour into the trip when our headlights died on us. we stopped in the middle of the road, in complete darkness, in sudan...not exactly encouraged by the UN safety regulations. we both got out of the truck, neither of us knowing anything about cars, but hoping a jiggle to some wires would do the trick. as i stood out there in the dark i realized that i was exposed to every danger sudan has to offer and no way to escape it. i thought about the "lost boys." a group of thousands oflittle boys ages 5-12 who fled the war in 1987, walking thousands of miles on their own to ethiopia and kenya. these little boys had to fend off lions, hyenas, and alligators, not to mention the enemy soldiers. as i stood on the road that winds through the head-high grass, i thought about a lion or hyena jumping out at me. how did these little boys do it. i also thought about late night travelers who might see two stranded white men as an easy target. there was no way we could flee. we couldn't see a thing and the roads are way too treacherous to try and drive blindly. for some reason (God) matt had grabbed a mini-MagLight on his way out. we laughed at the thought of us driving through southern sudan at night with a AA flashlight as our guide. but... the two foot wide beam of light is all we had to see the people, ditches, potholes, and the road. i had to hang out the window and move the light back and forth so we could see the grass on both sides. needless to say, we SLAMMED into some major holes, which sent my head into to the windshield or the roof several times. just outside of Lainya there is a checkpoint. matt was sure we were going to jail for not having proper headlights, but again God gave us what we needed, and the soldiers didn't even question us, though they probably laughed at the stupid kowajas(white men). what should've been an hour and 45 min to two hours turned out to be over 3 hrs. we crawled into the base and had a great night's sleep. the next morning's drive back was obviously a little easier. we could at least see the huge potholes before we hit them. we did manage to get ourselves stuck in the mud, but a good push from about 15 sudanese men did the trick and was well worth the 20 pounds (ten dollars) we paid them. so yesterday we rolled into the compound, muddy and tired, but with a great story to tell. if MagLight needs a new commercial tell them to give me a call.

dirtyfeetagain

flying in a second time was so incredible. i could pick out villages i had worked in and i could see the shiney tin roofs of new churches. i saw the wadupe mountains and just smiled at the thought of seeing those wonderful people again. as i got out of the truck at our compound i looked down and saw that my toes had a little dirt on them. "im back," i said. My clean american skin will soon give way to the red sudanese murrum. it wont be long before im covered in it.

inafrica

i made it to nairobi just fine. i leave out wednesday morning. just in case you guys want to email me, my new email is billyriddlejr@Gmail.com so send me a message. i think to comment on my blog you have to have a blog of your own so if your like me and need help with that kind of stuff the easiest thing to do is email. talk to you guys later.

daybefore

so its the day before i leave and i havent even started packing. but no worries. im just trying to get all my loose ends tied up, which is getting pretty hectic. well i just wanted to start my blog so you guys can keep up with my days here in sudan. but most of all i want to say thank you to my Savior and Lord for all the many blessings he has given me in the past three months. thank you all for faithfully praying and giving to the people of sudan. my initial goal for these few months before i return was to get to as many churches as possible and share my vision of building Christian schools. God blessed me with many opportunities to speak and great people who faithfully gave to WhyTheWoods. thank you all for your prayers and your support.