Update from Samuel Ward!
Hello,
I wanted to write another update as the year draws rapidly to a close. It really seems like it was just yesterday that I said goodbye to my community in Ottawa. Although I will sorely miss this simple and fulfilling season of life in South Sudan, it it will be good to come home.
My life has been comparatively uneventful since my last email. I haven’t been involved with much besides the school which has kept my quite busy. Since a few struggles with teaching earlier on, I’ve grown to really enjoy it as I’ve grown in confidence and established a deeper relationship with my students. I’ve primarily been teaching spoken English and literacy in the local language. For the past two months I’ve been mentoring one of the local teachers in teaching English. I hope to have him teaching my current students independently by the time I leave.
A few months back the missionary family returned to the mission station. It’s been a joy to work with them since their arrival. They have provided good vision for the direction of the school and helped me refocus my effort on teacher training. The school, which currently only has two classes, will be adding a third in the new year. We’ll need to hire at least one more local teacher and make sure our current teachers are equipped to teach and manage school administration on their own. The local school system is actually extremely poor so some things that we take for granted as being standard educational practice in the West are non-existent here.
The mission station has been a hive of activity since the missionaries’ arrival. Among the main initiatives right now is a new church fellowship that has been meeting weekly in the school. Two South Sudanese young men are being trained currently to eventually organize the fellowship into a formal congregation. It’s been a joy to attend these meetings with some of my students and sit with them as we work through reading passages of Scripture in the local language.
Aside from teaching, I actually was able to do some of the research work I had initially intended to do this past Spring. Instead of leaving the country, I was able to spend the week between school terms in a refugee camp only an hour and a half away. It was humbling to sit with people who’ve suffered so much and survey them on their cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Far from being disinterested in such questions, many were actually extremely touched. The NGO world often just sees them as a certain quota of mouths to feed. As a Christian working to support language development and Bible translation, it was a privilege to be able to affirm their God-given cultural identities.
In my last email, I asked for prayer for discernment in future direction. It’s become clear to me since then that my heart is here in Africa and I really don’t want to waste that. To that end, I’ve decided I’ll return to school next year to pursue a Masters in Linguistics (and Translation). There is an excellent school associated with Wycliffe Bible Translators called CanIL in Langley, BC. I will Lord willing move out there towards the end of next summer. Upon completion of my degree, I hope to return to Africa to work as a Bible translation consultant or in some other support role in language development and Bible translation. I hope to be in Ottawa for the first half of next year working as much as I can and trying to lay my roots deeply in the local church. It’s been a long and slow journey out of a crisis of faith two years ago and I still feel very unequipped to be in the missions world. God has been very gracious to use me in an extremely small way this year in South Sudan. I just pray it will lead to many more years of faithful service.
Thank you so much for reading. I look forward to catching up more in person this January. I will be arriving back in Ottawa around New Years.
In Christ,
Samuel