Isohe... land of mountains

I fell in love with Isohe. (pronounced: Its-Oh-K) Technically it was probably the most "challenging" part of the trip, in terms of my health and at least for the first day or two with team issues.  But the mountains and the amazing youth held me up.

I sang this whole retreat, which meant being "on" a lot more... having to be on time for session and because of the arrangement of the church, up in front. 

We arrived in the early afternoon of Thursday the 27th to Isohe.  It took a bit to get settled and figure out our arrangements.  I don't honestly remember what we did on Thursday...some set up I believe.  I got to meet with Fr. Lawrence on Friday afternoon, which was a nice time to talk about different things.  He is a great and interesting man!

Friday found us with our normal morning routine .. a lot of set up and prep.  The retreat started around 4 pm.  The youth slowly gathered and we got off the ground.  This retreat went fairly well.  The youth as a large group seemed to really enjoy it.  My talk on Saturday went really well.  However, I found my small group to be particularly challenging.

Here I will insert a note:  I think the thing I was most surprised by was the language barrier.  It was really an issue in all the places we served.  We had translation for most of the talks, but in Isohe we didn't need it as badly.  However, the shyness, mixed with a lack of understanding made some communication very difficult. 

Saturday evening we had a beautiful time of prayer.  We had a late night hour for the girls, and had a very beautiful moment when they all spoke out the names of family members who were in trouble and in need of God's help.  It was profound. 

I really enjoyed our 4 days is Isohe.  I was pretty sick on Sunday, and rested a good bit after the retreat ended.  But I was able to push through and rest after all the activities.  The food is Isohe was excellent!  Christina was the main cook, she even let me help prep some greens when I first arrived!  That made us friends right away.

We had Tripe in Isohe, which are intestines.  They were not amazing, but I tried them!

Our general diet was:
  Posho (mushed maze)
  Rice
  Beans
  Greens with peanuts or ground nuts
  Chunks of meat in a stew

We had this food from lunch and dinner every day.  I lost a good bit of weight in Sudan.  Our treats were the occasional pop (soda), which when they are cold, were a bit like heaven.

Sudan is incredibly HOT!   I have never been so wet from sweat, it poured down my face!  It was the hottest in Torit because we were fairly high up in the mountains.  But there were days when I just could not believe how incredibly hot I was.  There was one day like that in Isohe... you can hardly move, it's hard to get motivated when it is SO hot!

The internet is being slow right now... the next post should be almost all photos.