I wanted to clear up some things about what exactly I am doing and what exactly ECTC is. I live in Goli, Southern Sudan. Goli is the area in which we live, but is so small you can not see it on the map. Goli is about 20 miles from Yei (the closest city). Now some of you might be thinking oh that is not far. Some of you said that before I left, but don’t think 20 miles United States style, think 20 miles African style. 20 miles can take anywhere from 1 hour to 1 hour and 30 minutes. That is on a good day. It could take longer, depending on rain or the current road situation. Now, it is defiantly not a smooth ride and I will never take a small pot hole in St. Louis for granted again. You haven’t seen anything until you have see pot holes the size of your car. I have never struggled with car sickness until I got to Sudan. Now I pray that I will make it to my destination without vomiting. It is quite an adventure, though, and defiantly worth the ride, sometimes. I love looking out the windows and seeing the people on the road living their lives, riding bicycles to their destinations, caring water or food from their long distances. I wonder who these people are, what their families are like, do they have children, what was their past like, what is their personality, do they know Jesus? Hmmm. Will I get to learn from them one day? I am so privileged to be here. Ok, back to ECTC.
Emmanuel Christian Training Center is a theological school that is designed to train tribal pastors from all over Southern Sudan. They come all different states and tribes. They travel for weeks and days to get to this place. They leave their wives, children, churches, and homes to come here. The school is a three year program divided into three terms. These terms will designed to work around the rainy season so that the pastors would be able to stay at home and tend to their crops. So, they come for a term and go then go home for a couple of weeks and then return for the next term. There is also a women’s program that is set up. It is only a two year program and is a little shorter in term length because of their children. Most of these women are the wives of the pastors who have been through the theology program or they are women who just want to be trained to be better used by God. ECTC at one point was started by Open Door Mission, but now is completely indigenous run by Sudanese and Ugandans. The staff of ECTC is from Sudan, Uganda, Kenya and other places as well. ECTC also has a plan to be completely self-sustaining so they have a farmer who is in-charge of all of the crops of corn, sweat potatoes, pumpkin, and much much more. All of the staff of ECTC live on the compound. We have staff houses which are for all of the staff who have children. We also have a block of houses which are like 2 room apartments (think quad-plexes). This block is the home of all of the single staff, staff that is here without their families, or married staff without children. On our compound we have chicken, cows, and goats to help sustain us with food(no refrigerator- you kill and cook).
Under the umbrella of ECTC is Foundation of Cross-Cultural Education. FCE is its own entity, but uses our facilities. Their staff for this facility live here and some of their students come here. They have training centers all over; this is just one location. FCE trains teachers to teach school from a Christian perspective. It’s also a discipleship training course; it just has different levels.
Another entity under the umbrella of ECTC is Emmanuel Christian Academy. ECA is where I fit in. ECA was created as a staff school for the staff children of ECTC staff. Essentially our school is international, because we have children from Uganda, Sudan, Kenya, South Africa, even one from Germany. Next year their goal is to open the nursery class to the community. Slowly we will open each grade up to the community as teachers and resources allow. Our teachers are also very international. We have teachers from Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and America. We are all very different but work together well. ECA just opened in January of 2009 and we are still growing. This year we have 22 students and are anticipating more next school year, which begins in January 2010.
All of the staff of ECTC, except for a couple, live on the compound together. So just think you do not just have students at school but all of the time. We are a great community and we look out for each other and encourage one another.
I hope you enjoyed this decleration of what I am doing. So, moral of the story I am not teaching tribal pastor children. Instead I am teaching the staff children of ECTC, which is still enabling tribal pastors to go to their people and preach the Word of God. I am a little part of a bigger picture. I attach pictures soon.
