The Didinga People

February 2008

During our stay with a Didinga family, the sub-chief’s adult son asked me these intriguing questions. Where does the sun go when it sets? Does it die? Is there more than one sun? At first, I thought he was joking. So I answered (in Didinga, an accomplish- ment!). Then his father, the sub-chief, asked, “Who created all this?” So again, I explained, and went on to share the gospel, again in Didinga. When I was finished, he replied, “So this is the world of God.” Pray that the Spirit of God will reveal the truth of His word to them.

Pray for a team from Ohio who are coming to work with Millers and the local builders to prepare the place for the TIMO team. Another group will be coming in late March - students and staff from RVA on their spring break.

We have been praying for a large TIMO team. Apparently, there are enough applicants to make a full team. Many are already raising their support. Please pray for them in their fund raising, the many, many details they have to care for, and their spiritual preparation.

We had hoped work on the airstrip would begin last March, but due to a number of factors, it is just starting now. We have decided to pay for the work (it was to be a community volunteer effort) which should greatly speed up the process. Please pray that the work proceed very quickly. In addition, one landowner out of three has yet to finally agree to give his land for the airstrip.

David spent the last several weeks unravelling the mysteries of Didinga nouns and verbs. Why was it that every time I asked Dominic how to say something, he’d come up with a verb or noun form that would mystify me. Now, 300 nouns and 200 verbs later, I have a chart that is orderly and that explains the intricacies. I’ve invested a great deal of time and effort on this not only for our language learning help, but it will also be a great help for the team when they come and save them a great deal of time in their learning process.

Reflections on the Gospel and Culture

You have heard…an eye for an eye…but I say to you… (Mt. 5:38-39)

Our friend Lino was a student in Chukadum, a town in the valley 4 hours by foot. He came back to Nagishot on weekends, and would visit our house. One Saturday he came in obvious turmoil. He had just received news that his brother had murdered a man and had fled. Lino then told us the implications for him and his family. According to Didinga tradition, if the murderer could not be found the dead man’s relatives would hunt down the perpetrator’s brother and kill him instead. In addition, they would take cows as payment and take a sister to be their slave. If they couldn’t find brothers, then they would kill the mother or anyone else they could find. Lino’s whole family went into hiding immediately.

Lino hid in our home for 3 days. Then, at night, under cover of darkness, he fled with a Didinga friend to guide him. They hiked all night and all day the following day. Armed men came looking for him a few days later, but Lino was already safe in a neighbouring country.

Lino has lost everything, his family, his tribe, his land and his current year of schooling which was almost over. He will not be able to return to Sudan for many years, if ever. South Sudan is effectively a place without law. A functioning police and legal system would help tremendously to control vengeance and disorder. Yet law can never change the evil of the human heart from which such actions spring.

Only God’s Word, mixed with faith, can do that. The Didinga are a people without God’s Word and without the knowledge of God. And that’s why we’re here.

A Picture of Our Home stay with a Didinga Family November 2007

We hiked to Napep on October 15 and stayed on the sub-chief’s compound where we would camp for 8 days. I was hot, tired, and sweaty after the strenuous hike and longed for a bath. I naturally went where the women go to bathe, the spring. This drew quite a crowd. I washed my few clothes instead, slowly, waiting for onlookers to leave. Finally, the ladies told the boys to leave and I joined the others in the daily bathing ritual. They seemed pleased that I would join them. I’m very aware that they watch my every move but I try not to let it bother me. Suddenly we have to hurry as some 30 cows are shoving their way through to drink. They muddy the waters so we leave. We hike up the hill to the compound carrying our laundry on our heads. I spread my wet clothes on the grass to dry alongside theirs. A small crowd has gathered to see their “first white lady.” I sit on the ground with the women. The babies and young children crawl up on their mothers and nurse whenever they want. None of the children are dressed and the mothers wear only material wrapped around their waists. Their decoration is etched in their chests in varying patterns of scarification.
Women smoke their pipes and roast their maize over the fire. The compound is dotted with several huts, the largest belonging to the sub-chief and one of his 2 wives, the others belonging to each of his grown sons and their multiple wives. Freshly harvested maize is shucked and drying on animal skins on the grass. Two women work together pounding maize. Each holds a log upright and with alternating strokes let their logs land with a thud into a hollowed out log full of kernels. They spit on their hands and wipe their logs. Their bodies sway with the rhythm of pounding. One of the women returns from her garden shouting, and is angry that a neighbour’s goat has ruined her newly planted tobacco patch.
The sub-chief’s wife invites me to her hut to eat the evening meal. David will join the men around the campfire to eat. The sun sets. I make my way to the sub-chief’s hut and enter into another world. The hut is dark and filled with smoke. The wife spreads a goatskin on the dried-mud floor for me to sit on. I sit motionless taking in all the sights, sounds, and smells. I smell the pungent odour of metti (beer) from maize fermenting in the corner. I watch the mamas cooking over a small trench dug in the mud floor just big enough to lay small sticks of wood. Clay pots straddle the trench and bubble with their mass of freshly ground maize. A young girl grinds maize with a small flat stone rubbed back and forth over a large slab of rock embedded in the mud floor. The grandmother takes the hot clay pot off the fire with her bare hands and places it next to her where she sits holding it with her bare feet and stirs the stiff, thick mixture with a strong forked stick. Each mama carries her gourd of food to her husband who sits outside around the campfire.
The children and mamas gather to eat in the grandmother’s hut. We sit in a circle and a child passes a chipped gourd of water for washing the right hand, the hand used for eating. The grandmother places a gourd of hot, stiff ugali on the floor with another gourd of cooked mashed pumpkin leaves. We each take a small amount of ugali and form a ball with our fingers, make a small dent with our thumb and with this scoop the cooked pumpkin leaves. All lick their fingers and empty the gourds while chattering about the day’s events. David enters looking for me. Together we sit in silence taking in the last sounds of the night. We thank the grandmother for inviting us to join their circle and leave blessing them with the traditional night greeting, ootoguth jurung