FAQ Home Assignment 2015

We wanted to try and answer some FAQ about our upcoming home assignment. Please contact us by leaving a comment or by email to ask additional questions not found here.

How long will you be in your passport country?

We will be in the United States from March-December 2015.

What would encourage you on your home assignment?

This is kind of a big confusing question. But this article is has amazing ideas (really you should read it!)

What will you do after that?

After our home assignment we will return to Kenya. We will still be working with South Sudanese. J– will be managing the clean drinking water project and secondary school (both in South Sudan) and also teaching seminars to refugee youth. Abuk is excited to live life among other women and see what opportunities arise as she homeschools and parents five littles!

Is Home Assignment a vacation for you guys?

It sounds a bit like a vacation for many but home assignment is actually a very busy season for us. A part of our job is working overseas but an equally important part is connecting the church and people in our passport country and supporters to what God is doing in South Sudan. We will be spending a majority of our time looking to connect with you and share with you what God is doing in South Sudan and North Africa.

Where will you be?

March-East Coast

May-California

June-Oregon

July-December – Washington

January-Return to South Sudan

What is your schedule?

This is where you come in! Contact us and tell us when we can connect. We’d love to do open houses, South Sudan tea times, henna parties, or share at your church ways that God is working in South Sudan. Let’s think creatively and set up times to meet!

What are some of your needs?

Prayer- This much traveling is pretty stressful for our not so small brood and we need prayer for grace with each other as we live in transition for so long. Please especially pray for our home school routine which we must keep up in this season.

Friendships. Invite us over, or invite yourselves over when we are in your area we really want to connect!

Is your organization in South Sudan still or have they pulled out?

SIM still remains active in South Sudan, and in Upper Nile State. Each individual and family unit has developed a risk assessment plan and many of our workers are currently serving in country despite some instability. Currently there is one family unit in Upper Nile, they have an infant and are doing outreach from our base in Doro.

So what is your risk assessment?

We’d love to tell you in person, but the main points are that there is a truce in place from warring parties, we see local families feeling safe to live together, we see some stabilization of refugees (ie settling into camps or returning and not still so much flight movement). So far these have not been met for us. This does not mean other families will not return with our organization to work in South Sudan, merely that our family is not in this current season of conflict. There is no right or wrong here, each person must faithfully and prayerfully act and step in the direction the Lord leads, God is using our risk assessment to have us wait to return to our home in Upper Nile.

Why not just work with South Sudanese in your passport country if the region remains unstable?

This is such a great option and a valuable need. Prayerfully we feel that we need to in faith pursue returning to South Sudan, and this involves aligning ourselves close to the country. We feel that our talents and abilities with language, and technical skills God is asking us to use with folks that are the most likely to bring change to their country directly (ie refugees that will most likely return to this land). The Lord may direct us this way in the future.