A Historical Night

Last night we were in the middle of a Bible study with Pastor James and all of a sudden Vicky comes in the room with a very serious look on her face and says, “James, gunshots…go arm the guards…girls stay in here!” You could hear an insane amount of bullets being fired and people yelling; immediately we started praying. As the shots started to get closer we hit the ground and turned off the lights. While we were praying, I’m thinking we need to run to the bomb shelter and then James comes back into the room and says, “It’s ok they’re just celebrating, they announced the results of the election, the South won!” We get up off the ground and Vicky comes back in the room, with a gun in her hand, to check on us to make sure we weren’t terrified. The South won the referendum by 98% and has seceded from the North, praise God! The entire surrounding neighborhood was celebrating with firing guns, playing drums, singing, yelling, blowing whistles; it sounded like New Year’s Eve to the extreme. We tried to resume our Bible study but we were so distracted with all the guns firing right next to us as history is being made. I gotta admit I was freaked out, but it was fun to see all the guards get excited at their future freedom, even they wanted to fire their guns but Vicky said no way not in the compound! Literally, all night long the Sudanese were celebrating. It was hard to sleep throughout the night with random gun shots going off and people yelling playing drums but we are excited that the South will no longer be oppressed. Just for reassurance, we are all good and safe; apparently the Sudanese always fire guns when celebrating. But please pray for continued safety, on Feb 14^th the final announcement will be made which could lead to rioting. Here in Nimule there have been no problems but I’m not sure what the other areas of Sudan are facing. In June the new borders will be laid and at that point war is expected to break out. That was quite an experience for my 2^nd night in Sudan!