Abukloi School: We Can South Sudan!

Today Bev and I got up ready to get our bags out and on our way to Rumbek.  There are no flights from Juba to Rumbek until Saturday and we had done most of what we needed to do here in Juba so we thought driving there would give us more time to do the many things we have to do in Rumbek before we can start with the students.  But alas, as is very common here, plan B became plan C.  The car we were going to borrow belongs to a relative of Angelo but this morning he went to the hospital due to very high blood pressure.  Things were complicated in his family so that plan fall apart.  So we took the luggage back to the hotel we had been staying in and fortunately they still had 3 rooms for us.  So this gave us time to go to an internet cafe and catch up with you.

Tomorrow is a "free" day for us.  We hope to visit St. Francis, an Episcopal School here in Juba run by the Episcopalians here and in Great Falls, VA.  We also hope to go to the Juba zoo.  We understand it is an "open range" zoo in which you drive your car.  So many people in the US asked us if we were going to do a safari while we were here.  We told them we were starting a school not tourists.  But we are calling this our safari.

This morning we met with a reporter from Rumbek who was in Juba for a conference.  He suggested rather than advertising for students through the radio that we go to the head masters of the primary schools and ask them to invite several students from their 8th grade to apply to our school.  He said if we use the radio we could get as many as 3,000 students apply - not manageable.  We believe we will take his advice.  He will help us with this process as he knows Rumbek well and is "well connected".  We are learning that is key here.

Keep praying for the school - the selection of students is most important in the next week.

Marg