Update: South Sudan

I am back home in Kampala after an amazing trip to Jonglei and Upper Nile State, South Sudan. Thank you all for your prayers during my travel with Food for the Hungry (FH). The assessment trip was successful and I am excited to continue the process to recruit a small team that I will lead in November. We will to return to South Sudan for the disaster risk reduction project trip to work with FH as they support farmers who were devastated by flooding last year. In addition to a civil engineer to design strategies for protecting the crops and villages, we hope to bring an agricultural engineer to explore the option of using the floods as a blessing to produce water loving crops like rice.

I met some dedicated, generous, and loving people on the trip who are committed to the development of the world's newest country, a war torn nation with enormous potential and a long road ahead. Please continue to pray for my new friends at FH in Juba and Malakal, working under difficult conditions to bring the love of Jesus Christ to South Sudan. Alloys Amolo, a Kenyan who previously worked with FH in Mozambique will be leading the project to train farmers and educate the communities on disaster reduction techniques.

Part of our multi-cultural team: (From left) Abebe, FH staff from Ethiopia, myself, and Alloys, FH staff from Kenya. There are also FH staff from Uganda, Rwanda, and of course South Sudan. The communities are inaccessible by road during the rainy season, so we spent many hours on the river.

Stay tuned, I plan to write a more detailed post about the project after the November trip. If you have any questions about the work we are doing at EMI, please email me. I would love to hear from you! 

In the meantime, please continue to pray for our work here.  I will be co-leading a project trip here in Uganda September 8-19. Our 10 person team of volunteers, staff, and interns will design a master site plan and buildings for an orphaned children’s village on a 25 acre hilltop property near Bulo, less than 2 hours drive from Kampala. The Ayinza Project is a ministry birthed out of Bridge a Life (www.bridgealife.com), a Christian support organization for adoptive and foster families.

Thank you all for your continued prayers as I serve with EMI in East Africa. Please join my support team! You can make a donation on line at www.emiworld.org. Just click DONATE and follow the prompts. (Detailed instructions can be found at the "Become a Partner" link to the right.)

With Joy,

Anna Rose

A farmer prepares a berm to protect his crops from impending flooding from the Nile River. I hope to explore the option of using the floods to plant crops like rice when we return with the team in November.

I made a new friend in the village of Toch. The South Sudanese depend on their cattle for livlihood. Many cows were lost last year in the floods.