Malakal, Sudan

After one day in Nasir, we boarded a plane early the next morning bound for Malakal. Malakal is one of the larger cities in south Sudan and lies along the River Nile about 30 miles from the border with north Sudan. It is a very diverse city with Arab and tribal peoples coming together. Arabic is the common language spoken on the streets here. Unlike most of the rest of south Sudan the city has power lines and a public water system, although the power only comes on here for 2 hours in the evening. The city is a busy place with many taxis and rickshaws going to and fro on the well-kept dirt roads and a bustling market area near the city center. The population is estimated to be about 120,000.

We stayed with some other missionaries working with Serving in Mission (SIM). They have a very nice compound not far out of the city center. It has a couple of houses and several large Kenya tents, which is where we slept. The accommodations were excellent- a comfortable bed covered by a mosquito net. The food was also great. We enjoyed meals like beef fajitas and chili for dinner and oatmeal for breakfast. We also ate lunch in the city a couple of times- fried fish and bread or schwarmas, Arabic style sandwiches where bread is cut open and stuffed with ground beef. All in all the food was very good, although both Peter and I picked up a stomach bug that would haunt us for the rest of the trip.

Our visit to Malakal was a success. We were scouting the area out to see if a radio tower might be beneficial. The idea would be to either have the tower support the work of the SIM missionaries who are here or to send a team of Ugandans into the city to plant churches. Our research led us to conclude that a tower placed in the small village of Atar about 10 miles south of Malakal would be a very effective way to reach the many Nuer and Dinka who live in this area. Later on programming in Arabic and in Shilluk could also be added as a way to reach these groups of people who make up over half the city’s population.

We spent three nights in Malakal and then were picked up by a Cessna 206 on Monday morning. We took off from the airport and headed for the village of Tonj, about 2 hours away by air. Along the way we had hoped to land quickly in Atar, but we had to settle for a low flyover because the runway was too muddy to land on. But it gave us a good idea of where we would place a tower if the Lord provides the funding for that to happen.