FAQ

I haven’t written in a while, so this is just an update on the situation here and what life has been looking like. Welcome to my frequently asked questions:

-How was Egypt?

The trip was…interesting. I am so thankful for the opportunities to travel at this age and see things I never thought I would. However, that doesn’t mean I am living the perfect traveler’s life. Traveling is often rough! The diving was great, the drowning was not; the food was great, the digesting was not; the pyramids were great, the police were not. All that to say: fb doesn’t always show the whole picture, I just thought I would spare you all a photo of me hurling in the desert! ;)

-Where are you going next?

The current plan is to find a safari near Ngorongoro Crater and Kilimanjaro then fly over to Zanzibar, a small island off the coast of Tanzania.  Tentative leave date is October 25^th followed by attending a conference in Eldoret, Kenya starting on the 10^th of November.

-How is Juba? Work?

Work has still had its challenges, but I have been given a lot more responsibilities lately and feel like I am more adjusted into my role. I still work long hours and feel uncertain about where I see myself working/ what I see myself studying in a year, but I have yet to meet anyone besides my grandfather who had life figured out at 21 (congratulations Dr. Hans Peterson for the impossible bar you have set for the rest of us). Still, I see a lot of growth here in this role and love the challenges that come with relief work.

-What is the security situation like?

Juba specifically has remained relatively peaceful. The violence here is usually associated with crime and the victims are often left unharmed. This involves a lot of armed robberies and armed carjackings of NGO compounds and vehicles. Violence has continued to escalate in the northern parts of the country, however, and one of our bases was evacuated not long ago. The staff have since returned and everything has settled down for now, but a lot of troop movement and minor incidences still yield to rumors of future attacks. With the food situation already so dire in these locations, any additional security threat has the potential to turn what is now scarcity into a famine.  

-What are you doing now?

For the next two weeks I will be based in Yida, one of our refugee camps in Northern Unity State, South Sudan. I am leading computer training courses for a group of about 30 national staff. This involves sleeping in a tent and a reliable lunch menu of rice and beans every day. I still have internet and the base is rather peaceful, so the change from the commotion of Juba is nice.

-How is CCC?

Anabelle and Faith - CCC Facebook Page

After being featured on Humans of New York, CCC raised over 11,000 Facebook likes and has received an overwhelming amount of support/emails, enough that they hardly have the capacity to handle it all. Still, the girls have no idea what celebrities they are and there is nothing better than sharing a plate of dinner with them every Wednesday night like nothing has changed.  

I started attending church with the girls Sundays at 8:00 am. Since we work on Saturdays, this is my only day to sleep in, so I do not attend very religiously. However, the girls typically guilt-trip me into going and within the past month their main Sunday school teacher left town; he asked me to take over. Before, the girls often read from a children’s bible, rolling their eyes and blatantly talking over the lesson. Now, I won’t excuse their poor behavior and attitudes…but many of these girls are pre-teens who want to be treated like they’re thirty. It’s no wonder they hate church when they are treated like they’re five. I asked the girls if they wanted to keep reading from the children’s bible to which I received a resounding no, and immediately promised them we’d ditch the baby book (thank you camp ministry for forcing me to spend a summer trying to understand pre-teen girls). That Sunday, you could hear a pin drop while Sarah prayed the closing prayer. These girls quoted scripture to me, listened to me share my testimony, and then proceeded to share their stories. Later, when I asked them if they shared these stories with each other, they shook their heads slowly and avoided eye contact with one another.  It amazes me that every Wednesday I will see someone from the media trying to pull these stories out of the girls to utilize for fundraising, forcing the girls to recount painful memories over and over. And yet – they have no one, even amongst each other, to simply listen to their stories for the sake of listening. How sweet it is to play a minor role in the background, to simply spend time with these girls because they are my sisters and not because it is my job or because I have some ulterior motive for hearing about their pasts. At the core they have the same desires I do, to be known and loved simply for the person they are and not the things they can offer. I walked out of the classroom so thankful for little breakthroughs.

And then Anabelle ran away.

I watched the woman in charge run to the front of the church gate frantically, but Annabelle, pictured with baby Faith above) was already too far. She was gone for eight days. This wasn’t like when Julie ran away, no, this was much different. Julie is a scrappy little thing, she knows her way around Juba. Though she may get herself into trouble, she can get herself out of it. Anabelle doesn’t speak a lick of English, is easily provoked, and doesn’t understand social cues in her own culture. Though her deafness is not the cause, her inability to communicate is, and her life is made a daily struggle by this frustration. When they finally found her she had lost a lot of weight and had no idea where she was, bouncing from one camp to another.

When I returned to CCC the following week, I spent a lot of time with Anabelle. We had worked on some sign language before she left and I wanted to pick back up immediately. Though I am by no means qualified to be her teacher, the options here in South Sudan are very limited for her, and I’m doing the best I can with what little time I have. We walked around the kitchen pointing at different items and learning the signs. Before, when I would sign a conceptual sign such as “what?” she would sign it back to me and smile, demonstrating a clear lack of understanding. But this time, as I would sign “what?” and point to an object, she would return the appropriate object sign, a huge step from the previous weeks. Not to mention, I noticed one of the staff members using the sign name I gave her to get her attention, she must have taught them her new name.

The communication skills I can provide her are minimal. And without other signers to interpret her signing, the effort seems futile. However, the joy I see on Anabelle’s face as she finally grasps a concept and that look of curiosity she gives me, dragging me across the compound pointing to different objects in search of a name, makes it worth every second.We spend some time tossing a ball and laying on the trampoline before I leave for the evening, so thankful she is finally safe again. 

For the remainder of the week I start thinking about all the possibilities Anabelle could have if she could just attend school. I start dreaming up intricate plans of how I could help get her to a school in Uganda or Kenya, picturing her graduating and one day being able to actually read the letters she carries around every day, and researching the amount of funds my schemes would require. After a week of waiting to discuss these options with the CCC staff, Wednesday finally arrives. Rather than immediately going to hold baby Brian, per the usual Wednesday routine, I detour to the administration office and ask if anyone would be willing to discuss options for Anabelle’s future…silence. Someone clears their throat and stumbles out the words: Anabelle will be going back to Bor.

Bor!? I read those security updates, I know what happens in Bor! They can’t send her there? She could be killed. CCC is her family now, who will she return to? And how will she make a life for herself, everyone knows she is deaf. Even if she could get married, her dowry would be practically nothing…Anabelle. Going back to Bor.

I know that even in relief work, you can’t expect to save everyone. I know that suffering is the nature of the world we live in. But I also know that nothing will change for Anabelle if we don’t try...

That’s all of the updates I have for now. Please be in prayer for my travels, the work of SP, and the girls at CCC. If you would ever like one specific girl to pray for I would love to give you her name and tell you a little about her and her specific needs, so feel free to message me for details on that! Thanks for reading - Breanna

Brian -CCC Facebook Page

Yida Refugee Camp - S.Morson

Afternoon S.Sudanese Ginger Coffee Break in Yida - S.Morson