Memories of a Desert-Loving Canadian

Thirty long years ago today, I entered the desert of northern Sudan to live in a faraway, unforgettable village of mud huts, roaring camels and beautiful people. My role was community development, but my dream was to simply meet with God in the desert. 

Perhaps I'm too much of a dreamer, but I had long felt a tug to desert places. Call me monkish, or blame Lawrence of Arabia; all I know is, I was attracted to the desert. Its emptiness attracted me, the scale of it awed me, its extremes excited me. 

Years ago, while traveling in the same deserts of northern Sudan, Wilfred Thesiger wrote, "Hour after hour, day after day, we moved forward and nothing changed; the desert met the empty sky always the same distance ahead of us. Time and space were one. Round us was a silence in which only the winds played, and a cleanness which was infinitely remote from the world of men."

I found Geoffrey Moorehouse even more inspiring as he wrote in The Fearful Void about his travels in the western Sahara: "...we were confronted with a passage across what looked like an eternal plain. Its dimensions were only emphasized by the presencie, low on distant horizons, of isolated peaks and tabletops of rock... their greatest effect was to provide such scale to the entire panorama as to reduce two men and four camels to their proper proportions in this towering and and barren universe. We were insects creeping forward to a rim of the world that might never be reached, across pure and unbounded space in which we had no hope at all of encountering anything else that lived and could offer comfort by its presence. It was appalling; but at the same time, it was exciting, with a spellbinding quality that penetrated even the dulling of the senses that it imposed... 

"...in its utmost desolation, I began at last to understand its attraction. It was the awful scale of the thing, the suggestion of virginity, the fusion of pure elements from the heavens above and the earth beneath which were untrammelled and untouched by anything contrived by man."

So there I was thirty years ago, a 23 year old kid with a head full of romantic notions about what turned out to be the hardest year of my life up to that point, cheerfully hopping in a Land Rover and being driven into an 11-month crucible of fire for my yet half-grown character. Ah, but what better way is there to be refined than in a furnace of desert heat while being mocked by petulant camels and enveloped in mountainous sandstorms? 











My journal entry from all those years ago as we left Khartoum and eventually approached the village of Hamrat reflects my fascination: "The ride is across desert where no roads exist; just the paths of previous lorries that travel the region with supplies. At one point in Khartoum, the pavement abruptly ends, and the bumps of the 'paved' roads become the bigger bumps of dirt and sand... Soon we were out of [town], save the few odd homes seen in the middle of nowhere as we drove through the desert. Nothing for hundreds and thousands of square miles, and you suddenly see a home built of dried wood standing all alone. We saw some camels, and a few herd of cattle in the beginning too, but most sights became pretty rare after about 20 minutes. There was sand, shrubs, scrawny trees and sky..."

The next day, after a chilly desert night, I wrote, "as we drove up a dune or hill (or both), apparently off course with no path to follow, we saw appear in the view from the top of it, a town in the distance below! Hamrat el Wuz."

Google Earth allows us a glance-from-above, gradually zooming in on my desert home for 11 months in 1987 – a year I will never forget, among a people I will always cherish, and during which, I truly met with God in the desert...

© 2017 by Ken Peters

Milk for my Tea

The year I spent living in the desert of north Sudan had some life-risking moments, not least of which was exposure to the blazing sun when temperatures regularly exceeded 40 degrees Celsius (104 F) in the shade. The times we got stuck far removed from any source of shade, or of any human existence for that matter, due to vehicle failure or inhospitable terrain were not uncommon. So you can imagine the relief we felt when after a long day of driving, we'd find a place of shelter – a hope of hospitality – amidst the desert heat. Finding it could be a matter of life or death.

I remember one desert shelter we found that was made out of about a bazillion desert sticks that largely blocked the hot sunlight but which allowed the desert breeze to easily flow through the hut. What a pleasure it was to rest there. The host in that remote establishment was a camel herder by trade, and said that, though he could, he wouldn't trade all his camels for a life of carefree luxury, for then (he jokingly asked), "Where would I get milk for my tea?" He was a man at rest in a shelter surrounded by a hostile environment.

Which begs the question of me: Am I at rest in my environment? Or do I think I need to trade my environment for one of my own making in order to enjoy rest in this world? Or can I find rest in this life despite what the elements around me are throwing my way? It's a question I need to periodically ask myself, and one which I've recently found that Psalm 61:1-4 helps me to answer.

This psalm of David was written in unfavourable circumstances. David was crying out to God and was struggling to feel God's nearness: "From the end of the earth I call to You when my heart is faint..." (Psalm 61:2a). God seemed far away, and David was tired. I expect even his prayers felt tired, as I know mine do at times. But then as David finished the above sentence, he shifted his focus to who God is: "...lead me to the rock that is higher than I." (Psalm 61:2b). David knew that God was bigger than his circumstances; stronger than the hostile forces of his environment. "For You have been a refuge for me, a tower of strength against the enemy. Let me dwell in Your tent forever; let me take refuge in the shelter of Your wings." (Psalm 61:3-4).

We rightly emphasize the fact that God is Emmanuel – that God dwells with us and in us, never leaving us or forsaking us – because that's extremely encouraging and reassuring! But King David turned this around and encouraged himself with the fact that we can dwell with God! God invites us into His tent so that we can find shelter with Him from a hostile environment – from the difficult circumstances in which we may find ourselves. The Apostle Paul went further along these lines, saying that we are "seated with Him [God] in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:6). What a refuge that represents! Our "life is hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:2)!

"Let me dwell in Your tent forever..." Yes, please! I never want to leave it. The storms will rage around it, but never inside it. For God is "a refuge for me, a tower of strength against the enemy." And I will always have milk for my tea as I share fellowship with my God.

© 2017 by Ken Peters

Desert tracks

North Kordofan, Sudan, 1987

From the year I spent in the desert of Sudan so long ago, I still remember one sure way to get stuck in the burning sand: Leave the tracks of the vehicles that went before you.

Often the sand was so deep that it created enough resistance to our vehicle's momentum that we could not keep moving unless we followed the path of a bigger and stronger vehicle that had gone before us. Those paths in the desert were literal life savers for us as we roamed a dangerous and inhospitable wilderness in our little Land Rover.

That's why I feel that Psalm 85:13 is so well stated in the New King James Version: "Righteousness will go before Him, And shall make His footsteps our pathway." 

I'm so grateful that the footsteps of someone bigger and stronger than us has actually created the pathway on which we walk, or we would surely get bogged down in the toilsome badlands we often travel through. Psalm 85:13 tells us that whatever we're going through, God has prepared a path of righteousness for us to walk along. And God even assures us in the previous verse that "the LORD will give what is good; and our land will yield its increase" (85:12).

I believe that means that, metaphorically, the terrain we desperately need God's help to travel through lest we get stuck amidst life's difficulties, is the very same ground that He promises will also provide a blessing to us and yield an increase in our lives. We can be sure that because God has gone ahead of us in righteousness, the path He has prepared for us is good, no matter where we find ourselves along the way!

© 2016 by Ken Peters

Saved by an Angel?

I was reminded of this excerpt from “God’s Desert Highway” (see tab above) when the subject of angelic visitations came up in conversation this week. It was an unforgettable experience, 28 years ago. [Note: A "wadi" is a dry riverbed that fills up in the rainy season.]

...The next morning, we awoke early and pressed on to the last village we would pass through before Khartoum. From there we had two choices: The long (20 hours) and much more likely to be dry route, or the short (12 hours) and more likely to be wet route. We were told that both should be open, so we chose the short route. As a 12-hour route, it took over 24 hours of driving, pushing, wading, and digging to get through the three wadis in its path. It was a horrible route to have taken.

The first wadi we entered was large. We drove up and down its edge looking for a suitable crossing point. Finally Ahmed stopped and said, "This is the best place for us to cross." Ahmed's "best place" was about 50 yards of water, six to 24 inches deep, under which was six to twelve inches of mud, some of which could be seen above the water’s surface here and there to offer hope. It is difficult to describe the five hours of labour it took us to cross that 50 yards at temperatures that certainly well exceeded 40 degrees Celsius. The mud was often right up to our undercarriage and we were on our bellies in the water trying to dig it out. Then we'd lay branches of the wadi’s trees or shrubs under the tires, and then push. Then after managing to get the vehicle about 80% of the way across, we hit the deepest part. If four local shepherds hadn’t been nearby to come and help us (for a price), I’m sure we would have been there for many additional hours.

Tired, dirty and wet, and our feet cut up from the sturdy thorns of the branches we'd had to walk over as we pushed the vehicle over them, we drove on. The next wadi was worse. Instead of a mere 50 yards of water and mud, this one was at least 100 yards wide, with dozens of deep, steep, muddy and slippery ravines weaving their way across our path. Once again, Ahmed drove up and down its edge looking for the best crossing point. As he began our journey across the wadi at the best place he could find, we entered a ravine that was about five feet deep with slippery mud-soaked sides. We immediately got stuck at the bottom of it. Using piles of branches and some determined digging, we got out, but we got stuck over and over again – the final straw being when all four of our wheels were spinning freely on perfectly level ground in mud that was only one or two-inches deep. And given the energy we’d expended and the heat of the desert, we were getting increasingly fatigued as the wadi was becoming alarmingly impassable. It seemed we couldn’t move forward, and going back the way we’d come was looking equally uncertain as the afternoon sun sapped both our bodies and our spirits. I wondered if we were going to die in this remote and inhospitable place. Then along came a man out of nowhere – a nomad of the land, and he offered us help.

"You'll need to turn back," he told Ahmed. "The farther you go in at this place, the harder it becomes." So he led us out. He just began walking away from us expecting us to follow, and as Ahmed tentatively put his foot on the gas, and as we gave the vehicle a push, the vehicle moved and he was able to turn to follow the man. Somehow – I can’t explain how – he led us out of a place that had taken us over an hour to cross into in a matter of minutes. Once back on the side of the wadi where we’d started, the nomad jumped in the vehicle and directed us north.  It didn’t seem like he took us further than where we had looked before when searching for the best crossing-point, but then suddenly we saw what seemed impossible: a passageway – a level and dry place to cross the wadi where we could drive straight across without a single barrier between us and the other side. 
      Once safely across, we expressed our thanks to him, and as he kindly declined our attempts to pay him for his help, I remember wondering at how gentle the look in his eyes was, and I wondered where he had come from in this lonely place. Eventually, he just turned and walked back into the trees of the wadi from where he’d come. I couldn’t resist wondering if he had been an angel.

Once he had left, and as we paused to take some water from a container we carried, I went aside to a distant bush to be alone for a moment. As I began to thank God for the help he had given us, I began to weep. I remembered the psalm that says, “They wandered in the wilderness in a desert region; they did not find a way to an inhabited city. They were hungry and thirsty; their souls fainted within them. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble; He delivered them out of their distresses. He led them also by a straight way, to go to an inhabited city. Let them give thanks to the Lord for His lovingkindness” (Psalm 107:4-8).

It was as though that very psalm came to life for us that day in Sudan. And the only reason we didn’t die was because it seemed as though God showed up.

Reading List 2011

     For the past two years, I've tracked what I've been reading here on my blog. If it's served no other purpose, I get the feeling that it has encouraged me to keep reading the books that I get started on. And just like I posted my 2010 reading list at the end of last December, below is a list of all the books that I read in 2011 (in the order I completed them).
     For some reason, 2011 seemed to end up being the Year of the Biography for me. Eight of the 15 books below are either biographical or auto-biographical (and there's a ninth if I include Kendall's devotional book on the life of Joseph). I guess that's because when I'm not reading something devotional or theological, I tend to gravitate toward historical books, which are often about people rather than about events.
     Apart from all the books listed here, I also read the Bible through each year. I believe the Bible is God's inspired Word to us, and of all the things I read, I see the Bible as what is most essential for me to be feeding on.
Perhaps there's a book listed here that you'd enjoy reading. And please feel free to leave a comment if there's a book you'd like to recommend that I read in 2012. Just please be patient with me, as I've already got a few books on my shelf that are waiting to be read!

1. Filling up the Afflictions of Christ by John Piper. This book was given to me as a gift, and I'm glad it was. It tells the stories of William Tyndale, Adoniram Judson and John Paton, and of the price they paid to bring the Gospel to the nations. Their stories put life in a right perspective. The introduction alone has been enough to get my attention and to challenge any self-pity that's slinking around in my heart!
2. Release the Power of Jesus by Bill Johnson. I read this during a week of prayer and fasting at my church. Whatever you might think of Bill Johnson, I find my faith increases as I consider the insights he shares in his books. This particular book addresses the power in recalling and recounting the works of God in our lives, which build faith for God to do even more.
3. The Roots Of Endurance by John Piper. Having really enjoyed and having been greatly challenged by another biographical book, Filling up the Afflictions of Christ (see above), I chose this book to be the next book I read while walking the treadmill. That way I get changed in more ways than one while doing my exercise! Piper has done an amazing job in this series, The Swans are not Silent, of summarizing the stories of godly saints that have faithfully gone before us and of making the themes of their lives so applicable to our own.
4. Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia by Michael Korda. I received this book as an unexpected birthday gift due to a fascination I've long had with T.E. Lawrence's experiences in Arabia. Though I certainly don't personally consider T.E. Lawrence a "hero" (as he seemed a very strange man in many respects), I have appreciated how thoroughly he became enculturated into Arab culture out of a somewhat distorted desire to help them to make a unified nation of themselves. The book was as much about WWI and the formation of the Middle East after WWI as about Lawrence, and I found it very readable and informative.
5. Thanking God by R.T. Kendall. My pastor recommended this book to me -- and when your pastor recommends a book to you, well, I figure I'd better read it! In actual fact though, I really wanted to read it. Gratitude has not been a strong suit in my life and I believe I need to grow in it. And in the same way that this book has been a wonderful inspiration to many in this regard, God has used the lessons it contains to stir me to becoming more consistently and deliberately thankful!
6. The Cross of Christ by John R.W. Stott. This book has been described as "a great achievement" and "the work of a lifetime" as it digs deep into the truths of a pivotal moment in history that I'm sure anyone would benefit from understanding more fully. But what excited me most about this book was that John Stott does far more than simply explain doctrine. As he unpacks what was accomplished by Christ's death on the cross, he emphasizes "the heart of the cross" and all it achieved, and what all that can and should mean, right now, in my heart and in my everyday Christian life.
7. Mugged by a Moose, edited by Matt Jackson. I was looking in a used bookstore for something light to read during a summer holiday and found this -- 23 short stories written about other people's holidays and travels. Some were funny, some inspiring, and others just made me shrug. But it was interesting to read of some of the crazy adventures some people ended up in.
8. Design Basics Index by Jim Krause. My wife Fiona took a chance and bought this for me as a Father's Day gift, and I really liked it! It's written for graphic designers to help with designing compositions and with selecting and appropriately placing components for their projects. Problem is, I'm just a wanna-be graphic designer, and even that's probably an overstatement. But I do like playing with desktop publishing projects and this gave me lots of input on how to do that better.
9. Lost Victories: The Military Genius of Stonewall Jackson by Bevin Alexander. I picked this up in a used bookstore while I was on summer holidays. I'm fascinated by American Civil War history, and have long admired Stonewall Jackson as an exceptional general who fought in that war. Though this book may give him a little too much credit with a whole lot of would'a, could'a, should'a kind of talk, it still provides a valuable glimpse of a great general.
10. The Story of John G. Paton: Thirty Years among South Sea Cannibals by James Paton. John Paton was a nineteenth century missionary to the New Hebrides islands in the South Pacific. His deep trust in God as he repeatedly risked his life, losing loved ones to illness and enduring tremendous hardships for many years in order to bring the hope of the Gospel to a needy people is a highly inspirational read in this comfort-oriented day and age. I found myself getting a bit choked up at parts to do with the eagerness with which some of those island people eventually received the Gospel.
11. Six months in Sudan: A Young Doctor in a war-torn Village by James Maskalyk. How often does one discover a book in a used bookstore about a Canadian man who recently spent six months serving with an NGO in a dangerous border town between north and south Sudan? I couldn't resist buying it, and found myself quickly drawn into the narrative of his time there. It was quite an intense book. At times painful to read, but always drawing you closer to the people who lived and died in that tiny place so far away. It's not the first book about Sudan that I've read, and I know it won't be the last.
12. A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World by Paul Miller. I first discovered this book as I was considering going to a conference on prayer at John Piper's church in Minneapolis, and when it turned out that I couldn't attend, I decided to simply buy the book that one of the conference speakers had written. Not only was it recommended on the blog of Desiring God Ministries, but both my wife Fiona and I have found it to be one of the most honest and helpful books we've read on the topic of prayer.
13. God Meant it for Good: A Fresh Look at the Life of Joseph by R.T. Kendall. This book really puts life in the right perspective! I think this is R.T. Kendall's best book! The title of this book is what Joseph said to his brothers once they caught up with him in Egypt; a quote I always find it helpful to be reminded of. It's a statement that clearly puts God in charge of what we go through in this life. It expresses the fact that God doesn't just cause everything to work together for good in our lives (Romans 8:28), but that He causes things to happen and then uses them for good! In other words, God didn't just use what happened to Joseph for good, but "meant it" to happen for his good and the good of many others. I believe that's true in all our lives as Christians, and this book truly helped me to find encouragement in that perspective.
14. Poverty of Spirit by Johannes Metz. A man who went to be with the Lord some time ago once highly recommended this little book to me. So I bought it, quickly read it, underlining nothing, and then tucked it away on a shelf wondering what the big deal was. Then quite recently, in the midst of sorting through some personal issues, I suddenly remembered this book, found it on my shelf just where I'd left it over 15 years ago, and began to read. I guess I wasn't ready for this book all those years ago, because I felt very challenged by it this time, and I'm grateful God brought me back to it!
15. God Grew Tired of Us: A Memoir by John Bul Dau. I felt really touched by the DVD of the same title, so when I saw that an auto-biography had been written by the young man who did most of the narrating in that DVD, I was very interested in learning more about what he went through as a Lost Boy. The publisher describes the book as "The Heartbreaking, Inspiring Journey of a Lost Boy of Sudan", and it certainly was! Knowing something of what those Lost Boys went through (from another book about one of them that I've previously read), and knowing that I was living in northern Sudan when John Bul Dau was running for his life in South Sudan, I really appreciated hearing him tell his story.

© 2011 by Ken Peters

Enlargements on our walls

I enjoy photography, though with no training in it and poor equipment for it, I'm not sure how well I do at it. But every so often I take a picture that I really like, and every so often I enlarge one to see if I'll like it even more on a wall. An enlargement can do wonders for pictures worth enlarging, and I've recently grown fond of going beyond 8x10s to 11x14s (my camera simply isn't good enough to go bigger, and besides, how much wall space can one use for such things?).

Here are six photos that I've recently enlarged and put into frames on our walls (you can click on any of them to see larger views of them).

This photo was taken near Tucson, Arizona at a church building called Mission San Xavier del Bac. It was founded in 1692 by the Jesuits, making it the oldest (intact) European structure in Arizona. It was over 110 degrees in the shade on the day we visited, making it a challenge just to stand around in the sun snapping photos!

This photo was taken in Southern Sudan in the remote northwest province of Northern Bahr el-Ghazal. I went there with Aken Yel, who had been born in that province and who hadn't been back to see those who remained of his family for over 25 years. It was a thrill to witness many happy reunions. In this picture, the women are preparing a lunch for us from the recently slaughtered goat they're about to cook under that tree!

This photo didn't enlarge so well, but I loved it too much not to try. It was taken in Chefchaouen, Morocco with an old film camera, and I have since lost the negative, so this is an enlargement of a scanned 4x6 image. It was clear that as those two elderly men meandered up that ancient lane, they had a good deal to talk about! I managed to get this shot just in time.

I love the desert. I lived in one for about a year in 1987, and I have always dreamed of one day visiting the southwest United States to wander about in cactus country! My family mocked me for the number of pictures I took, some from some fairly strange vantage points, but I didn't care. I would have stayed hours longer, oblivious to the heat, if I could have.

Another place I've long dreamed of visiting is the Grand Canyon. It was wonderful to hike in it as well as to simply stand at the edge of it, only partially able to take in the scale of it all. Two of my kids and I took a hike down and into the canyon for about an hour before we turned around. I loved it, and hope that one day I can see it all over again!

This photo was taken in Muir Woods, a park just north of San Francisco named after John Muir, a naturalist from the early twentieth century. The redwoods that tower there aren't as big as the sequoias of northern California, but they are still quite impressive as we walked among them.

So those are the 11x14 pictures adorning our walls these days, reminding us of some of the wonderful journeys we've had the privilege of taking over the years.





© 2014 by Ken Peters

Honest words in difficult days...

I recently discovered some dusty old journals in my crawlspace. They're from 24 years ago, from when I lived in a remote desert village in northern Sudan, doing community development work. Curious, I began to read them, and before I knew it, I was hooked. I read them all, and what I found surprised me. I have long spoken of my year in Sudan in very positive terms, but what I found in these journals didn't match up with the residual memories I had of that time. The journals were full of appalling reminders of long forgotten challenges and failures -- in my circumstances, but more so in my heart-responses to them. And then I found an old prayer letter that I had sent to my prayer supporters that was so honest that (as I recall) my prayer letter coordinator almost didn't send it out. But it needed to go out. And it still seems a helpful reminder for me. Here it is, if you'd care to read it...

July 22, 1987

My dear supporters,
How shall I begin? I sit here writing on the edge of a cliff. An emotional precipice. Shall I conceal from you the danger I'm in? Shall I write only to leave vaguely pleasing images in your minds of my disconcerting circumstances so as not to upset your respective days? Or shall I write with honesty, revealing the darkness of the mood I find myself in? Forget the half-truths; I need to share my real feelings. Devotions aren't always good and poor circumstances can become extremely weighty when God's not considered as a part of them. I'm tired. Emotionally, spiritually and socially. I'm tired of team life and the constant effort and super-sensitivity it requires. I'm tired of the expectations placed on me to visit by the people in this community when I have nothing of any fibre to say in conversation in their language. I'm tired of waiting for a drilling rig that I'm responsible to oversee when I know nothing of what its fully experienced crew can obviously do without me. I'm tired of keeping busy with whatever needs doing until communities I'm involved with are able to do what is expected of them so that I can then offer our resultant help. The other projects progress while my projects are delayed. I'm tired folks. I wanna come home. Enough Lord. The furnace is hot enough.

THUS SAITH THE LORD...
"My child! What causes this turmoil in your heart? You have asked me to break you of pride; to soften your heart; to help you to grow mature. Surely you didn't expect such things to be painless, easy, or even fully enjoyable. Ken, I love you. I know that this hurts. But Ken, I have heard your prayers -- your pleading for maturity; your hunger for humility -- and I am only now seeking to answer them. Don't allow the troubles which are now in your life to cause you to despair. I am the God of Abraham, of Moses, of David, and I am your God also. Trust in Me. The troubles are to stretch you and strengthen you. They must not come between us, for I want to be with you to help you with these troubles. You must learn to rest in Me amidst the troubles that life in this troubled world always seems to contain, rather than to try to gain control of the problems by your own power. This is humility -- to admit full reliance on Me because of a recognition of your own inadequacy. You must learn to see Me amidst life's many troubles rather than ignoring My omnipotent sovereignty when life's difficulties begin to hurt. This is maturity -- to abandon earthly shortsightedness in order to realize an invisible and infinitely wise and powerful God's presence with you at all times. Be still, and know that I am God. I love you, and am with you now, as always."

I covet your prayers.
Love Ken  (Psalm 66)

© 2011 by Ken Peters

A love for desert places

In the film Lawrence of Arabia, Lawrence is asked by a reporter why he loves the desert so much. Lawrence simply replied, "Because it's clean."

Having lived in a desert for a year, I understand that reply. There's a purity found in a place where the arid heat is so intense that no bacteria can thrive and where the push and pull of societal ills are as minimal as a desert's population.

But I'm not one to romanticize the desert. I had too many bad days there for that. As the real T.E. Lawrence wrote in the initial lines of his masterpiece, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, "Some of the evil of my tale may have been inherent in our circumstances. For years we lived anyhow with one another in the naked desert, under the indifferent heaven. By day the hot sun fermented us; and we were dizzied by the beating wind. At night we were stained by dew, and shamed into pettiness by the innumerable silences of stars." In other words, the desert may be clean, but it has a way of humbling those who enter it (as a couple of my own writings from the desert illustrate).

But though I'm no desert romantic, I do feel an attraction to desert places. My favourite quote regarding the desert is that of Geoffrey Moorhouse from his book The Fearful Void. He set out to cross the Sahara from west to east by camel and by foot, and the following description has always struck me as both a beautiful portrait as well as an insightful observation...

"Next day dawned cold and clear, and a new world lay endlessly ahead. ...we were confronted with a passage across what looked like an eternal plain. Its dimensions were only emphasized by the presence, low on distant horizons, of isolated peaks and tabletops of rock. These made for confident navigation, for they were marked on the chart, but their greatest effect was to provide such scale to the entire panorama as to reduce two men and four camels to their proper proportions in this towering and barren universe. We were insects creeping forward to a rim of the world that might never be reached, across pure and unbounded space in which we had no hope at all of encountering anything else that lived and could offer comfort by its presence. It was appalling; but, at the same time, it was exciting, with a spellbinding quality that penetrated even the dulling of the senses that it imposed.

"For over three months I had laboured across the Sahara, and there had been few moments when I had experienced the magnetism of the desert to which so many men before me had succumbed. But now, in its utmost desolation, I began at last to understand its attraction. It was the awful scale of the thing, the suggestion of virginity, the fusion of pure elements from the heavens above and the earth beneath which were untrammeled and untouched by anything contrived by man."


© 2009 by Ken Peters

Poems from the desert

When I was 23 years old, I lived in the desert of northern Sudan for nearly a year, doing work for Emmanuel International. It was an adventure to be sure. I was young and single, and probably thought I could be another Lawrence of Arabia. But in the midst of the excitement of camel rides, sand storms and practicing my Arabic were the unwieldy challenges of culture shock, team life, unfamiliar illnesses and 120 degree heat. Needless to say, I had my ups and downs over there.

It's probably fair to say that I'm still vulnerable to experiencing ups and downs right here in Winnipeg amidst the adventures of a dove on our window sill and meaningful times of prayer for Fiona, as well as the weighty challenges of disappointing doctor's reports and Fiona's ongoing illness.

But I'm happy to say that I don't fall quite so far as I used to when big challenges follow closely on the heals of encouraging times. I was reminded of that when after receiving some disappointing news from the doctor, as I was encouraging myself in the Lord about it, I recalled two poems that I wrote in Sudan amidst somewhat similar, though different circumstances. I realize that I was quite a different person when I wrote them, but I'll share them here in the order I wrote them.

Bitter Sands
The sand blew by
With ferocious intensity
It filled the sky
It cut the skin
I didn't care
I simply leaned against
A whithered tree
And squinted
At what I didn't know
For I knew not what
Lay beyond that blanket
Of bitter sand
I didn't care
I had wandered
Into a desert
To find peace
And contentment
The peace of the desert
Is the peace of death
And contentment
The contentment of a madman

Sudan
April 7, 1987


Whispers in the Silence
How clean the desert is! 
How pure in her golden radiance.
Where is man's mark within her?
Materialism?
Hedonism?
Commercialism?
She has filled her borders
With the power of her impeding presence
That man might find no room
To dwell in his customary comfort
Within her.
Yet she is welcoming to the humble,
Placing before him no obstacles
Save the challenge of her company 
And the company of her challenges.
Enter her company then,
Accept her challenges, 
And leave behind the confusion
And the noise
And the endless distractions
Of the world of man. 
Sit down in her silence,
And hear the whisper of God 
Speaking of peace
And quiet contentment.

Sudan
April 24, 1987


© 2008 by Ken Peters

When God lets the Pressure Mount

Pressure in life is to be expected. Especially amidst the hectic lives we lead in a fast-paced society. But sometimes, pressures can become overwhelming, and while I was in Sudan last month, God helped me in how I view such situations. From our very first day in Sudan, we were faced with the pressures of unexpected expenses and big uncertainties about our tomorrows. We were flying into a town packed with displaced people due to flooding in the surrounding areas, where hotel rates were set at NGO-levels of $150-per-person-per-night, and where we had no one to pick us up at the airport and no affordable accommodations arranged. For our first eight hours in that town, I had no idea where we would actually spend the night as we shuffled from one shady spot to another in search of something affordable. But God spoke to me on the very flight that took us to that town, and He assured me that whatever happened on this trip… it was Him. Yes, that’s what I felt He actually said: “Whatever happens on this trip is of My making.” That gave me a whole lot of peace amidst a whole lot of uncertainty for much of our time there.

Not long after leaving Sudan, I wondered why I didn’t always seem to live with that same sense of peace amidst pressures in Winnipeg. And I remembered something God had shown me from King Saul’s life just a few months ago. I’m thinking of the story in 1 Samuel 13 in which Samuel tells Saul that the kingdom will be taken from him due to Saul’s disobedience. I realize that King Saul got things all wrong in that story, but I find it so easy to relate to Saul’s earth-bound insecurities. I feel for him, in a way.

It had not been a very long time since Saul had been yanked from a life of peaceful obscurity, chosen to be king of a fledgling nation. Now he’s facing enemies of great numbers, and his people are without swords or spears and have inferior numbers, and all the people expect him to do something kingly to deliver them all. Talk about pressure. It says in 1 Samuel 13:2 that Saul had 3,000 men and in 13:4 it says that “the people were then summoned.” Whether that speaks of the 3,000 or to others in addition to them is almost irrelevant, for 13:6-7 describes them as so fearful that they were hiding in caves or high-tailing it across the Jordan.

Meanwhile, the Philistines have gathered for battle with 30,000 chariots, 6,000 horseman and soldiers as numerous as the sands on the seashore (13:5)! And now Saul is expected to wait! When Samuel had anointed Saul as king, he had instructed Saul to wait seven days at Gilgal for Samuel to come offer burnt offerings to God (10:8). But every day that he waits, more soldiers desert. Every long day, Saul’s numbers were reduced while he waited for Samuel (13:8). So what does Saul do? He’s the king, so he takes charge – he makes an executive decision. He literally takes the bull by the horns and presents the burnt offerings himself. Saul was down to 600 men at that point. I’m sure he felt understandably desperate. I think I would have too.

But Saul’s disobedience to God’s servant Samuel reflected Saul’s lack of trust in God. His eyes were on earthly pressures rather than on the God who is Lord of our circumstances. Even though that’s probably because God seemed as far away as the troops who had scattered, things were not as they appeared. God was there watching as Saul was tested – as Saul failed to trust God as the pressures mounted. Interestingly, in Judges 7, Gideon was down to 300 against “innumerable hordes” and he won a victory. But Saul lost the battle and the kingdom because he allowed the persistence of life’s pressures to rob him of perspective. In the end, he tried to rush God rather than waiting for God's way in God's timing.

In Sudan, I had to trust God amidst many pressures that left me wanting to get aggressive and make something happen! And God then worked things out way beyond my expectations. I hope I can remember that here in Winnipeg. That way, I can live amidst life’s pressures with peace rather than panic, trusting that the sovereign God will work out His will in my life in ways that only He can do!

© 2008 by Ken Peters

Waiting in Aweil

In the 11 days we were in Aweil, Sudan, it was a strange paradox to get so much accomplished in a place where it took so long to accomplish anything. A Ugandan pastor who ministers in Southern Sudan told us that however long things take to do things in Uganda, it takes five times longer to do the same things in South Sudan. It is a war-torn region that is recovering from over 20 years of civil war (1983-2005), or from what the state Governor referred to as “the disaster of the last 20 years.” Yet despite all that, in a whirlwind 11 days we managed to meet with…

• the state Governor
• the state Minister of Education
• the previous state Minister of Education
• the state Minister of Infrastructure (re buildings and land)
• the former Secretary General of Aweil Town
• the Executive Director of the Aweil Town Council
• two pastors of the Episcopal Church in Aweil Town
• the lead pastor of the Sudanese Pentecostal Church in Aweil Town and for the outlying areas
• two Presbyterian church planters in rural Aweil
• a portion of the teaching staff of a public primary school in Aweil Town
• a UN/NGO Taskforce on regional health issues

It had to be God, in answer to the prayers of His people, who ensured that we were able to have so many valuable conversations with so many people. I say this because there were times during our visit when the simplest things took hours to accomplish. For example, one day we planned to drive to a village northwest of Aweil Town to see Aken’s sister as well as to drop off Aken’s brother and Aken’s nephew.      For this to happen, we had arranged to borrow a vehicle from the Ministry of Infrastructure.

All we needed to do was to get the vehicle to come to the place where Aken, Carlos, Aken’s brother, Aken’s nephew and I would be waiting. This is how it all came together…

• At 11:00am, on the day we planned to make this trip, Aken went to get some medicine for his brother and to confirm the vehicle’s availability while Carlos and I went back to the house we were staying at to get what we needed for the trip.
• Having got our stuff, Carlos and I walked back to a tea stand at which we expected Aken to return with the vehicle.
• There we sat around for awhile.
• Eventually we got hungry, so Carlos and I told the people at the tea stand that we were going to a nearby restaurant for lunch.
• After eating, Carlos and I sat and sipped our water for awhile.
• Then after awhile, I pulled out my Bible to read and Carlos slipped on his MP3 player to relax.
• Then Aken came to the restaurant without the car, without the medicine for his brother and unsure where his brother was.
• Aken then sat down to have lunch with a relative of his.
• Carlos then went back to the house to get something.
• Aken, his relative and I remained at the restaurant and sipped our water.
• After awhile, Aken’s relative left.
• Aken and I remained and waited some time longer.
• After some time, the driver of the vehicle appeared and explained that he needed money for gas.
• We gave him money and instructed him to return after purchasing the gas.
• The driver then sat down to eat.
• Then the power went out and the restaurant’s electric fan, which I had strategically placed myself right in front of, stopped spinning.
• Not long after that, Aken and I got up and went back to the tea stand, and as we left, I looked back at the driver still sitting at his table eating and I wondered how we could just leave him there when it took so long to find him!
• After sitting at the tea stand for awhile, I pulled out my sermon notes to review them for Sunday.
• Then, at about 2:30pm, Carlos returned to the tea stand.
• Not too long after that, Aken’s brother appeared and sat down at the tea stand. All we needed now was Aken's nephew and the vehicle.
• But then Aken got up and went to purchase some clothes from the market for his brother.
• While Aken was away, his nephew then arrived at the tea stand. Now all we needed was Aken and the vehicle.
• Then Aken’s nephew went away somewhere. What next? Would Aken's brother be the next to leave so that when the vehicle came, it would be for just Carlos and I?
• Then Aken returned with the clothes.
• And then suddenly, at 3:10, the vehicle arrived with Aken’s nephew.
• But gas had to then be siphoned into the vehicle from two jerry cans.
• We then loaded up the luggage, and at 3:17, we departed for our destination.

Whenever we faced long waits like this, it often seemed like everyone around us knew more about what was going on than Carlos and I understood. We would sometimes try to clarify what was happening, but people seemed to think that we’d be better off if we just trusted them rather than them having to explain things to two confused North Americans. And like I said, the things that were accomplished on this trip seemed to work out in ways far beyond what we could have accomplished by our own understanding anyway!

© 2008 by Ken Peters

Back from Sudan!

I’m back in Winnipeg and extremely glad to be home with my family! Though it was quite a trip, I’ve struggled to find the right words to sum it up. It was certainly an adventure – one that was both challenging and amazing in so many ways. From the start, it felt as though God placed a curtain not more than six inches in front of our faces so that we couldn’t know what was going to happen from one moment to the next. I like to know what to expect. I like to plan for what’s coming. And none of that was possible in Sudan – certainly not in the remote town of Aweil. We arrived in a town bursting with people displaced by the floods in the surrounding area with no one to meet us, no transport arranged, no place to stay, little idea of the cost of such things, and no clear idea what we would do there for 10 full days.

All of that gave God plenty of opportunity to show Himself faithful as we gave up control and just let Him lead. And that resulted in blessing after blessing coming our way as the trip became more and more fruitful. Aken was able to see one person after another who he hadn’t seen in 17-25 years! The joy-filled hugs were wonderful to witness. And as we walked about the town on the day after we arrived, who happened to come and sit at the same tea shop where some happy friends had brought Aken, but the former Minister of Education! So as Aken caught up with loved ones, Carlos and I peppered a very willing interviewee with questions. And later, as we met with the new Minister of Education, it seemed God’s timing as he pulled out fresh notes that he had just taken in the past month after traveling to all the areas surrounding Aweil Town to find out exactly what the current status of all the schools and teachers was! We later saw some of his statistics illustrated during a visit to a local school in which we found as many classes outdoors as indoors and several classes as high as 100+ students – with one class of more than 200 children! We also met with the Minister of Infrastructure (re land and buildings), the Executive Director of the Town Council, the former Secretary General of Aweil and the state Governor. Later we also stumbled into a UN/NGO Taskforce meeting of health issues in the area, which we sat in on as guests.

My personal highlight was how God led us across the path of John Garang, a wonderful pastor who ministers in Aweil. It all began with us first meeting one of his associates, William Deng – a man whose name we’d been given by a pastor in Uganda – a name which represented the only Christian leader we knew of in Aweil. Our conversation with William was just in time since he was leaving on a trip the day after we met, but our time with him was cut short before he could even tell us of any other pastors he works with. Later that afternoon while Aken was out visiting, I let God know about my regret that I’d had so little time with William, as I had so many other questions I’d wanted to ask him. And then, just minutes after expressing this disappointment to Carlos, there was a knock at the door. It was John Garang. William had told him about us and he had sought us out.

John is a former Lost Boy who, in 1986, with many other boys walked all the way across Sudan to Ethiopia to escape the fighting in Aweil. To survive, he joined the SPLA (Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army) for eight years. While a soldier, God sovereignly directed him to go to what turned out to be a church and there he was introduced to Jesus. John felt called to take the Gospel back to Aweil, and that resulted in his long walk back home. In fact, as a volunteer pastor, John walked the distance between Uganda and Aweil 6-7 times – an 800 mile, 3-month journey each time! As a pioneer for the Gospel in Aweil, John experienced significant persecution, including time spent in jail. Presently, he oversees pastors of many congregations while also leading one himself. It was a huge honour not only to meet him, but also to preach in the church he leads as he translated for me.

This summary wouldn’t be complete without many thanks for people praying for us. We felt those prayers as we ended up in what seemed like one divine appointment after another – one sense of perfect timing after another. We would constantly wonder what more we could be in Aweil to accomplish, and suddenly we’d find ourselves in yet another purposeful moment. Thank you for praying.

People’s prayers for our travels were especially appreciated. As we arrived at the airport on August 28 to leave Aweil, we received a cell phone call telling us that no plane would be coming to get us that day. The flight was delayed until the following day. That meant we would miss our connecting flights to Uganda and to Canada! At that moment, there was a UN plane sitting on the airstrip collecting passengers, and they admitted that they had three empty seats on their plane. But because we could not be officially referred to them by an NGO, they couldn’t take us aboard. So as that plane took off, we were left wondering how we would make our way back home. And then suddenly, as if on cue from heaven itself, in walks Vincent, a Canadian who lives about an hour from Aweil Town and whom we’d met the week before. After hearing about our situation, he explained that he had a charter flight coming in that afternoon which would be leaving with no passengers at dawn the next morning. It was an MAF (Missionary Aviation Fellowship) plane that wasn’t scheduled to stop in Juba but which perhaps would be willing to rearrange their schedule for us. In the end, they agreed to have us on board and to make a stop in Juba, and we arrived there just in time to make our flight to Uganda! So to complete a trip on which very little went according to a plan, that is how we made it home to our families as planned!

© 2008 by Ken Peters