Our “Reality Check”

Twice per week Susan comes to clean our apartment. Susan does not speak English so we are wonderfully obliged to practice and speak the local Juba Arabic with her – Susan has become one of our many, patient and gracious language teachers. Susan is from the Torit area of Eastern Equatoria, and she often walks a long distance to cultivate her fields. In many ways, Susan represents the simplicity of rural life and thinking, yet finds herself transplanted into the urban metropolis of Juba.

Susan in the middle, with Kristi and another
woman also named Susan who used to work in our building  

We sometimes refer to Susan as our “Reality Check” here in South Sudan. Her life belies and represents the suffering of so many, yet "Susan mashi hal,” Susan pushes along. Having given birth to ten children, only a few remain, most having died because of disease or due to the violence and trauma which continues to inflict this land. Last year Susan's sixteen-year-old son was shot and killed in broad daylight at a birthday party. Susan’s grief was immeasurable, and her willingness to forgive divine.

Within our first few months of being here, I was targeted and overtaken by “toronto,” thieves who travel by motorcycle and swipe possessions from unsuspecting pedestrians. I came home feeling victimized. Susan, while not discounting my trauma, said to me, “Bob, do not condemn them for what they have done…have compassion, they are acting out of their own desperation.” On another occasion, Kristi and I bemoaned the fact that rats continued to invade our apartment at night, eating into our bananas and causing general havoc. When we informed Susan about our “rat problem,” she sympathized, but responded with this rejoinder – “Ah, you have rats, that means you have food. You are blessed to have food!” She later told us that in many homes, rats come and nibble at people’s toes at night because there is no food.

Most recently, since we arrived back in Juba almost three weeks ago, we rejoiced to see Susan glowing! After months of melancholy since the death of her son, Susan seemed to have regained a sense of hope and joy. Yet again, the challenges of this country would land themselves square on her shoulders. One day last week Susan confided to Kristi that in the afternoon she would go across town to Jebel to pick up the three children of her late brother and sister-in-law, taking them home to care for, to feed and send to school. The following week Susan would report to me that previously she had taken in another three children from the same brother and that of his first wife after the first wife had died and her brother and his second wife were unwilling to care for them. It seems that HIV/AIDS had wiped out at least two of the parents, leaving behind a retinue of orphans. Susan said when she thinks about the needs of her household, it is too much, she is overwhelmed. "But I put God first," she says smiling, "and have faith that He will provide." 

What can one say when confronted with the life of Susan? What words of comfort or encouragement can one provide? I am left speechless and dumbfounded by Susan’s witness of resilience and faith. Could I endure what Susan has endured and keep going? I do not know. What Kristi and I do know, however, is that Susan is our “Reality Check.” She is our inspiration.