The Transition Artist

The power of a person’s story is one of the most greatly underrated tools for understanding in the entire world. We have formulas and theories and philosophies galore that try to explain the human condition. However, for some reason the general weight of words and the meaning they carry often is so easily cast aside or forgotten that it may seem as though words are sometimes nothing more than air mixed with the vibration of human sound. A word, in some sense, is simply an exhale; the release of carbon dioxide that just happened to catch a few vocal cords on its way out. A sentence may be a slightly more intentional sequence of words, said in passing, but not so randomly released. But a string of sentences, a story, is much more than that. There are stories without points or plot lines, and stories that aren’t true, but a story told with intention is a person’s life laid out before another, waiting to be listened to and understood. This is no happy coincidence; it is an offering. A story can be the building of a wall, a fortress of strength perhaps, or a moment of pulling back the curtain, allowing just enough vulnerability to be known. The most important part of the story, though, is the listener and what they will do with what they’ve been told.

I listened to multitudes of stories today, and wrote them down. I was given a snapshot of some of the lives of men from countries I can’t even fully imagine, and I wanted to save them. I tried to write down their words as fast as they slipped into the air, trying to capture the poignance of what they were saying on a piece of paper, just as the last vibrations died in my ears. I don’t know that I’ll be able to capture that same spirit of strength and vulnerability and sharing (and, at times, brotherhood) that the country directors exuded, but I would like to share at least one story in particular that might never reach the states otherwise.

Before this trip I had never met, nor really heard about Tito Iranga. Tito is our country director for South Sudan and one of the most lovely people to look at. His skin is black as night, and his hair is shaved so close to his head that it’s hard to see at a distance. His eyes are as dark as his skin, but they hold a certain depth that makes any onlooker aware that he has seen more than he lets on. Tito smiles so often I’m surprised his cheeks don’t hurt, and his teeth are beautifully white in contrast with his skin. I knew before I was told that he was Sudanese because his heritage is so evident. More poignant than his heritage, though, is his story. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it all day.

At the beginning of the conference, Tito introduced himself saying, “I am from a country of war. I was born in the war, I lived in the war, and I continue to live with my family in a war.” I later learned that he said this because South Sudan has been at war for the past three decades. Due to tribal violence and tension within the government leading to multiple rebel groups, South Sudan hasn’t experienced peace except for once (for a brief time in 2005) in the majority of the time Tito has been alive. He shared these facts with the group with a heavy heart, as we asked him how we could pray for his country.

War has wrecked his homeland, and he illustrated this point by explaining how many lives have been lost. Tito comes from a village of 25 families. Just within those families, 2 people have recently died. “Imagine, then,” he said, “what the bigger villages lose; how many people they are missing from families.” I honestly couldn’t even fathom it. I tried imagining what it might feel like to know that the place that I live in isn’t safe, and that, at any time, someone I love might be taken from me. I’ve never been in that position before, but I imagine that if I were then I would be horribly depressed. Tito explained that while he was here for this conference, more fighting had broken out, but that efforts towards peace were beginning to take effect. As a matter of fact, the Church of Christ had just been asked to be a part of the peace negotiation. “Reconciliation,” someone breathed, and we began praying for just that.

As we began praying, Emily, who led the prayer, asked that God keep Tito’s family safe and bring him peace knowing that God was watching over them even in his absence. We prayed for peace in the country, guidance in negotiation, and God’s reconciliation and redemption of South Sudan. Tito, who has been sitting next to me the past two days of the conference, has come to be a face I can always count on for a smile, but looked deeply troubled after the prayer ended. I knew it was because he was thinking about his family. And who wouldn’t be concerned for the safety of their loved ones? I looked over at him every now and then as the next session began and literally saw God working in him before my eyes. Tito’s face went from closed, looking as though he could cry as he lost himself in thought, to open, looking around and smiling again, not ten minutes later. I can’t even imagine the weight that his heart must feel, I just knew that I wanted to carry it for him in any way I could.

Of course you can’t lift someone’s burdens for them, but Tito shared one of his life’s treasures with us later in the afternoon. Due to the nature of his job as the director of the pastor training programs in South Sudan, Tito has the opportunity to teach his own classes and interact one-on-one with his students. African Leadership’s mission and vision is to invest deeply in both the work of our country directors, but also to see that they’re investing in the lives of their students, discipling and walking alongside them. Tito has done an exemplary job of discipling and caring for his students, so he was asked to discuss the ways in which he does that.

Tito teaches a class in his home village, which is, as I have said, quite small. Many years ago, he offered a pastor training class and a young student showed up. Since most of the people who participate in the class are already pastors or desiring to become a pastor, it was somewhat strange that this young boy showed up. As it turns out, the sixteen year old that walked in that day had only come because he had heard there was going to be free food. The part that he seemed to have missed, though, was that this was a very serious pastor training class, though he wasn’t himself a believer of any kind. He had walked for two days to get to the class. The good news is that the food was, in fact, “free” (Tito actually spent his own salary on feeding and caring for his students), but so was the Good News.

John, the boy who walked in that day, ended up not only staying in the class and eating the food, but becoming someone that Tito walked alongside. He helped him figure himself out and become a kind, compassionate man as he grew up. John is now a minister and in his early thirties. Tito continues to walk alongside him and help him live with intention and meaning.

John is also engaged. Of course this is just icing on the cake for Tito as a mentor to him, but the story of his engagement is somewhat amusing. John is engaged to Tito’s cousin’s sister, but when he went to ask for her hand in marriage he was told he had to pay a dowry. The family approved of him because he’s a minister, so they said, “Okay, sure. Sounds good. Now all we need is 20 cows.” …. 20 cows. This is a true story. John had 8 cows, but somehow managed to get his hands on enough to pay the dowry. However, two weeks before the wedding, his mother-in-law to be passed away, so the wedding was postponed. This all occurred back in February, and the wedding is still on hold. So, “to preserve his holiness,” as Tito put it, John ran off to Nairobi until the wedding.

Now, I heard this whole story and sat looking at Tito with my mouth hanging open. Surely this couldn’t be a true story that was happening in the 21st century, I thought. But it is. Tito singlehandedly at once shocked me and broadened my worldview as I realized how different life is on the other side of the world in his home country of South Sudan. I wrote this story down both because I couldn’t believe it, and because I needed to reread it and wrap my mind around it. I sometimes forget how very big the world is, and what the struggles and the joys of people on another continent might look like. My world is nothing like their world, and vice versa. But in sitting down and trying to understand a life much different from my own, I’m growing. I’m beginning to understand that shared past experience isn’t always needed for empathy, and that a feeling that might begin as some sort of combination between compassion, sympathy, and admiration might not have a name, but doesn’t need one. Sometimes, I’ve realized, just listening is far most important than responding or contextualizing. Perhaps, then, what we are truly called to do is simply love, accept, and try our very best to understand. So that’s where I’m headed.