We have many resources than we we realized

We have many resources than we realized

By Abraham Daljang Maker

 The Transformation Development workshop which started on October 15- 2012 was a turning point in my life and indeed it has shaped my future career. As I am pursuing Master of Arts in Development studies, the training is very relevant to the field I am studying at the moment. Before I attended the workshop I used to think that there are poor and rich people on this planet; but I came to realized that each and every one of us is endowed with a lot of resources. Many people think that being rich is to have possessions and materials which are visible but we have never asked ourselves how the rich obtain their richness. One of the ways we can know that we have resources is to believe that God gave us all our abilities and intellects as a major resource we can use and exploit to get our needs and wants. Before the TD, I was not exception to those who believe that they are poor, but after having awakened my mind by this crucial training, I have known that I have a valuable resource, that is my brain. I was using my resource[brain] unconsciously and that is why I survived the 1998 Famine in South Sudan, the harvest was very low and there was no rain for about six months which made all the annual crops died leaving the evergreen trees to be the only available resources by that time. Many people were eating the green leaves of the trees to keep going with life. Being a young lad, I would tell my mother to remain at home and I would go and climb trees in order to get those green leaves at the top of evergreen trees; a practice which was very dangerous for a hungry, weak-legged lad, but you cannot imagine a hungry boy to fold his hands and wait for God to through food in their mouths. What kept me from the fear of falling down was the slogan which goes, “God helps those who help themselves.”  Indeed those who did sat with their hands folded on their chests without using their brain as a God given resources where starved to death. That means a faith without action is dead and therefore my fellow friends who had faith in God to give them food without their action were dead.

Another major thing I have learned in the Transformation development is the Idea of two churches, the Dead Church and the living one. Many a times we become the victims of the members of the dead Church. In the dead church, the Christians tend to remain aloof and detach themselves from the rest of the world creating an isolated HOLY family and leave others behind. They tend to be special people of God who should not mix with the world and its people; they therefore don’t do business that can sustain their lives. A few years back in a boarding school, many of us who were not able to spend long hours praying a loud and bang any object around were branded as wicked who should not be relate to by the so called “believers.”  We were feeling like aliens who will not go to Heaven especially when we would go and have evening preps in class rooms while our fellow friends were praying. Hence we had to join the whole lot so that we could be accepted as the members of the society. Well, it did not work out well with some of us who are too emotional and could cry in a very loud prayer. Hanging in was the best option but of course some of us were able to balance the work by reading in secrecy so that we could not be called the LOST ones. I was not aware that much as we can pray, there is a need for us to also take the responsibilities that God has given us. In the TD, I learned from Genesis that God gave us the responsibilities as stewards and ministers of transformation.

I would like to suggest that in the next training, the organizers and the facilitators should also look into the issues of gender base violence. It is the most hurting experiences in Africa where dowry is seemed to be root cause of all these bad practice of beating up wives like slaves. There is need to educate people that God did not give Eve to Adam as sack for boxing, but instead, God said this will be your HELPER but not the rivals. Women are suffering especially in my country, South Sudan.  They are left to do sustainability and men seem to have no care at all, she walks a long distance to fetch water and look for what to set on the table; and when she divorce the man, the children will remain with man who did not do much work in bringing them up. Beating up women is totally against God’s creation because we are to live in harmony with all creation.

Finally, it worth to mention that the Transformation development was an eye opening workshop that has helped me a lot in all aspects of live and it’s up to me to put these things in practice to save my community from the negative attitudes of believing that no resources to utilized. The facilitators were so friendly with professional teaching procedures, they were working WITH US NOT FOR US and this therefore help us generated our own ideas which gave the ownership of the training.