The Scariest Moment of My Life

Let me preface this story by saying we are all ok and were never in any danger. With that said, here is my take on the situation:

Early this morning, I thought I was going to die. I thought everyone on the compound was going to die too. Around 4:00am, I awoke to gun shots and what I thought were bombs. I am used to hearing an occasional gun shot, but this was like none other I have experienced. Hundreds of shots rang through the air and there were many large “booms” from some sort of weapon I wasn't familiar with. Because of the bomb like sounds, I thought Sudan had broken out into war. Then I thought, maybe this was a cattle raid. Cattle raids always occur in the cattle camps and not in town, so I was confused why it was happening right by us. I figured it was retaliation against Tonj and they have decided to attack the town to be extra brutal. Because it was so close, I was expecting to hear people come into the compound at any moment. I pictured them going to each room and shooting us one by one. It was too dangerous to leave my room and find Sabet to find out what was going on so I just started praying. “Please, God, help us. Make it stop. Keep everyone in the compound safe.” Over and over I prayed this. Then I heard Hargins, who has a tendency to panic in these situations, screaming next door. I was worried her screams would attract the attention of the people with the guns. I was about to yell at her to stop when I heard Margaret say “Hargins, stop.” She is in the room on the other side of Hargins. (I found out later Jane had to cover Hargins mouth and keep her from running from the room.) Then I decided to get up and lock my door and get dressed. (Because it is so hot, I usually sleep in only my underwear. However, if they were going to shoot me, I wanted to have clothes on. No one was going to find me naked!) I didn't want to turn on a light so it took me a while to do both. I was also crouching down in case a bullet came through the window. I got back in bed and kept praying. My heart was pounding and my whole body was shaking uncontrollably. The hardest part was being alone and not knowing what was going on. Everyone else here has a roommate so I was the only one who was alone.

After about 20 minutes or so (could have been shorter or longer. The whole thing seemed to last a long time) my phone rang. It was Sabet. I was terrified the ring and the light would attract attention so I grabbed my phone and answered it, whispering under my pillow. “Hello? Hello?” No response and the phone cut off. I tried calling him back, but the call wouldn't go through. Finally I got through and talked to Suzy. I don't remember if I called her or she called me. She asked if I was ok, I said yes. I asked what was going on and she said that it is the SPLA (the army) conducting their annual celebration of when the SPLM took control over South Sudan. They celebrate by shooting bullets into the air. There was no fighting and we were safe. The only danger we were in is from a stray bullet. Sabet received a call from Albino telling him what was going on. Immediately, I was relieved. In a second I went from thinking we were going to die to feeling safe. “Thank you God.” I told Suzy I would tell the girls. So, I went to Hargins and Jane's room, then to Margaret and Prisila's room and told them what was going on and to stay in their room until it stops. In a few minutes Sabet came by to check on us followed by Suzy. The shooting went on for a few hours. Even by 8:00am, we heard shots. By that time, we all started to come out of our rooms and exchanged our experiences about what happened. Suzy said the kids weren't scared. They just sat on the floor singing worship songs and praying.

In retrospect, there were a couple clues that we weren't in danger. One – there was no screaming (other than Hargins!). If it had been a cattle raid, it would have been very noisy with lots of people shouting and running. Two – a few days ago, Sabet told us a story of something similar happening. A couple years ago, he was here with two visitors from the US. Around midnight, many shots were fired and the visitors freaked out (justifiably so!). One man stayed in the room while the other man did a marine crawl all the way to Sabet's house and banged on his door. Sabet opened the door and told him they were fine. It's just the army doing their annual celebration. Sabet knew about it, but forgot to tell them. We all laughed at the story, but the laughs on us! That story didn't even come to my mind while it all was going on. I wish it had! Even Sabet didn't realize what it was because usually it happens at midnight and this was 4:00am.

It was without a doubt the scariest moment of my life. Never have I thought I was facing immediate death before today. Praise the Lord we are all safe. We can laugh about it now, knowing everything was fine and it will make a good story! Had I known ahead of time what was going to happen, it wouldn't have been scary at all. Now we know to mark our calendars... May 16th.... SPLM celebration. Don't be scared if you hear gunshots!