Gideon Theological College Campus Tour

We have been here in Melut for 7 weeks now, so it’s about time that we gave you a tour of Gideon Theological College.

Satellite view from Bing.com (Click on the picture to zoom in)

The campus is located on the south side of the main gravel road that runs east/west between the town of Melut and Paloich.  The campus is bordered at the west by the Sudan Interior Church (SIC) property and at the south by the Nile River.  GTC is currently allowing another relief organization (FAR - website linked here) to use the eastern most part of the campus land and FAR has built 2 guesthouses, an administration building, and demonstration gardens (where they are growing me+6ringa, mangoes, beans, carrots, onions, etc).  All of the FAR buildings and gardens will be given to GTC in 2014 when the current Memorandum of Understanding ends.

You are welcomed into the campus by one of the three gates.  Gate #1 has the GTC sign (but this gate is rarely used by pedestrians).  Gate #2 is the one that most people use to enter/exit the campus, and this is where we have just finished building a simple gatehouse for the guard.  Gate #3 is for the FAR area of campus.

Gate #1 with the Gideon Theological College sign

The new gatehouse with bamboo walls and a metal roof at Gate #2

Faculty Housing

There are permanent homes that are faculty housing including:

- The Academic Deans house (built in the 1980s and renovated in 2009).  This house is where the Fader family has been living and where the Boland family will move into tomorrow when they arrive.

The original two buildings that now are part of the Academic Deans house.  This photo was taken in 2008, prior to renovations, when the decision was made to move the college back to Melut from Khartoum

During the 2009 renovations

The Academic Deans house (the smoke rising in the background is people across the river burning grass)

- A newly constructed house for anyone teaching at GTC.  We just finished building this house and the Fader family has moved in on Saturday March 30.

Concrete pad in place with angle iron used for columns and chain link fencing as the reinforcement in the walls.

The first coat of cement/plaster is on some of the walls and the second coat on the central portion.

 

Complete with a nice veranda!

- The campus Nurses house (built in 2010).  This is where our teammate Claire is currently living and this is the home Karen, Rachel and I stayed in for 2 weeks while I built our prefab.

Nurse's House

The Principal and the Secretary each have homes on GTC campus (built in the mid 1980s) with bamboo fencing around them.  I apologize that the photos aren’t that great.

Principal's House

Secretary's House (on a day when they were reconstructing the bamboo perimeter fence)

The only other housing for faculty are two 20’ shipping containers (currently empty) and then the 2 prefabs we just built in February (one we’re living in and one the Cross family is living in).

20' shipping containers

2 prefabs (the nearest one is where the Cross family are staying and the farthest one is for us)

 

Student Housing 

Student Housing consists of a combinations of tukuls (concrete block walls with grass roofs) and dorm rooms (concrete block walls with metal roofs).

Student Tukuls (currently one of our students, John, lives in the tukul on the right, and his wife and 4 children live in the tukul on the left)

The single male dorm room.  Apparently a one point in time this was a mosque.  Currently 5 of our students (Ibrahim, Anter, Yohanna, Andrew and David) live here. 

Currently there are:

- 5 students + their families who are living on campus

- 2 students who live off campus and

- 9 students who are single or have left their families at home (i.e. in Khartoum, Sudan)

There are only 2 empty rooms and so one of the factors limiting the number of students who can be admitted to study at the college next year is housing.  Please pray that additional funds for construction will be received.  If you’d like to donate you can contact SIM Canada at 1-800-294-6918 and say you want to donate to project #84800 “GTC Redevelopment in South Sudan”. Or you can go online (linked here) and under "Country: Sudan" and "Project ID: 84800" you can make a donation.

Other Buildings

There are various other buildings located around the campus including:

Main Admin Building built in 1982 (the classroom is on the far left, the library at the far right and the window in the middle is for the office that Eli Fader and I share together)

Faculty Lounge (where I attend the Wednesday staff meeting each week)

GTC Workshop

This is one of the many pit latrine (outhouses) located around campus

Fire barrel (for burning paper and cardboard) and the fenced off garbage pit

And that’s your tour of the Gideon Theological Campus.  Coming up at some point throughout this next year I’ll be developing a campus map that will also have a phased construction development plan.  More to come!