On August 1, 2013 in the United States, a wedding took place. Our son, Eli Dantzler Clemmer, married Amanda Ruth Sautbine at Columbia Street Baptist Church in Bangor, Maine.  It was a beautiful but simple ceremony and brought together not only a couple… but two families who had been separated by war and strife in Africa years earlier.

But let's start at the beginning.    In the spring of 1995, having departed Haiti a few months earlier, we arrived in the village of Vanga, in the middle of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo).   Eli was 6 years old. That fall, a new MAF pilot and his family came to Vanga and settled in an adjoining home on the banks of the Kwilu River.  Their daughter, Amanda, was 5.   Zaire, the remnant of the once powerful Belgian Congo was as peaceful and impassive as the meandering hippo-laden river in plain view of the porches where the two were home-schooled and played.   It was a place of unsurpassed memories for 5 and 6 year old children.

Three years later the country imploded as rebel forces from 5 neighboring countries attacked Zaire, pillaging mission stations on their long march to the capital.    On an early morning in March 1998, as rebel elements infiltrated the area, Amanda’s father piloted one of three Cessna planes sent to urgently evacuate missionaries across the border.

Members of three families squeezed into the single-engine plane including Eli and Amanda on a journey that eventually took them to the neighboring Central African Republic, the Ivory Coast, Republic of Congo, and finally South Africa.   Somewhere along the way the families parted…and so did Eli and Amanda.

Eli went on to graduate from a university in Maine in English/Creative Writing.  Halfway across the United States, Amanda graduated from a college in Minnesota having majored in the same, unbeknownst to each other.

They connected by e-mail and started writing regularly a few years ago, exchanging visits over Thanksgiving and Christmas.   Eli asked Amanda to marry him on New Year's Eve 2012 ... and thus we were overjoyed to return to the United States last month for a memorable wedding with dear friends and fond memories.  Eli and Amanda; childhood friends yet separated by conflict in Africa, re-acquainted by e-mail as young adults, joined in marriage, and starting their life anew with immeasurable dreams.

In South Sudan, marriage is less spontaneous (typically pre-arranged), short on romance, long on details, and far more costly for bride and groom than our summer wedding in Maine.  A young man in South Sudan would not court his wife-to-be in the way Eli did in America.   He would not call on her, fall in her love with her, or propose to her.  

Families would make all such arrangements between couples-to-be; the young man often older than the girl by as much as a decade (parents preferring to marry their daughters off early when a higher dowry is assured).  The bidding negotiations between two families can take days and involve not only an immense dowry (50-100 cows) but intense discussions about character, past history, and future plans.   Once arranged, the young man will spend months to years earning the arranged dowry, typically seeing little of his engaged partner-to-be. 

I remember Eli and Amanda walking into the living room on Dec 31st to announce their engagement void of any ‘pre-negotiation’ between the Sautbine and Clemmer families. There would be no ‘cattle exchange’ at our Maine wedding I later mused, as Bill contemplated the cost of renting ‘plastic chairs’ for our outside wedding gathering.

A traditional South Sudanese wedding can last weeks.    Well ahead of the marriage, the bride arrives at the groom’s village with her friends.  She will stay inside a tukul (mud dwelling) receiving gifts and visitors.  Her friends can come and go but the bride must remain inside and out of sight.   The groom’s family will feed the early guests while nightly dancing and singing goes on within earshot of the bride’s tukul in anticipation of the day to come.

On the days closely preceding the wedding there is unceasing noise and music …as each village brings together their own music makers and unique songs.  The day of the wedding, the bride is outfitted from head to toe…even the designs woven into her hair are stunning.   The bride and groom walk precisely and slowly past families and guests beneath a cloth covering lifted up by friends.   As in our culture, they stand solemnly before religious and local authorities while the marriage is proclaimed…….and then the crowd erupts in song and dance!   Men dance with men, women with women, girls with girls, and boys with boys, all in clusters according to age and gender.   They jump in unison with deep laughter and blowing of horns.  

The local ordinance in our home town in New England would probably not have  allowed for such festivities ….nor would we have been able to jump, dance, and sing for hours and hours.   Our neighbors would have thought it odd if the ‘long-separated doctor and pilot from Africa’ were seen dancing on our lawn on that mid-summer day in Maine!  

 We look back over the years which have been so good to us …and life’s experiences, lenient and harsh, which have enriched our lives and those of our children.    We praise God from whom all blessings come and thank you for your faithful support and love these past 22 years.