Sophia

I recently returned from Doro, where the difficulty not only for the mission staff but much more for the Sudanese themselves, came home to me. From my diary:

“In the predawn darkness this morning I carried Wisdom to her final resting place. Her Mabaan parents had given her the name Sophia, and she’d impressed me in our few visits, sick as she was, by her strength of character. How appropriate that her name was Sophia, the Greek word for ‘Wisdom’.

Sophia’s heart was worn out, attacked by some undetermined devilry which, in the span of just hours, transported her from sweet pre-teen glances right into eternity.

It was all too quick for her sister: When we drove into the little village in Bankuman the little girl, suddenly awake, added two and two together quickly and spotting the shrouded body in the back of the Toyota pickup, launched into ferocious wailing and violent casting about. Even the barking Egyptian dogs milling in and out of the darkness, seemed at a loss to know what to do.

A dozen older women hoisted the rough wooden bed frame, wound tightly with string on which the body lay. They sidestepped the smoldering coals of the village fire and, near the main tukul hut, they set the bed carefully down. Gathering around, they uncovered the lifeless, innocent, adolescent face and, weeping and touching her cheeks, they called her name, wailing Mabaan lamentations. It was a sad, poignant, gut-wrenching scene, dimly lit by a few lamps in the darkness. The village fires were smoldering.

Sophia’s mother was one of the few without arms flung up into the darkness. As she cried out, remonstrating in the eerie light, she cupped her hands repeatedly under her breasts as if to say, “Oh, my daughter Sophia! You whom I nursed!! Why have you left me? Where have you gone? Oh, Daughter of my bosom!”

A small boy stood numbly in front of me, taking in the scene. Men appeared as well, now, out of the darkness, and they likewise seemed inept, passive onlookers upon this scene of unrestrained anguish.

Sophia. 12 years old. Just two years shy of adulthood and marriage in Mabaan. A girl with viral cardiomyopathy, heart failure. But so patient, long-suffering, quiet. “Why, O Lord?” we ourselves cry out. And David helps us: “Incline Your ear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am afflicted and needy"(Ps 86:1); yet in his pain he remembers God’s goodness: “You O Lord, are God merciful and gracious, abundant in lovingkindness…”(86:15).

For girls like Sophia, we came to Sudan. For little boys standing in the darkness. For mothers and fathers without hope. For Christ Himself, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of Wisdom and knowledge” (Col 2:3).

Thankfully, every day is not full of such pain; there is much encouragement.

Consider this account from missionary nurse Vicki Beattie:

‘Jacob Nyale is a 12 year old boy who suffers from Leprosy. His family noticed last year that he had a skin rash, but he lived far from Doro among the Nuer people, 100 miles to the South. Jacob came all the way to Mabaan County, hoping for treatment. It was Jacob’s uncle who brought him to Doro PHCC in September, where he was found to have an advanced case of leprosy with terrible nerve damage. He has no feeling in his hands and one finger is already paralyzed and ‘claw-like’. In all my years of leprosy work in Zambia I only saw a couple of children with skin problems related to leprosy but never such severe nerve damage. Jacob’s feet seem okay and he plays soccer with the other children. His family and neighbors attend a small church. Jacob is in first grade, taught by a neighbor. (Addendum: By God’s grace, Dr. Rob successfully met with the Sudan Ministry of Health in Juba in September and agreement was reached: SIM is now a leprosy treatment center in Upper Nile State. The one-year course of curative medication has already been provided for Jacob, and he is on long road to recovery).’

Sarah Benson adds: “The clinic work is continuing to grow day by day. During the months of Oct-Dec ’08 we were seeing an average of 30-40 patients per day. Now the average is 80-90 and we often surpass 100 patients in a day. We see many very sick patients especially children. Please pray for us as we see these patients with our Community Health Worker staff. May the Lord give us wisdom and boldness sharing the gospel in the midst of sickness and death.”

The commitment of the Doro Health Team is compassionate Christ-centered medical care; training for community health workers; village health care and community development; treatment for malnutrition, tuberculosis and leprosy; evangelism and discipleship to strengthen the Church. This is the SIM Health strategy in S. Sudan.

“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live! And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” John 11:25-6 (NKJV)

Looking back at 2008 in Doro

Here are thoughts, written in the quiet of this Sudanese night, reflecting on the grace of God in 2008. As you remember His grace in your own lives in the year 2008, I trust you recognize His handiwork there. As you think of us, please pray that the Lord will raise up a team of capable men, and perhaps women, to come and build with us in Doro for the month of May. We are praying for a team to leave the States on the 2nd or 3rd of May, flying into Doro on the 6th of May, and returning to the States the final weekend of the month. I can promise a life-changing experience. We’re trusting that the Lord will send builders, handymen, and willing workers who can follow directions and work with a team. Please let me know if you can join us! The team will be limited to 8 members. I would love to entertain the thought of a few medical workers as part of the team…

With love, Rob and Nancy


God’s Grace in Sudan in 2008

The year 2008 in Doro was a vivid illustration of the rich tapestry of God’s grace in the lives of His people. For the Mabaan of Sudan, this past year was the third year of peace, and a time of rejoicing as more than 10,000 returned from exile to resettle in the battle-scarred land of their forefathers. For the SIM Sudan team of missionaries in Doro, it was a time of thanksgiving: The adult education students successfully completed their final level; the first class of community health workers graduated and went out to serve; a nutrition village was envisioned, and became a life-changing reality; and the long-awaited opportunity to open a clinic came early in the year, when the army vacated the ruins of SIM’s old hospital.

The love of Christ and the message of the Cross of Christ were a key part of that tapestry. The village evangelism spearheaded by our Ethiopian missionaries during 2007 bore fruit in three new ‘preaching points’, and in each place there was growth in the grace of the Lord Jesus during 2008. Daily prayers at the Doro missionary compound joined with devotional times at the training schools, nutrition village, and clinic, bringing a knowledge of the presence of the Spirit of God to this part of Mabaan.

The heat of Sudan, the perspiration, the challenges of daily life for the missionary family, the broken water pump, the mosquitoes, the heavy rain and flooding late in the year, the deflating bicycle tire punctures, the termites and bats and ever-present pigs… these also were part of the reality of life in Doro, and part of the lesson in grace which the Lord brought into our lives. There was hard work: nearly 1000 patients a month were cared for at the medical clinic, in very challenging physical circumstances. Tragic illness is no respecter of time, and the grace of the Lord Jesus touched some who were sick even in the nighttime hours. A starving child in the arms of a young, frightened mother is a heart-rending missionary experience. Our teaching was not without its challenges: Training Sudanese ex-combatants under a hot tin roof is fatiguing, mentally-challenging work. Helping illiterate village midwives to understand sterile technique is a labor of patient repetition. By God’s grace we taught, and by His grace we were ourselves taught.

By the end of 2008, more than 90 severely malnourished children had experienced the love of Christ in the Village of Hope. Plans were under way for the building of a maternity clinic with facilities to care for high-risk pregnancies and sick newborns. God’s grace became apparent when He sent an architect to design the maternity ward, and draw out a plan for a new outpatient clinic with lab and pharmacy. Then he prompted an engineer to leave his job in the UK to come with his wife, a doctor, to join our team in 2009. His grace will, by faith, bring us a lab tech, more nurses, and a team of builders to help in the year ahead.

The 2008 tapestry of God’s grace in Doro included more than these joys, and these challenges. Deep sorrows touched our lives as well, sorrows which brought a weight of glory we struggle to accept, yet which we know is producing already a wellspring of unlooked-for grace in our hearts and lives. As Christ suffered, so is our calling. Our friend and brother Dr. David Masters was called Home from Doro, on an unforgettably tragic first day of April, 2008. Later that month an airplane accident in Doro shook our team to the core, yet all lives were spared by God’s gracious hand.

His grace was sufficient for us, in 2008. We know it will be enough in the year ahead. Will His prompting bring a willing lab tech in 2009, to answer the prayers of those whose lives are wasting away from undiagnosed tuberculosis? Is His grace enough to bring a team of builders, an electrician, someone to erect a water tower for the clinic? Is there grace for the heat, grace for the challenge of a new class of 12 community health students still recovering from childhood memories of brutality we cannot imagine?

Yes, we know there is grace. In our weakness, God’s perfect grace. May it spill over into 2009 from all we have received in the year 2008.

Floods in Mabaan

I'll post some of the recent email letters for interest, so you can catch up on the past year.

After the military moved from the ruins of the old SIM hospital in February '08, our team was able to begin clinical work almost immediately. Prior to that, our focus was on the training of Community Health Workers which is ongoing, and medical work in surrounding village communities. At last, however, the clinic was able to begin and there was great excitement. A wonderful doctor from the UK joined us in January, and you can imagine our shock and disbelief when, all in a period of 12 hours, he developed sudden abdominal pain and was taken to be with the Lord on the first day of April this year. His family chose to lay David's body to rest at Doro, and his memorial joins three others, SIM missionaries who died in Sudan 68 years ago.

With an early rainfall in late April, a chartered mission plane failed to clear the trees at the end of the runway. By God's grace the pilot and our 4 missionaries survived the crash, which destroyed the airplane. You can imagine that as the rainy season gathered strength in June, we were still struggling to find our way forward.

Two workers from Canada came during this time, and helped to screen the clinic building and encourage the team through difficult days. Then two men from Alaska joined us, and again there was progress with some needed buildings, a good pit latrine, and the encouragement of their spiritual ministry.

My son and I spent the month of June on the base, helping with the medical ministry and the completion of a storage building. A solar refrigerator was added, and life became better overnight! Later, a wind power generator was put in place and provides energy to recharge the battery bank, when the sun is obscured by clouds. Internet access and communication ability came to Doro soon after. And a doctor from Canada came to lend a hand during the month of July into August, which was a great blessing to the team.

The past two months have seen me in and out of Doro twice, along with a quick trip to the US to visit churches interested in supporting our building phase with work teams in '09, and to attend the Louisville Global Missions Health Conference where many contacts with prospective health staff brought encouragement.

The team at Doro has weathered another very challenging period of time, when serious flooding resulted in destruction of recently-planted fields all across Mabaan. The hastily-erected houses of thousands of Mabaan returnees whose lives were already precarious, were completely swamped. The county was declared a disaster area, and help in the form of emergency food relief came from the UN. The flood waters are receding at last. The road into Mabaan is slowly being repaired, after the waters destroyed a number of bridges. The coming months will be very challenging ones, for the Mabaan people.

But God is at work in special ways. The clinical work continues to be a blessing, under the capable hands of a Sudanese doctor Angelina and Sarah, an SIM Physician Assistant. A nutrition village is up and running. Many children are helped every day. And the training school for Community Health Workers is coming to the final weeks of this first year, with graduation expected by the end of November.

Thanks for your partnership with us. We are blessed to be a part of this ministry in South Sudan.