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.

A second post from Doro Conference

The Mabaan church leaders' conference ended joyfully. The leaders departed yesterday after many visits and discussions, and plans for future gatherings.

Then yesterday afternoon, I developed a full-blown right eye infection. I started using tetra eye ointment. Many patients came for treatment, and I was able to see well enough to work through the afternoon. Mike and Rod helped with the training school, which is up to ring beam level. Pastor John Chitumbo has done very well and God granted him relief from any gout until yesterday, after the conference. For Mabaans to witness an African man of God, speaking powerfully and with passion about the love of Christ, was far more effective than anything we others could have spoken.

My last patient was a Mabaan pastor, estranged from his wife. They both came at my request and we struggled until the sun went down, through their tragic story. Finally, we agreed to meet this morning to continue. We were a tired group as we sat around the table for another fine Barb meal. Then we sang and prayed, which we do each evening. We have shared such wonderful fellowship.

There was a sudden commotion outside. The sound of running feet one way, then back the other way. We said ‘amen’, and headed for the door. It was pitch black outside. The guard Joseph had gone for his ‘bwam’, and was shouting “snake!” And so it was.

Having roused Vicki’s cat, it reared up and hissed. Truly a great snake, the largest cobra I have encountered. Seven feel long. As big around as my forearm (OK, no comments from Timothy and Stephen!!). The torch light was poor, and my right eye was a blur by now. I kept respectful distance, but watched with chagrin as it took a few blows, then disappeared under the moldering grass which used to be our fence before heavy wind and rains destroyed it. Now the new barb wire fence was irritating the beast, but it dove under the grass and the night was suddenly quiet, and still. We all checked underfoot! The men clobbered the dry grass. Carefully I raked it bit by bit, pulling it away from the fence. Nothing. We were jumpy. We moved from near Vicki’s tukul toward the pit latrine, along the fence, checking the grass. John Maruti warily scanned outside the fence looking for any sign. There was none. I kept pulling grass with the rake, now on the other side of the latrine. I could see nothing, in the poor light and with a really nasty conjunctivitis now galloping along. Suddenly, a shout! I jumped back. There was the snake writhing in anger, now exposed! A few minutes of well-aimed blows, and it was dead. We took the obligatory photos, dealt with two drunk soldiers who appeared out of the darkness and wanted to dissect it immediately in fear of some witchcraft, and finally plopped it in a covered bucket for the night.

The drunk soldiers were 4 men, with a young wife whose 3-day old baby was gasping, teetering on the far edge of life. There was no refusing them, of course. They were ushered out to the guard hut, we hung an IV scalp vein with some difficulty, administered IV gentamicin, and prayed. They calmed down (which was answer to my prayer). We asked the loving Creator for a miracle, for this little girl near death from neonatal sepsis. We had no IV penicillin. She needed bag and mask briefly but as the acidosis improved she breathed on her own, and we divided the night into shifts. I went back to the canvas tent I share with Rod Greene, after the nurses cleaned my swollen and painful right eye. The left eye was now painful as well, so I lay awake and at intervals put the only eye drops we could find – expired chloramphenicol – into both eyes.

Then across the dark compound came the voice of one of the nurses, Amy, calling from the little thatch hut. The child was gasping again. The unnamed little girl – they told us they wait three weeks for naming, to see if the child will live – had vomited and aspirated. We fought for more than 2 long hours, but at last she died. In broken English one young soldier said to me, “The Lord gives, the Lord takes.” And they went with the tiny body out into the night, mother weeping behind. It was a sad moment, reminder of so many night-time vigils over the years at Luampa Hospital in Zambia, battling for life when death hovered so near. For one of the nurses, it was the first baby ever to die ‘on her watch’, and the acuteness of the pain was a poignant reminder of the deep, deep love of Jesus for each little one who suffers in such dark and distant places of the world.

God is good. This morning we found a new bottle of chloramphenicol eye drops, and the pain and swelling are subsiding. As I was unable to meet with the pastor and his wife, Rod and Pastor Mike rode off to Boing and have returned with encouragement and hope. After talking together, the couple prayed and committed to work toward reconciliation for the sake of their marriage, their seven children, and for the sake of their commitment to Christ.

Thank you for praying. In Christ, Rob