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.