Reality of Sudan uncertainty

Today we received news that we must leave Sudan by mid-December of this year in preparation for the unknown effects of the Referendum—the vote in early January when South Sudanese people decide if they want to be a nation separate from the North. This vote comes at the end of a five year Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the North and South following 22 years of civil war. The voting and resulting decisions may result in trouble for all of Sudan, especially for those towns and villages along the border. Therefore all three SIM Sudan teams will be flying to Kenya in the middle of December for an unknown length of time to ensure safety should trouble arise.

My first thoughts were for the patients who need the medical treatment the clinic staff provides. With the nurses gone, the clinic will not be operating. The patients will have to walk for days to find medical care in some other village while we are gone. When walking long distances is not an option for some, what will happen to them? How many deaths of children will occur because there is no one to administer simple antibiotics to stop infection, Larimal for cerebral malaria and Metronidazole or Flagyl for bloody dysentery. I must learn to trust that God knows the needs and cares for the sick children even more than I do. He is the one who heals.

Our team will have to be out of Sudan for at least six weeks while awaiting the results of the vote and seeing if political changes are implemented. Six weeks is a long time and already I’m finding myself dreading the prospect, but I know I need to “learn to be content in whatever state (or country) I am in”.

Our logistics team is working on some continuing education opportunities for us that will make productive use of the time in Kenya. In addition to that I am going to request permission to spend a week or two as an intern at Kijabe Hospital, an African Inland Church project North of Nairobi, Kenya. There I can observe many births and become better trained to deliver babies in the Doro clinic.

I will keep you informed of the news in Sudan. I am sure the networks in Great Britain and the US will be covering it in January. Please pray for those in authority in both the North and South to seek God and honestly the desire the best for the Sudanese people. There are so many issues of power, land, oil, money, business opportunities, pride, racism, religion and painful, not so distant, memories of the wars and devastation this century. It is a complicated country.

The people I work with on a daily basis are not influential people or even well informed people—they are simply living in the bush, desiring to provide for their families and live a peaceful life. Overshadowing their lives is the concern about a return of war and the chaos that stole many from their circle of family and friends and displaced many more to refugee camps in Ethiopia. Please pray that God continues to keep the peace in Sudan.

"Tis better to suffer wrong than do it." --Thomas Fuller