Doing Kingdom work in Southern Sudan

So, I’m driving down the muddy patch of earth that is called a road by the local population here. We had a pretty good rain last night and all of the empty moon-sized craters that we are usually going in and out of were now filled to the brim with muddy water. If you don’t know the road you could find yourself “six feet under” – and that would be water and not dirt!As I was on my way to visit my church leaders a couple of days ago I happened to think that when I came here ten years ago the roads looked almost identical to what they are today. Even the leaders agree with me on that one.

Anyway, as I’m going along at the breakneck speed of about 10 km per hour there is a motorcycle coming at me on my side of the road. He has been weaving and bobbing to avoid the aforementioned water hazzards and is now coming straight for my bull bar. At the last minute he swerves around me (and this is not an uncommon experience, even when the road is dry) and I hardly blink. One minute later I see the motorbike pull up along side of me and tell me to pull over – which I did thinking that he knew me and wanted to ask me something. How wrong I was. What ensued over the next hour was right out of the twilight zone.

The man get off his motorbike ranting away at me for “splashing” him, which is a criminal offense in this country. After exchanging some words with him I apologize and started to leave. He says that I should follow him to a roadside stop where we can talk to the traffic police (a misnomer if there ever was one. How do you have traffic police who can’t drive or have never once been behind the wheel of a vehicle or a motorcycle?) I tell him I am going straight to the police station in town where I will talk to the head of police there – which I do, with him close behind.

Once I reach the traffic police the real story begins. I sit in the chair and listen to this man tell unbelievable lies straight to the traffic policeman. I am somewhat astonished, though I should not have been as this is common, and then have the police ask me for my driver’s license and log book – which I show them. As they are getting ready to pronounce my “sentence” I ask them if I might ask a couple of questions. “Why did you ask me for my documents and not ask this man for any of his? Why did you ask him for his side of the story and not ask me? It was then that I began to understand what was happening and what would be the inevitable outcome. I was told that this man was part of the CID (secret police) and didn’t need a license or log book. At that point I knew there was no point in my arguing any further. The “case” was over.

I did however, just for the record, let them know that I had not done anything wrong, that I was on my side of the road, that the man clearly came into my lane, had to swerve to miss hitting me, and that I was going very slow. No matter – it was a lost cause as he was one of them. Luckily for me there was an old friend that I have know for the ten years we have lived here, and who happens to be quite high up in the police force himself, who intervened for me and I only had to pay an exorbitant fine and I was on my way.

While I was sitting there doing my best to not explode in anger at the unrighteousness of the situation I began to think of when Christ was taken before the courts prior to his dying on the cross. All of the lies and beatings that he endured and yet he was still able to utter, “Forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing”. While my suffering was nowhere near what my savior went through I tried from the depths of my soul to portray that same attitude – and perhaps I was successful on the outside – but deep inside me I still harbored this anger/pity for what was happening. I have to say that I am not the first, nor will I be the last, to suffer these inane type of charges from the officials in this country. (Just last week the govt. announced that if the NGOs, who are having their humanitarian food aid being hijacked by SPLA troops, 80 cases so far this year, then they may be expelled from the country for complaining about it!)  Many others have gone before me and while I have often sat there and listened to their horror stories I always thought, “but for the grace of God there go I”.  Now I have gone there – and God’s grace was there with me.

Father forgive them, and me, for we don’t know what we are doing……

To God be the glory,

Had a great conversation with a fellow Kingdom worker today. He is a Dinka, but the way he thinks and reasons sometimes makes us wonder. Yes, he is rather educated. Yes, he has been to the States. But he is back here with his family in S Sudan living and working in a small town in the middle of Dinkaland. He has been trying to start up a new Bible school in his town and we talked about the challenges that he, (and us with our school), has been facing to get it running well.

I am a firm believer that sending Africans to America for theological education is not a good thing to do. The statistics clearly state that over 90% do not return to their home countries to serve their own people. More of the overall “brain drain” that has hurt Africa for generations. Even sending them to neighboring counties is often a loss. Especially here in S Sudan. Once they land in Kampala or Nairobi there is usually no turning back – other than for the occasional short-term mission trip or to visit family. I used to think that training them at a Bible school in or close to their home villages was the way to go. Now I’m not so sure. After talking with my friend and seeing that he has experienced the very same thing that we have struggled with – absentee students due to “family matters” – I’m thinking that the middle ground may be the best overall. That ground would be sending them to a Bible school that is in country but not near to their home. Thankfully there are several good ones here in S Sudan – Malut, Kajo Keji, Yei, Tonj, to name a few. Each of those I have mentioned have good, sound records of training young pastors and church leaders and sending them back to their home areas to live, minister and serve in Kingdom work.

Each is designed for a few weeks or months of in-house schooling and them some months back home doing practicum. Why has it taken me so long to see this? I wish I could answer that. I just praise God for the valuable time I was able to spend with my good Dinka friend where we just sat and talked about Kingdom work in Sudan – what is working and what is not? Where is the road ahead? How can we best serve and help Sudanese learn a greater responsibility to our relationship to God. What an encouraging day it was today. I needed that.

Moving yes, towards progress – I’m not so sure. Just a couple of days ago I got a message from the company in Kenya who delivered all of our food for free distribution to the multitudes who are hungry and in need in Akot. They told us that the lorry that delivered the food was hijacked by government soldiers (nothing new there) and forced to drive them to Juba – that would be an entire day away! They had to leave the trailer they were pulling somewhere on the roadside near Akot which meant that they have to return at a later date to pick it back up and get it back to Kenya. Of course, they will run the risk of being hijacked once again by more soldiers along the way.

I wish I could say that these types of occurrences are just “one-offs” but quite the contrary, they are more the norm than the rare happening. Everyone driving on the roads anywhere near to Rumbek these days does so with fear and trepidation. Rogue soldiers are everywhere. About two weeks ago yet another large relief and development organization pulled up stakes and moved all of their operations out of the Lakes State and into another more secure one. This has been happening on a regular basis for the past year or two. Organizations are tired of dealing with officials who just turn a blind eye, give lots of empty words of assurance, and continue on with “thugary as usual”.

I cannot conceive of how the local government here will begin to attract any business interests coming in from outside with roads that are atrocious and barely passable in places, police who continually harass motorists for “violations” such as wearing sunglasses, and speak utterly rudely to everyone they stop (despite having years of training from outside NGOs), and the continual fear that is experienced on the roads on a daily basis. Hijacking of vehicles is so common that the matatus often stop running when they get wind that there are soldiers on a particular stretch of road, Then you have the 12 year old motorcycle drivers all over town who have neither any road training nor a license to operate the bike. Many of the motorcycles drive around without any visible license plate at all. Why worry? If the police do stop them for something a quick few pounds will take care of the “offense”. The foreigner are often hauled off to the police station where they are often berated by officers for a few minutes and then sent on their way.

I honestly wish I could say that I’m making all of this up – and, had I not see this with my own eyes, I might be skeptical about it all. But it is there…sad to say

Our church leaders are about to embark on another food distribution project in Akot. This was put into action by the recent events that happened in late 2009 and early 2010 in the Akot area. Fighting between soldiers and the local populace erupted into a tukel burning, people killing, displaced population quagmire. Very little help has come their way so we are doing what little we can to alleviate some of the suffering that is still taking place.

Though the rains have come early this year there will be no harvested crops until late July, at the earliest. July is traditionally known as the “month of hunger” in our area and even in a good year there is not a lot of food around. Our leaders will be assisting the poorest, hungriest, widows, orphans and breast feeding mothers to have at least a bare essential of food for their families. This is a huge task and they will need a lot of prayer to help them be making wise decisions during this process. Everyone wants free food, and when it is known that some is being given away, tensions can rise if everyone’s desires are not met.

Two days ago the food finally arrived and the leaders are now gathering all the lists of the needy from the area’s pastors (regardless of denomination) and setting up to make the process a smooth one. Thankfully we have a compound that has a chain link fence around it which provides some security and will enable us to control who comes and goes through the gate. This was provided by Friendly Avenue BC in NC and we are so grateful. Without it the process would be a nightmare.

In His service,

mk

This would more appropriately be named “lack of roads”. This was understandable during the latest 22 years of civil war but we are now five years into the peace agreement and still not a single tarmaced road outside of Juba, Malakal or Wau. Every overland transport vehicle has to travel over murram (glorified dirt) roads for every slow kilometer of their trip. And the condition of those roads varies greatly depending on the time of year.

During the dry season, which is six months of the year, travel is relatively sure. You know that you will at least make it to your destination, even if you have to go around stalled vehicles, blaze a new trail off-road, or find an alternate route to avoid the latest tribal clashes going on. The rainy season is not so nice. There are no assurances of when you might arrive from one place to another. The road that was passable yesterday is washed out today. The bridge that connected two major towns last week is now closed, either because there is a broken down 40 ton lorry on it or it has completely collapsed and will take months to repair. The road that was dry and easily traversed a few days ago is now a quagmire that resembles a swamp as opposed to a dry plain. These scenarios are the very reason that the civil war was fought the way it was – the North attacking from December until April, then going back home up north until the roads dried out again.

What is really troubling is the why question. Why, when hundreds of millions, if not billions, have flooded into the coffers of the Southern Sudanese government officials, have not any new paved roads been constructed? Everyone with a high school education knows that the first thing that needs to be done for a developing country to get its economy going is to develop good infrastructure. Building a paved roads network should have been a top priority. Building dirt roads that wash out during the monsoon rains that come each year is not an adequate solution.

The dirt road that runs in front of our house on the main road between Rumbek and Yirol is typical of the others constructed since the CPA. When it was new it cut our travel time between Akot and Rumbek from about three hours to 40 minutes. Two years later we were approaching 2 hours of travel time again. When they re-graded it we went back to about 50 minutes in travel time. These days there are places that are barely passable (and will certainly be un-passable shortly) – thanks mostly to the large lorries  that turned it into the main road to Juba because the other “main” road had gotten so bad that a new route was needed.

What these roads do to driver’s backs, necks and mental capacity there is no telling. My wife and I can testify to aches and pains in those areas that were certainly not there a few short years ago.  Had we not been driving one of the best made vehicles for these roads I’m quite sure our bodies would not be in the shape they are now.

If you think that all of this is a lot of hyperbole I can assure you we have plenty of photos to document the morass. One is of an 18 wheeled lorry going under water up to its windscreen trying to cross a bad stretch of road. Another one shows one buried under water with someone standing on tip of it. Even our journeymen have made some great short videos of traipses through the gutter-like roads.

I cannot even fathom that it’s been over eight months since I’ve put something on this blog. Yeah, the first few months I was busy with rehabbing my knee. Then there was the transition time with the journeymen heading out and the Fusion Team coming in. Now the Fusion team have come and gone and we have about a month before the Nehemiah Team hits the ground (actually they will be hitting the cattle camps – the muddy, smelly, fly ridden, cow dung filled camps). This will be our first attempt to put some people in there on a longer-term basis. So far we have not had any team stay more than three days at a stint. Tough going those cattle camps.

Cathy and I are also in a transition time as we have begun to look at our impending furlough time coming up in October. We will be Stateside for about five months or so and are looking forward to some good family time (we both have aging parents, though in pretty good health) and are hoping to get our daughter settled into life in America after a couple of years in Kazakhstan. Grad school is calling for her. We would also like to see our son graduate while we are there but that is pretty much up to him. We suspect he is trying to make a career out of college. Been done before….

Please be praying for us as we are in the process (a long one) of cutting strings with our Dinka leadership and helping them to take more control of the work that God has given to them in Akot. I believe they are ready but are a bit frightened to actually step out and take the bull by the horns. They have good training, are solid in the Word, and have the resources that they need to take themselves to the next level of Kingdom service. Pray for them to move with boldness into this next season of service and to trust and rely on the leading of the HS in each decision they make.

To God be the glory,

mk

Rehab – 101

Well, that first eventful week came and went, with all its interesting facets. Now, as many knee replacement patients have often recounted, comes the hard part. And how accurate they were!

The first few days back in our flat were great. Familiar surroundings (so to speak), space to move around, ability to wash myself in privacy, people stopping by the flat to see how I am doing, and best of all the drugs were still doing their job – relatively pain free living.

Then the physical therapy sessions began. And so did the pain. The swelling has gone down dramatically in my knee this past week, which I’m told is a very good thing (and very quickly, I’m told by the therapist). I can actually see what looks like a knee structure in there now as opposed to a stuffed water balloon.  But all of this “good news” comes with a price. My nerve endings and my muscles, which had been enjoying that cushion of drugs and swelling, and had been hiding for the past couple of weeks, have now come alive. Oh, have they ever. The saddest part is that they seem to enjoying being active the most at night, when I would like to be resting the rest of my body.

So, while I had started to wean myself off the week of drug induced stupor at the hospital, now I’m finding that I have needed to start re-taking some pain medication again each night just to get through to the morning. Sleep is still coming in spurts – in between pillow relocation (between the knees), trying not to wake my wife who is going through her own PT for her neck/shoulder, waking up at all hours wincing when one of those nerve endings seems to have not taken its share of pain medication, and trying to walk to the bathroom on crutches while being drugged at 3am to take a pee. That latter vision is one that I hope never makes it on to YouTube – crutches going in every which direction while I wonder who I am and what in the world I am doing at that hour of the night.

Geepers, I haven’t even gotten to the PT part yet. That started on Friday of last week. I thought to myself, now we are finally getting on to the recovery road and things will get clicking now. They got clicking alright, but I think that was the bones in my leg I was hearing. Toni is really a very nice woman who means well and really knows her stuff, but she obviously isn’t the one who goes home each night to endure the agony of her day’s therapy. My first visit was pleasant enough, some massaging of the knee, some bending and stretching to get the muscles working properly again, and even a couple of electrode and water machines at the end to soothe over what she had just worked on. When it was over I thought, “Well, this won’t be as bad as everyone had said”. They say that first impressions are important, and yes, they are. But mulling over that impression for several hours is not a bad idea either. That evening several of my nerve endings woke up for the first time in many days from their drug high and reminded me that they were needing to discover what this strange new bionic contraption was that had invaded their territory.  I have been working on my drug induced truce with them for a few days now.

I tried to stay off the drugs for as long as I could but as the swelling went down, more and more nerves began waking up, and more muscles began to activate themselves into a chorus of pain. Just when I think it’s to a bearable point I make another visit to Terrible Toni’s Torture chamber and endure what I know in my heart and mind is good for my body. I just wish the mind would talk to the body and get on the same page with it.

So, as the days turn into weeks, and those turn into months, the therapy will continue and my knee will eventually gain its full bionic strength and I’ll be able to set off the security alarms at airports all over the world. Through all of this process God has been so abundantly good to Cathy and me. All of our needs have been supplied and we have enjoyed some fellowship with colleagues that we would not ordinarily be around. Thanks to all of you who have faithfully interceded for us during this season of life. Please don’t stop or let up. I may run out of medications soon…..

To God be the glory,

Warriors,

OK – I think we are done with doctors for a bit (except to take my stitches out next week) so I’ll see if I can recap our updates here.

1. Cathy found out today that she has rotator cuff syndrome. Thankfully, no surgery required. But a lot of physical therapy will be going on during the next month here. We are both scheduled several times a week at the same PT place so they will get to know us pretty well.

2. Cathy’s neck problems seem to be on the mend and she now has an in-home traction device that she will be using for some time to come. Again, this sure beats surgery so we are praising the Lord all the way to our physio!

3. My knee rehab is going well. More and more movement is coming each new day, although so is more pain. The pain is probably due to the swelling coming down – and my PT’s delight in moving my newly implanted knee into all sorts of contortions that I’m sure are not natural.

4. Please be praying for Wycliffe, our compound worker, who just had his sister die. He is in Kenya where he is mourning and taking care of family issues surrounding the death. Pray that God will amazingly provide all that Wiki needs in the way of finances, emotions and physical health during this difficult time for him.

5. Always remember to pray for our journeymen, who are now in Rumbek without us, as they continue to serve the King daily in their assignments.

6. And a HUGE PRAISE for the Lewis family as they are now in their new home !!!!!! What a great blessing this is for them. Pray that as they settle in that they will make all the family adjustments that come along with bush living.

God is sooo good to us on the Sudan team. We lift Him up and praise his magnificent name,

Mark and Cathy

Knee Replacement Surgery

This has been an interesting week, to say the least. Beginning with my admittance to the hospital on Monday afternoon until my release on Sunday at around noon, it has been an incredible learning experience.

Monday evening was filled with the preliminaries of any major surgery – the masses of paperwork, sorting out of drugs, meeting the first of a multitude of new nurses, bathing with surgical soap, and that ever present “smell” of cleanliness. Sleep comes sparingly with – mind racing with all the possibilities that come with having some of my bones cut out of my body and being replaced with space age plastic. The myriad of pain possibilities kept relentlessly popping my head of the pillows. Of course there was also the nightmares of having to wear white stockings for a month after surgery…

Tuesday morning came bright and early with more surgical showering, the shaving of my leg with batteries quickly running out, and then that final drug-induced gurney ride to the operating theater. My wife and the nurse apparently have some comical stories and pictures that go along with those final minutes of my semi-comatose state. Not sure I really want to see the pictures….

They probably go hand in hand with my post-op recovery state. That is never one of those “People Magazine” photo opportunities. I vaguely recall glimpses and the voice of my bride from time to time but couldn’t possibly tell you what day it was. By Tuesday evening I was safely tucked away in a front corner of the “high care” unit (something like the ICU). I was joined there by a nightmare induced man who kept screaming at the nurses to clean his toes, give him pain meds, or feed him a hamburger. Then there was the woman who was clearly “off her rocker” in the far back corner who let out shrieks reminiscent of any of the recent horror flicks put out by Hollywood. I was sure the men in white coats would come bursting through the doors at any moment. It was a good thing I had my noise canceling headphones and my iTouch with me. That drowned out most of the other distractions that surrounded me and allowed me a good, restful evening – that and great drugs.

By Wednesday morning I was wondering when I was going to begin feeling the terrible pain that many other knee replacement patients had informed me about. Turns out that because of the epidural that I was given before the surgery my pain would be almost nothing, throughout the first week at least. If I had known this would be the case this surgery might have happened a couple of years ago! But then came the physical therapist time. I knew that my leg would soon be contorted into positions that might be natural for a twenty year old knee but ones that I was quite sure I didn’t want to be trying with one that was just surgically set in place less than 48 hours earlier. I knew there was going to be a “pain clause” that I didn’t read about somewhere.  At least I was moved out of high care and into my semi-private room today.

So, along comes Thursday and Cathy informing me that she will also be in the hospital for the next three days. With all of her neck/shoulder problems it was decided that she undergo some neck traction for three days, and since I was already admitted it just made sense for her to be here as well. Turns out God made it possible for us to be in the same room together, which was amazing. So, over the next three days we each watch the other undergoing physical therapy, meeting the others’ doctors, and learning how to care for each other in the weeks that follow.

Finally today, Sunday, is our day of release. If I wasn’t ordered to stay on my crutches of a solid month I think I would glide out of here. The type of surgery that was done on my knee – without using any glue – requires that my up-front recovery time is greater and more monitored, but the benefits for the long term are much more encouraging. The doctor tells me that within three months I should be walking fine and can begin a more normal exercising regime.

All in all it’s been quite a week but I’m certainly glad it’s behind me. Now for the rehab time…..

Warriors,

Just a brief note of thanks for your faithful intercession during this past week while both Cathy and I have been in the hospital. My knee replacement surgery was successful and has been rehabbing well to date. As you read this I will be out of the hospital and in our flat in Jo-burg, where we will be for the next 4-5 weeks. Cathy was in the same room as me for her three days of neck traction and x-rays. We were both released this morning (Sunday).

Cathy will have more tests and doctor visits this coming week while I will be going slowly as the surgeon and physical therapist have advised. The type of replacement that I had done was one in which did not use glue, which means the near term rehab is longer but the long term prognosis is much better. Pray that I will be faithful in not overdoing “what the doctor has ordered”. We will update you on Cathy’s progress as soon as we know more later this week.

To God be the glory,

Mark and Cathy