This is a tense time for Sudan...but not without HOPE
We hear the bomber plane flying over us daily this week on it's way to an area in the south called Abeyei. Please pray for peace to reign in Sudan.
Our area of Nuba Mountains is also in need of prayer as both people running for Governor say they won the elections. The man that the Carter Center endorsed as winning fairly is a War Crimes convict. God help us all here.
And He will. He is so present and he reminded me of this on Monday when a little boy came to see me in the clinic. A Muslim orphan, he was hit by a rock in the eye and blinded last year. His guardian didn't even notice he was blind until the teacher made note of it. It was obvious on exam; unable to even see my fingers in front of him...
He now sees, thanks be to God. We prayed and simply asked God to heal him and He, being the marvelous Surgeon he is, completely restored his sight. His Arabic name means "Future". It reminded me that God has a good future to see His love here in Sudan, and a great future for each of us--amidst the struggles.
HOPE... we can have HOPE amidst any difficulty, trial, blindness, sickness, tragedy...
GOD LOVES YOU and me and all of us. Let's open our hearts to God's love today in a really big way... He is so wanting to fill us, touch us, encourage us...help us to not complain, and help us to look to the needs of our neighbors and to His great love...and somehow, our needs get filled when we do that... That's what I'm learning here...
Pray for me to as I discern if I am to stay here longer than July. If I stay, it depends on me having a mission partner sent here no later than end of June to branch out in the areas God is calling me to serve. I'm resting and waiting on Him to light the way...
Thanks for your love and prayers and all the generous donations! It will all be put to great use here!
Katie
May 24, 2011
May 07, 2011
I am at the feet of Darfur….
Fadina, a beautiful fair skinned Sudanese, traveled for 7 days in a car to our hospital with her sick 9 month old, along with her Father and husband. He made the motion of a gun blasting to show the violence that surrounds them ‘at home’ in Darfur. “So many people around the world are praying for you!” I tell them and the many other people from Darfur that come to our hospital. I kissed her baby’s forehead and said, “Rabounah fi” with hands clasped together pointing to heaven. God is with you and is our hope.
This morning in prayer God just said to me, walk the hospital halls and ask for My Presence to fill the hospital. Pray with me that each person who comes here will experience the love, healing and touch of God, as many return to places that are so violent and difficult.
Please pray for us also in the coming weeks as we wait for the election result of our election last week for Governor. Please pray also as some of us have a heart to form some sort of program to assist the widows, orphans and disabled people of the Nuba Mountains in a way that brings unity and healing to the community as a whole and encourages them to know the love of God. We need God’s strategies, wisdom and grace to understand how to do it.
By the way, Adam was discharged today with a big smile! I told him, “Rabounah al Messiah has great plans for your life, Adam!”
This morning in prayer God just said to me, walk the hospital halls and ask for My Presence to fill the hospital. Pray with me that each person who comes here will experience the love, healing and touch of God, as many return to places that are so violent and difficult.
Please pray for us also in the coming weeks as we wait for the election result of our election last week for Governor. Please pray also as some of us have a heart to form some sort of program to assist the widows, orphans and disabled people of the Nuba Mountains in a way that brings unity and healing to the community as a whole and encourages them to know the love of God. We need God’s strategies, wisdom and grace to understand how to do it.
By the way, Adam was discharged today with a big smile! I told him, “Rabounah al Messiah has great plans for your life, Adam!”
May 01, 2011
Amazing graces....
I wish I could bring each of you here to see this amazing place! I feel like I’m in some other world here in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan—and somehow I think I am. I made it hear safely just after Easter and am in full swing serving in our out-patient department of the Mother of Mercy Hospital trying hard to diagnose patients in Arabic. Three African “Clinical Officers” and myself see over 200 patients a day that come from as far as Khartoum to be seen, while others come from Darfur—including those who are causing the problems there. I’m really impressed with the young men’s quality of service and love for the patients, along with the over 100 staff members of the hospital.
While we’re seeing patients, Dr. Tom Catena does surgeries from anything to taking out goiters, repairing hernias, and amputations to small cosmetic fatty tumors, and then after surgery attends to the 200+ inpatients and emergency cases. Our Ugandan Midwife is often up in the middle of the night delivering complicated deliveries. Are there any brave surgeons who want a vacation in the Nuba? We need help!
I stood outside the consultation room today marveling at the vast array of people that were waiting to be seen. All shades of Arab and African brown, some with rings in their noses, others with turbans on their heads, many with their white religious robes and caps, while others with decorated clothes and body stains and scars that only hidden tribes in the north exhibit. National Geographic would go nuts here taking photos.
What an amazing privilege it is to be here and get to know these beautiful and diverse people of Sudan. A Dinka family has traveled for five days to receive TB treatment for the mom and child and seem to feel quite alone being the only Dinkas in the hospital. So, today I brought my computer with Dinka singing and videos of Turalei which just brightened up the whole ward!
That evening, unconscious 9 year old ‘Adam’ was ‘rushed’ to us which took the neighbor 2 hours on a motorcycle. I don’t know how they managed. He was dying from neurotoxicity of a venomous snake bite. We had 1 vile left of anti-venom, but he needed 5 vials for his size. He didn’t improve after administering it. I told the Muslim parents that we needed a miracle. I was awakened at 3 am with the feeling that he was close to dying. “In Jesus Name, Adam will live!”
Eagerly I went to see him in the morning. His bed was empty and everything cleared away—my stomach sank for the poor parents. “Adam meiten?” (Where’s Adam?) Happily the other patients said, “He’s outside eating.” I danced around the room! Like Mary Magdeline who saw Jesus alive, when I beheld the happy little boy outside, I shouted, “Halleluiah! Shukuran Rabunah!”
Pray for all of us to have the strength to endure daily any hardships (like over 120 degree heat and nothing cold to drink or fans to cool us off) and to continue to love each one that comes to us with the joy and healing love that God intends, including those we treat who are perpetrating many of the atrocities in this area and in Darfur.
Thanks to all of you praying for us and sending money. We appreciate it all and thanks for being such a part of us! Tomorrow is the first day in Nuba History that people will be able to vote for their own Governor. Please pray for peace in the Nuba Mountains—something the northern president has recently stated he will not uphold. Amidst this, we are going to continue to sing and declare over this place that, “Halleluiah! Our God reigns!”
God bless you!!
Katie
While we’re seeing patients, Dr. Tom Catena does surgeries from anything to taking out goiters, repairing hernias, and amputations to small cosmetic fatty tumors, and then after surgery attends to the 200+ inpatients and emergency cases. Our Ugandan Midwife is often up in the middle of the night delivering complicated deliveries. Are there any brave surgeons who want a vacation in the Nuba? We need help!
I stood outside the consultation room today marveling at the vast array of people that were waiting to be seen. All shades of Arab and African brown, some with rings in their noses, others with turbans on their heads, many with their white religious robes and caps, while others with decorated clothes and body stains and scars that only hidden tribes in the north exhibit. National Geographic would go nuts here taking photos.
What an amazing privilege it is to be here and get to know these beautiful and diverse people of Sudan. A Dinka family has traveled for five days to receive TB treatment for the mom and child and seem to feel quite alone being the only Dinkas in the hospital. So, today I brought my computer with Dinka singing and videos of Turalei which just brightened up the whole ward!
That evening, unconscious 9 year old ‘Adam’ was ‘rushed’ to us which took the neighbor 2 hours on a motorcycle. I don’t know how they managed. He was dying from neurotoxicity of a venomous snake bite. We had 1 vile left of anti-venom, but he needed 5 vials for his size. He didn’t improve after administering it. I told the Muslim parents that we needed a miracle. I was awakened at 3 am with the feeling that he was close to dying. “In Jesus Name, Adam will live!”
Eagerly I went to see him in the morning. His bed was empty and everything cleared away—my stomach sank for the poor parents. “Adam meiten?” (Where’s Adam?) Happily the other patients said, “He’s outside eating.” I danced around the room! Like Mary Magdeline who saw Jesus alive, when I beheld the happy little boy outside, I shouted, “Halleluiah! Shukuran Rabunah!”
Pray for all of us to have the strength to endure daily any hardships (like over 120 degree heat and nothing cold to drink or fans to cool us off) and to continue to love each one that comes to us with the joy and healing love that God intends, including those we treat who are perpetrating many of the atrocities in this area and in Darfur.
Thanks to all of you praying for us and sending money. We appreciate it all and thanks for being such a part of us! Tomorrow is the first day in Nuba History that people will be able to vote for their own Governor. Please pray for peace in the Nuba Mountains—something the northern president has recently stated he will not uphold. Amidst this, we are going to continue to sing and declare over this place that, “Halleluiah! Our God reigns!”
God bless you!!
Katie
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