All posts by Suzy Kuj

Ministry

IDAT 1st Annual Women’s Retreat

We went to our women’s retreat last week and it was so wonderful. We left Monday morning and headed to Nakuru. It’s located about three hours from Nairobi. We stayed on a dairy farm called Kembu Farm. The Nightingale Family own the dairy farm and rent cottages on their property. Suzy could not have picked a more perfect place. It is beautiful. We split up into two cottages that both were amazing. After being in Sudan, we enjoy simple luxuries like flushing toilets, hot showers and sinks.

I loved everything about this place. The family that owns the place were so nice. We brought food and made most of our meals except for our last night when we ate dinner with the family, Andrew, Zoe and their son. They were very kind. We had lots of different types of pizzas (yellow pepper and salami was my favorite), salad and cake for dessert. They have quite a few dogs that added to the charm of the place. My favorites were Tink and Buster. They would hang out at the cottages with us and even spent the night sometimes. Buster would accompany us down to the dairy. Tink wasn’t allowed so when we got to the gate, we had to say “Go home Tink.” Tink was very obedient and would sadly lower his head and go home. I fell in love with Buster.

Buster is owned by Andrew’s mom who runs the Kenana Knitting Project. They are famous for dying wool (yarn) using flowers, vegetables and other plants. Their products are sold world wide. They have 240 ladies from the community work for them. In addition to selling items, they also provide many community services such as HIV testing/treatment, literacy programs and other health programs. We got a tour of their facilities and enjoyed shopping in the gift shop.

On Wednesday we went on a safari at Nakuru Lake Park. It was really fun. They are known for their flamingo population. We also saw giraffes, rhinos, baboons, gazelles, zebras, monkeys and one lion’s back. I once again fired up my Lion King soundtrack on my ipod and listened to it as we drove around.

The theme of our retreat was forming Godly relationships. It was based on the book “The DNA of Relationships.” We had wonderful sessions of teaching from Dena and good discussion time. God was very present during our time together and much was done to solidify our relationships. I learned a lot about good ways to communicate and how to honor others. The topic was perfect and God really blessed us with Dena.

This retreat was just what I needed after coming out of Sudan worn out. I am so thankful for the beautiful place and relaxation we experienced. Thank you God for knowing what we needed and providing it abundantly.

Teams

I Will Carry You In My Heart by Pastor Rob

Freckled sunlight danced at our feet in the clearing under the konyuk tree. Crude wooden benches stretched out from the clearing, all facing the tree. Arrayed on the benches the occupants of the Lachook leper colony sat and sang at the top of their lungs and clapped in time to a worship song to welcome us, their visitors.

Sabet presented Tom and Dave and I to them.  They liked Dave and Tom’s names, informing us that “Tom” in Dinka means to give someone an injection, so his name was very appropriate.  My name however was foreign and difficult to pronounce and it would have to be rectified.  Sabet asked the colony to give me a name in Dinka.  An old and gentle man, missing most of his toes and fingers, as well as part of his nose, called out “Deng Mallou”.

Sabet nodded and smiled, looked at me and said as if to present me afresh, “Deng Mallou!” to an eruption of clapping and cheering.

“Please tell me it doesn’t mean cow manure or something.”

“Its a very good name, it means a strong rain, it’s a good thing.” Sabet said, smiling between me and the people who bestowed this new moniker on me.

“Deng Mallou!” I said, giving my thumbs up in approval, which was met with a unified shout “Deng Mallou!” from the group.

Then in one of those unexpected moves that make me wish I were a good pastor and always had something brilliant ready to say, Sabet leaned in and asked me to share something with them.

There I stood, looking out at expectant, dirty faces; at human beings dressed in rags and missing digits and dignity.  What could I say to them? I took a deep breath and  asked God to fill my words.

“Thank you for such a warm welcome for my friends and me.  I came a long way to meet you, and I’m so very glad I did. I’ve taken pictures of you with my camera, but I’ve also hidden you in my heart.  You’ll be in my heart when I go back to my home, and to my church, and we’ll be praying for God’s grace for you.
It’s good for us to meet like this, to catch a glimpse of each other while we’re here. If we all belong to Christ, then we’re all family, and we’ll be spending forever with each other.  This is a hard world and we’re very fragile, but one day Jesus will bring us all home and our struggles will be through.  I’ll look for you then, and you look for me, now that we’ve met we won’t be strangers.
Again, thank you for having us, and God’s love be with you.”

After that we distributed bags of sugar and tea to each door of the colony, and having plenty, we went back and gave each room two bags.

Watching through the back window of the Rover as we drove away, i watched a child who wore only a shirt run after us, waving.  I waved back. “I will carry you in my heart, I will take you home with me there.”

Medical Clinic

An Extraordinary Day By Dr. Dave Pierce

Hi Everybody!
Thanksgiving is pretty much just like any other day in Sudan, but it was a most extraordinary day for me.  It started out with the slaughter of the Thanksgiving goat, which was a little out of the routine for the compound–and the honor was given to Rachel,  who is apparently only the 3rd American woman to have done it here.  Thanks to the expert skills of Suzy and the staff, dinner was pretty much a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner with the goat substituting for turkey–it was DELICIOUS!
The dinner was a somewhat anticlimactic end to an extraordinary day.  Tom and I and part of the clinic team were driven out to the village of Malone for the weekly medical outreach clinic run by In Deed and Truth.  It is very hard to really describe this experience–It was very much like time travel.  The trip started out with a not quite 1 hour drive down a fairly well graded dirt road at about 60-70 mph (honest), which changed abruptly when the driver slowed down almost to a stop in the middle of nowhere, took a hard left across the road, and ran down the embankment and off into the bush.  The attached photo is from a little later when the “road” was at least kind of recognizable.
Malone consists of a couple of huts, and the container used by the clinic to store the larger items of the operation including tables and chairs.  Most of the families live in huts scattered around the area–all are cattle farmers.  The actual clinic consists of 3 tables and the box of supplies brought by us from Tonj–all set up in the shade of a giant tree.  The morning is usually slow, as it takes a couple of hours for word to filter out that the clinic is there, and the concept that the clinic is there every Thursday (during the dry season,) is apparently not an easily grasped concept in this culture.  Once word was out, though,  the people started arriving in large numbers–all on foot, many of the men carrying spears, and rarely wearing anything resembling Western clothing.  They are dignified, friendly people who live with next to nothing.  I saw many patients who could have felt  much better had they simply access to running water and the cool shower I was looking forward to at the end of the day.  We did not see many seriously ill patients–most of them (often children with malaria,)  had already made or started the journey to the Tonj clinic. (The Malone outreach often sees 60-70 patients.)  It was one of the most memorable experiences I have had in all my travels.
Today (Friday) was a fairly “normal” day at the Tonj clinic.  Rob in the meantime continues to “Wow” the pastors with his unique teaching, but I will leave that part of the story to him. Tomorrow we are off to the Leper colony.
God Bless You all, and thank you so much for your prayers.

Pastor Training

Pray for Us and We Will Pray for You by Pastor Rob

I saw baboons. You heard me, baboons.
We were on the “road” from the “airport” in Rumbek, and a whole gang of baboons were in the road, scampering off when we got close. It was seriously sinking in with me that I’m in Africa when I saw those critters.

After a few false starts, Dave, Tom and I finally made it here to the In Deed and Truth compound. We arrived in the late afternoon, so Sunday was our first full day here. We fellowshipped with the church that meets here on the grounds and it was nothing short of awesome. Rythmic clapping and voices singing in Dinka dialect wafted through the morning air, making the small thatched pavilion where we met feel like holy ground. Sabet taught from Exodus a really encouraging and challenging word. The upcoming referendum fairly permeates everything here, as is understandable, since it looms like a storm on the horizon. Sabet reminded the people that God knows the suffering of the Sudanese people, and he desires to help, and the greatest help of all is the salvation of Christ.

The next day I got sick. Not just “ew, I don’t feel so good”, but a rip roaring projectile evacuating kind of sick. I don’t remember much of the day, other than having to stop teaching the pastors mid point in order to run to the bathroom. Not the dignified start I’d hoped for.

The pastor’s class is wonderful, and today, feeling much better, I really felt much more closely connected to them. I’ve never had to speak through a translator before, but Sabet does a great job…and everyone is so kind to me as I feel my way through this. Either way, we’ve had some great discussions.

Santino gets led into the classroom by holding onto a stick that another pastor leads him with. He’s blind. He sits attentively through every hour, asking questions and joining the discussion. Serving people as a pastor with a disability is a daunting prospect in itself. Doing so in these harsh conditions is remarkable. God’s grace creates amazing heroes.

“You must pray for us” Joseph, another pastor said to me as we left the classroom. “Pray for us, we will pray for you, and maybe you will come and teach us again.”. I pack his words like precious, fragile heirlooms into my heart.

We will pray for you Joseph.

Rancho Del Rey Church

Blog by Thadd Tague

Thadd here,  writing at night in Tonj Sudan. The whole team is really being changed, despite the few sickness’s going around. We just finished our third and last basketball outreach to the city of Tonj, we all thought we were going to have to teach them the basics, forget that. their best five players consistently beat our five(My dad, me, Cody, Sabet, and a great young man named Mario). By this time, the third basketball outreach, the friends had brought friends, who brought friends. and there were some VERY talented players. Our team in almost over all of the stomach sickness’s and etc… but Christi and Annabelle are still on the weak side.

Doing construction has been very hard on my body, at night time I crash as soon as I lay down. We get about 500-600 bricks done everyday, and they are about 30 lb each, I though I was glad to get away from football practice when I came here, wrong idea. But on the bright side, most of  the workers are not christian, so Cody and I have been witnessing to them , they seem to be listening. Overall the experience has been great and our spirits are high. Please pray for The compound and for Sebat and Suzy.

Over and Out.

Thadd

P.S. I may get to kill the goat, if Christi backs out!

I love you mom, Eden and Garland, tell all the guys at CLA that I am Okay.