This is one type of Dinka dance that requires a lot of energy and foot stomping, quite a good way to keep fit if you can keep going for longer than 5 minutes! The Dinka men usually compete to see who can stay the longest. The other Dinka dance has the arms held up to resemble a bull’s horns as you stomp the ground.
“Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward.” Psalm 127:3
Sitting under the grass banda to escape the horrendous heat in rural Tonj, South Sudan, I realized Mother’s Day was here and I needed to appreciate my mum living now in Florida. More and more each year, I treasure my mum, who raised four children. And each year, while working in South Sudan, my appreciation and wonderment is also for mothers worldwide and especially those here in Sudan.
Our soon-to-be-independent nation holds one of the worst maternal mortality ratios in the world at 2,054 deaths per 100,000 live births. That means that 1 out of every 48 babies who are born alive loses their mother at birth. In the United States that statistic is 8 deaths/100,000, or 1 out of every 12,500. That the average woman in South Sudan experiences 7 pregnancies in her life makes this reality even more dire, statistically, 1 of every 7.5 women will die due to pregnancy or delivery complications. Take a moment to think of 8 women you know. If you lived in South Sudan, chances are one of them would die from hemorrhage, sepsis, or obstructed labor.
It’s a grim reality. So why tout these dismal maternal health statistics on Mother’s Day? Because even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, there is progress, offering hope for South Sudan’s future.
Warrap County has only 10% of births attended by a skilled attendant. Our clinic has a full-time African nurse midwife and a missionary midwife from USA even though we seriously lack available medical personnel. Most health facilities in South Sudan are run by community health workers who have only nine months of training and few clinical skills to handle complicated cases, we have an American volunteer doctor and Kenyan Clinical Officer. We are blessed more than others and have much to be thankful for. Every day our clinic saves the lives of these precious women. Our clinic also has JESUS! And HE brings the greatest hope of all.
If you are a Mum, our Mother’s Day gift to you this year is letting you know we commit to reduce the number of mothers who die during child birth, through using our trained staff and trusting in the Lord Jesus for hope. We will work and pray so other children will have a chance to treasure their mums a little more deeply each passing year. We promise to bring the hope of Jesus Christ to each mummy and celebrate her choice to come to our clinic and allow us to help her.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mum’s reading this.
We have had such an amazing outpouring of love on our family in the last 24 hours through encouragement and prayer. What a joy to know so many are standing in the gap and praying for our sweet princess Hannah.
She continues to have temperature fluctuations which is common in malaria. When her fever is high, she’s really not doing well, but when it is low she’s just taking it easy. Yesterday she hardly ate and the little she had eaten was vomited. Praise the Lord though, she did not vomit the malaria medication and despite not having any food, she seems stronger today and has managed to keep down some small food. She also has water diarrhea, which is common also with malaria and can quickly dehydrate you, so we are monitoring her fluid intake carefully.
Tonight, as I am sending this, she has requested to get out of bed and come to dinner. We are so thankful for these small signs of improvement. MAF offered to send a flight to divert today but we really felt a peace about waiting it out here even though we are in the middle of nowhere in the bush of Sudan. She is not quite 48 hours on the medication and once we pass that mark we should start to see some significant improvements. It has not helped to have such hot weather, it was easily over 120 F today, one of our hottest.
Please pray for our precious Hannah. Yesterday she was perfectly well but this morning she came with complaints of a headache and slight fever of 100 F (37.6 C). I tucked her in our bed and went to devotions but when I returned after thirty minutes her fever had spiked to 102.6 F (39.2 C). So we gave her fever reducer, a cold washcloth and fan. The obvious next step for us here in Sudan is always to test for malaria. So we performed two lab tests, a rapid paracheck and a blood slide. Both came back negative but three hours later her fever went even higher to 103.3 F (39.6 C). With all these precautions we should have seen some small improvements. Her head is pounding and she is weak. Dr. Tom pressed on her liver and spleen, both of which were tender and a sign of possible malaria. So we are going to treat her for malaria even though the tests came back negative, which can happen when the malaria is in the very early stages.
We are asking for intercessory prayer for our daughter. Something has invaded her body and compromised her health and we are asking our Lord if He would remove all traces of this sickness. Pray for her healing, for peace in our hearts and for the Lord to be glorified through this trial. We thank our Jesus for each one of you as you pray for us and pass this onto your prayer chains.
“Then your light shall break forth like the morning, Your healing shall spring forth speedily, And your righteousness shall go before you; The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.” Isaiah 58:8
We are thankful for the few opportunities we get to take a break and refresh and reflect on what the Lord is doing. This Easter we visited Rumbek, 100 miles away and spent the weekend relaxing and fellow-shipping with friends. It was a wonderful celebration of our Lord’s resurrection. Our children got to take part in an egg hunt, which is not easy to find in the bush of Sudan!! I think you’ll agree, Jed looks very happy with his basket full of blessings! The best part was getting to cool down in air-conditioned rooms and jumping in the swimming pool. The rains are late this year and the heat is simply unbearable. But we are now heading into the rainy season and the storms are rolling in!!
