Category Archives: Mission Trips

Mission Trips

Rachel’s Post.

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You know, their are quite a few who never get the courage to go out and make their wildest dreams come true. I was one of them, so God made them come true for me! My dream since childhood had been, #1. to go to Africa, #2. to be a doctor and #3. to do both at the same time. Well as God would have it, both of those dreams came true for me when God had me get on a plane heading for south Sudan to work in a medical clinic for three months. Alright, I’m not a doctor yet but it is still a fulfillment of that dream for me. My name is Rachael Anne Callaghan, I just graduated high school and I am now in Sudan working alongside In Deed and Truth Ministries in their medical clinic. When the plane touched down in Tonj I knew that God was going to do some amazing things! I came here with one college course in First Aid and CPR, never did I think that I would be using it so extensively in my every day work. In the two weeks that I have been here I have learned to clean and dress or bandage wounds, and I have rather taken over the Wound Care and Immunization Room. I have seen minor wounds and major wounds, burns and lacerations, I have cut part of a man’s tow off, assisted in after birth care, seen multiple cases of malaria, even witnessed a death. However, throughout all this God has been good and has made himself present to me more then ever before! I will continue to praise God through these storms because without Him nothing that has happened here would have been possible. Before I left my mother, Kimberly gave me 92 verses, one for every day that I am away.

My verse for this day is James 1:22 “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves, For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natual face in a mirror for he observes himself, goes away and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.”

Ministry, Mission Trips

Blog by Joshua Griffin

Today is my seventh day in Sudan.  I am so blessed to assimilate well into different surroundings and cultures because this is a far cry from New Mexico.  No doubt, all my previous travels were one way God was working to prepare me for this trip.  That is not to say living here is easy, it is just not as hard as it might have been otherwise.
The climate is entirely different from what I expect of the Sudan.  It is wet here.  Very wet.  It is actually so wet that the other day when Mike went to go pick up some charcoal he didn’t come back.  An hour long trip, starting at 10:00, turned into all day ordeal.  After they were unsuccessful at finding enough charcoal at the first place they continued on to another location but then Mike was instructed to cut across a flat covered in grass.  Bad idea.  Rain, flat sandy ground, tall grass blocking your view, a truck with bald tires and not 4WD; bad idea.  They got stuck.  Then Sabet and I went to go pull him out.  Then we got stuck.  Then we got both unstuck.  Then we got both stuck again.  Then finally we got the second truck unstuck.  And since I only took a half liter with my and Mike didn’t have any other water the whole day, we headed back home.  Sabet went back with some other guys to get the original truck unstuck again but never came back with it.  This is the second day since it got stuck and it just rained a lot in the past hour.  I don’t know when we will have an opportunity to get it unstuck but it is still sitting out there in the middle of an open plain with eight foot grass.  So, life here can be difficult.
I have also been studying Romans and preparing for when the pastors come back from break.  They will be back Monday and then we will have a full six week session!  I am so overcome at how God is stretching me.  I will teaching for three hours a day and five days a week.  That is a lot of preparation before hand in order to speak that much.  I really like asking questions because it gives me a chance to reorganize my thoughts, it engages the pastors, and it assures me that they are understanding the material.  I am definitely looking forward to next week when they get back but I am trying to get as far ahead as I can right now so I have a little bit of a buffer.
I, personally, am learning about grace still.  There is a balance between grace, works, and life that has taken me a lot of time to understand.  Anything I do as service to God should be an act of love, not an act of work.  That doesn’t mean it can’t be hard, but it shouldn’t be with the intention of paying God for anything.  Our works are an outward expression of an inward dwelling of the Spirit.  They aren’t a means to receive the inward change.  Anyway, I will post more on that later.
As for now, dinner is ready!  It is time to eat!
In Service,
Joshua
Mission Trips, Summer '10, Teams

From Elaine Newkirk

It has been almost a week since we arrived at Tonj to work with Suzy and Sabet.
The Bible teaches our service should be both sharing His truth and doing actions
that reflect the compassion of the Lord and this is what we have seen with In Deed and Truth ministry in Tonj.

Each morning the clinic has a crowd of people waiting to be seen by the medical
staff while the local pastors walk to the classrooms to have Sabet, Paul (for these 3 weeks)and Daniel teach them the curriculum for leading their churches. In addition to overseeing
these ministries Suzy and Sabet administer the 30 full time staff and home
school their 3 children. It is truly amazing to see this in action.

They village of Tonj is about 30,000 people spread out over miles. The town has
a market of a about a dozen crude stalls selling plastic tubs, clothes, and a
butcher. Suzy relies on chartered flights, as the roads are unsafebfrom Kenya, to bring all medical and household supplies, which can be costly and unpredictable.

This is a wonderful privilege to be able to come to Tonj and help Suzy and Sabet. The country is beautiful at this time of year. The Sudanese people are friendly and the Sudanese Christians are passionate about their walk with the Lord.

I have been awed by the faithfulness of Suzy and Sabet as they trust the Lord and raise their children in a land that is politically unstable, with great health hazards, and very remote.

I would recommend you pray for the Kuj family, financially support them and pray for an opportunity to come and help them.

Elaine

Ministry, Mission Trips, Pastor Training, Summer '10

Pastor’s Workshop: Day Three

Pastors

The pastors just left for home.  What a blessing it has been to be with them the past three days!  I have thoroughly enjoyed and been stretched in faith while teaching them.  But God has blessed beyond expectation, and many pastors expressed their very thankful and encouraged hearts.  Hearing their encouragement to me, and hearing of the ways God has blessed them this week, has turned my heart full of affection to God.  It is a powerful blessing to realize the reasons why He told me 16 months ago to come to Sudan.

And I am learning so much about following the Lord, being fully obedient and dependent on Him, and seeing Him come through in every situation.  Never fear!  Our God is an awesome God.

The picture is of me with a couple of the pastors last Sunday after church.

Summer '10

John’s 4th Blog

I found my watch!  About 2 weeks ago, I lost my watch to the soil of Sudan.  The watch, which I received for my first Holy Communion when I was eight, is probably my oldest possession that is neither lost nor broken these days.  Losing it here came as a bummer, but after praying both for its appearance and for some perspective in my own heart, I became pretty okay by accepting that it’s just a possession and there are much greater tragedies in the world.  And as one of my Sudanese friends said: “it’s just a watch.  God will bring you another.”  So I was resolved to cry no more over this spilled milk.

This morning we had our usual clinical skills class in the AM hours, during which I could see some of the staff cutting the grass with these long machete-type blades.  Another of the Sudanese clinic staffers, a great guy named Deng, came into the class and asked if this happened to be the watch I lost weeks ago.  And in his hand was indeed my watch!  It had been beat up a little bit by footsteps and rain (it was found on the ground once the grass had been cut), and was also no longer working, but I was darn happy to have this special watch back.  Even if it never ticks again, I’m glad.

Though I don’t want to make it seem like losing my watch was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, I do think it nicely illustrates the interesting relationship between prayer, trust in God, and His answer to our prayers.  I realize that God answers our prayers in curious ways sometimes.  As they say, He works in mysterious ways.  After spending a little while being bummed at losing my watch, I realized that this is all part of God’s plan, and to let it bum me out any longer would be a waste of this precious time I have here in Sudan.  And now, weeks later, having accepted losing it, it found its way back to me.  It was another reminder of how good it is to realize that God is indeed in the driver’s seat.  I worried about it, looked for it, prayed about it; but I finally was able to  put the matter to rest in my heart once I placed it in God’s hands.  And lo and behold, He brought it back to me.

So today is off to a good start.  We are all going to head off into town in a little bit to look around and enjoy the remainder of the afternoon.  So that’s all for now folks.  I hope you all have a good day as well.  John