Construction of New Medical Clinic Building
Hello everyone,
It’s our last night in Tonj! Can’t believe our African adventure is drawing to a close.
Today after the girls worked in the medical clinic and the boys worked with the pastors, something really fun happened: we heard our chartered MAF plane fly overhead!! We all cheered when the plane went by because first, it was loaded with MUCH needed medical supplies and personal items (and a team of two new short-term American missionaries) and second… well, you don’t hear many planes flying overhead in Tonj, so you cheer when something like that happens!!
After greeting our friends, we began unloading and unpacking the huge number of boxes and action packers that had arrived. It was like Christmas morning as we ripped open the boxes: Amoxicillin! Multivitamins! Paracetomol! The clinic pharmacy’s drug stash has been running on fumes for days, so it was awesome to know that the meds would now be replenished.
Another exciting event happened today: the guys erected the first trusses on the NEW medical clinic building! Wow, what a milestone event for the compound. It’s exciting to walk around the area where the rest of the clinic will be built. God is going to do BIG things here!
Well… since this is our team’s final blog, we wanted to briefly share some of our trip highlights:
–Hearing “Yar!” (Stacie) and “Maquay!” (Mike) as we stepped out of the plane in Tonj. We were also greeted by a crowd of 50-75 smiling faces cheering “Cheebak!! Cheebak!!” And yes, who could forget Mark (one of the long-term American missionaries currently at the compound) standing there in his BVDs with cow dung ashes on his face (like those from the cattle camp) and doing an African victory dance!?
–Tiffany’s Florence Nightengale effect on the male wound care patients… just ask her about her numerous marriage proposals, especially from one eager patient who had to return day after day to get his dressings changed!
–For Alicia and Sheena: the great honor of helping to deliver a baby… on their first day in the clinic! (P.S. No other babies born at the clinic since then! Guess that was our one and only one all week).
–For Tim and Mike: the privilege of teaching the pastors about the Old Testament… and of course answering their thought-provoking questions.
–At our outreach events, laughing with the kids (and their parents) as we taught them the hand movements to our various silly praise songs.
–Hearing (and pretending to understand and sing along!) African praise songs during morning devotions and at church.
–For Sheena and Alicia: Jumping, dancing and singing in the dark with 2 dozen African kids while at an outreach. We didn’t know exactly what they were saying, but it was clear they were praising God!
–At morning devotion time, being challenged by fellow teammates to follow Christ with all our hearts.
–The two snakes. Enough said.
–For Alicia: the privilege of sharing her testimony and giving the Gospel presentation to a local tribe.
–Watching the Jesus film (in Dinka) on a makeshift outdoor screen, in two different remote African villages, surrounded by 100-200 locals wearing glow sticks as bracelets!
–Trying to sleep while donkeys brayed, people shouted outside, people drove by playing LOUD Arabic disco music, local dogs had vicious nightly brawls, the Army marched outside doing practice drills and chants, cows mooed, people played their drums, howling animals of some sort, and of course, one extremely obnoxious rooster repeatedly crowed his obnoxious chant (and NOT just at the sunrise).
–Of course, the crazy Indiana Jones-ish three hour ride (each way) to the Cuibet outreach and all our adventures (and conversation) on our journey.
–Sitting down at breakfast, lunch and dinner to a yummy meal cooked by the one and only Huggins! Let’s just say there may be starvation in Africa, but no one on our team starved while here!!
–The almost daily rainstorms (sometimes with lightening and thunder!) which deliciously cooled off the compound’s sweltering heat at night (usually…)
–Sharing our rooms with uninvited guests (lizards, frogs, bats, rats, spiders, spiders and more spiders). Alicia and Tim alone counted 35 Daddy Longlegs spiders in their room one night, and those were only the ones they could see!).
And of course, the great honor of sharing Christ with our words and our actions each day.
We look forward to telling you more stories when we see you in person!!
In God’s Service, Mike, Amy, Tim, Alicia, Tiffany, Sheena and Stacie
P.S. Don’t forget that we’re leaving two of our team members behind here
–Stacie and Sheena! They still covet your prayers… and will have even MORE Sudan stories to tell when they return! Thanks for remembering to pray for them!
