Yep…I bet he’s praying. I’ve seen some weird bug things here in Sudan but I don’t think I’ve witnessed a lizard trying to eat a bug bigger than himself.
Baby Delivery!
Tonight during dinner a young woman came in labor. Our Sudanese clinic staff had gone home so I offered to assist our Kenyan nurse/midwife Linda with the delivery. When I got to the clinic, Linda explained that the mother was telling her she was 7 months pregnant and even she looked about that or even less. She was in labor though and dilated 8cm so we knew it wasn’t going to be a long time before delivery. At just 18 years old, this was Awien’s first child. As she progressed we prepared ourselves for another difficult birth, where this premature baby might not survive and we prayed with and for the mother and the baby. Without an incubator, we had blankets and cloths ready to try and keep the baby warm. Sabet came and prayed with the Dad as he waited outside. Awien was struggling to push and we couldn’t understand it as the baby was supposed to be small. Well little Laht finally popped out and weighted 4 kg (8.8 lbs). We were both in shock as the mother’s stomach was tiny. But we praise Jesus that once again the mother’s dates were wrong and this time it was in our favor!! He was a full term baby boy, healthy and so cute. Because it was now midnight, we cleaned up mummy and baby and put them to bed in the clinic (though we technically are outpatient only). I’ll be glad when we have a proper facility to better care for these newborn babies. I got lots of cuddles as I cleaned him, wrapped him and snuggled with him. In the morning Hannah and Jed both came to see him and Jed asked “is that our baby?” I was tempted to say yes!! The LORD really helped us and this family. We give HIM all the glory.
Clinic Outreach!
We have always prayed our medical clinic would be more than just a humanitarian service to the community of Tonj. This week we experimented a little to see what methods of sharing the gospel works best. One of the tools we’ve enjoyed is the Jesus film but it works best at night and during the day this is difficult to use. We have about 150 patients a day coming to our clinic and because of the high number and only one doctor they are usually waiting a long time. We wanted to use this waiting time to reach them with the gospel. So today Sabet took our national staff for a 30 minute devotion at 10:30am and while he was doing that I went to the clinic and shared the story of the ‘Wordless Book’. The patients were really engaged in what I was sharing and when I gave the invitation over 50 people stood to pray and ask Jesus to forgive their sins and be their Savior. We then shared about growth and invited them to join our fellowship on Sunday and come to the women’s bible study. I think this was so fruitful and simple to grasp, we will continue to use this method.
Sunday School!
Sabet had a good turn out at church and we sung some of the songs we translated into Dinka. Sister Mary from Aguka attended, she’s been in Juba translating the New Testament into Bongo for Wycliffe. I did the Sunday School again, last week it was just my 2 kids + 1 young dinka girl of 8 years. This week though we had 9 children and praise the Lord, one of them spoke small English and was able to translate. I see this was the LORD’s divine plan as I shared a lesson on sin separating us from God. I used material given to us by Child Evangelism Fellowship. At the end of the lesson I gave an invitation to the children and all nine prayed for forgiveness of their sins and asked Jesus to be their Savior. It was really a special time.
Our Last Week….
It’s quite hard to get on the internet everyday. We really hope we can get a good satelite setup so we can have email access. Sabet went to Wau again this week and the old vehicle is almost ready to bring back. This will make life easier especially with construction. We had a fruitful week with the women’s ministry and clinic. We’re planning to put a chaplain over the medical clinic starting this week. We’re looking forward to having Mike Yordt and Wayne Gordon visit next week. We have many things lined up for them to do from construction, to our solar power needs, to men’s bible study and computer fixing!! We’re excited to have the fellowship and encouragement. We knew coming back in would have lots of difficulties and warfare but there was many things that happened that we didn’t foresee. It’s been a hard first month back but we are blessed and certainly can’t complain.