“They Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” Psalm 119:105
Today at church it was wonderful to see so many new people. In fact there wasn’t an empty seat in the church and many were sitting outside the small thatched structure we use to gather every week. Please pray as we seek the Lord’s will in moving our church out of the compound and into the community. Now is the time!
“So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.” Hebrews 13:6
Yar is a young girl of 10 years that came to our clinic back in November. She had been hit by a bicycle and her arm was broken. When it started to swell some relatives wanted to bring her to our medical clinic but others refused. After some time the area became so painful they decised to cut open the wounded area and much pus came out. She was then taken to a clinic, less equipped than ours and over 100 miles away. While she was there the bone in her shoulder jutted through the open wound. She was now left with a gapping hole and an exposed bone. Eventually her father brought her to us. How to help this child seemed very unlikely on our premises and we began to look for ways to take her outside of Sudan for possible surgery. During this time of praying and finding a suitabe place, Yar continued to come to our clinic for dressing of the open wound. During one of the dressing changes, Dr. Tom was removing the old dressing which had become a bit stubborn and stuck to the exposed bone. When he pulled off the dressing the bone cleanly popped out of Yar’s arm. It was completely removed, just like that. Yar’s wound today has completely healed and both our doctor’s feel any further treatment for her is not necessary. She has almost full movement of her arm and is in no pain at all. As we had money for her surgery gifted by individuals, we have decided to pay for her school tuition, books and uniform instead. She often comes and visits us on the compound and our kids love having friends over to play and especially when they have been our patients. This is Yar having lunch with our family and pictured with Hannah.
Today Aker came to church with her two children, Ayen and Malok. She came to the clinic last week and talked with George, our lab technologist. When he noticed her children were wearing charms from a witch doctor, he discussed with her the dangers of witch craft and the hope we have in God and got her permission to cut the charms off. Then he advised her to come to church for prayer and to learn more about Jesus. He was excited when he saw that she had come and asked Amy and I to meet with her. (Translation assistance provided by Albino.) We told her God is far more powerful than the witch doctors. The witch doctors harm people, but God wants to give her hope and see her prosper. We told her about Jesus and were thrilled when she asked Him to be her Lord and Savior. Ayen, another lady who came to know Jesus after a similar conversation with George, was also at church. It turns out she and Aker are neighbors and know each other well. We suggested they meet with each other for prayer and help each other stay strong when people advise them to return to the witch doctors. Then we encouraged them to keep coming to church and get baptized.
Praise the Lord for the work being done in the clinic. Suzy always says we are not here for a band aid. We are here to show the people the love of God and the hope they have in Jesus Christ.
Today we headed back to Malony to do our weekly satellite clinic. It had been two months since we have been able to go so I didn’t know what to expect. The whole place is brown and it’s a bit like a ghost town. During the rainy season, it serves as a cattle camp. When the dry season is here, the cows and their owners go to greener pastures. Because there is no way to tell the people we are coming, we just showed up. Normally we see between 70 and 100 patients, however, today we only saw 12. I don’t know if it’s because the cattle camps are gone or because people didn’t know we were coming. Since it was so slow, we had a lot of down time. I had a chance to discuss the idea of one wife with a group of guys. They thought the idea was ridiculous. One man offered his hand in marriage and I politely refused. Later I had the chance to share the gospel. A group of guys hang out under a big tree where we do the clinic so I thought, I might as well use the opportunity to encourage them. Slowly I have been reading through the Old Testament. Now I am in Judges and recently read about Gideon. It’s a really good story and one I thought they might like so I told them about it. I find that telling stories is a good way to reach the people here. Since it seems like their lives are a bit like it was back then, they can relate. I told them about Gideon and how he started with 32,000 people to fight the Mideonites, but God decreased the number to 300 so Israelites couldn’t claim credit for the win. In our weakness, He is strong. I told them through God we can overcome any obstacle. Although we had low numbers, it ended up being a great day. I’m sure next we’ll have more people next week once the word spreads we are back and I hope I’ll be able to share another story from the Bible.
Late one afternoon, as the clinic was closing down for the day, a boy walked up with his hand wrapped in a bloody towel. He and his parents had traveled from a far village by car. Normally, it would have taken a day to walk the distance, but this time, they drove. They explained his hand was all cut up after a ‘bullet explosion’. (Huh?)
Unwrapping his hand, we all cringed to see the mutilated fingers hanging limp and dead. The story fell together piece by piece as we prepared to suture. As a goat herder, he stumbled upon a bullet while wandering the fields and picked it up. Curious and as any nine year old boy would be, he decided to see what would happen if he beat it with a stick. I am not sure how long he hit it, but eventually it exploded, taking several fingers with it. There was even charred residue glued to his skin. It was bad. Fortunately, by the time he reached us most of the bleeding had stopped.
Once his hand was properly numb, Dennis (our clinical officer) removed a finger which barely hung by sinew and muscle. He left the main bone sticking out, saying it would die and eventually fall off. The other fingers were then stitched and wrapped tightly in gauze.
As he sutured, the boy’s mother, kept peeking at the carnage and mourning her son’s pain. She was a wreck. In fact, the boy kept comforting her: “Don’t worry mom, it doesn’t hurt at all. I promise.” It was really quite sweet.
I asked him if he was ever going to play with bullets again, and he shook his head emphatically. This lesson was costly but effective. I told him to tell his friends to stay away from bullets too, and reminded him that he was fortunate he only lost a few fingers. The realization of this truth stopped us all up short, and together we thanked God it was not worse.
Today, he came in for wound dressings. I’m happy to report that it is healing nicely. Pray for a full recovery. Perhaps one day, he’ll warn his son the dangers of playing with bullets… I hope so.
