Hi Everybody!
Thanksgiving is pretty much just like any other day in Sudan, but it was a most extraordinary day for me. It started out with the slaughter of the Thanksgiving goat, which was a little out of the routine for the compound–and the honor was given to Rachel, who is apparently only the 3rd American woman to have done it here. Thanks to the expert skills of Suzy and the staff, dinner was pretty much a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner with the goat substituting for turkey–it was DELICIOUS!
The dinner was a somewhat anticlimactic end to an extraordinary day. Tom and I and part of the clinic team were driven out to the village of Malone for the weekly medical outreach clinic run by In Deed and Truth. It is very hard to really describe this experience–It was very much like time travel. The trip started out with a not quite 1 hour drive down a fairly well graded dirt road at about 60-70 mph (honest), which changed abruptly when the driver slowed down almost to a stop in the middle of nowhere, took a hard left across the road, and ran down the embankment and off into the bush. The attached photo is from a little later when the “road” was at least kind of recognizable.
Malone consists of a couple of huts, and the container used by the clinic to store the larger items of the operation including tables and chairs. Most of the families live in huts scattered around the area–all are cattle farmers. The actual clinic consists of 3 tables and the box of supplies brought by us from Tonj–all set up in the shade of a giant tree. The morning is usually slow, as it takes a couple of hours for word to filter out that the clinic is there, and the concept that the clinic is there every Thursday (during the dry season,) is apparently not an easily grasped concept in this culture. Once word was out, though, the people started arriving in large numbers–all on foot, many of the men carrying spears, and rarely wearing anything resembling Western clothing. They are dignified, friendly people who live with next to nothing. I saw many patients who could have felt much better had they simply access to running water and the cool shower I was looking forward to at the end of the day. We did not see many seriously ill patients–most of them (often children with malaria,) had already made or started the journey to the Tonj clinic. (The Malone outreach often sees 60-70 patients.) It was one of the most memorable experiences I have had in all my travels.
Today (Friday) was a fairly “normal” day at the Tonj clinic. Rob in the meantime continues to “Wow” the pastors with his unique teaching, but I will leave that part of the story to him. Tomorrow we are off to the Leper colony.
God Bless You all, and thank you so much for your prayers.
Pray for Us and We Will Pray for You by Pastor Rob
I saw baboons. You heard me, baboons.
We were on the “road” from the “airport” in Rumbek, and a whole gang of baboons were in the road, scampering off when we got close. It was seriously sinking in with me that I’m in Africa when I saw those critters.
After a few false starts, Dave, Tom and I finally made it here to the In Deed and Truth compound. We arrived in the late afternoon, so Sunday was our first full day here. We fellowshipped with the church that meets here on the grounds and it was nothing short of awesome. Rythmic clapping and voices singing in Dinka dialect wafted through the morning air, making the small thatched pavilion where we met feel like holy ground. Sabet taught from Exodus a really encouraging and challenging word. The upcoming referendum fairly permeates everything here, as is understandable, since it looms like a storm on the horizon. Sabet reminded the people that God knows the suffering of the Sudanese people, and he desires to help, and the greatest help of all is the salvation of Christ.
The next day I got sick. Not just “ew, I don’t feel so good”, but a rip roaring projectile evacuating kind of sick. I don’t remember much of the day, other than having to stop teaching the pastors mid point in order to run to the bathroom. Not the dignified start I’d hoped for.
The pastor’s class is wonderful, and today, feeling much better, I really felt much more closely connected to them. I’ve never had to speak through a translator before, but Sabet does a great job…and everyone is so kind to me as I feel my way through this. Either way, we’ve had some great discussions.
Santino gets led into the classroom by holding onto a stick that another pastor leads him with. He’s blind. He sits attentively through every hour, asking questions and joining the discussion. Serving people as a pastor with a disability is a daunting prospect in itself. Doing so in these harsh conditions is remarkable. God’s grace creates amazing heroes.
“You must pray for us” Joseph, another pastor said to me as we left the classroom. “Pray for us, we will pray for you, and maybe you will come and teach us again.”. I pack his words like precious, fragile heirlooms into my heart.
We will pray for you Joseph.
Blog by Thadd Tague
Thadd here, writing at night in Tonj Sudan. The whole team is really being changed, despite the few sickness’s going around. We just finished our third and last basketball outreach to the city of Tonj, we all thought we were going to have to teach them the basics, forget that. their best five players consistently beat our five(My dad, me, Cody, Sabet, and a great young man named Mario). By this time, the third basketball outreach, the friends had brought friends, who brought friends. and there were some VERY talented players. Our team in almost over all of the stomach sickness’s and etc… but Christi and Annabelle are still on the weak side.
Doing construction has been very hard on my body, at night time I crash as soon as I lay down. We get about 500-600 bricks done everyday, and they are about 30 lb each, I though I was glad to get away from football practice when I came here, wrong idea. But on the bright side, most of the workers are not christian, so Cody and I have been witnessing to them , they seem to be listening. Overall the experience has been great and our spirits are high. Please pray for The compound and for Sebat and Suzy.
Over and Out.
Thadd
P.S. I may get to kill the goat, if Christi backs out!
I love you mom, Eden and Garland, tell all the guys at CLA that I am Okay.
Blog by Cody
God is changing my life so much. I’ve experience strength, weakness, and growth throughout this trip.
I’ve got my strength from construction and the outreaches. In construction Dennis, Thadd, and myself have been building brick from scratch, and its been really rough for me. Because when i am doing this, I know that a days work can be done in a hour with two cement trucks. That’s Sudan for you though. For the outreaches, are team went to a leper colony and also the bongo tribe where they actually where they got the name bongo from. It put me to tears seeing what God is doing in the these tribes lives. They were all tears of joy, of how strong and how much they have strong in the Lord they are.
In my weakness I became very sick. I had a stomach sickness (possibly Travelers Diarrhea) of some sort. I was weak in the fact that i could work or help at all. It made me think a lot about the way America is. I was just disgusted with the American dream, because of the way that it is only about yourself. Life has so much meaning than just caring about yourself.
The Growth has been praying and doing God’s work. I am growing stronger every day with the knowledge of other peoples testimony’s and just reading the Bible.
In a way all the areas I talked about were all growth.
Prayer request:
That the team is physically healthy
That the Sudanese people are open to listen to the word of God
For the trip back to America is safe.
ps I miss you mom and pops and mal 
love ,
CODY (MIJO)
Blog by Annabelle Tague
Wow, one more amazing day almost done! It’s 9:20 pm here in Tonj. Just trying to recap this day is so hard, there is so much to think about its almost overwhelming.
Thaddeus and I worked in children’s church… all the kids are so beautiful! Before we started, the kids sang a Dinka song for us, clapping and singing with all their hearts. We taught on the story of the paralyzed man who was healed by Jesus. The kids loved watching us act it out at try to pretend like we were paralyzed. Their smiles were beautiful! After the teaching we played Duck Duck Goose and Simon Says. Pastor Matt taught in the church from the book of Isaiah.
In the afternoon, we drove to the “Picnic Tree,” which is about 5-10 minutes away from the compound. It’s so peaceful there, you can see cows grazing in the distance, and tall grass all around. Dennis and Sebet bought us sodas from the town, a nice treat over here in Sudan. It was a blessing to relax and fellowship as a team. We were able to shoot some great photos… I can’t wait to show them to everyone when we get back!
When we got back we visited Sebet’s mother and some of her grandchildren, who had come to the children’s church. They were all laughing and playing together. It was so adorable. I really have never seen such beautiful children before.
When we came back to the compound, we sat down for dinner. Unfortunately, two of our team members aren’t feeling their best so they weren’t able to come with us to the pic-nic or to Sebet’s mom’s house. Hopefully with your prayer and God’s hand, they will be feeling better soon.
Thank you for your love and prayers for our team! It’s a huge blessing to have all of you supporting us.
Joy!
Annabelle