Sudan Reflections

Nadine, who will co-lead my next trip to Sudan and who partnered with me in Ethiopia just returned from a medical trip in southern Sudan. Here's the email she sent to her prayer team.

Hi everyone, I just wanted to thank you for your prayers which sustained me while I was in Sudan. I am feeling fine and am very glad to be home! [She got a bit sick while there.] You should have received an earlier email from me with the results of the trip so I won’t go over them here. Just wanted to give you some thoughts I had while I was away.

As some of you know I rent a cute little cottage in Readington Township. It is about 6 or 700 square feet and sits at the edge of the woods. I love my home and I thank God on most days for providing me such a nice pretty place to live, but being in Sudan brought my thankfulness to a new level. Here are just a few of my thoughts while I was laying sick on a bench in the middle of Southern Sudan. Although I have thanked Him many times for my home, I hadn’t thanked Him recently for my nice bathroom with a clean working toilet (don’t laugh, I’m serious) I thanked Him for my shower and that it has hot running water. I thanked him for my refrigerator and the fact that I have enough money to put food in it, I thanked Him that I can eat more than once per day. I thanked him for my washer and dryer, and the fact that I have a multitude of clothes to put in them, for running water in my house and the fact that I don’t have to walk miles to go and get it and carry it back EVERY day. I thanked Him that the water is clean and that I won’t get sick from drinking it, and for the fact that if I ever do get sick it is no problem to go to a doctor. I thanked Him for the floors in my house, that they are not dirt, for the nice doors and windows that I have, for the screens in the windows that keep the bugs out. I thanked Him for providing a car for me, that I don’t have to walk miles everywhere, that I have enough money to put gas in my car. Then I thanked Him for the roads that I can drive on. I thanked Him for my children, that they are healthy and that they have all that they need. The people in Sudan have NONE of these things NONE OF THEM, not one. Why was I born in the U.S.? I also thanked Him for the people in my life that love me, know me, and care for me.

I had one other experience that I want to share with you. It was when we were flying in a very small plane (20 seater) from one location in Uganda to another. We flew very low for more than an hour. This was a different experience as in the African sky you could see for what seems like hundreds of miles- a VAST nothingness- I was struck at how BIG God is by seeing all this vastness and knowing that I was just seeing a tiny part of the world that He created. Right in the middle of contemplating His greatness, I was amazed again at my salvation. That God who oversees and is intimately involved with this HUMONGOUS world, would reach down to a hospital bed 26 years ago, and take the time to change my life. I instantly thought of the song that says “ who am I that you are mindful of me, that you love me” and Psalm 8 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful on him . . . .” I continue to be amazed at God and His work.