DORO REFUGEE CAMP, SOUTH SUDAN

South Sudan flag

As we begin writing this update we have just boarded the Samaritan's Purse (SP) DC3 in Mabaan, South Sudan, headed back to Nairobi, Kenya.
We spent the last 5 days living inside one of the SP compounds within the Doro Refugee camp.  The Mabaan area has 4 refugee camps filled with 120,000 Sudanese who have fled for their lives from the Blue Nile area of N. Sudan.  Many will never return to their homes until there is peace in Sudan.

 This particular SP operation oversees a food distribution program for about 40,000 refugees and their families.  The food consists of lentils, oil, cereal, sorgum, rice, salt,etc.  The food is brought by the World Food Program in conjunction with the UN.  The process is fairly orderly and requires an official ID from the families before food is given.  A 30 day supply is given to 30 families to share.  It take about 4 days to complete the distribution.  Those are 50 kilo sacks!





The salt is measured out into individual amounts for each family.  A 30 day supply for 30 families is one container of salt (that's about one cup per family).  These workers are dividing the salt to be distributed.

Hundreds of people are lined up behind us to get their food.  Each group of 30 families sends a small representation of people to pick up the food and take it back to their homes to share.  Ten 50 kilo sacks of dry goods and five gallons of oil.  It is almost all women doing the lifting and carrying.




This mother has come with her baby on her back.  She is dragging a sack of lentils (110 lbs).  Absolutely incredible to see!

OK - put 110 pounds on your head!

 Most of these women have walked quite a distance in the heat to get to the distribution center, and now must carry those sacks all the way back on their heads.  We watched in awe as three people would be needed to lift one sack onto another woman's head.

This is one of many lines of families ready to receive their food.  There are thousands more waiting outside the compound until they are called to line up inside.  SP has workers that are stationed at each area to make sure everyone takes only their portion.  There are huge tents, probably 50 x 200 that store the sacks.  We watched many local workers carry bag after bag out of the tents on their backs to make the new stacks to be distributed.

Chris is talking with Grace.  She runs a nutrition program inside two of the refugee camps in Mabaan, for under-nourished children.  Grace and her staff weigh the children, log the results to see if the child is improving, speak with the mothers about care and feeding of their children, and send them home with food just for the child.



SP also has a medical hospital located very close to the compound where we lived.  This hospital handles most all medical needs and emergencies.  They have a very modest surgical room, and lab to test for malaria and other diseases.  There is a newly built maternity ward, which is always full.  Most women have their baby delivered and go home in a couple of hours!  Many of the patients are housed in small concrete buildings or tents.  When it gets really busy patients are placed in beds outside.  We did not take pictures of the patients out of respect for what little privacy and dignity they had.  They also have special tents for TB patients.

Look close at the way she carries her baby.  A board with straps!

Typical mode of carrying items

This is the shower!  Corrugated sides, open top, cement floor, and gravity fed water from the black tank.  Late day showers will probably give you warmer water.  Don't forget to wear your slippers.  It is hot and dusty during the day, and you sweat a lot, so even cold water feels pretty good.

The missionary and staff  housing are 12x12  army tents which come equipped with a metal bed frame with a foam mattress (blanket & sheet included).  Fans are used to cool and keep the mosquitos away, when the generator is working (this is malaria country!) Some tents are placed on 18" concrete foundations to keep rain and critters out (sometimes).  Dry Season has just begun so we were fine.  Later will prove to be like Bullhead City, AZ in the summer minus aircon.

This is where Gary was sitting when he took the picture of Chris (above).  This is our multi-purpose facility.  The tables on the left are for computers, eating, and fellowship.  The tables on the right are the serving tables for meals.  This is the place to be if you are on the compound (unless you are taking a much needed nap).

This is one of the two ambulances for the hospital.

Cook with staff and some guy with a banana!

The compound was fortunate enough to acquired a great cook from Juba, S. Sudan. His name is Feruke (something close to that).  He does amazing things in this dirt floor kitchen with only charcoal.  The meals are basic with brown ugali, rice, potato, fruit, and sometimes a meat stew or pasta. Last night he made banana fritters!!  Don't watch how they wash dishes...

Sunday night church - Philippians Study

We have much more that we can share, and will after our next trip.  We hope you enjoy these updates as much as we do bringing them to you.  Please pray for our return trip to Doro in the near future.  Pray for health and safety, both of which have become much more important as we travel in some of these unsettled and remote areas of Kenya and Sudan.  The welcome mat is always out to anyone interested in our ministry in Africa.  Warning...it will be a working trip but you will never be the same again.  Let us hear from you!

Well, it is time to say good-bye and "wheels up" as we leave this very special place in South Sudan.












Gary & Chris Bailey
Eagles Nest Ministry
Kenya, Africa
enmkenya@gmail.com
eaglesnestministry.blogspot.com (a missionary remembers)

IN THE THICK OF IT ALL...............

We recently spent a few days in Eldoret, Kenya, with Samaritan's (SP) Purse friends.  We drove back to Nairobi on January 1st and began plans for the new year with our ministry.  On January 3rd we received a call from  SP requesting our immediate travel to one of the largest Refugee camps in S. Sudan.  Doro refugee camp is in Maban, S. Sudan and is one of the major SP locations.  There are a total of four refugee camps in this region totaling about 100,000 people from the Blue Nile region of N. Sudan.  These camps are about 70 kilometers from the N. Sudan border.

We were informed that one of the national staff for SP had hung himself on the compound inside one of the toilets.  The entire compound was in tremendous turmoil and very confused by the tragic event.  Within 3 hours of receiving the call we were on a Kenya Airlines flight back to Eldoret, where we boarded an SP plane that took us to Doro.  Our assignment was to minister to and counsel with those traumatized by this death.  As missionaries in Kenya and Sudan, we are exposed to all kinds of things that rip at our hearts, even death is not a stranger to those who serve in S. Sudan.

SP runs a hospital and clinic, as well as a nutrition program for mal-nurished children.  Death is literally a daily event within the camps.  SP also has two ambulances used to transport people to the hospital and remove those who die.

The SP compound is an enclosed camp within the four refugee camps, with some security on the gate.  The compound is all tent living, with outside toilets and showers (no roofs, and no heated water).  There is a generator for power most of the day.  The missionary and national staff are busy from sunrise to well after sunset with a multitude of ministries and emergencies.  One of the major programs is food distribution for the Doro refugee camp, which contains about 40,000 people.

We have spent many hours visiting with local Maban's and trying to understand their culture related to someone who has taken their life.  There are many superstitions, even among the Christians, that will take a long time to work through.  The living conditions here are minimal for everyone, the food is very basic, and the dust is everywhere.  Chris is not feeling well, and the doctor her on medication (maybe the water).

God has placed us right in the heart of the most seriously needy area in S. Sudan, not to mention one of the most volatile when there is fighting.  We cannot adequately express/describe the things we have seen and experienced.  As we begin Eagles Nest Ministry and work closely with SP, we fully expect God to place us in these types of situations more and more........ He has taken our ministry in Africa to a whole new level of commitment and willingness to sacrifice all for the call to minister in Africa.

We will share more of this ministry opportunity in the next blog.  We have included a couple of pictures.  We are sitting under a tarp in the middle of the compound as we write this.  Chickens running around, cows and camels outside the gate, some refugee fighting about 7 kilometers north,and 100,000 people living in any type of make-shift covering with their families.   We will be meeting with several of the staff this afternoon and they are bringing in a local pastor to translate for us.

It is times like this we cannot tell you how much your prayers mean!

Gary & Chris

Sometimes we feel discouraged spending endless days, months and even years not seeing what we think should be fruit as we stay faithful to the call to foreign missions.  Well, just a few weeks ago I was listening to an amazing story unfold told by a second generation missionary who is the mother-in-law to my friend around the corner who happens to be a missionary kid.  In a nutshell she is married to one of the sons of the woman telling this story.  So, I'll be quiet and let her do the talking.

"My parents were missionaries in Nigeria with Sudan Interior Mission when the Mission asked them if they would be willing to do pioneer missionary work in Sudan.  The year was about 1948 when my parents, Joe and Wilma Nash, arrived in southern Sudan with my 4 month old sister, Mary and me at 2 years of age.  We went first to Chali, where Mary Beam and Betty Cridland were living and overseeing the work.  This gave my dad a chance to go to Maiak and begin meeting some of the Hill Barun people who lived in the vicinity, and to establish some kind of living quarters for us.  It wasn't long before we were living in the thatched roof hut that had been build for us, very similar to the huts the people lived in.  The Hill Barun people had never seen white women or children before and very few white men.  So we were a novelty to them and they would run their hands over our hair and arms and just laugh.  They were a very friendly people and accepting of us.

The Hill Barun tribe numbered, I believe, about 2,000 at that time.  They did not have a written language.  They were animistic in their beliefs and farmers by occupation.  The primary crop they raised was guinea corn, and they also kept cows, pigs, goats and chickens.  They were very poor and one of the reasons for this was because after they hauled water from the Khor Achmar (seasonal river), and wove mats and grass necklaces.  They wore no clothes except for the men who covered their loins with a skin from some animal they had killed.  Once a year at harvest, they held a week-long dance in which they drank booming out the rhythm with some kind of gourd with long pipes, and worshipped the spirits.  The dance and the "music" was continual and I can still remember hearing it at night unable to sleep.  Demon activity occurred during this festival and the people were in great bondage.

My dad knew not one word of Hill Barun when he arrived at Maiak, but he did know a little Arabic.  A few of the men knew tiny bits of Arabic, as this was the language of trade in the south.  So a long process of learning the language started.  He employed a few men to help him as he painstakingly pointed to one object after another, and wrote down what he thought he heard.  It wasn't all drudgery.  Lots of laughter broke forth as mistakes were made, but little by little a pattern began to develop.  The next step was to make an alphabet for the language, and he used the Arabic alphabet as much as possible.  Then came primers, to teach his informants and some interested boys how to read their own language.  He also started putting some simple Bible stories in little books for them to read.  Finally, he was able to translate Mark into their language.

Many other tasks took up my dad's time besides language learning.  But all of these jobs also forced him to use the language.  My dad used to say he was a 'jack of all trades and master of none.'  One of the things he did early on was to teach them to make bricks out of the clay soil, using a homemade brick kiln.  With the bricks a simple 2 bedroom home was built with an aluminum roof & no ceilings.  The kitchen had a wood-burning stove to cook on & we eventually pumped water up from a deep hole in the Khor to a holding tank, so we could have water by gravity into the house.  The floors were cement & we had screened porches front and back.  My dad also did elementary medical work until a nurse from Australia, Elsie Redman, came to join us.  I can remember a picture of my dad pulling someone's molar with a pair of pliers & a little disinfectant to rinse out the mouth.  One day our nurse got stung by a scorpion & it was so painful we could hear her crying in the middle of the night.  So dad took her finger where she was stung & touched it to the battery in the truck, giving her a shock but somehow scrambling the nerve endings which stopped the pain.

Of course, my dad's primary objective was to evangelize & disciple the Hill Baruns.  This involved walking to their villages, spending time visiting them and trying to learn their ways and build friendships.  He taught them how to grow tomatoes & pawpaw (papayas).  He had a large garden himself, to help with our diet, & was thus able to pass ideas on to them.  My mother sometimes went with him & sometimes went with us girls to visit the women and work on her own language skills.  Soon we started holding meetings on Sundays in a little hut without walls (better circulation), teaching them songs, reading Bible portions & teaching them about the one true God.  Actually, they believed in the Creator God, and believed He was the One who gave them rain and sunshine and all good things.  But, they feared satan and his demons thus spent their lives trying to appease him so he wouldn't kill their children, spoil crops making lives miserable.  The message my dad preached was very appealing to them.  But they were also afraid.  I remember one man named Nanak, an older man and a leper, who received Jesus as his Savior.  My dad told him he would now go to heaven and God would give him a new body.  He was so happy & he died soon after that, cleansed by the blood of Jesus.

We went home on furlough in June, 1962 knowing that the missionaries were soon to be kicked out of Sudan by the Muslims in the north who ruled the country.  Six months later this happened.  My dad had a heavy heart because he only knew of a handful of believers by that time, & they were left to the wolves.  So much persecution and heartbreak followed in the years after that.  It was difficult to get news of what was happening to the Baruns and especially to the few believers.  Here & there we would hear of one or two who managed to get to Khartoum to the Bible School there.

My dad was quite depressed at times in his later years, feeling perhaps that he had spent so much time and effort with minimal human results.  I wish he could have seen, that we could have talked together about the amazing thing God is doing now in South Sudan.  I mean, maybe he has a better vantage point than I do now, from heaven.  But I would love to see his face, his joy to know that it was all worth it.

So what has God been doing?  Incredibly, in the last 2 months, the people living near the Sudan/South Sudan border have fled to nearby Doro, in S. Sudan because of persecution from the North.  Doro was one of the SIM stations near Maiak and Chali.  As many as 110,000 refugees have congregated on the local tribes people.  Most of these refugees are Muslim & they have have been hearing the Gospel because of persecution.  God has prepared 8 evangelists from Ethiopia to come into South Sudan to evangelize these people.  Not only the refugees but the local Uduks, Baruns & Dinkas and other tribes who live there have heard the gospel.  Translators were found from each people group to assist the Ethiopian evangelists who went out among the people night & day, telling the good news of Jesus & the life He gave to save them from their bondage and sin.  The churches in Ethiopia supplied the money to fly these evangelists to Sudan.  Sudan Interior Mission supplied the food and living quarters for them.  AIM AIR flew the SIM missionaries who were coordinating this mission from Nairobi to Doro, & also the Ethopians who went back after 6 wks of ministry.  SO WHAT WERE THE RESULTS?  Hundreds, no, at least 2,000 to date have accepted Christ.  I heard that when the Baruns heard the gospel, 44 accepted Christ on the spot.  They said that LONG AGO SOMEONE HAD TOLD THEM THESE THINGS, BUT HE LEFT.  Now their hearts were ready to receive the message.  I am weeping tears of joy as I write this, realizing how the soil was prepared & the seed planted so long ago, & in God's timing the fruit is being harvested.  Paul wrote that one plants & another waters but it is God who gives the increase.  In His time.  In His was.  Through the combined efforts of His people.  Praise His glorious name!"

In His love,
Ruth Nash Wagnell