Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Make Way Partners Update

This is an email I received from Milton Smith of Make Way Partners, the organization that helped rescue Mary the Dinka woman. A team from the US traveled to the Sudan to help Kimberly Smith (Milton's wife, I think), the Executive Director of the organization, who is already at a village which is dealing with a meningitis epidemic, and this is a report. (I believe that Mary the Dinka woman is at this place.) I get updates via email from time to time. Let me know if you want to be added to the MWP email list, or you can go to the website and sign up.

Dear Fellow Sojourners:

I just now finished talking with Kimberly. She said the team arrived on Tuesday Sudanese time. All of the team is in good spirits but tired from the long journey.

When the plane landed in Nyamlel, all 400+ of the children of the Make Way Partners compound were there to meet the plane. Not only were the children there from the compound, but many of the villagers were there and they were all singing. They sang Christian songs, about Jesus, and they danced around the arriving guests. They then led the arriving team through the village in parade fashion out to the compound.

Once they arrived at the compound, Kimberly showed them the medical clinic that is being built and the meningitis clinic. The meningitis clinic is separated from the regular clinic in order to quarantine the meningitis patients.

Then, after a period of rest, Kimberly took the team over to Marialbai which is across the river. During the meningitis outbreak, Marialbai has become a portion of our responsibility. As the team got to Marialbai, a little boy was dying of meningitis. He was an orphan from the last attack by the Janjaweed upon his village. During the attack, the boy’s parents were killed. An uncle of the child had been taking care of him since then. The uncle is a guard at the clinic in Marialbai. The team saw the uncle hold the child’s body and he sobbed. The team cried too.

After giving the team some time to process what had taken place, Kimberly called the team together and led the new team in a foot washing of the medical team that has already been on the ground. After the foot washing, they shared the Eucharist together.

Please pray for the team’s effectiveness in this next week and that God will be glorified.

Jesus wept. (John 11:35)

Grace and Peace,

Milton Smith

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