Mary, the Dinka Woman

Make Way Partners has a post about Mary, the Dinka Woman, whom we met in Kenya during our visit in 2006.

Kimberly L. Smith's Piece in Time Magazine; Mary, the Dinka Woman

Time Magazine, of all news and opinion sources, has published an essay by Kimberly L. Smith, of Make-Way Partners.  The essay discusses the dreadful way in which women are treated in the Sudan.  In the article, Mrs. Smith mentions Mary the Dinka woman, whom Carol, Mary, and I met at the Kijabe Hospital in Kenya in 2006.

We are on Mrs. Smith's email list, and the photo is of Mrs. Smith, Mary, and one of the little ones at an orphanage that Make-Way Partners established and supports in the Sudan.  Mary the Dinka woman must work there.

Dr. Bransford at Kijabe Hospital

I'm on the email list for Make Way Partners. I hear from its president Kimberly Smith who is in the Sudan doing a wonderful work. Below is the text of a recent email from her. It refers to Dr. Bransford and the hospital at Kijabi where RVA is also located. Note that Kimberly refers to Mary the Dinka woman, whom we met on our visit to the hospital in December of 2006.

September 8th, 2008

Dear Fellow Missioners,

One thing is for sure, life is never dull here in Sudan. We have tried to treat Kevin's malaria here at our medical clinic, but we have not been able to get him to a satisfactory condition. We made arrangements to medi-vac him to Kenya today. We praise God for our partnership with Dr. Dick Bransford of Bethany Kids at Kijabi hospital (the same doctor who saved Mary two years ago)! Dr. Bransford agreed to receive Kevin and care for him in his hospital in the beautiful Rift Valley. This is a double blessing because not only will Kevin receive excellent medical care, but it is also a beautiful sanctuary for restoration for both Kevin and Shalene.

As only God can do, another miracle came from all of this. Just 30 minutes before the medical flight was to arrive, a policeman came to the compound to tell us there was a woman who was going to throw her baby into the river. Apparently, her baby was born without an anus. The baby's name is Arek. Every time the child defecates, it is passes through her urinary tract. It is an absolute miracle that the infant has not already died of infection. The mother, Abet, had brought the baby to our medical clinic, but because we still do not have the funds for a sterile surgical unit, there was nothing our staff could do.

The mother and grandmother had lost all hope. The community was urging them to just throw the baby in the river for it was not good to waste food on her. The mother had finally succumbed to discouragement and was going to throw Arek into the river. Baby Elijah's father happened to be chatting with some police officers when he heard what was happening. He told them, “The Christians who saved my baby, will save this baby, too.” So the policeman came to us.

Quickly, I called Dr. Bransford, once again pleading for help. He readily agreed; he is always so excited to help the children! He and his wife Mimi have been faithful missionaries here for more than 30 years.

We ran to Abet to make sure she did not throw Arek into the river. She agreed to go to Kenya on our flight that was due to arrive in 15 minutes! Abet had never even been inside a vehicle, much less an airplane. She has never left her small village nor does she speak any language but her native tongue, Dinka. The only clothes she had was the one torn and dirty nightgown which she donned. We quickly ran her through the market where we bought a small suitcase and filled it with clothes and food for her and baby Arek.

Only God can reveal a dying baby, work out international travel (without documentation, visas, ID, or any kind of paperwork), a committed doctor to receive them, and provide clothes for travel, not to speak of changing a mother's heart, all in 30 minutes!

Please pray for Kevin's continued healing, for Baby Arek’s surgery to go well, and for the heart of Abet to be encouraged in Christ. I am sure she will receive much love and knowledge of Christ while she is with Dr. Bransford!

All in a day in Nyamlel!

k

Kimberly Smith
President

Make Way Partners
PO BOX 26367
Birmingham, AL 35260
U.S.A.

Phone: 205.240.8597
Fax: 205.822.8091
www.makewaypartners.org

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

Still More on Mary, the Dinka Woman.

I have been in email touch with Audrey Walters, the Communications Director for Make Way Partners, and I told her about the visit that Carol, my Mary, and I made to Kijabe Hospital with Mark Buhler, the assistant superintendant of RVA, and his daughter April when we met Mary, the Dinka Woman. Audrey sent me a copy of this email that the MWP home office received from Kimberly L. Smith, the WMP executive director, who is presently in Kenya:


I can think of no more joyful news to begin ’07 than the news of remarkable recovery for our Mary in Nyamlell, Sudan. As you know, in partnership with Voice of the Martyrs and Bethany Kids, we were able to medi-vac Mary to Kijabi, Kenya for surgery on her arms. I went to see her in December. The following link includes new photos of her - post surgery: http://www.makewaypartners.org/img_popup.php?gID=13.

James, Stephen (from Voice of the Martyrs) and I rode deep into the Rift Valley winding our way through steep mountain roads on our journey to Kijabi’s hospital to visit Mary. Dr. Dick Bransford of Bethany Kids, had agreed to perform Mary’s surgery without ever having met her. Once Dr. Bransford heard her story and saw her photos, he took her case.

All along the ride to visit Mary, as I took in the breathtaking beauty of God’s handiwork in the Rift Valley of Kenya, I marveled at yet another miracle he had done to get Mary to Kijabi Hospital. Mary has no passport, no birth certificate, and no legal papers of any kind. Stephen confessed how nervous he was putting her on the chartered plane. He had created letters explaining what he was trying to do, but what if the Customs Agent wouldn’t let Mary into Kenya? Stephen knew the Customs Agent well; this agent was a drunkard known to be unreasonable and hot tempered. If there was a problem, Stephen would have to put Mary back on the plane and send her home without an explanation because he couldn’t speak Dinka and Mary couldn’t speak Kiswahili. Stephen prayed the whole way through. This day the Agent offered little resistance, Stephen paid a small fee and Mary was granted a temporary Visa. Praise God!

Many of us have been praying for Mary’s recovery for sometime now. As I rode to Kijabi, I wondered how getting on a plane for the first time, riding on paved roads for the first time, being in a hospital for the first time, and the doctor not being able to explain to her what he was about to do or what she could expect would affect her.

Once in Kijabi, as Mary saw me coming toward her, she jumped up and ran to me raising her arms high into the air. For the first time, Mary was able to truly embrace me; we both cried. She was like a child excited with a long-awaited toy, wasting no time to show me how she could pump her arms up and down and stretch them nearly straight out. With rapid succession, Mary would alternately hug me then raise her arms in joy only to firmly hug me once again.

Finally we sat to talk. She was desperate for news of her children. We assured her that they were doing well in school and were being well cared for. The news was visibly comforting to her.

Through conversation about Mary’s return to Sudan, I asked her what she or her children might need. I wondered if she would ask for clothing or some essential item for her children; they have only one set of rags which they wear every day.

Mary said, "I don’t have a Bible. I couldn’t read it even if I did since I don’t know how to read. Still, I know Jesus has been with me all the way! But I want to know more about Him. Please teach me and the other women more about Jesus."

Mary has become a leader to Christians, Muslims and women who have lost all hope in any religion through this unholy ‘holy war’. Her desire is to start a Bible study with these women.

When I return to Sudan in a couple of weeks, helping Mary to deepen her ministry to the Christians, Muslims and former slave women in her community is one of my goals. You can make a donation for this specific purpose at: https://www.makewaypartners.org/index.php

Lastly, thanks to your generous yearend giving, the dormitory construction will continue. Our goal is to have Phase I complete by April and the first children will begin moving in. However, much work is ahead of us and the children need your continued support. Please continue to tell everyone you know how they can help these precious children through Make Way Partners.

Kimberly L.Smith

Executive Director

Update: I fixed the links, but I cannot get the photos on the link to the photo gallery to load on my computer. Maybe they will work for you.

More on Mary, the Dinka Woman. When I was blogging from Kenya, I posted about a visit to the Kijabe Hospital and described meeting Mary, a young woman from the Sudan who was a patient there. My Mary (Mary Stokes) told me that the Mary we met at the hospital is from the Dinka tribe, and so I will refer to the Mary we met as "Mary, the Dinka woman."

I have told the story of meeting Mary, the Dinka woman, to a number of people since Carol and I returned. Many of them were as moved as Carol and I were at this woman's story of faithfulness in the midst of profound terror and persecution. Because I was simply repeating the story as I had heard it second or third hand (I did not hear it directly from Mary, the Dinka woman), I asked my Mary if she would get me more details on the story. She researched the issue and was referred to an article about Mary, the Dinka woman, in a publication of the Christian organization that was involved in her rescue. The organization is Make Way Partners Corporation. The article appears in the organization's June 2006 newsletter, beginning on page six.

As you will read, the story ends before the funds are collected to send Mary, the Dinka woman, to Kijabe Hospital. So we have "the rest of the story", at least in part.

My Mary tells me that Mary, the Dinka woman, has been discharged from Kijabe Hosptial, but she does not know where she has gone. But Mary says she will try to find out, and when she does we will let you know.

Hospital Visit. This afternoon we met the RVA assistant superintendent Mark Buhler and his daughter April (10th grade) and walked down the hill to the AIC hospital, to visit children in the pediatric wards, including one with children who have spinal bifida or hydrocephalous or (as is often the case) both. Mark told us that there is apparently a greater incidence of this problem among children in Kenya, and it may be related to a lack of folic acid in the diet. In any event, children born with these birth defects and the mothers who bore them are often rejected by their husbands and communities.

We first visited the ward with the children without these birth defects. None of them was alone: a parent, in most cases the mother, was with them, usually lying in the bed with them. The children were all little children. Mary had asked us to bring over some bottles of bubbles, the kind with the wand which you dip into the solution and blow on. So she would blow bubbles for the children and then hold the wand for them to blow, and that simple thing cheered up both the children and the mothers.

Among the most heartbreaking was a mother and child from one of the Somali refugee camps. (There are two such camps in Kenya, one with 90,000 people and one with 130,000 people.) The little child had somehow rolled into a campfire. Its feet had burned off and after coming to the hospital, one of its legs had to be amputated. There were no private rooms in the ward but for the one that this baby and her mother occupied. The physicians suggested we not go into the room, and we didn't. But I could hear the baby crying. We were talking a bit outside the door to that room, and the mother opened the door and stood there and we said hello and she greeted us. She was slight, small young woman, probably not even twenty. I felt so sorry for her and her baby. April had to go outside the ward for a few minutes to collect herself.

Inside this ward was a refugee from Darfur. She had burns as well and was there, I think, because they were short of beds in the adult section. Mark told us that her village in Darfur had been raided by the Janjaweed (?), the Muslims who are making war on the Christians there. The village was destroyed, she was separated from her husband, and, along with her seven children, terribly abused and taken north into slavery. She was finally sold as a second wife to a Muslim man. Encouraged by the man's first wife, she ran away, sending ahead her five oldest children. But she didn't get far with her two little ones, when the man came after her on horseback, firing at her and the children. But instead of killing them that way, he set fire to the bush in which they were hiding. The little children were killed and she was terribly burned. Meanwhile, the older five children had reached a place where there were sympathetic people, and they got someone to come back looking for their mother and little siblings. They found the mother and carried her away from that place. Her burns were not treated well, and the scarring on her arms caused them to be stuck together, the forearm of each to the bicep area, although she had the use of her hands. She supported herself and children weaving little crosses from palm leaves in a sort of micro-industry project. Some time elapsed and she heard of the AIC hospital here in Kijabe, and recently she underwent operations at the hospital to "unstick" her arms. Mark said that when last he saw her she was in a great deal of pain, but today she seemed comfortable, and we were able to speak with her a little bit and to pray with her. Her name is Mary.

Mark told us that Mary told him that she never denied Christ through all of this, despite being urged to worship Allah by her captors. She is concerned, however, about her children, the five older ones, because they were in the hands of the Muslims long enough for the indoctrination of the children to begin in earnest, and she is not sure that they will accept Christ. However, she is hopeful. If you have space on your prayer list tonight, you might put those five children on it.

Then we went to the second ward, where the spinal bifida/hydrocephalic babies are treated. Before we went there, we ran into the senior physician, for whom that ward is especially his responsibility. His name is Richard Bransford, MD, and the ward has a name of its own, Bethany Kids, and its own support organization, www.brri.ca. He is an older man, probably in his mid to late sixties, and has been there for thirty years.

We mentioned that our Mary had been diagnosed hydrocephalic and had a shunt. He became intensely interested (not that he was disinterested during our conversation up till then), and Mary had him feel her shunt, which he did, and then he called over a nurse and introduced her to Mary and the rest of us, and had the nurse feel Mary's shunt. He told us he would very much like Mary to meet the mothers of the children who had to have such shunts, because mothers are often despondent over the outlook for their babies, and that Mary would give them hope. Mary said she would be glad to help with this.

After that we went over to Dr. Bransford's ward and met the mothers and children there (and one father!). Mary told one of the mothers that she had a shunt and had the mother feel the bump on her head . She showed the mother the scar on her abdomen through which the drainage tube had been inserted. The mother simply lit up in amazement, and two others who were watching Mary lit up as well.