Ann and Bill arrived home to Maine last month after a four-year term in South Sudan.  Homecoming is always a time of mixed emotions; we look forward to seeing family and friends, relish the wide variety of food, adapt readily to 24-hour electricity and hot & cold running water, and sleep in relative tranquility.    Still, we are aware of the endless needs we left behind.   The disparity between life in South Sudan and in the U.S. becomes apparent with the familiar things of life: contemplating a menu in a sit down restaurant, withdrawing cash from an ATM machine, leaving a bedroom window open a night …

Bill spent his last 4-6 weeks working with a team from IMA World Health in a refugee (IDP) camp in Upper Nile State in South Sudan; a country which continues to be embroiled in a devastating civil war, whose people (over 1 million in refugee settings) face famine, reminiscent of the Darfur of past years.    Bill was working to set up mobile health services in two camps using the services of South Sudanese health care workers recruited from within the camps. By the time he left, over 80 South Sudanese staff had been trained and equipped.

The clinics are currently seeing over 600 persons daily and, unlike ‘foreign relief organizations’, are staffed by indigenous doctors and nurses who have been given the tools, training, and equipment to provide essential care for those within their own country.   The mobile clinics move with the population and continue to be supported with medicine and supplies from our base in the capital city of Juba.

As much as we would like to be by their side, this is our year to be home and we look forward to the many occasions we will have to relate stories, share challenges, and give glory to God for all He has done.

We will be on the road and living out of our car for most of the next 12 months and hope to see some of you during our travels. 

Our calendar includes a brief 6-week return to Africa in February to follow up on needs in the field and encourage and support our colleagues.  We will participate in the International Christian Medical/Dental Society conference in Greece in April on our way back (a biannual conference where missionary doctors serving in Africa and the Middle East attend medical lectures and receive CME credits to maintain their US medical licenses).

 We have been invited to participate in the ‘Responding to the Call’ meeting in Green Lake, Wisconsin the end of June and will remain for the ‘World Mission Conference’.  Before heading back to Africa, we’ll have the joy of traveling to Puerto Rico for the wedding of our son, Joel and his fiancé Taisha, who met 6 years ago as freshmen at Williams College.  We will return to Africa the end of July 2016 to rejoin our colleagues … our 2^nd homecoming.   

Though our citizenship is in Heaven, our home is where our hearts abide.   We praise God for His faithfulness during these 23 years in Haiti, Congo, and now South Sudan, and for providing in each situation a home.  Our children will not be with us as we visit churches this year of furlough, nor return with us to Africa in July; yet they, too, have the assurance of a heavenly Father who will be with them along every step of their way.

Please send a note to our email address if you want to know the specific churches and meetings where we will be in your area in the coming year.

 

Matthew 6:21   “…for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”