Following God Alone

Thank you for your prayers yesterday (7/21/2007). Throughout the day the Lord would have me to work on the Visa request for the Department of Immigration and the Darfur Entry Visa request for HAC. I also worked to create communication templates for AU movement and coordination requests to facilitate future SHIR teams ability to make these requests and so that the AU can come to expect a pattern of procedure. It seems good.

For lunch we concocted a dish of left-over spicy chicken shish kabob cooked in a sauce of melted butter, feta (just about the only cheese you can get), sweet cream, pepper, and parsley and poured it over pasta. It was tasty.

At dusk the clouds started coming in red and the humidity went way up. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Over the course of an hour this storm slowly came in from the North bringing greater and greater humidity until the rain finally broke through the heat and began to fall. The power went out. Dark. I sat outside for an hour and prayed to God for the people of Sudan while the lightning illuminated the night. For ten minutes or more the strikes came every 3-4 seconds. Flashes of great vertical forks came one after another, then an amazing long horizontal line of extreme white. I remembered Jesus saying that when He returns, it will be unmistakable, like lightning flashing in the sky (Matthew 24:27). This statement and those in context with it really dispute those religions that claim the second coming of Jesus has already happened, or that so and so is the second-coming of Jesus. But, Jesus said that people would make such claims. He said there would be false-christs, so we expect such.

Jeanne and I were able to talk on the phone for a bit, which was sweet; shortly after I went to bed. It was quite hot and sticky…mosquito weather. It makes me itch just thinking about it again. The power came back on around midnight and the fans began to cool it down (thank you God for such tender mercies).

This morning (Sunday, 7/22/2007) the Lord would have me up at 6:30 and read with Him for quite a while. My heart was really feeling divided. Being so close to my return date, my heart is longing for home, while simultaneously Tony is leaving and we are putting in a request to go to Darfur again. I want to do whatever God wants me to do, but my heart is stuck in one mode, home. Not good…it is dangerous to not be able to clearly hear the voice of the Shepard when traveling into wolf territory. Within my reading I hear Him. The verses that stand out for me are in John chapter 5: 30c: “…for I seek not to please myself but Him who sent me.” and verse 44: “How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?”

After the others awaken we worship God through five or more songs, and each brother shares what God has laid upon his heart in their quiet time. They all speak to me together. For Peter it is I Corinthians 10:13: “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” For Ishmael it is Acts 27:22-24: “But now I urge you to keep up your courage, because not one of you will be lost; only the ship will be destroyed. Last night an angel of the God whose I am and whom I serve stood beside me and said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand trial before Caesar; and God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you.” For Tony it is Psalm 123:2: “As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid look to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, till he shows us his mercy.”

All of these together speak to my heart. They say, trust God and go His way, for not only is it your duty of service, it is the way He provides to build you up in endurance, and the path other than God’s leads to destruction for you and the people that He has given you. God’s way alone is good. Be focused on no other. We pray for submission to God and clarity of His desire. Amen.

After this I helped some new local friends to understand their re-entry requirements so that they would not loose their US permanent resident status. Then I sent out the requests to the AU for the trip (trying out the new templates). There are eight persons with separate duties in three locations to make this request, and each one must coordinate with others and commanding officers to make the request stick. Any one of them failing to communicate or refusing can create a change in schedule or a no-go situation. This is where we trust in our God to shape the request as He desires. We follow up the e-mail communication by driving over the hard-copy forms and letter required to fly out of Khartoum. James dropped off the HAC and Immigration documents today as well, so we have done our part.

We received a call from Pastor Gary to check on us. He is in the hospital very sick. There is a potential for malaria. He wants to know how the team is here; is anyone else sick. We are fine. We pray for him. Please join us in asking for Gary’s health. After 40 hours of travel, this could be any number of illnesses. We work to obtain medicines that they are finding difficult to locate in the US, so Tony can bring them as he leaves today. Four pharmacies later we have what is needed and James and I drop Tony off at the Khartoum airport, bound for Dubai, New York, and home to California. Please pray for health and travel mercies.

James and I stop by the local supermarket and mall, Afra. It is the most supermarket-like thing I have seen, but it stands far and away from what we are used to in the US. It is about 95 degrees F inside and the air moves only as fast as you are walking. Sweaty customers roll their rusty, chrome carts through the isles. The market is about two-thirds housewares and one-third market. The housewares portion contains goods advertised on TV five to ten years ago (“abs of steel” and the like), and goods you might find in the clearance section of Big Lots. The market portion has a very different ratio of goods carried. There are three isles of candy (if you include soda in this, five isles), an island of loose candy that can be bought by the kilo, and a bakery cabinet with sweets only (no bread anywhere in the store). Yes, this is Sudan. There is a meat counter carrying what you would see hanging in the outside markets, but this area is refrigerated and laid out nicely. There is also fresh chicken here, which we have not seen (other than live). There is one isle full of oil only and one isle full of grain flours only. There is one isle of pasta (praise the Lord), but no pasta sauce (we concoct our own from what we can find). There is one isle of canned vegetables and fruits, and one isle of cheeses (all feta and some laughing cow non-refrigerated cheese spread) shared with fresh Greek olives (YES!). There is an island of various dates and an island of bulk spices. Milk is in a small five-foot high by two-foot wide refrigerated cabinet. It is sold in small, one-cup and two-cup soft packs. There is a small section of pickles, olives, and tahini next to the refrigerated candy and sodas. The produce is quite sad…mostly because it is 95 degrees in Afra. They have two isles of chillers, as you might see in US produce stores, but they are not on. There is by far more shelf space than there is produce, and much of it is not in a condition that would be selected in the US or it is rotting. You really need to look to get a handful of choice pieces. Though I have seen some days as better than others in the Afra produce department. The street vendors sell far better quality produce. Once you choose the produce you want, you take it to a woman seated in the center of the wide aisle and she weighs it and tags it with the appropriate price, so the checker at front doesn’t have to. The remaining isles: one devoted to bottled water, one for paper goods, one for insect killer, two for cleaning supplies, one for diapers, one for foil and ziplocks, and two for beauty. There are over 30 check-out counters, but usually only one checker (though I have never seen a line of more than three people), and you bag your own groceries. That’s Afra.

Shopping there makes me want to take tea and talk about it.

President Al Bashir has been touring Darfur over the past few days. He was on local TV talking about how there is no security problem and the people can now return to their homes. The people came on and talked about how there was a great need for the government to provide security so they can return home. The government officials came on and said that the NGOs are wanting to keep the people in the camps, because if the IDPs returned home, the NGOs would be unemployed. The same song is being sung. All are partially correct, some more than others.

Please pray for Pastor Gary.
Please pray for Tony.
Please pray for God’s will to be clear.
Please pray for security in Sudan.
Please pray for the IDPs to return home to work.

God Bless You. God Bless The Sudan.

In the love of Christ,
Todd