War Again in Sudan?

One of our teammates posted an article on his blog today about our response to the war in Sudan (www.brianbain.wordpress.com).  His words and sentiments reflect our hearts as well, so I wanted to share what he wrote here:

This is a response my boss, Mike Congrove, recently sent out regarding the latest news on talk of war in Sudan. I’m sure many of you have been wondering how these things affect our work. His words represent mine so I thought you’d appreciate what he has to say…

“War Again in Sudan?

Several of you have asked about the renewed fighting in Sudan. I am not an expert, but here’s my quick take.

Yes there has been fighting over oil towns in the border region of Sudan and South Sudan. This included bombings by the Northern government. The president of the North, Omar al-Bashir even said, ““Either we end up occupying Juba or you end up occupying Khartoum but the boundaries of the old Sudan can no longer fit us together, only one of us has to remain standing.”

He also called the Southerners “insects” and threatened to teach them a lesson in “jihad.” How much is real and how much is posturing is a question beyond my expertise, but both are in the mix.

The areas where we have work have not been affected. In the far South, things are normal (for Sudan) and we’ll continue to send teams and operate as normal. All is well.

But What If?
Our call and commitment to bring the Gospel to Sudanese (Southern and Northern) who have never heard, make disciples of Jesus, and plant churches doesn’t change or waver due to circumstances.

In fact, we believe God is in control and no matter what happens, He will redeem and be glorified regardless of circumstances. If that means we alter strategy and tactics to fit a war, we’ll do it.

Nevertheless, pray for peace. And pray for our team. The North beckons with some of the most unreached, unengaged (zero missionaries) people groups on earth. We’re asking God have us do.”

Thanks again for all you do,

Brian

April Update

But he who boasts is to boast in the Lord. For it is not he who commends himself that is approved, but he whom the Lord commends.

- 2 Corinthians 10:17-18

The last few months have been kind of a whirlwind tour for Amy and me. Shortly after writing the last update, we made a trip to St. Louis to visit with some of Amy’s friends. We came home from St. Louis and were back for a few days, and then left for a trip to Warren, Arkansas where we visited some churches from the Bartholomew BaptistAssociation.

The people in Warren, AR were so hospitable and open to our ministry. We were extremely blessed to meet the brothers and sisters at Saline, Macedonia, Ebenezer, Immanuel and New Light Baptist Churches, and are looking forward to our relationships with them.

We got home from Arkansas and a few days later received news that Amy’s grandmother, Elsie Carlson, was in poor health and might not make it through the weekend. We left the next day and drove to Columbus, GA where we spent a few days visiting with grandma and Amy’s parents. We are extremely blessed with loving families, and it’s always hard to leave them behind. Elsie passed away on April 6^th at about 12:30am.

Throughout these busy weeks we had a chance to see God’s hand in providing for us in some major ways. Our car had a major coolant leak from a bad timing gasket, a job we couldn’t afford to have done right away, so I was a little worried about making so many trips. We prayed that God would sustain the car for us, and although the mechanic told me I would need to stop every hour or two and check the coolant level, we literally lost no coolant for most of the trips. I went from adding a gallon of antifreeze to the car every 3 or 4 days to adding exactly half a gallon over 4,700 miles of driving in three weeks. God is good.

The car was not the only way that God provided for us. At the end of the whirlwind of trips I sat down and wrote in my journal about every time we prayed for something and had an immediate answer. It took three pages to write them all down. Amy and I have been studying 2 Corinthians lately, and Paul repeatedly says that the only way he is going to boast is in his weakness because it is through our weakness that God is powerful. It’s awesome and humbling to be so completely dependent on God and his providence to make it through each day, and to watch him actually provide when we ask him!

Amy is coming up on her thirteenth week of pregnancy. We had our first ultrasound a few weeks ago and saw our little 36.2mm baby moving around. The road trips have been difficult for Amy with the usual nausea and discomfort of being pregnant, but she has been quite the trooper!

Please pray for us as we keep going through the support raising process. We are now at 58% of our total goal. Also pray for Amy and the baby as she goes through this new world of being pregnant and all of the changes that come with it. Pray for our families, this was my grandpa’s first Easter without grandma around, and Ray and Karen as they adjust to not having grandma around after years of working very hard to take care of her.

Thanks!

February Update

All the earth will worship You, and will sing praises to You; They will sing praises to Your name. Come and see the works of God, Who is awesome in His deeds toward the sons of men. – Psalm 66:4-5

Last month I shared about the opportunity we’ve found with the People Teams. Amy and I are partnering with some friends from Antioch Bible Baptist Church to try and reach out to the Sudanese people living in the Kansas City area. We found a store in town where many of the Sudanese people hang out, so we’ve been frequenting that place and visiting with the people we find there.

I (Justin) usually take my laptop with me when we go to the store so I can show people my pictures from Sudan. One day while Tim and I were sitting there talking, we came across some pictures of spearmasters (they’re like witchdoctors) and a chicken that go along with a story I told in a letter sent last July. The guys asked me about those pictures, so I began to tell them the story about how God provided rain at the right time to show his power to the people of Paloc. In the course of telling that story to the men in the store, I was able to share the good news of Jesus Christ’s death, burial and resurrection, the power of God, and the need for people to repent of their sin and make Jesus their Lord. The men in the store reacted positively, and we continued to have a long, fruitful discussion about the nature of sin and the gospel. God is providing some great opportunities!

This has been a busy month for our family. We’ve been working hard at finding new people with whom we can share our ministry, and are at about 45% of our needed monthly support. A few weeks ago we went to Plano to visit the e3 offices and have some evaluations done. The day after we got back from Plano, I came home from an appointment and Amy handed me a positive pregnancy test. It’s exciting news for us, we were hoping to have our first child before we return to Sudan, and apparently God has heard our prayer! Last Sunday we went to the hospital after receiving a call about my grandmother. Grandma had been rushed to KU Medical Center for emergency surgery on Sunday afternoon, but she passed away at 10:45 on Monday. Fortunately for us she was awake and responsive for her last couple of hours on this earth, so some of us were able to pray with her and say goodbye.

Please remember my mother (Stephanie) and her siblings in prayer as they cope with the passing of their mother, and my grandpa (John) as he adjusts to life as a widower after 61 years of marriage.

We love you all!

Justin and Amy

An Old Post From Last Year

I'm re-posting a letter that I sent out last year. I'm referring to it in the latest newsletter, so I want to make it accessible:

“O Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, today let it be known that Youa re God in Israel and that I am Your servant and I have done all these things at Your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that You, O Lord, are God, and that You have turned their heart back again.” – 1 Kings 18:36-37

As we were laying in our tents that night, Peter said “You guys called for rain, now you have to lay in it!” It had been an interesting and discouraging day. We were in a village called Paloc, intent on doing some discipleship with the local church leaders who have been begging for us to come and help them, but when the time came nobody showed up. As we sat around our tents trying to decide what to do next, we noticed that about 30 feet from us there was a chicken tied to this neat little carved pole. Were they trying to keep him from running away?

We asked Peter what was going on with the chicken, and he went to find out. When Peter came back he told us that the elders were gathering with the witchdoctor to sacrifice the chicken for rain. We sat around and talked about it for a few minutes, and I prodded the guys to go and tell the elders a Bible story. As we got up and started walking toward the men, I lightheartedly said to Justin (a visiting college student from Alabama), “Are you guys ready for a power encounter?” I guess they were.

As we approached, the men were singing and making throwing gestures toward the chicken. Justin quickly asked them if we could tell them a Bible story and they agreed. The guys proceeded to tell the story from 1 Kings 18 of Elijah’s challenge to the prophets of Baal. When the story was over, one of the elders spoke up and told us that when their ancestors were created, they crawled out from stones and ever since they’ve been trying to figure out how to reach God. He told us that since they are all uneducated, they just have to guess. Since it had been thundering and lightning every night for a week, but no rain had come to the village, they decided that they’d try sacrificing the chicken to see if rain would come.

We proceeded to tell the men a version of Creation to Christ, emphasizing that we all came from the same ancestor, Adam, and were separated at the tower of Babel. There is only one God, and that God has come to us through Jesus to show us exactly how we can come to him, and Jesus was the last sacrifice. Jesus even chose uneducated fishermen to follow him, and the only thing that made them different from everyone else was that they had surrendered their whole lives to Jesus…and he used them to change the entire world.

The men, unconvinced, told us to teach those things to the children while they kept making their sacrifices. They told us that if we prayed for rain, AND they sacrificed the chicken, then surely rain would come that night. Justin boldly replied that we were only going to pray for rain after the chicken was set free, because God wanted to show his power to them that day. As Justin said this I looked up and noted that the sky was clear and blue, the day was humid but there wasn’t a cloud in sight.

As the old men shouted their objections, a man in a soldier’s uniform got up, untied the chicken and set it free, so we started praying for rain. We prayed there with the men present, and continued to pray after the men left. Around ten o’clock we all went to bed, slightly annoyed that all we had seen was a slight sprinkle and no real rain to help the local crops. About twenty minutes after all of us fell asleep, we were woken with the realization that our tents were being blown sideways. The three guys who were staying in the other tent (not mine) even woke up realizing that their cots and tent were flooded with water. It was pouring rain…hard. For the first time in weeks, Paloc was getting rain and for the first time in their lives the people of Paloc were seeing the power of the one true God.

Pray for us as we try to bring God’s word to these people for the rest of the summer. There are some difficult things happening here and it’s getting harder to go to the places where we had planned to do ministry, but God is clearly at work!

Justin

January Update

But you will receive power when the Holy Sprit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth. – Acts 1:8

I (Justin) remember a phone conversation between Amy and me while I was still in Sudan. Amy was excited because she had just heard about a ministry called “People Teams.” People Teams is basically a bunch of people in Kansas City who, realizing that there are so many countries and ethnic groups represented right here in our neighborhoods, decided to start training people and encouraging local churches to mobilize to start reaching the nations right here in Kansas City with the good news of Jesus Christ. Antioch Bible Baptist Church, which is the church where Amy is a member, decided to get involved in this, so Amy joined the team. To make a long story short, they researched some people groups and decided that Antioch’s focus would be on the Sudanese people located in Kansas City.

Amy mentioned People Teams quite frequently when we were on the phone, and even brought it up on my ride home from the airport when I got back home. For months she’s been casually mentioning to me that we need to get involved, but with the wedding, seminary classes and support- raising, I was kind of slow to come on board. I knew that it would be fun and a worthwhile ministry, I just didn’t’ know how much more time we would have to do it.

Well, after months of waiting, adjusting, and…dragging my feet, Amy and I started going out with Tim and Vanessa from Antioch once a week just to see who we could meet. There are churched Sudanese people here and we know where to find them, but we want to have relationships with the ones who are lost, and find opportunities to share Christ with them. Will you pray that God uses us to reach Sudan in this way as we await his provision for us to return? My experiences in Sudan are a good entry point for conversations, but when we start talking about serious things like the gospel, things will get a lot more difficult.

The support raising is going better than we could have expected. In January we were able to reach our fast-track goal and were hired as “Temporary employees” for four months while we finish raising our commitments. We’re at 42% of or monthly goal, God is providing in amazing ways!

Thanks for your prayers!

Sudan