Bringing Medicine to Sudan

Malee! (as they say in Sudan)

We returned from Africa safely on August 24th and went back to school just a few days later! Things have been rushed as we try to re-integrate ourselves into American society and dive into our senior year of nursing school. Enough about us being home - I'm sure you all want to hear about our trip!

We left for Kenya in June and arrived on time, in one piece, and only slightly jet-lagged. We stayed in Nairobi at a hostel and spent our days talking with Christian Mission Aid (CMA), meeting all of the staff, and preparing for our trip to Sudan. We even had a few days off to go visit the Rafiki Foundation, where I was 2 years ago. It was fun to show Trent around and to see how much Rafiki has changed and developed over the years. AND I got to show Trent where I sat to email him - where our relationship and love began. We visited Faith House, an organization that branched out of Rafiki to make a home for young ladies who don't have a safe place to stay. It was founded and named after Faith, a lovely Rafiki student, and friend of mine, who was killed while on school break.

CMA took us to visit some of the ministries in the slums of Nairobi. One of the big focuses was to integrate a new water program into the slums to provide safe drinking water. This was an eye opening experience; we had the privilege of talking, laughing, singing, dancing, and worshipping God with children who may get just one meal a day and who live in some of the poorest conditions in the world.

After a week in Nairobi, it was finally time to depart for Sudan. We flew from Nairobi to a town on the border of Kenya and Sudan called Lokichoggio. We stayed 2 nights in a United Nations camp there where CMA has an office and storage for the Sudan projects. From there we flew into Keew, Southern Sudan. Just when we were getting used to Kenyan culture, we were thrown into the heat of Sudan. There, kids run around naked covered in mud and cow feces, men had intricate carvings on their faces and the women did all the work. Everyone lived in homemade mud houses called tukuls. It was a far cry from city life. We moved into our own tukul in the existing CMA compound, our new home for the next six weeks.

We began our work with the Sudanese Nationals in the Primary Health Care Clinic (PHCC) immediately and were supervised by a group of fabulous Kenyan nurses who had been hired by CMA. Our typical week began with a meeting with the all the health care workers (25 Sudanese, 4 Kenyans and 2 blazing white Americans). At this meeting, we discussed the last week’s census, common diseases seen, and needs for the clinic. Then began a week full of patient care. Trent worked in the out-patient department with a Sudanese health worker, teaching good health assessment technique while learning a plethora of information on tropical medicine and the Nuer culture. I worked in the mother-child health department doing the same.

Three days out of the week, we taught continuing medical education to the Sudanese health care workers. We had planned for teaching on listening to lung sounds, making diagnoses, good patient care, and sexual health. Turned out God had other plans and we spent nearly six weeks teaching about love, family, sex, and reproductive health. At first, it took some time for the men (only the men spoke English) to warm up to the subject, but by the end of our time in Keew, the guys were asking us for condoms and even teaching the population about family planning and staying faithful to their wife/wives!

We enjoyed teaching and working with patients. We were exposed to amazing medical cases that we would never see, nor be a part of, in the US. A lot of our time was spent cleaning and dressing wounds, testing for malaria, and teaching people about nutrition and health.

God put us in unimaginable circumstances. We faced the Sudanese heat, frightening (and deadly) snakes and spiders, medical mysteries, and the challenge of working with a different culture. Through it all, God was faithful. He protected us in times of ignorance, danger, and from those snakes!

We loved the medical aspect of our trip, but what impacted us most were the classes we taught. Trent started a Bible study with 15 men who were eager to learn about God. All who finished the study received their own Bibles. Prior to this study, there was only one Bible among the people. By the time we left, 12 men finished the study and got a Bible, and 13 men accepted Christ! This was an exciting event for the village, but the women were left out. In an attempt to get the women involved, I began teaching English to 6 women with hopes for them to become respected members of society. Teaching them English gave me a glimpse into the harsh life of a Nuer woman and gave the women a chance to contribute to their children’s education, work in the clinic, and read a Bible for themselves.

After six weeks in Keew working with the Nuer people, we felt blessed and sad to leave. This was definitely the highlight of our first year together as man and wife.

Upon our return to Kenya, we debriefed with CMA and even got to spend some time with a group of HIV positive widows living together in western Kenya. God gave us the opportunity and strength to talk to and pray with many suffering women. Thanks to your contributions, we were able to buy the widow group much needed supplies to help stay healthy while living with HIV.

Highlights of the trip:
• Trent saved his bride of one year from 3 cobras, 2 puff adders, and thousands of creepy crawlers!
• Lots of amazing medical experience – we saw nearly 1,200 patients in 6 weeks!
• Meg helped deliver 2 healthy babies
• Trent taught his first Bible study
• Meg helped 6 women hold a pen and write their names for the first time
• Our eyes were opened wide to the poverty in which most of the world lives
• I was helping a woman in labor walk from her tukul over to the clinic. She didn't speak English and I knew limited Nuer. Right as we made it to the gate of the clinic, she dropped down and had the baby right there on the dirt path!
• We were walking to the mud-hut "toilet"/hole in the ground when I shone my flashlight just right to watch a cobra slither into the tukul before me.
• We had fun after hard rains finding frogs and feeding the overly abundant cockroaches to them with our hands.
• Amazingly, we prepared a large tukul for cataract surgeries and made a surprisingly clean area, where Trent was the primary assistant for 11 successful cataract surgeries!

We experienced God together in a new and raw way. Your support for our trip was overwhelming – we thank you for giving us the opportunity to spend our summer serving others in the name of Christ.

Serving together for Christ,
Trent and Meg Freedman