This is a documentary that my friend Daniel Crawford put together after our trip to Sudan this summer. He does a great job retelling his experiences in a heartfelt way. The documentaries covers day-to-day life, memorable moments, and what God taught him while he was there. Check it out!

I’m selling a few of the extra posters I made in archetype press last spring for As Cities Burn’s first LP “Son I Loved You At Your Darkest.” ACB has been one of my favorite bands since high school – I love their lyrics and I had a lot of fun working on this project.

They are 36” x 24” printed by wood type and ink on an oversized xeroxed collage. I only pressed 10 of them.

I’m selling the posters for $25 plus $7.50 for shipping. Sold out!

I can hardly believe that last month at this time, I was on my way home from Africa. Life has gone by so fast over the last month, but I still feel compelled to finish off my blogging for the summer.

The last weekend I was in Sudan was filled with many ministry opportunities. It started out with Sebit coming into my room late on Saturday night. The daughter of a local pastor has just died that night and they needed someone to fill in for him and teach at his church, as well as comfort the family and the church.

So the next morning, Missy and I rode out to a village just a few minutes from Tonj with Albino and one of the pastors from the school. I shared a message with the congregation about how in times of pain and difficulty, we can hold on to the truth that when Jesus came to earth, he was 100% God, and at the same time, 100% man.

We can trust in the truth that Jesus is all powerful and sovereign in the midst of our circumstances, and that from heaven he can see the greater picture in our suffering. We can also be comforted by the knowledge that Jesus was 100% man and has felt the deepest pain on earth a man can feel.

After the service, we walked over to the pastor’s home to pray for each of the members of his family and the community. The we stood alongside them as the buried the young girl.

We were able to make it back to the compound in time to hear most of Daniel’s message to the fellowship that meets there. Many of the elders of Peter’s church had come to the service that day. Their church had not yet reopened their doors because of everything that had happened with Peter.

Daniel delivered an inspired message and afterwards, a few of us were able to have a personal meeting with the church leadership. During the meeting, Judah (one of the students at In Deed And Truth’s school for pastors), accepted his appointment to replace Peter as the pastor of the main Episcopalian church in Tonj.

We shared with Judah and the leadership that this was an opportunity to start with a fresh slate. The community would be watching closely and this was an opportunity to show everyone how Christ can redeem even the worst of situations. I encouraged Judah to not put himself above others, but to lead as a servant and to make sure he had confidants that he could share his struggles with and remain accountable through.

I spent my last couple of day working directly with Suzy. In my day-to-day life, I am In Deed And Truth’s graphic designer and Suzy and I wanted to take advantage of our last few days together to get as much done as possible. Being back on the ground gave me a new passion for the ministry and gave Suzy, Sabet and I plenty of time to talk and share our lives and ministries face to face like normal people, instead of through a broken Skype connection.

At the end of the week, Missy, John, Joe and myself flew out to Kenya and were greeted by Gordon, In Deed And Truth’s Kenya logistician. The five of us had a great weekend in Nairobi together. The highlight was definitely visiting the Giraffe Centre and getting to pet and even kiss the giraffes.

I then flew to England to spend five days there before heading back to California. I stayed with my friend Alex’s family in London and got to spend a day there touring the city with my friends Cat and Laura. I went out to Oxford for a night and explored there, I made friends with two guys at my hostel, Zac and Andrew, who were from Australia and Canada.

Thank you so much for all your support and prayers that made this trip possible. I’m so grateful for all my friends and family back home and have loved seeing so many of you over the last month. Africa is a place where I feel so at home and so alive and I feel so blessed to have been able to return there again and see the people whom I love so much.

I love Dut. He’s the main security guard here on the compound. He carries a rifle pretty much everywhere. I’ve decided he’s a good guy to be friends with.

Dut doesn’t speak a word of English, I speak about two dozen words of Dinka, so we can’t talk too much; but every time we see each other we shout each other’s name and share a high five, handshake, or shoulder pat and repeat every Dinka greeting I know multiple times.

Dut is originally from Malony, the village where we’ve been doing weekly mobile medical clinics. The first time we went out there, I told him I wanted to take his picture in the beautiful grass fields there. He told me to wait one moment and then he ran over to get his daughter so that I could take their picture together. He had that proud father look on his face as I snapped their photo and his daughter was absolutely beaming.

A father giving his daughter that much love and joy is rare in Dinka culture, so I instantly liked Dut. One day in heaven, when language barriers are no more, we’ll be able to talk about our summer here together and laugh about all the great times we had. I think there will be some good ones.

Thursday while driving to Maloney Daniel and I were discussing about how the lack of variety in the terrain in southern Sudan would discourage people from moving from home since one would have to walk hundreds of miles to reach another kind of terrain.

So I decided to ask Deng if there was a word in Dinka for mountain. He responded yes and told me that the word is “kool”.

I then asked him and Santino if they’d ever seen a mountain, they responded yes, but not in Tonj. They said there are mountains further south near Juba.

I then asked them how big they were to which Santino responded…

“You see that tree there, they’re even that big.”

We all had a great laugh. We all love sitting around sharing about the similarities and differences of life in Sudan, Kenya, and the USA – and this one was particularly memorable.

Saturday night we all went to the Catholic mission for a dinner celebration. We had a great evening there but upon arriving home we were faced with an emergency situation in the clinic.

There was a man there named Wilson who was unconscious from being beaten badly and clubbed in the head. As we learned more, the story became even more heartbreaking. Wilson’s brother Peter was the head pastor of the local Episcopalian church here in Tonj. Peter had recently had an affair and impregnated a teenage girl who he intended to take as a second wife. As is custom here in Sudan, if a girl is impregnated before marriage, the price of her dowry decreases drastically and her brothers are culturally allowed to take revenge by beating the man who defiled her or his brother.

Daniel and I were heart broken and went into the clinic around 11:30pm to pray for Wilson. Peter and two other family members were there with Wilson. At around 12:10am, Caleb (the clinical officer) told us that Wilson was starting to slip away and at 12:25am we listened as Wilson passed away.

I stood up and looked into the room Wilson was lying in, it was the first time I’d ever seen a dead body and I couldn’t imagine the amount of grief and remorse that his brother Peter was feeling at that moment. I tried to put myself in his shoes – if my sin had led to Ethan lying there like that; and the pain was heartbreaking.

Daniel and I somberly went to bed but were awoken sharply at 5am to the loud wailing of two women about 15 meters from our window. They were outside the compound walls and slowly walking away crying. We learned later that morning that Peter and some of his family members had killed a member of the teenage girl’s family in vengeance during the middle of the night and the victim’s family members had come by the compound gates in their mourning.

Murder was repaid with murder and we were all a little on edge the next day not sure if the conflict would escalate. We ended up having to cancel our church service on the compound to keep the amount of non-resident people on the grounds to a minimum. Thankfully the conflict escalated no further and security slowly returned to Tonj.

No one is immune to sin, but seeing the pastor of the 2nd largest church in the town impregnate a woman who wasn’t his wife and then kill one of her family member’s in vengeance certainly leaves a sour taste in one’s mouth about the state of the churches here.

As I sit here in bed typing away, I’m trying to process all my thoughts about this event and am having trouble fully wrapping my mind around it; but here are two things I think I’ll take away from it:

1. God calls us to live above our culture. We are to lay down our lives to follow Him and His teachings, even if that divides us from even our own family members. God’s Word is the fabric of the universe and is truth to us no matter where we live. If we are unsatisfied and think something that is outside of the will of God is going to satisfy us, we are mistaken. I don’t say this with a heart of judgment on Peter, but with a heart of worship to God, the creator of the universe and the author His Word.

2. As a point the mirror back at myself, I can’t help but think of the chorus from an old Supertones song; “My sin yelled ‘crucify!’ louder than the mob that day, my sin yelled ‘crucify!’ louder than any mouth.” We’ve all sinned and we all deserve death, it’s only by the grace of God that we are set free. Seeing someone watch their sin lead to a brother’s death has given me an even deeper appreciation for the amazing grace of God in my life.

Please continue to pray for both of the effected families in this situation. Please pray that even in the midst of this tragedy that they would be comforted and find God’s love and truth even in the darkest of situations. Please pray that God’s Word and Spirit would puncture the hearts of the people here and that they would know the love and joy of a relationship with God and His dwelling in their hearts.

A few weeks ago in the evening we took a boys trip deep into the bush to visit a village called Agor. We drove for 2½ hours to the most remote place I’ve ever been to in all my time in Africa. It was late dusk by the time we arrived and we were greeted by the traditional drumming and singing of the villagers in the dark.

Our intention was to show The Jesus Film to the people there in their native language, but when we got there our generator wouldn’t start. So instead we got up in front of our new friends and tag-teamed sharing spirit led devotions. Two of the pastors from In Deed And Truth’s discipleship training center live in the village and they were very excited to have us teach the Word of God to their people. Sebit concluded our time with an opportunity for people to respond to the Gospel.

Strong biblical teaching is desperately needed in Sudan. Years of religiosity and the churches being seen simply as a gateway to Western handouts have distorted the message of Christ. The idea of Christ being the all powerful transforming Savior whose Spirit lives inside our hearts is often lost here; so it was a blessing to have the opportunity to share with the people of this remote village and I hope that some lives were touched during our time there.

Being so far out in the jungle left us with an experience that was so authentic. Daniel and I joined in the local stomping dance before we left, but instead we both ended up doing the running man to the great entertainment of all who watched.

Two Sundays ago I was given an opportunity to teach at the church that meets here inside of the compound.

I gave a message about the presence of God. I began with Ezekiel 1 and shared about the out of this world encounter with God’s presence that Ezekiel had at the beginning of his ministry. I then moved to the New Testament and shared that the same presence of God Ezekiel experienced dwelled even more fully in Christ when he came to earth and now lives in us through His spirit.

This is an especially relevant topic to the people of Sudan. The connection between knowing about Christ and inviting His Spirit to live inside of you is often lost here. It was a privilege to have the opportunity to share the Word of God here.

I’ll conclude this blog post with a beautiful Old Testament prophecy from Ezekiel concerning the new covenant which was to come:

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” - Ezekiel 36:26-27

The ice age has come to Sudan. We woke up Monday morning to the chilling temperature of 70° Fahrenheit. The locals brought out their beanies and ski clothes (I wish I was exaggerating) to take on the coldest weather of the year. Roles were reversed and suddenly it was my thick North American blood that was helping me to adjust to the local weather.

Monday brought us a full load of patients to the clinic here in Tonj as well. We saw a total of 130 patients. We’re all settling into our roles in the clinic much more comfortably this week. I’ve been manning the registration table with my Sudanese partner Marco. I’ve become the lord of the thermometer and have about five different strategies for determining the weight of a screaming baby. I’m even learning some basic triage.

Outside of the clinic, we had our first weekend in Tonj. Sunday was a great day of attending church here on the compound with the entire staff and many of the other NGO workers here in Tonj. Sunday afternoon we had a picnic out on the river valley. I snapped the shot below of my roommate Daniel having some fun with Dut, our resident security guard. Lots of football to be watched too – we’ve got six different nationalities represented here and national pride was high during the Germany vs. England and USA vs. Ghana matches.

Last Friday, Africa got the best of me for a day. I woke up at 5 am and unfortunately proceeded to vomit the entire contents of my stomach back into the world. But a day full of sleeping and a little bit of the wonderful antibiotic known as Cipro and I was back on my feet the next day.

Saturday I had a lot of fun filming some commercials featuring the Sudanese guys to show during halftime at our upcoming World Cup public viewing outreaches this week. We did two skits and Sebit interviewed Donato, a boy here who has an amazing testimony.

Some prayer requests for this week:

1. For the health of my teammates Missy and Daniel – they’re both recovering from bugs they picked up earlier this week.

2. For our World Cup and Malony village mobile clinic outreaches this week – that we would use these as an opportunity to bless the communities and reach out to them tangibly with the love of Christ.

3. That I would believe not just in my mind, but in my heart in the power of God and his desire to work in fresh and new ways in and through my life during my time here and that any barriers I put up to Him working in and through me would be torn down.