The Grieve Memorial Clinic—A place of healing
Our Clinic—a place where people can find physical and spiritual healing This Muslim came for care for his feet but also found a personal relationship with Christ. To keep him from boredom while I soaked his feet, I gave him an Arabic Audio Story Teller to listen to. He listened intently and even started "talking" back to it. Soon I brought in Pastor Bulus, our clinic Chaplain, to share with him in his mother tongue. When I came back to check on them I learned our patient had given his life to the Lord. He is just one example of many who have found new life as a result of looking for physical health. We want to continue to offer our patients compassionate, Christ-‐centered care.
Finding freedom from witchcraft These amulets were on an elderly women's neck. She walked 30 kilometers to get to our clinic for she had a long history of not feeling well. I told her the amulets were going to keep her bound in illness so she asked me to cut them off. She said she immediately started feeling better. God is good! This is why we believe our clinic is vital and must remain open. We continue to pray the Lord will encourage more people to become donors of the GMC so we can keep our doors open.
Pastor Bulus—an example of a man sold out to God We love the faithfulness of our clinic chaplain, Pastor Bulus. Here he is sharing Bible stories with our patients still waiting to be seen. When he is not sharing Christ with waiting patients, he is in the clinic praying for patients and sharing the Gospel. He has led many to the Lord. He also uses the Audio Story Tellers to attract people to the Lord. He will set the Story Teller in the midst of the patients and they are soon captivated by the story of God’s love and plan for redeeming mankind. As a result they seek him out later and ask to learn more. We have given out hundreds of Audio Story Tellers to our illiterate patients who never had a chance to hear the Gospel. He
then tries to follow up with them in the camps or in the villages they come from.
Reaching the unreached peoples in their mother tongue Every year the Falatas (Fulanis) make their circuitous travels down from Damazin in Blue Nile State towards Upper Nile in South Sudan before heading towards Ethiopia and then finally back to Sudan. There are over 2,000,000 Falatas in Sudan and they are about 99.99% Muslim. We have yet to meet any Falata who claims to follow Christ. Fiercely independent nomads and proudly Muslim, they rarely let insiders into their tight communities. However, for some reason we have found favor with them and they have chosen GMC as their clinic. Recently I had several in the clinic with their various maladies and one child of theirs who was severely malnourished. It just so happened that I had an Audio Story Teller in their mother tongue. When I first turned on the Story Teller they weren’t paying much attention to it. Then all of the sudden their eyes popped open wide and they exclaimed, “This man is speaking Falata! This is our language!” It was an amazing moment and they were thrilled. We pray they continue to come to us for their health needs and that as a result of hearing the Good News and seeing Christ’s love in our deeds and our staff caring for them with the love of God they will come into His family.
Even those not physically ill come for spiritual healing Even in the midst of crazy hectic days, God often brings divine appointments. This day in particular we were super busy and treated 160 patients. Every bed was occupied by someone on an IV for treatment
of severe malaria. I have to say, however, that the best part of the day was when Izaddin, a Muslim refugee, came to the clinic not because he was sick, but because he was "hungry"—he was hungry to find truth. He wanted a "radio" (Audio Story Teller) as he heard about them in his section in the refugee camp. He waited over an hour til I had a free moment to speak to him. When I finally had a chance to talk he shared that he was searching for truth and wanted to find out more about our belief as he said he'd been thinking about becoming a Christian. "What????" I said to myself, what an amazing divine appointment! He hungrily ate up the Good News I shared with him and then he eagerly allowed me to pray for him that God would help him find the truth. We just got news that he and another young man from his tribe both are now following Jesus and attending church. Please pray for Izaddin as he shares the Audio Story Teller with them that they too will choose to follow our Lord.
Pray for GMC This is a divine time in history and God has graced us with the task of reaching many around us in Doro who have never had a chance to hear of His love. The GMC is a “city set upon a hill”. We need more financial donors and more medical missionaries to join our team so we can continue to be a light to the nations that surround us.
History and background of the Grieve Memorial Clinic The Grieve Memorial Clinic (GMC) is a Primary Health Care Center that serves an extremely undeveloped region in Upper Niles State in South Sudan. As a faith-‐based clinic we seek to provide holistic health care to our patients. Our clinic was initially started in the 1940s by Dr. Bob Grieve and his wive, Claire, to serve the local Mabaan population; however, it was closed for quite a few years because of the civil war that raged in much of Sudan for over 50 years. We reopened the doors in 2008 to serve the Mabaan peoples again. However, when war started in Blue Nile and Kordofan States in the Republic of Sudan in 2011 our area was flooded with over 130,000 refugees, of which the majority consists of unreached Muslims. Many Mabaan affiliate themselves with the Sudan Interior Church (SIC) or the Catholic churches that are scattered in this region, but few have been discipled in the Word and many remain weak in their faith and still practice much witchcraft. The Muslims in the refugee camps mostly practice folk Islamic traditions and we have found many to be open to hearing about our faith. We can freely share with them and now churches springing up among the JumJum, Mayak, and Mofu peoples. The Ingessana, a tribe completely unreached with the Gospel, are now also showing interest in Christ and a handful has come to the Lord in the past 2 years. However, we recently received news that there are over 200 Ingessana youth in one of the refugee camps near us who are seriously considering becoming followers of Christ. With war continuing in Blue Nile and Kordofan State, it is believed that the refugees will continue to stay here for quite some time. Although these refugees have access to clinics in the camps, they often choose to come to our clinic for care as they frequently receive inferior or inadequate care in the camp clinics. A recent exit interview conducted in June and July 2014 among 1227 patients revealed that 56% of the patients had been seen at another clinic just prior to visiting the GMC. Most patients interviewed stated they did not get better from the other treatment hence they come seeking help from our staff. Many also mentioned they prefer the care they get from our staff. They notice they are cared for with compassion and many patients, including Muslims, warmly welcome the prayers and counsel of our clinic chaplain, Pastor Bulus, a Mabaan who has the gift of evangelism. Truly this is an historic moment where many Muslims can hear of the Good News in freedom, have time to digest what they are learning, and then eventually return home to their country with Christ in their hearts and be used by the Lord to bring revival to Sudan, a country which is now rated the 6th out of 50 countries where persecution of Christians for religious reasons is most severe.1 Although there was fighting in much of South Sudan during 2014, Doro has remained relatively calm except for a few incidents. We believe this is because God has a special plan for this region of South Sudan. God has given SIM missionaries open doors to share of Christ’s plan of redemption with such tribes as the Ingessana, Mayak, Jumjum, Fulani, Ragarik, Nuban, Surkum, Zeriba, and Darfurian. We also have a large influx of Arabs from White Nile and Gezira States who have come to start businesses. Truly this is an exciting time to be in Mabaan County and we are constantly reminded of the well-‐known scripture from the Book of Esther:
For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance shall arise for the Jews from elsewhere, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows but that you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this and for this very occasion? (Esther 4:14 AMP).
Although we know this is dealing with the deliverance of the Jews at a very frightening time in their history, we can also apply this many peoples who are lost and trapped in the kingdom of darkness who are waiting to hear the Good News of Christ. In the Republic of Sudan there is Sharia law and limited opportunities to share Christ. There are also very limited opportunities to live there as most foreigners were kicked out in 2013. Now is the time and the occasion to reach the unreached tribes from the North who are living in desperate situations in the 4 refugee camps that surround us. Doro has the largest camp with over 50,000 people.
1 https://www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-‐persecution/world-‐watch-‐list/ (accessed 2/1/15).
The SIM GMC serves many of these refugees in our outpatient clinic, maternal health clinic, and leprosy program and nutrition village. We have seen many Muslims come to Christ over the past 2 years and new churches are starting among them. This is a very exciting time for those who have a heart for Muslim evangelism and reaching the unreached and unengaged. Our desire is to see thousands and thousands of these refugees return back North with Christ in their hearts and be used by God to be nation changers. We also believe it is a crucial time for us to begin reaching the Mabaan peoples with the truth of God’s word, to disciple them in the truth, and to encourage them to fully surrender their lives to Christ and give up the practice of witchcraft. Without God transforming their hearts, they will not prosper and walk in the ways of the Lord and receive all He has for them. Once they learn God’s word and know the purpose He has for their lives, they too will become nation changers.