The first day in Khartoum, the capital city of Sudan, was an off day. I slept in, spent most of the day by the pool, and did some treadmilling. The air was cool, but the sun was hot and direct which resulted in this:

awkward sunburn

The reason I’m in this country is to document the trip of Samaritan’s Purse’s CEO, so over the next few days we toured projects in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains, and had upper level meetings with government officials, one of those being with the now indicted war criminal President al-Bashir.

A short trip to western Sudan showed the vast need and general feeling of hopelessness and fear in Darfur. We weren’t able to go out of Nyala to see our own projects because of fighting surrounding the city.

mother and child at a health clinic

typical housing at an IDP camp

The buffer area between North Sudan and South Sudan is located in the Nuba Mountains, it has seen some of the most extreme fighting the past 20 years. The people hid in the mountains during the war and are just now able to rebuild and start over due to the peace agreement in recent years.  Samaritan’s Purse has been rebuilding churches that were destroyed.  The Christians in this area have seen family killed and homes leveled but have such an inspiring hope and faith.

Uru Church

outside Uru Church

The meetings with the government officials in Khartoum were boring photographically but interesting politically.  The President met with Franklin just a few hours before the International Criminal Court announced it’s verdict on Bashir.  I could feel some tension and unease among the team, understandable…meeting with an international war criminal isn’t like meeting Ghandi.  Thankfully we were in a plane on our way to South Sudan before getting caught up in demonstrations in the streets after the ICC announcement.

Bashir seeming rather at ease despite his to-be-announced verdict

South Sudan is a completely different world compared to the North.  A different government, a different religion, a different way of life, and only one city with a paved road.  Several churches have been built by SP in the south.  After the ICC verdict, most of south is worried that it may compromise the peace agreement between the two…it will be interesting to see what happens next.

vibrant

i like this guy

kids are great

I’ll be posting another story about an orphanage we visited in the South later.

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