march 2007
RENEE WRITES...
Dear Friends,
After four months of being back in Nairobi, we can call ourselves settled in again. The first month we were repainting the inside of our home and finishing the attic space, so we now have room for guests if anyone is interested. We love having visitors and would enjoy showing you our side of the world.
The extra space has given me a dedicated classroom to teach in, helping the transition of homeschooling two kids come smoothly. Zach is now a five-year-old reader that still has difficulty understanding the concept of time – probably a factor of our relaxed school environment. Amelia has been trying her hand at domesticated duties lately. She has sewn her baby doll a pillow by hand and did a fabulous job. She has also been baking and has proved herself to be quite a good cake, brownie, and cookie maker. And with a little bit of her uncle Marc’s ingenuity in her, she is already discussing business endeavors. Cookies for sale...
Mike is back in the pilot’s seat and has had a much more relaxed and enjoyable time these last few months as opposed to the couple of years prior to this. With the new Media Team scheduled to start later this year, his eyes and ears are open to tons of really neat things around him. God has started to develop this awareness in Mike to see the stories that could encourage others. If you haven’t visited our website lately, you need to see what Mike’s been doing. He’s started a weblog with some of his latest insights and observations as well as adding photos.
I have been keeping the home, teaching the kids, and just generally trying to maintain order. I had a stowaway travel back with me to Africa that we discovered just before Christmas - a deer tick (probably from New Jersey) on my back. I’m now taking medicine to combat Lyme disease because of strange symptoms I have been having, and meds for a bulging disc in my lower back as well (unrelated, I think.) My symptoms have been better on the meds and I’m thankful that these can be treated so easily. I still have misgivings about being here in Nairobi, especially with the security in the city continually deteriorating. But at the same time, we are constantly evaluating God’s desires for us.
At the end of May, a team from our home church in New Jersey is coming to do a short medical mission trip in Kenya. Please pray for them that their trip will go smoothly, but more importantly that they will be open and receptive to learning while they are here. We won’t have much time with them, but we would like to be an encouragement in whatever way we can.
I would love your prayers and advice as I try to support Mike in his flying ministry as well as his media role, teach our children in school, and be the encouraging, loving, peaceful and joyful keeper of the home as I instill Godly values in our children and their friends. Sound overachieving? Maybe it is, especially when not feeling well, but those are my goals and maybe yours too?
Thank you again for all of your love, prayers and support over these last ten years that we have been with AIM. We really couldn’t do this without you. And for those of you who have helped Mike’s media ministry dreams come true, thank you for that, too.
With lots of love,
Renee
LOST AND FOUND IN SUDAN
Panther Bior tugged at my elbow. "How many more miles?" he asked. I looked at the GPS, turned back toward him and shouted above the roar of the airplane engine, "Fifteen." "Fifteen," he said and paused thoughtfully, "that is good." He looked down out the passenger window, transfixed on the barren, tortured terrain of Southern Sudan, and recognized it. Driven from this place as a child some twenty years ago, he never thought he would lay eyes on it again. But Panther's story in interlaced in the bigger picture of a sovereign God. He is somewhat like the Biblical Joseph, lost and left for dead, yet one who God did not forget. And like Joseph, he would have a day of revelation, when it would all come around full circle and there would be tears, and God's hand would be seen and understood. As the airplane descended, and his home finally came into view, he hoped today would be that day.
Home is a concept difficult for Panther to frame. He is one of Sudan's “Lost Boys” – children separated from their parents or orphaned in the onslaught of Sudan's civil war. These children fled their villages in small groups and eventually converged into an exodus of thousands. They ran for more than a decade, grew up in the bush as refugees, and were witness and victim to every kind of horror imaginable. Their story is both remarkable and terrifying. It has been publicized in books and articles through the years, and recently documented in a feature film by National Geographic entitled "God Grew Tired of Us." The title seems fitting to describe these boys who became men without a home or family, without a country, and sometimes without a prayer.
A few hundred survivors eventually ended up in a refugee camp in Kenya's northern wasteland, and from there, all over the world. Scores of them came to America, on invitation, to begin new lives. In some of the destination cities churches stepped in to "adopt" the boys, becoming a refuge in the purest sense of the word – taking in refugees – and in the act becoming unwitting ambassadors to the Sudan. After a decade of guiding the boys through the strange landscape of America, the roles would be reversed.
Settling in New York, Panther’s life had taken a turn toward the surreal. But he kept in close contact with some of his fellow “Lost Boys” and together they fostered a vision to go back to Sudan – to bless their people as they had been blessed. In the wake of this boyish, and contagious dream were a mixed assortment of Americans whose eyes had been opened to a world beyond the one they knew, and who were driven to follow these boys home, however reluctantly, by their restless hearts.
And so, as I steered the Caravan toward the coordinates handed to me on a scrap of paper, Panther wasn’t the only one peering out through the haze. Four middle aged men, engineers and builders from North America, strained to see. The nearest usable airstrip to Panther's home sits at an abandoned outpost on the waterless Jongeli canal – a massive, unfinished project to bypass a length of the Nile river lost in the Sudd, one of the world’s largest swamps. The town and the impressive fleet of rusting, heavy equipment scattered throughout it are a telling picture of Sudan's stunted growth. During the war, both national development and individual lives stopped moving forward, and in fact, began to move backward. Ironically, these “Lost Boys” were returning to a Sudan that, in some ways, predated their departure. We landed on a dusty strip set between a thatch village and a thousand grazing cattle. The men stepped from the plane and Panther, dressed in a new suit, melted into the waiting crowd.
I caught glimpses of him every few moments, bobbing in and out of a sea of excited people. His expression was sometimes joyous, sometimes pensive. But the instants of recognition or disbelief over the faces of his fellow Sudanese were the moments when I saw a man like Joseph. Panther, like Jacob's favored son, was found, and he had a story to tell of God’s goodness and divine intervention – and a captive audience to hear it.
Panther Bior fled his home village when he was seven-years-old, naked, and afraid. He returned twenty years later in a modern airplane, a man with a miraculous story. The tale is wrought with danger and amazing good fortune. It carries legends of the big city and a new world in America. But it is also a story of a God who did not abandon him in his darkest days. Of all the elements in Panthers story, it is the grace of God he talks about most. For the myriad of people caught up in his remarkable life, from the First Presbyterian Church of Skaneateles, NY to the reunited family in southern Sudan, it will likely be an enduring theme.
He will undoubtedly tell his story many times over. The American missionaries along side him will build the new medical clinic they came to raise. And they will do what they can to encourage the church in that remote village. But as I watched Panther from my place crouched down at the rear cargo door, I believed that his greatest testimony would come from simply being there again. What men and wars and the harsh and heartless land of Sudan meant for evil, God meant for good.
Dear Friends,
After four months of being back in Nairobi, we can call ourselves settled in again. The first month we were repainting the inside of our home and finishing the attic space, so we now have room for guests if anyone is interested. We love having visitors and would enjoy showing you our side of the world.
The extra space has given me a dedicated classroom to teach in, helping the transition of homeschooling two kids come smoothly. Zach is now a five-year-old reader that still has difficulty understanding the concept of time – probably a factor of our relaxed school environment. Amelia has been trying her hand at domesticated duties lately. She has sewn her baby doll a pillow by hand and did a fabulous job. She has also been baking and has proved herself to be quite a good cake, brownie, and cookie maker. And with a little bit of her uncle Marc’s ingenuity in her, she is already discussing business endeavors. Cookies for sale...
Mike is back in the pilot’s seat and has had a much more relaxed and enjoyable time these last few months as opposed to the couple of years prior to this. With the new Media Team scheduled to start later this year, his eyes and ears are open to tons of really neat things around him. God has started to develop this awareness in Mike to see the stories that could encourage others. If you haven’t visited our website lately, you need to see what Mike’s been doing. He’s started a weblog with some of his latest insights and observations as well as adding photos.
I have been keeping the home, teaching the kids, and just generally trying to maintain order. I had a stowaway travel back with me to Africa that we discovered just before Christmas - a deer tick (probably from New Jersey) on my back. I’m now taking medicine to combat Lyme disease because of strange symptoms I have been having, and meds for a bulging disc in my lower back as well (unrelated, I think.) My symptoms have been better on the meds and I’m thankful that these can be treated so easily. I still have misgivings about being here in Nairobi, especially with the security in the city continually deteriorating. But at the same time, we are constantly evaluating God’s desires for us.
At the end of May, a team from our home church in New Jersey is coming to do a short medical mission trip in Kenya. Please pray for them that their trip will go smoothly, but more importantly that they will be open and receptive to learning while they are here. We won’t have much time with them, but we would like to be an encouragement in whatever way we can.
I would love your prayers and advice as I try to support Mike in his flying ministry as well as his media role, teach our children in school, and be the encouraging, loving, peaceful and joyful keeper of the home as I instill Godly values in our children and their friends. Sound overachieving? Maybe it is, especially when not feeling well, but those are my goals and maybe yours too?
Thank you again for all of your love, prayers and support over these last ten years that we have been with AIM. We really couldn’t do this without you. And for those of you who have helped Mike’s media ministry dreams come true, thank you for that, too.
With lots of love,
Renee
LOST AND FOUND IN SUDAN
Panther Bior tugged at my elbow. "How many more miles?" he asked. I looked at the GPS, turned back toward him and shouted above the roar of the airplane engine, "Fifteen." "Fifteen," he said and paused thoughtfully, "that is good." He looked down out the passenger window, transfixed on the barren, tortured terrain of Southern Sudan, and recognized it. Driven from this place as a child some twenty years ago, he never thought he would lay eyes on it again. But Panther's story in interlaced in the bigger picture of a sovereign God. He is somewhat like the Biblical Joseph, lost and left for dead, yet one who God did not forget. And like Joseph, he would have a day of revelation, when it would all come around full circle and there would be tears, and God's hand would be seen and understood. As the airplane descended, and his home finally came into view, he hoped today would be that day.
Home is a concept difficult for Panther to frame. He is one of Sudan's “Lost Boys” – children separated from their parents or orphaned in the onslaught of Sudan's civil war. These children fled their villages in small groups and eventually converged into an exodus of thousands. They ran for more than a decade, grew up in the bush as refugees, and were witness and victim to every kind of horror imaginable. Their story is both remarkable and terrifying. It has been publicized in books and articles through the years, and recently documented in a feature film by National Geographic entitled "God Grew Tired of Us." The title seems fitting to describe these boys who became men without a home or family, without a country, and sometimes without a prayer.
A few hundred survivors eventually ended up in a refugee camp in Kenya's northern wasteland, and from there, all over the world. Scores of them came to America, on invitation, to begin new lives. In some of the destination cities churches stepped in to "adopt" the boys, becoming a refuge in the purest sense of the word – taking in refugees – and in the act becoming unwitting ambassadors to the Sudan. After a decade of guiding the boys through the strange landscape of America, the roles would be reversed.
Settling in New York, Panther’s life had taken a turn toward the surreal. But he kept in close contact with some of his fellow “Lost Boys” and together they fostered a vision to go back to Sudan – to bless their people as they had been blessed. In the wake of this boyish, and contagious dream were a mixed assortment of Americans whose eyes had been opened to a world beyond the one they knew, and who were driven to follow these boys home, however reluctantly, by their restless hearts.
And so, as I steered the Caravan toward the coordinates handed to me on a scrap of paper, Panther wasn’t the only one peering out through the haze. Four middle aged men, engineers and builders from North America, strained to see. The nearest usable airstrip to Panther's home sits at an abandoned outpost on the waterless Jongeli canal – a massive, unfinished project to bypass a length of the Nile river lost in the Sudd, one of the world’s largest swamps. The town and the impressive fleet of rusting, heavy equipment scattered throughout it are a telling picture of Sudan's stunted growth. During the war, both national development and individual lives stopped moving forward, and in fact, began to move backward. Ironically, these “Lost Boys” were returning to a Sudan that, in some ways, predated their departure. We landed on a dusty strip set between a thatch village and a thousand grazing cattle. The men stepped from the plane and Panther, dressed in a new suit, melted into the waiting crowd.
I caught glimpses of him every few moments, bobbing in and out of a sea of excited people. His expression was sometimes joyous, sometimes pensive. But the instants of recognition or disbelief over the faces of his fellow Sudanese were the moments when I saw a man like Joseph. Panther, like Jacob's favored son, was found, and he had a story to tell of God’s goodness and divine intervention – and a captive audience to hear it.
Panther Bior fled his home village when he was seven-years-old, naked, and afraid. He returned twenty years later in a modern airplane, a man with a miraculous story. The tale is wrought with danger and amazing good fortune. It carries legends of the big city and a new world in America. But it is also a story of a God who did not abandon him in his darkest days. Of all the elements in Panthers story, it is the grace of God he talks about most. For the myriad of people caught up in his remarkable life, from the First Presbyterian Church of Skaneateles, NY to the reunited family in southern Sudan, it will likely be an enduring theme.
He will undoubtedly tell his story many times over. The American missionaries along side him will build the new medical clinic they came to raise. And they will do what they can to encourage the church in that remote village. But as I watched Panther from my place crouched down at the rear cargo door, I believed that his greatest testimony would come from simply being there again. What men and wars and the harsh and heartless land of Sudan meant for evil, God meant for good.