Dorcas Yool Atem, at right, with her family: husband Abraham, to her right, with their five children plus 10 orphans they are also raising (2 children were not available for this photo)
Dear Friends,
We said our goodbyes to the wonderful ladies in Goma, DR Congo, and traveled to the city of Nakuru in neighboring Kenya (click here to read my first blog), where the Christian Refugees Fund has been helping Sudanese refugees for the last few years.
Traveling to Nakuru from the capital, Nairobi, is always exciting! We almost always get to see zebra and baboons on the roadside along the way. It is amazing to see these animals in the wild and up close!
I was excited to finally meet Martha, a woman who’s life I was privileged to enter last year by the providential hand of God.
Years earlier, Sudan was embroiled in what became a 30-year civil war. Martha’s husband finally felt the danger to be too great, so to protect his wife and daughters, he sent them to the Kakuma refugee camp in neighboring Kenya while he stayed behind to protect their home and lands. A few years later Martha heard from newly arrived refugees that her husband had just been killed, so she left her daughters in the refugee camp and returned to Sudan to bury her husband. Because of the immense danger of traveling, and the fact that her daughters were already teenagers capable of surviving without her, Martha decided it best to stay with her sister and her husband in Sudan for what became the next 10 years. In recent years fighting again erupted in Sudan; Martha’s brother-in-law was killed this time. So Martha and her relatives fled to a refugee camp in Uganda.
For the past three years the Christian Refugees Fund has been involved with Pastor Abraham Yool Atem, his wife Dorcas, and their family. I was impressed by the compassion of this family, which, already having 5 biological children, took in 10 Sudanese orphans to raise as their own. Heaven’s Family helped the family provide for their own needs with the purchase of an embroidery machine and a sewing machine.
When I heard Dorcas’ story about how her mother had left her and her sister in the refugee camp to bury their father, my heart went out to her. Dorcas had told me she had finally heard from her mother, but she was in a refugee camp in Uganda.
What a joy it was when mother and daughter were finally reunited, a mission of mercy made possible by your partnership through the Christian Refugees Fund. Martha now lives with Dorcas and her family, and helps care for the grandchildren she recently met for the first time.
Today I witnessed their gratitude, and thanked God for those of you who made this reunion possible. Thank you so much!
Martha, the mother of Dorcas, is probably 6 ft. tall, and I’m feeling quite short next to her at just 5 ft. 2 in. (standing on my tip toes!)
While visiting in Nairobi, Kenya, I also met the three beautiful Sudanese ladies in the photo below. They all have painful stories of a severity of hardship and suffering. All 3 have lost their husbands in the past couple of years, and were rescued, along with 13 orphans, by a Sudanese man who is a modern-day “Harriet Tubman.” Mary, in the middle, not only lost her husband but also all five of her children. We will be exploring ways that we can best serve these precious women and their families.
Rebecca, Mary and Martha (not the Martha mentioned above), all joyful in the Lord in spite of the suffering they have endured
We are very thankful to you, our partners, who make outreach to many suffering people like these possible. We appreciate you so much.
Blessings,
Becky Servant
Director, Christian Refugees Fund
