One of my favorite things about Africa is that things almost never go how you would expect them to go. This was certainly the case with my trip to Wanyjok, Sudan to deliver 3,000 radios to Cush 4 Christ. I had expected that my biggest challenge would be with customs officials in Uganda and possibly in Sudan. For weeks many people have been praying specifically for things to go smoothly with customs, and the Lord answered those prayers. I had absolutely no problems with any local officials. In Uganda the customs officials signed off on all the documents without any hesitation, in Sudan I never even ran into an official of any type, and on the way back to Uganda, I was easily able to obtain a 60-day visa, something that sometimes is not so easy to do. I had expected to have problems with officials and thankfully had none; what I did not expect was to have a major international airport run out of jet fuel, or for the tail stop of our plane to break causing the plane to tip backwards during loading. Two doors to the storage department underneath the plane were damaged and had to be repaired before the long trip north to Sudan. These two problems delayed our departure by about 4 hours, but by 11 AM my son Brody and I were on our way to Wanyjok with 1500 pounds of radios.
Once in the village of Wanyjok, we unloaded the radios at the studios for 99.9 FM Weer Bei radio. “Weer Bei” means “redemption” in the local language, and it is the creation of Vince Ward with Cush 4 Christ ministries. Cush 4 Christ has 3 families and two singles living among the Dinka Rek who call this area home, and the radio ministry supports their effort to evangelize and plant churches here. Weer Bei is using Aid Sudan’s first completed radio tower to broadcast their signal, and the radios that I delivered will be distributed to 3,000 families who cannot afford a radio of their own and allow approximately 40,000 people to here the Gospel in their own language.
I want to thank all of you who have been praying for this trip. Never did I imagine a few weeks back that we could actually be able to get these radios up to Wanyjok before Christmas. But God is so good, and He provided us with some incredible people to help along the way. The folks at Galcom International in Toronto, who manufactured the radios, were amazing to work with. Diligent Delivery Systems in Houston handled the air freight for the shipment from Toronto to Uganda, and not only got the radios here by the date we needed them, but also saved us several hundred dollars in the process. Then there are the amazing folks at MAF (Missionary Aviation Fellowship) Uganda who helped us get through the customs process here and as usual provided safe and reliable transportation up to Sudan and back. Our pilot Simon was a tremendous blessing- flexible, easy to work with, and excited to engage the Sudanese as we spent time with them last night and this morning. And perhaps the greatest heroes of all are the folks at Cush 4 Christ who are giving their lives so that a group of people that most people in the world have never heard of can hear the incredible message of Jesus Christ. Please pray that these radios will be a great support to their work in and around Wanyjok and that tens of thousands will be reconciled to God through their ministry.
