Ministry team moves forward on hearing project in Kenya

(Photo courtesy Africa Inland Mission)

Kenya (MNN) ― Treating hearing loss for children is complicated in countries that have access to the newest technologies, but imagine how much bigger the challenge is in developing nations.

In sub-Saharan Africa, over 102 million children aged 5-14 suffer from moderate to severe hearing loss. In Kenya, of the approximately 13,000 children currently in deaf schools, more than 5,000 are believed to have correctable hearing loss.

If the loss goes untreated, the prospects for these children are bleak. That's why Dr. Thomas Boeve, an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist, and his wife Jolene, a nurse and Audiology Technician, began a full-time ENT and Audiology Department at Kijabe Hospital where they serve through Africa Inland Mission. Their goal is early detection of hearing loss, and age and disease appropriate treatment to correct the disability.

They also helped establish the Ears to Hear project to provide quality solar-powered hearing aids and to develop a state-of-the-art testing and treatment facility in Kijabe. When fully funded, this facility will bring lifelong benefit to some of the poorest people in the world, reaching far into sub-Saharan Africa.

The facility is $66,470 away from that goal. 

However, the building project is in progress. Plans have been drawn up and discussed. The team is looking forward to an expansion of three more rooms and a quiet audiology room to add to the ENT clinic.

Their mission, aside from assisting persons with hearing loss and helping to correct the disability, is to share the love of Christ and the Word of God with their patients. Says Jolene, "It is pure joy to see the first smile on a child's face after putting a hearing aid on them."

UN leader calls for cooler heads in Sudan

[Cover photo by Samaritan's Purse.
 Story photo by AIM-AIR.]

Sudan (MNN) ― The UN Secretary-General is trying to keep a lid on the simmering tensions threatening all-out war again in Sudan.

Ban Ki-Moon is calling on cooler heads to prevail over the conflict between Sudan and newly-independent South Sudan. The world's leaders echoed the United Nations' condemnation of  Khartoum's bombings of a refugee camp in South Sudan's Unity state--a charge Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir denies.

It's the first test of independence since South Sudan formally seceded from Sudan in July following a successful independence referendum in January that was guaranteed in a 2005 peace deal. 

Disputes that festered are flaring into violence. Phil Byler with Africa Inland Mission says, "The President of North Sudan is just a ruthless man who doesn't care who he kills. Bombing the refugee camps in the South is an atrocity, in my opinion."

It may be that the war of words is now a step closer to a genuine conflict. Satellite photos revealed last week's strikes on refugee camps were just the beginning. It appears Sudan's military is repairing and improving air bases in its Blue Nile state, potentially allowing it to bring challenge over disputed borders with South Sudan.

Now, both leaders of Khartoum and Juba are predicting the possibility of a new war in an oil-rich region that has seen a spike in cross-border attacks. "The President of South Sudan is now saying that war is a possibility. Up until this point, he has repeatedly said, 'We will not go to war again.' This is a disturbing trend," says Byler.

It is disturbing, but not alarming. "All of our missionaries, besides the pilots, are well out of the area. Samaritan's Purse personnel were on the ground; our AIM-AIR pilots were in the air, and they mobilized an intense evacuation force to deal with the bombing."  

On November 9, SIM evacuated six team members from Doro base--the area in which the refugee camp was bombed last week by Sudan's military. The team was moved before the attack. They were flown out of Doro and are in Nairobi until things settle down.  

This not only presents a direct threat to these refugees of the Nuba mountains and the Samaritan's Purse team, but a challenge for ministry and aid teams. Byler says, "The war activity along the border area disrupts life drastically. That's why there are refugees. Consequently, the work of the church and the presentation of the Gospel is disrupted as everybody goes into a survival mode."

AIM AIR has been supporting the work of relief efforts that are helping to meet the immediate needs of those who were displaced. They are providing critical supplies and evacuation options to several other organizations in contested regions between North and South Sudan. 

Please be praying for the country of Sudan as a whole, that the Church would grow strong in this turbulent time. "We're alert and watchful," says Byler, "hoping and praying that the war will not restart and/or spread throughout the region."

As the tensions ignite, "Pray that in the providence and sovereignty of God, He will spare the people of South Sudan from another war, Number One. Number Two, pray that even in the horrible things that are happening localized in Sudan, God will make Himself known to the people that are seeking Him."

Please also pray for safety for AIM AIR personnel and passengers as the team seeks to serve those who are serving in these tense locations.

Three-month old South Sudan remains poor, soon-to-be starving

Mission Network News: "South Sudan (MNN) ― South Sudan gained independence on July 9, 2011. The people were ecstatic to be free of a northern region which oppressed and fought. But the three-month old nation is now struggling in its infancy."

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Refugees cling to life at Dadaab

Kenya (MNN) ― Life at the world's largest refugee camp has always felt cramped and temporary, but in the past few weeks, Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya has literally been spilling over the edges.

Over the past few weeks at Mission Network News, we've given you insight on the Horn of Africa famine--the worst of its kind in 60 years. But today, we dive into the heartbreaking center of humanitarian crisis by exploring life in a severely overburdened refugee camp.

Dadaab is the largest refugee camp in the world. Camps like it are meant to be temporary, constructed for crisis use and torn down as the issue subsides. But Somalia, in particular, has been the very model for a failed state for so long, that Dadaab has remained open for two decades to take in desperate Somalis.

Over the last few years, Dadaab has gotten more and more crowded. It's difficult to find places for families to go once they arrive, and sending them back to their own countries is often not an option. But since famine began to ravage East Africa, the camp has been absolutely overflowing.

500 Somalis pour into Dadaab on an average weekly basis, but since the famine, the numbers have been over 5,000 per week. Families arrive with fewer children than when they came, exhausted, but also malnourished and many in need of immediate medical care.

But the camp has run out of space. "Dadaab refugee camp [is] actually three camps. Each one was meant to hold about 30,000 people," explains Dan Poenaru, a partner of Africa Inland Missionand doctor with Bethany Kids Africa. "At this point in time, each camp has more than four times that capacity, well over 100,000 people."

Poenaru has been in and out of the camp for the last several years, working as a pediatric surgeon at a camp clinic. Dr.
Poenaru says that although Dadaab--the oldest refugee camp in the world--has been beyond capacity for quite some time, it's never had to stretch like this.
Upon finding there is no room for them at the camp, desperate and starving people have now resorted to living on Dadaab's perimeter, where there is no access to water or sanitation.

"Whatever structure and organization that existed in the past few years, much of it has been replaced by the chaos of trying to help," says Poenaru. NGO's are everywhere, trying to provide immunizations and medical attention to the most desperate of the now 400,000 refugees at the camp.

Interestingly, Poenaru's own organization, Bethany Kids, has not seen as significant an influx of patients as they thought. Bethany Kids, which mainly performs surgeries, expects that number to rise as the famine subsides.

I suspect that what will happen over the next few weeks and months, as the acute emergency subsides somewhat, is that we will suddenly find ourselves with a much larger number of children with disabilities and surgical problems that we need to treat," observes Poenaru. "And that's when we will feel the crunch."

In the meantime, Poenaru and his team are doing what they can while in the desperate and flooded refugee camp to shine the hope of Christ for the thousands who have been made hopeless. Poenaru says in a culture where doctors hardly look at their patients, it's easy to reflect Christ by simply showing care and love to people in this dire time.

At this point, the crisis is far from over, and Dadaab continues to shake under the weight of so many needy people. Poenaru reminds us, though, that Christians have a responsibility to those in need.

"The interest of the media after a few days will probably disappear," notes Poenaru, "and Dadaab will again be only known by a few people. And yet as Christians, we have a biblical responsibility to pray and to help those that are in need."
Poenaru adds, "Think about these needs not only as yet another crisis that [you] see on the news, which floods us with crises all over the world, but think about the people that are behind this. Think about the children who come who have had zero access to healthcare, or very limited access even to food. Realize that as Christians, they are our neighbors."

Pray that as more refugees come into Kenya, they will be exposed to Christians, especially Somalis who come from a 99.9% Muslim nation. Pray that the kingdom of God will shine through this crisis as a beacon of hope for a new day.