From: Janette Hughes
Subject: Guess what?
Date: Friday, June 19, 2009, 12:35 PM
Hey Sisters! Well, I am in Nairobi again...my team was evacuated from Makiria again, this time for an even stronger threat, unfortunately. Everyone on my team is safe and sound, and we are all in shock at having to be taken from Didinga and all our friends, and leaving all the work we started behind us. We are not sure what the plan is yet as far as what we are going to do, but we are on our way to TIMO headquarters in beautiful Arusha, Tanzania in a couple of days.
What it boils down to is that a group of about 200-250 Didinga decided that our team is the cause of the lack of rain in the area. These accusers are from an area of Makiria that we don't really know--there are sort of "neighborhoods" across the mountains and we are friendly with the ones near our homes. The troublemakers are from an area a couple of ridges over. They were not part of the meetings the community had to decide to let our team come, and the elders from this area are not familiar to us or with us at all. Anyway, this group had a sort of dancing mob going on Thursday afternoon, and they insisted David (team leader), our language helper Dario, me and Tianne needed to be interrogated and formerly accused literally of taking the rain, putting it in a plane and taking it to America!(we just happened to be in Miller's compound at the time). Anyway, their posturing and "vibe" was very threatening.
Miraculously, just before dusk, the leader of the meeting said it's going to be dark soon, let's continue this meeting tomorrow morning. He then threatened David, saying a couple of times that if he didn't bring two bulls to sacrifice in the morning, he was dead. The crownd disbursed and we left safely. We later learned from Dario that people were saying they would curse us or even kill us. It was very intense and hard to describe (I'll try to put it in another email) but needless to say our team met right away and by 7pm we were all at the Miller's with our "evacuation bags" and agreed we had to leave right away.
So we hiked to nearby Nagishot in the middle of the night and managed to arrange with our wonderful pilots from MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) to pick us up and take us to Loki, then we came on to Nairobi on the way to Tanzania. So we just passed our 8 month mark, and we all want to stay together as a team, but won't know more until we get to Arusha. It may not seem like it but I know this is all in God's hands, and He will continue to see His plan through. We just don't know what it is yet! But I am so thankful that we have such great leaders and administrators with lots of experience and wisdom, and we will all figure out what we are going to do next.
I'll be in touch more, but the next couple of days here in Nairobi will be busy as I will have to replace most of my stuff: clothes, toiletries, luggage, gear, etc. I am really thankful that I just picked up my birthday packages today here in Nairobi and can see God's providence in the glitch that caused them to still be here instead of sent to me in Didinga--thanks for all the goodies, letters, and stuff! I hope to try to Skype when I am in Arusha in about 3 days so let me know when we can do that. I pray you won't worry about me but instead lift me up to our Sovereign Lord, my Savior who has preserved my life and kept me and my team safe. I love you all and will let you know what my team will be doing (not likely to go back to Didinga). I've been up for 38 hours now so gotta go--I will call Mom tomorrow and let her know what's going on.
Keep praying!
Every breath, every step, every move in Him,
Janette
For more GodSpots - 37stories Enjoy!
No comments:
Post a Comment