Wayne's Sudan adventure

Some of the interesting stuff that I experienced while up in South Sudan.


How I got to be a part of this neat experience: we are staying with friends of Kami's, Shaun and Sharon Rix. Shaun is a pilot for Samaritans Purse (the christmas shoe box organization). Samaritans Purse (SP) is focused mostly on refugees fleeing their home land in North Sudan. The north is wanting to cleanse the nation of anything but Arab descent. The refugee camp I was helping supply was Yida, about 8 miles from the north, south border. The UN has reluctantly done activity here (in way of supplying food and other support) because it is so close to potential artillery. But the people have built shanties so SP has been doing all it can to save lives. We brought some sourgum seed up on one flight and the SP lady on the ground said, "just wait till the UN guys take off". 

 So I was invited to help out at the hanger one day. While I was there, it was suggested to Shaun by his superior that they could use my help. I said "yes of course", trying to hold in my excitement, "but let me ask Kami first." Kami is such a great wife so she said of course I could go.

The camp has 60,000 people in it right now. There are others camps that are over 160,000. I am amazed at the need and craziness of humanity. I was privileged to see people displaced and totally reliant on outside help. These people are displaced because their own government wants them dead. I wish I could do more... I felt a great deal of urgency. I was up there for only part of a week, the pilots are active up there almost every week. And then there are SP people on the ground full-time, helping in distribution, education, different ways of sharing the gospel and medical.

My job was to help shuttle supplies 20mins flight from Rubkona straight north to Yida. I helped by packing supplies on and off the plane. I was in Sudan only three days and was sore all over from loading and unloading.


The runway in the picture was cleared by hand, roots and all, and then a land cruiser packed with people went tire width by tire width and packed the area. The runway is not 100% so the already hard to fly DC-3 is piloted by very focused pilots when landing and taking off. The white and blue dots are the tarps that the UN and SP hand out to the people to put roofs on their huts.


I found it amazing that we were flying in a plane made in 1945 and that it is still useful today with major engine replacements and cockpit overhaul. If my rememberer is right, a payload would be about 3500 pounds.


The pipe and black square things are to assemble "squatie-potties" to try and create some form of sanitization along with a lot of soap bars.