Over the years we have become good friends with these precious people who are victims not only of the Government of Sudan and its policies against the population but also victims of Animistic Islam. Just recently I heard that a seven year old girl near the border was buried for days in Camel dung. This was the supposed cure of here sickness. Sadly she died from her "treatment". It is heart breaking to meet these people and realize that they are only doing the best they can with what they have and know. According to the Quran there are two things for Dawa or medicine. kwashering or honey. The first is the practice of taking burning sticks or red hot metal and burning the area that hurts. I watched in horror one day when we met a young girl in her early twenties as we examined her. She had complained of a breathing problem. She was systematically burned up and down he back at the edges of her spine twenty-one times with a metal rod leaving quarter sized brandings up and down her back. I am sure at this time the shortness of breath was her last concern. She had upper respiratory infection and the antibiotics we had with us would quickly cure her.
For year as we worked with these people I leaned that they were as rugged as the dessert landscape they lived in. They also had a gently side, a friendly side that would quickly offer tea or my favorite the Jabana or coffee made Beja style in a small round clay pot with a tiny neck. To pour the coffee it was filtered through a ball of hair from a goats tail. I remember the first time they poured for me into the small traditional cups. They were sure to have the coffee pouring over the edge. It was their way of saying I wish to give you more than your cup can contain.
By showing them we care they also were interested in our message of the Gospel. Some after hearing were interested and others wanted nothing to do with Jesus the Son of God. Surely he was a prophet but not God and not God's son. I leaned that they actually knew little of the tenants of Islam accept the creeds. They understood even less of the true Gospel message and what they had heard was from a Muslim teacher who understood little more than they did. I remember on one particular occasion after sharing the Gospel with and elderly Beja man he asked were we had come from. We told him and the next question he had was, how many days camel journey that would be. He found it hard to believe that you could not get to America from the Beja land with your camel.
We would always ask if they would like to watch our film about Jesus and after some discussion would not only allow but then ask us to show it to others.
Recently the trucks of relief have stopped as once again these poor people are caught between the shuffle of politics with Sudan and Eritrea. We have been kept out by the Eritrean government because we have told the truth about the way they are jailing Christians and closing Churches. Many of my friends have suffered greatly at the hands of this failing government.
Please continue to pray for the Beja and the Rashiada of Eritrea and NE Sudan. Pray that the work of touching lives for Jesus and setting them free from the animism that ensnares them would be lifted and they would walk in the light that Jesus came to give.
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