CRM Family,
Psalm 70 “Make haste, O God, to deliver me! Let them be put to shame and confusion who seek my life! Let them be turned back and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt! Let them turn back because of their shame who say ‘Aha, aha!’ May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you! May those who love your salvation say evermore, ‘God is great.’ But I am poor and needy; hasten to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer; O Lord, do not delay.”
Renee and I left for S. Africa on April 27 and returned on May 8. Thank you for your prayers.
I wanted to give you an update on all that has transpired in Sudan, and on other events which have happened in our various partnerships. However, the situation in Sudan will dominate.
While in South Africa we visited our friends and ministry partners, Marchand and Lente Lourens. Lente has joined CRM training teams in Uganda and Tanzania. She has been utilizing well the first Story Cloth in local churches, in women’s ministry, and with men who are on parole and working with a halfway house in Worcester. The above picture was made during the graduation of those pictured from a year’s long Bible study focused on the first cloth. We also met with one of Lente’s women’s groups and spoke in their local church.
We carried out more story cloths and two pastors’ libraries, the latter donated by Crossway Books. We trust that our challenge to the local church will lead some individuals to partner with Lente and CRM.
Late last year, CRM donated the funds required to build the above classroom up to the ring beam. In April we sent the funds required to finish the roof, including gutters. Another ministry will fund the placement of doors, windows, and plastering.
This classroom will enable the school to enroll more students, as they will be able to utilize the nearby house, built by the IMB, as a hostel. Emmanuel Lazier is the principal of the school.
In April, Emmanuel, and a mix of other Maasai men and women completed recording the 42 stories of the first Story Cloth in the Kiswahili language. Geraldo Rodriguez has finished combining the audio files with the digital pictures. Those files will soon be posted on to the CRM website, where all other translations have already been posted.
Sudan War
First Four Evacuees from Darfur in Arua, Uganda May 14, 2023
When it comes to reporting on Sudan and CRM’s involvement, I will use a list format as that helps me simplify/organize.
- The Darfurian leaders are now back in Arua with their families. Alam’s lower back is hurting badly as he spent many hours on buses on bad roads. However, they are thankful to CRM for helping. The money CRM sent to Adam to prepay the expenses of the planned Khartoum conference paid for their evacuation and enabled Adam to send back money to Darfur to help people buy food.
- The four people pictured above arrived Arua, Uganda last Sunday. Thirteen more are on the road hoping to evacuate following the same path as Adam via South Sudan. The people being evacuated believe their lives to be in peril based on credible threats. Your donations to CRM are helping to save their lives from extremists.
- CRM has sent more funds to provide cell phone airtime for up to 260 believers still within Sudan. The funds will rent and outfit a house in Arua where evacuees can lodge until they can be processed as refugees with the involved UN agencies.
- I am in communication with a person based in a country which borders Darfur and have supplied the data he requested of Adam to help fill out a proposal for a food relief project within Darfur. How those on the ground in Darfur will carry it out without getting hurt or killed is unknown to me. However, join me in praying the proposal will be accepted and the project proves successful.
- Yesterday I spoke at length with personnel based in Kenya who may be in a position next week to visit our brethren in Arua. If it works out, they can debrief them and perhaps aid them through their sending agency.
- Believers in Arua are reaching out to Adam and all the others who fled Sudan. Tuesday, they gave a 15th birthday party for Adam’s eldest, Tibo, a boy. So, I think they are in a good place for “decompressing.”
- Alam sends short testimonies to me each day he has received from believers in Sudan. Some contain news of the death of believers in the general violence. All make it clear that their knowledge of what is happening to fellow believers is extremely limited due to lack of means to communicate. All reports make mention of the fact that if they are to die, at least they know they will be with Jesus. My friends, we can thank our Lord for granting CRM a role to play in the salvation of many Sudanese! Because of your prayers and giving, a gospel foundation has been laid in Darfur which evil rulers cannot wipe out.
- Two clear acts of God
- The very day the fighting started in April; the person based in a country bordering Sudan I made mention of above contacted me out of the clear blue. I had tried through various channels to get his contact info for 3 years. An old friend of mine, without being asked, was prompted by the Spirit to send him my phone number. We are both blessed to now coordinate on matters pertaining to Darfur.
- The Khartoum/Omdurman area has a population of 6-8 million. As a colleague worked with a “security guy” she knows, he told her he had been assigned to evacuate a group of expatriates from Khartoum and they said they would help Alam. As things happened, he also helped them as well. They paid for his ticket between Omdurman and Wadi Halfa, a huge blessing as he had no money.
While in Wadi Halfa, a border town on the Egypt/Sudan border, Alam led a Sudanese Muslim to Jesus. The Lord also led a South Sudanese believer, who had cash to work with, to assist Alam to make it from Wadi Halfa to Cairo, Egypt. Egyptian border officials were way overcharging for the required fees, so without that assistance, Alam would have been stuck inside Sudan at Wadi Halfa, a place still 8 hours from Aswan, the first sizeable Egyptian town.
Testimony from a leader in Jebel Marra, Darfur
“My fellow brothers and sisters in the Lord, this year has been a wonderful year for us in Jabal Marra. We received our Bibles. We have received many lost souls, even those who were fighting us. We enjoyed the time together reading the word of God. We prayed together and fasted to the Lord to see us. He has done many miracles through CRM. We had our Bibles. We have encouragement from different people. It was a blessing for us to see that. We understand what is happening in Sudan is for the good of believers. Though it’s something to be grieved. But God will bring the best out of this. Please pray for our situation. Things have dramatically changed. The sack of sugar was 30 SDG, and today is 1500,00 SDG. The growth is that Muslims are turning to Jesus Christ. Pray that we can meet our daily expenses; God will bring peace in Sudan.”
The need for your prayers for our Sudanese brethren, and gifts to CRM, are needed more than ever. We did not plan on this war, and the unexpected expenses we are trying to meet. We will fund every form of care for Sudanese believers we have the funds to cover.
Checks made out to Calvary Road Ministries can be mailed to 4100 Fulton Rd., Corryton, TN 37721, or you can donate online. Please receive my thanks ahead of time for your intercession and consideration of a gift at this time.
~ David Crane
