Healing Hands, Inc., has just announced that a donor has agreed to fund the purchase and delivery of a specially outfitted truck to be used in the refurbishing of up to 200 water wells in South Sudan.This represents an extremely generous monetary gift of approximately $250,000!
This is critical because seventy percent of all illness in Africa is estimated to be caused by unclean drinking water, such as from contaminated stock ponds and muddy rivers. In South Sudan, most of their water wells and pumping equipment were destroyed by the enemy before the end of the recent civil war.
This newly donated rig will first allow the rehabilitation of those old wells. It can then be converted into a support truck for a water well drilling rig. In addition, Healing Hands will arrange for and fund a specialized crew to handle the repair work.
This means that in 200 villages, the people of South Sudan will be provided with clean water; and all the villagers will know that churches of Christ provided this water for them.

A major first step in evangelizing the world is creating interest and opening doors.We must first get the attention of those with whom we want to share the Gospel and show them that we care.We are very grateful to Healing Hands, Inc. for arranging this humanitarian gift that will not only help the Sudanese people immensely but will greatly expedite the spread of the Gospel there.
This gift will provide an open door for Gospel preachers to establish the Lord's church in each of the villages that receives a newly refurbished water well. You can see the urgency of quickly getting into operation the planned preacher training school to prepare South Sudanese men to be ready to go into those communities as soon as the wells are completed to teach the inhabitants and start congregations of the Lord's church.
Healing Hands, Inc., is based in Nashville,Tenn. Its major work is to procure funds for humanitarian projects to assist churches of Christ in mission areas of the world. They work in conjunction with local churches of Christ, and we are very grateful and excited to work in partnership with them on this important clean-water project for South Sudan.

By the time this newsletter reaches you, several brethren will be in South Sudan making preparations for beginning construction on the campus of the new preacher training school.
Accompanying Don Humphrey of Mt. Juliet,Tenn., will be DeWayne Griffin (elder at the Mt. Juliet church), Joseph Smith of Healing Hands Inc. in Nashville, and John Ed Clark (elder atWoodward Park in Fresno,Calif.). These men will be visiting both Ethiopia and South Sudan to coordinate and finalize construction plans.
The first week of their trip will be spent in Ethiopia where they will be accompanied by natives Kennedy Suruma and Isaya Jackson. The men will be carefully studying the extremely uccessful preacher training schools in that country. Those schools will be used as models for the new training school in Sudan. After this, they will fly to Juba, South Sudan, to visit the church in that city and then travel on to the town of Magwii to finalize plans to construct the much-awaited preacher training school campus.
Many details must be worked out, and the distance from America to Sudan adds to the challenge of accomplishing such construction. All of us are in a hurry to get this done so that the training of preachers can begin, but we must move carefully and wisely to avoid mistakes. Please continue to pray for our brethren, both here and there, and for the construction process.
This school will be a wonderful addition to the Lord's work in Sudan, providing trained preachers and church leaders for the fledgling congregations there now and for those that will soon be planted as a result of the new water-well work.
While in South Sudan, the men want to visit as many of the new congregations as they can. These congregations have just recently been established by the returning Sudanese Christians converted in refugee camps in Uganda during the civil war, and they need encouragement.
The plan is to also assess the humanitarian needs of the people. Great needs exist in the areas of education, medical treatment, and agricultural training. Not only will such help be
invaluable physically to the Sudanese people but it will open many doors for the Gospel and provide rich opportunities for the new preachers graduating from the training school.

*** The 12th Street church in Shallowater, Texas, collected $454.57 just from their Coins for Missions yearly contribution. What a wonderful way to let families with children participate in helping to spread the Gospel in another part of the world! ***

God has blessed us with the opportunity to teach the Gospel in the nation of South Sudan.What a great challenge and blessing! Thank you for sharing in this work with your faithful support and prayers.

The photo below shows the meeting place of the church in Obbo, South Sudan.

As you can see, it is just a makeshift shelter because the people there are rebuilding their lives and homes after living in exile for so many years. Most other congregations simply worship under a tree. Things will change and become better as the people get settled.

A worship service of the Pajok congregation is shown below. These faithful Christians gather for worship that may last for two and a half hours. Meetings like this are always dictated by the weather. If there is rain, there can be no worship.

Sisto Mioaka is seen preaching to a congregation that has been relocated to this area after many years of exile in Uganda.They also have no church building yet and no seats to sit on, but that doesn't stop them from worshipping God.

In this photo, they are meeting on property that has been allocated to them to build their meeting place. We thank God that so many are still faithful, even under adverse condition