Many of you have been writing me, surprised at how open I am about talking about God and my work in Southern Sudan. First off, I want to say I very much apprciate your concern. I’d love to tell you more about our (SIM) situation with the government and history in Sudan.

For many, many years SIM has operated in an office out of Khartoum, the captial of Sudan. The government is Islamic and Muslim in nature. However, they have realized the historic importance of the SIM organization and has never requested us to leave the country. There have been periods of time where getting a visa into the North of Sudan, mainly Khartoum, has been difficult, depending on the feelings toward the US that particular week. Most people do their language training there, so it has been important to be able to get into the city, even though our eventual field of service is in the South. So, for the most part, the government is friendly toward SIM and with our history with the country, it would take some huge changes for our relationship to change anytime soon.