Official word from the field has arrived. The team and pilot made it back to Nairobi and some are resting at home and some are in surgery at the hospital in Nairobi.

A True Miracle has occurred!

The following is from our Director of SIM Sudan:

After receiving more details about Saturday’s accident at SIM’s Doro base in Sudan, we are in awe of the MIRACLE that took place. Before every flight, the pilot prays and commits each trip to the Lord. This time it was no different–and we confidently reaffirm that truely, ‘our times are in God’s hands.’ Thank you Lord for the lives of each person on the plane!

Pilot and passengers are here in Kenya and getting medical attention. Two are at Kijabe Hospital receiving surgery today:

• Barb Hartwig had both a fracture at her sternum and a dislocation at the base of her thumb. Today surgeons will insert a pin to correct that. She will be in a cast for 6-weeks. There are top visiting hand surgeons at the hospital during these two weeks.
• Pilot Andy Keller is in surgery as I write correcting a fracture of one knee.
  Sandy Ewan will have another x-ray tomorrow but is recovering in her apartment with a broken rib and aches and pains.
• Debbie Sardo had wide soft tissue damage and is recovering in the SIM Sudan apartment after two days in hospital for pain management and observation.
• Claire Meckler will have a CT scan today to check an anomoly seen in her x-ray. She is recovering in the SIM Sudan apartment

New peices of information have come to us: The damage to the Cessna Caravan was severe. That is presently being assessed by our partners. This plane was not SIM’s newly purchased Cessna 206. We’ve learned that the plane went down before reaching critical flying speed, landed in a ravine and flipped over.

I want to honor some individuals who helped and ask you to pray God’s blessing over them:

• Sandy Ewan was stuck inside the plane hanging upside down and couldn’t get out. A big Sudanese man came in and cut Sandy Ewan out of her seatbelt and gently lowered her out of the plane. We don’t know how the Lord will use this incident among the Sudanese and nudge them to faith in Christ, but pray for them.
• Gentle Indian UN medical staff in Malakal did initial assessments, x-rays and we don’t have their names. They clearly shared that they were Hindu, but we pray that the fragrance of Christ in us will draw them to understand Christ’s compelling love. One funny incident was that an Indian asked our missionaries if they were ‘RC.’ Our SIMer wasn’t thinking of acronymns and had to ask what’s ‘RC’ but then had a chance to share her faith.

Under His Mercy,

Jo-Ann Brant

Acting SIM Sudan Director