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What do you anticipate Samaritan's Purse doing in Sudan in the coming years?

I want to continue our commitment to the hospital. We have a clinic in the Blue Nile. We want to continue the support of that. I have told the government I would be willing to help once the peace treaty is signed and implemented; I made sure that they understood—implemented. Signing a piece of paper is nothing. It has to be implemented.

I said once it's implemented, I'd be willing to help with hospitals in Khartoum [the capital]. We're not going to wait for the signing; we're going to do some small things for the government to show good faith. We're going to help the pediatric hospital in Khartoum North. There are several children in that hospital that need to have open-heart surgery. We're in the process now of bringing those kids to this country for their surgery. And there was some basic diagnostic equipment, pediatric equipment, they needed and we're going to help them get it into the country and to set it up and do the training. But as far as a major investment of equipment, we're not going to do that until the peace treaty is implemented.

I want the Muslims to know that we do care, and we will help them, and we will honor our word.

In January Samaritan's Purse airlifted 23 children out of a rebel-held area in Uganda to safe areas. What's happening, and how did your organization get involved?

The Lord's Resistance Army [LRA] has been abducting children for a number of years. This is a very satanic, evil group of people. They force children into cannibalism. They have forced children to kill their parents. They have forced children to kill other children for no reason whatsoever. [If] one of the leaders says, "Kill that person," they have to do it. They take children and brainwash them. The Lord's Resistance Army has received a lot of support from the government of Sudan.

When [people on the ground] asked if we could use our planes to airlift these children, I told our projects [staff], "Absolutely we'll use our airplanes for this. That's what our planes are in Africa to do, this kind of work."

Now a nephew of one of our doctors in the Sudan has been abducted by the LRA, so this isn't something that we have just heard about. Some of our own staff have been affected by this.

Did you happen to rescue the child of the doctor who's working with you?

No, we still don't know the whereabouts of that child. When I was in Sudan back in the fall, I had a long discussion with this doctor. He took some of his vacation time to go back into northern Uganda to see if there's any way he can arrange for the release of that child. To my knowledge, that has not happened yet.

I guess it's kind of like finding a needle in a haystack, with about 25,000 children abducted in such a large area.

It is. That area includes northern Uganda, but it also goes into the southern part of Sudan. That part of the Sudan is a very remote area, and so there's a lot of areas [where] these people can hide.

Do you expect airlifts to be a long-term focus of Samaritan's Purse?

Well, last year out of eastern Zaire we airlifted thousands of people out of Bunia, and we took them into other areas of Zaire. We took some into Uganda. Our planes are there to help the church. When mission organizations or when churches in Kenya or neighboring countries ask for our assistance, we certainly try to respond.

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March 2004, Vol. 48, No. 3