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www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver, Wednesday October 17, 2007 - 3 Doctor's relief mission to Sudan was 20 years in the making By David Lea OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF The congregation of Oakville's ClearView Christian Reformed Church is rallying around one of its members as he prepares to return to his home country of Sudan on a mission of mercy. Dr. Michael Tut Pur, a Sudanese-Canadian, who fled to Canada after civil war engulfed his home, is presently in Nairobi, Kenya where he is engaged in the last stages of medical training he will receive before being sent to Akobo, South Sudan. Despite being well away from the genocide in the western region of Darfur, the challenges Tut Pur will face in the country's south are great. The civil war, which Tut Pur fled as a child in 1985, only ended in 2005, leaving nearly two million people dead and the region's infrastructure destroyed. The relief organization, Samaritan's Purse, reports that South Sudan's capital city of Juba is home to about 500,000 people, but has only one paved road, no traffic lights, very limited electricity and water service, and only a few very poorly equipped hospitals. "This organization has come to the conclusion that in all of South Sudan there are about 15-20 practicing physicians among a population of 15 million," said Klaas Brobbel, ClearView CRC's Mission Coordinator and former Executive Director of The Voice of the Martyrs Inc. "The need is staggering." As Tut Pur prepares to enter this maelstrom, Brobbel and the church's congregation are doing what they can to help him by raising funds for the medical supplies he will soon desperately need. Tut Pur's winding route back to Sudan has been a long one and began when his father sent him to a refugee camp in Ethiopia in 1985 to get him away from the civil war that was ripping apart South Sudan. From the refugee camp, Tut Pur was able to secure passage on a very special trip to Cuba. With the Sudanese civil war raging, the plan, engineered by the Cuban government, was to take 600 Sudanese children to Cuba where they would be educated and receive training that would allow them to return and lead in the rebuilding of postwar South Sudan. However, as the years passed and Tut Pur graduated from a Cuban medical school, he found he could not return home because the war in Sudan was still going strong. In 2001 Tut Pur immigrated to Mississauga where he moved Dr. Michael Tut Pur in with a cousin and shortly thereafter began attending Clarkson Christian Reformed Church, now ClearView CRC. "He had a very outgoing personality. He's a real people person, so he became a member very quickly," said Brobbel. "We learned that he had a very similar background, a Presbyterian background, and that his father is a pastor in a church in Nairobi. I guess it was that background that attracted him to us." While Tut Pur's spiritual life was looking up thanks to his experiences at Clarkson CRC, his professional life continued to be a struggle, as Canadian medical institutions would not accept his Cuban academic credentials. "He did everything possible to keep himself going. He worked in different factories and eventually he became a physiotherapist, which was at least something close to the medical field," said Brobbel. "But even then it was very difficult for him to get steady employment." Despite these disappointments, Brobbel says, Tut Pur never lost his sunny disposition and abounding optimism. This endurance was rewarded in 2005 with the end of the Sudanese civil war. Samaritan's Purse called on Tut Pur and other Sudanese-Canadians to do what they had been trained to do in Cuba -- rebuild post-war South Sudan. Tut Pur and 14 other medicallytrained Sudanese-Canadians agreed to help, but as it had been several years since any of the Cuban-trained physicians had been allowed to practice medicine, a refresher course was needed. The University of Calgary's medical school stepped up and in a partnership with Samaritan's Purse offered Tut Pur and the others upgraded courses for one year. "The second part of their training was to be done in Nairobi, Kenya where they are able to practice medicine," said Brobbel. "That is now coming to an end." Prior to Tut Pur's departure to Kenya the congregation at ClearView CRC held a farewell party in his honour. "We prayed for him and a lot of people came and said goodbye to him," said Brobbel. "We had a collection and at the time we collected $5,000, which since then has grown to about $7,000." Brobbel intends to use the money to purchase supplies for Tut Pur's medical work, which he will sorely need. Even with the influx of a few new physicians, the ratio of doctors to patients in South Sudan remains 300,000 to 1. "Seven thousand dollars compared to this great need is like spitting into the ocean," said Brobbel. "It's minor, but it's something and we do what we can. You can't save the whole world, but you can do what you can." For various legal and tax-related reasons and to make sure the money is spent properly, Brobbel has plans to go way beyond what is expected of any donator by traveling to Nairobi to purchase the supplies and then to Sudan to deliver them. The flights to and from Africa will be free thanks to the extensive Air Miles Brobbel has accumulated. "It's nothing new to me. I've travelled all over the world and in restricted areas before," he said. "Just a year and a half ago I was in Burma. I've always been in these areas." The stakes may be higher this time around with the Friday decision of a See Reunited page 7 Need Help Creating Something Unique? 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