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The story of Michael Tut Pur
When Presbyterian pastor Peter Tut Pur had a chance in 1985 to help his nine-year-old son Michael escape a bloody civil war in their African homeland, he leaped at it.
Peter sent Michael from South Sudan to a refugee camp across the border in Ethiopia. After Michael had been there a few months, he learned of an opportunity to join about 600 Sudanese young people going by boat to Cuba on a special mission: Obtain educations and return to help lead the post-war rebuilding of South Sudan.
“Michael kept insisting, and so I agreed. When I sent him away, I gave him a Bible and said: ‘This will have to be your mother and father now. Find comfort and courage in it. It will protect you.’”
“I thought he would be gone for three or maybe even just two years,” Peter recalled recently, moments before greeting his son at Nairobi International Airport during their first face-to-face contact since Michael left South Sudan an unfathomable 21 years ago.
Their long-awaited reunion was understandably emotional. They embraced for several heartfelt moments, with Michael’s tear-streaked face against his father’s shoulder. “I am his prodigal son,” Michael eventually said with a joyful laugh. “I have finally returned.”
After completing Cuban high school in the mid-1980s, Michael was one of several Sudanese students invited to enroll in the island nation’s medical school.
Upon graduation, the students weren’t able to return to Sudan because the war was still raging. Many made their way to Canada where, because their academic credentials weren't accepted by Canadian medical schools, they obtained other jobs. Michael was one of several who kept pursuing their original mission: Return to South Sudan and help rebuild.
Samaritan’s Purse Canada learned of their mission in 2005 and began to help. None of the Cuban-trained physicians had been in a medical classroom for several years. Therefore, Samaritan’s Purse partnered with the University of Calgary’s medical school to offer refresher and upgrading courses, plus Christian guidance and training.
“We learned not only medical skills but also biblical skills,” said Michael, now 30.
The University of Calgary training ended in September 2006. The second phase of the physicians’ training began in November 2006, when they started residencies arranged by Samaritan’s Purse at teaching hospitals in and around Nairobi, Kenya.
Reunions with family and friends
In preparation for the second phase, Samaritan’s Purse arranged for the physicians to return to Africa for reunions with their families and old friends – people they hadn’t seen in more than two decades.
For Michael, the return to Africa provided not only a long-awaited reunion with his father, mother, brothers, sisters and other relatives, but a first-time meeting with his fiancé. She was introduced to Michael by his family a couple of years earlier. He has come to know and love her solely through emails and phone calls. They were married in late 2006.
Almost all of Michael’s family lives in Kenya now – displaced from South Sudan by what seemed to be a never-ending war. Although his parents and siblings have no plans to return to Sudan, Michael is firmly committed to doing so.
He knows South Sudan is one of the poorest places on the planet. Juba, its capital city that is home to about 500,000 people, has only one paved road, no traffic lights, very limited electricity and water service, and only a couple of very poorly equipped hospitals.
But remaining in the relative prosperity of Nairobi after his residency is not an option, says Michael. He also has no interest in returning to the affluence of Canada, despite the fact he is now a Canadian citizen.
“I love Canada but I’m here in South Sudan to do what I can,” Michael said during a brief two-day tour of Juba. “I want to help my people. My plan is to stay as long as God allows me to stay. I can’t say how many years that will be but I hope it will be a long time.”
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Pray for wisdom and protection for the physicians as they now serve in remote locations across South Sudan. |  | GiveSupport this project by donating to Sudan Medical Needs Donate Here.
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