From South Sudan refugee camps to glitzy London media awards night - ChristianToday

Sitting in the Christian Broadcasting Council Awards night at the exclusive Tower Hotel in London, seeing footage of my CBN Report being nominated for an award, couldn't have been more far removed from the place I'd filmed this story five months earlier at refugee camps in South Sudan.

Seeing clips of my CBN report "South Sudan Refugees Struggling Spiritually, Physically," on a large video screen at the CBC Media Awards was very humbling and brought back memories of the desperate need I'd seen first hand on this reporting trip back in May.

I was travelling with Samaritan's Purse to report on how they're charity was responding to help meet the needs of more than 150,000 refugees who'd fled for their lives from Sudan.

As our small 12 seater plane touched down on the dirt land strip in the middle of the remote Doro refugee camp in Mbane State in North East, South Sudan, I had mixed feelings of fear and excitement of what I would see and experience during the next 5 days.

Just before landing I was struck by how barren this area was, the sheer size of this refugee camp, which was home to more than 50,000 refugees and wondered how on earth these displaced civilians had walked for days through this desolate land.

Later that day I heard the remarkable story that could've come straight out of an action film, when David Phillips country director for Samaritan's Purse in South Sudan told me how they discovered some of the very first refugees last year.

In August 2011, David was taken by plane to a remote land strip and with the sounds of bombs dropping in the distance; he pulled off on a quad bike into the swamps and five hours later found 2,000 refugees, who were sleeping under the trees. He said they were digging roots off the ground and pulling leaves of the trees for food.

So because the area was so remote they then dug up a drop zone for aeroplanes to drop food packages and David had to stay for another four weeks living on meagre rations along with these newly found refugees until he could be flown back.