Döör kek wek raan ëbën

Where to start?? So much has happened since we arrived back in Tonj just over 2 months ago. We arrived back refreshed from a wonderful break in New Zealand – thank you to everyone who made our visit special!- with a sense of both anticipation and trepidation… and were pleased to find that we feel more at home in Tonj than ever before. Not least due to having a lovely house to live in, but also in a deeper way, with a growing sense of belonging and peace.

We are enjoying our home, our vegetable garden, our chickens, our friends, our work, having Anthony here, and the green grass and cool air that the wet season brings.

Unfortunately, along with the green-ness, this rainy season has come with malaria, malnutrition (it is almost a year since the last harvest time), and a measles epidemic. Our clinic is bursting at the seams, and we are daily amazed by the numbers of sick women and children that our small but committed team see, treat and share the love of God with. Because of this, we have rolled up our sleeves and got stuck in to the clinic, and not much else! Here are just a couple of stories from among the many incredible recoveries we have watched happen before our eyes over the last 2 months.

Achol & Abuk

When we met Achol last month she was little more than a skeleton, weighing only 13kg (about the same as Ellisha) at the age of 7. Her sister Abuk was 2 years old and for the past month had been unable to open her eyes. Both girls were sick with measles. They were both starving because the family’s food and money had both run out. The family stayed at our clinic for some days, sleeping on our balcony (AKA isolation unit). The whole IDAT team laid hands on Abuk one morning and prayed for her vision to come back, as blindness is a daunting prospect for a 2 year old in a country with no welfare. Achol’s mother has since joined our church, and a few weeks ago we celebrated the restoration of Abuk’s eye sight (though not yet complete). Meanwhile, Achol visits us often and warms our hearts with her big grin.

Abuk#2

One night I got a knock at our window at 2am, calling me to see young girl who was in a terrible state. Her muscles were so stiff she couldn’t eat, speak or even more her arms and legs. She was suffering from painful muscle spasms that had prevented her from sleeping for weeks. And more worrying, she was struggling to breathe, which is a poor prognostic factor in tetanus. She’d been taken from witchdoctor to witchdoctor with no improvement, and as a ‘last resort’ they’d been told to try the Christians at IDAT. The father later told us he thought his daughter was as good as dead. Well, we laid hands on Abuk and prayed for her several times each day while giving medical treatment, and rapidly her muscles relaxed, she was able to eat, talk and walk again. The family were amazed at the power of God and want us to go and share Jesus with their community, where it turns out her father is a chief