Maternal Waiting Home

Imagine being pregnant, last trimester and labor starts. The nearest medical facility is 6 hours walking…. At night!! Do you risk going and giving birth on the road? Do you stay in the village and risk losing your baby and/or your own life if you don’t go and there’s a complication? This is a daily challenge faced by thousands of women in South Sudan. In Deed and Truth Ministries missionary, Dr. Destinee Macleod, suggested five years ago we build a maternal waiting home to give a safe option to pregnant mothers facing these impossible choices. The idea is that any woman close to her due date that lives far away or has a high-risk pregnancy, can relocate with her family to a Maternal Waiting Home (MWH) located next to our mission hospital and deliver her baby safely.

Nyanut lives in a remote village called Ariamduar, very far from Tonj, a whole day walking. This is a village that we have planted a church and CHE center. She learned from IDAT Pastor Santino about the MWH option and decided to come. This was Nyanut’s tenth pregnancy and the previous two had been emergency cesareans, so it would have been extremely dangerous for her to labor in such a remote location. This is the happy couple with their newest (and final!) addition after IDAT arranged for Nyanut’s uncomplicated elective cesarean.

Neither Nyanut or her husband had any faith before they came to IDAT but during their time they attended staff devotions every day and were visited regularly by Pastor Rueben.  When they returned home they expressed their sincere gratitude to IDAT and told us that their lives had been changed and they would be following Jesus from this point onwards.

CHE Update and Testimony

It was an exciting summer witnessing the amazing movement of CHE in the villages as God continues to have favor and multiply. Back in June we shared our desire to plant CHE in 25 communities by the end of the year. Well God continues to do “immeasurably more than we ask or imagine, according to His power” (Ephesians 3:20), and in September our team planted the 28th CHE center in Tonj! The Lord continues to bring deep transformation to the hearts, minds and bodies of so many through the lessons taught by our 1,200 CHE volunteers each day.

When Angelina was selected by her community to be a CHE committee member she didn’t understand the gospel or how she could have a relationship with God. Each week she has been hearing stories from the bible, and in April this year Calvary Pastor Rueben Yak shared the parable of the sheep and goats found in Matthew 25. Angelina realized that she had to decide who she was going to serve with her life. She decided to follow Jesus, and her life has been totally transformed as a result.  The Gospel message is clear that it is by faith, through grace, that we are reconciled to God.

John 1:12 says,
“All who did receive him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.”

Also, Daniel Ding, his family lacked enough money to pay high school fees and he lost hope in achieving his dreams for the future. However, after joining the Kuanja CHE team and hearing the parable of the talents, (Matt. 25) he realized that through focus and hard work he could support himself through high school. He started saving the money he made selling fish he caught in wet season, and bricks he made in dry season. Now he’s in his second year of high school and is once again full of hope for the future!

IDAT Hospital Update

The IDAT Hospital continues to treat large number of patients creating an overflow of inpatients on the ward.  During the past couple of months every single bed was taken on the ward with additional patients occupying two sides of the clinic verandah with mattresses on the floor.

We have accommodated almost 40 patients every night with only 26 actual beds. As soon as we discharge one premature baby they’re replaced by another. Despite these challenges we are bringing God’s love and hope every week, like for Baby Laat’s family.

He was born premature in the village and was admitted weighing only 2.6 lbs. Seven weeks later, with his very happy family, he was discharged, healthy and strong, weighing 4.8 lbs! Please keep him in prayer.

Prayer Requests

• For IDAT’s Soccer Tournament which still needs support and is supposed to be launched this month.
• For the patients we registered to return to Tonj in time for the upcoming Samaritans Purse Cleft Lip mission.
• For next month’s cataract surgery outreach to go smoothly.