Home Assignment!

First we want to thank you for praying for Suzy’s family that was effected by Hurricane Michael in Florida. We left Africa and went straight to Florida to help with hurricane clean-up before traveling to California in January to attend the Calvary Chapel Missions Conference. What a joy for our family to be stateside!!  Despite the devastation from the hurricane, we are having a blast, reconnecting with family, friends and churches.

Thank you for making us feel so loved and welcomed. Thank you for letting us share our experiences and testimonies from our past two years in South Sudan. We’re in CA until Mar. 5th and Florida until April 2nd, so there’s still time to connect if you want to get together and hear all the amazing stories of God’s faithfulness. Email us!

Testimony!

Our team shared this amazing story from the field that we wanted to share with you all.  This is Kanna who is from our church, CC Tonj. This year someone cursed her with witchcraft declaring she would die. Recently, an evil spirit came on her trying to kill her. When she came to our clinic it was obvious it was a spiritual attack, so we laid hands on her and prayed for her, claiming the blood of Jesus over her, and that the evil spirit would flee! Hallelujah! Today, she’s completely free and praising God for his deliverance.

So awesome to be able to claim the authority that Jesus gives us in Luke 10:19, which says:

 “Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”

Pastor Sponsorship!

One of the areas we need prayer and support is with our pastor’s sponsorship. Our pastoral team of 14 pastors oversee the church plants, serve as assistant pastors to Sabet, work as chaplains in the clinic and medical outreaches, serve in CHE, teach Simply the Story and show the Jesus film in the villages. Six are receiving some salary and eight are volunteers. If you would like to help us provide a salary to each of these pastors, please go to our pastor sponsorship page at: https://pastors.indeedandtruth.org/

We want to raise $200 a month per pastor. Each pastor has 8 sponsorship spots at $25 a spot. That means you can share the pastor sponsorship with others or sponsor one entire pastor by taking 8 spots or sponsor several different pastors one spot each!! This is designed to make the sponsorship affordable for every budget.

Solar Power Fundraiser!

Here’s an update on the solar power fundraiser. We have a $60,000 match, which means every dollar you give will be worth $2!! You can go to our website to follow the progress and/or give through a designation online or memo your check “Solar fundraiser”.

Happy New Year!

As we celebrate the New Year, we thank God for YOU our partners and supporters. In February it will be 20 years since Suzy was first called to South Sudan!! We are so grateful for the way you have prayed and supported us in advancing the work of In Deed and Truth Ministries in Tonj. Here are some of the ways your partnership has impacted the Kingdom in 2018:

The new medical ward was completed in record time and opened by the Ministry of Health. Before we were cramming beds together in a small room and laying mattresses on the verandas. The new ward is spacious, organized and clean. We can now focus on the calling and minister to the patients more effectively.

Thanks to the amazing generosity of our partners we completed the fundraising for the new church and will start to build it this year!

In 2018 we baptized over 100 new believers.

Our team is also growing. We have expanded our pastoral team and now have 14 pastors serving under In Deed and Truth. They pastor our church plants, serve as assistant pastors to Sabet, work as chaplains in the clinic and medical outreaches, serve in CHE, teach Simply the Story and show the Jesus film in the villages. We are looking to provide sponsorships for them costing just $50 a month. Go to our website to sign up and see their profiles.

“LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago.”      Isaiah 25:1

Your contributions also allowed us to treat 52,561 children and pregnant mother’s. Deliver 249 babies in a safe environment.

Help with special needs through our benevolence fund.  Purchase 20 tons of medical supplies. Send more students to medical school. Distribute solar powered audio bibles. Reach thousands of remote homes with the gospel through CHE and medical outreaches.

Train more Community Health Workers. Engage thousands of youth with our soccer tournament. Continue with primary care of 15 sponsor children. Restore sight to 300 cataract patients.

2018 was so amazing and we look forward to all He has for us in 2019. Thank you for praying and choosing to be our partner.

Cataract Team!

Our radio announcement went far and wide for this cataract clinic and we screened over 600 patients, some coming more than 200 miles on foot. Mostly elderly, they were desperate to have their sight restored.

A massive thank you to Dr. Ben Roberts and his team from Tenwek Mission Hospital, in Kenya, World Gospel Mission and Samaritan’s Purse who came in for a week and did 321 surgeries in 5 days!!

While the team operated from dawn to dusk, another eye clinic did consultation and treated cases that didn’t need cataracts surgeries. A team of evangelists and pastors shared the gospel message and oral bible stories. Many were open to the gospel and Sabet and the pastors lead them through a prayer to accept the Lord Jesus, and many responded.

It was a great celebration every morning when they got their bandages removed and could see again. One lady saw her baby for the first time and a family with three blind children since birth, also received surgery.

CHE Testimonies!

Our amazing CHE’s from three villages closed the year celebrating together and sharing testimonies.

We heard many testimonies but three stood out. Abraham Nhail shared how the CHE team in Warrak opened a community school & a youth sports program to bless the children and youth in their village.

Pastor Rueben shared about the impact the CHE program is having in improving the physical, emotional, social & spiritual health in Warrak community.

Angelina shared the love they felt as IDAT came to visit last year after her husband Santino Mayem was shot. And how the bible teaching through CHE has brought incredible unity to their whole village of Bobi.

“I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.”
– Isaiah 42:16

Your Year End Gift Matters!

This year we were able to host the entire cataract team at the IDAT Clinic. Thank you for the ways you have partnered with IDAT to meet the need in our community for a medical clinic. As a mission organization we want to be the best stewards we can to make a lasting impact for Jesus Christ.

A generous donor has made it possible to match up to $60,000 ($70,000 is actually needed) for our new solar system for the medical clinic. We are asking you to consider helping us “meet the match” by making a special year end gift designated “Solar Power Campaign”. You can give through our website or send in a check. Call Rosa for more information or if you need any further assistance. The progress of this fundraiser can be tracked through our website.

Home Assignment!

We are excited to be heading back to USA in a few weeks. We’ll be spending December and March in Florida and January and February in California. God has provided accommodation and vehicles in both locations! Pray for our time in Panama City, FL. We are heading into an area that is hurting and devastated following hurricane Michael. We will be helping Suzy’s mum and anyone else in need as best we can.

How Can You Help Us?

It is exciting to see what God is doing here in Tonj and we are looking forward to sharing our stories with as many of you as possible. If you have been following us for a while and love what God is doing through us in South Sudan, then we need your help. Prayerfully consider hosting a small gathering in your home and inviting friends, family and neighbors for a meet and greet! We could also share at your home fellowship, bible study, small group or church. Introductions from people who know and trust us are so valuable and make the most effective long-term partnerships. Let me know through email if God is leading you in that direction. We’d also love to just catch up, share a meal or coffee and hang out with you, so please get in touch as our time will be short. We will be sharing our movement while in the USA through Facebook and Instagram.

Winning for Jesus!

The IDAT Soccer Cup Tournament was a huge success and after a month of games it ended with a massive turn out for the final match. The community spirit was amazing as the entire town showed up to watch Godzilla vs. Tonj United.

This Tournament gave us an open door to minister to the hearts of the young people of Tonj who love sport.

We thank God for the 18 evangelistic team members from Calvary Chapel Tonj that made this tournament a successful outreach.  They worked tirelessly setting up at every match, distributing tracts and bibles, sharing the gospel one to one with the crowd and following up with any new believers.

“Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.” 1 Timothy 4:8

Throughout the tournament we shared some biblical life skills lessons on a live radio talk show hosted by the Don Bosco FM radio.  These lessons use soccer coaching skills and biblical truths which can be applied and improve lives. We did 12 shows, with a live call in option, reaching more than 5,000 people every show, discussing important topics like team unity, the ultimate ‘goal of life’(following Jesus), serving one another and so on. Every lesson clearly presented the gospel message and the call-in feedback was very positive.

Here’s some stats following the 26 matches:

• More than 20,000 people heard the gospel message.
• We had over 500 people who made decisions for Jesus Christ.
• We gave out 8000 gospel tracts.
• We gave away over 1,000 New Believer’s bibles, Christian literatures, audio messages and video bible stories.
• More than 5,000 people were reached with gospel teaching over the radio.

Already we are being asked to host another tournament next year. So if you love Jesus and love soccer, pray about coming and helping with this life changing event!

IDAT Football Tournament!

The one thing everyone loves in Africa that brings joy and unity is football!   (Aka soccer). Last year we hosted a tournament for the clinic opening and it was such a big hit that Sabet, and his team from CC Tonj church, thought it would be good to try this as an annual outreach event.  Thanks to a generous sponsor every player was kitted out in a new jersey kit. The different colored teams paraded from the IDAT compound to freedom square in the middle of Tonj town.

An estimated 3,000 spectators showed up for the kick-off. This was an outreach event for IDAT who shared the gospel with team players and onlookers. The young players from each team carried plaques with positive messages to promote peace, unity, and love among the youth of Tonj. This young generation has only had hate, revenge and retaliation modeled as a way to solve conflict.

A team of guys from Calvary Chapel Tonj mingled among the crowds with Gospel tracts and bibles and shared the gospel message one to one.

This tournament is going for one month and as the word got around, at the second game we saw around 8,000 people attend!

God has totally blessed the response which we hugely underestimated. We’re so excited to add a sports dimension to our ministry.  We are still in need of about $2,000 to cover the costs of hosting this large event. If you feel led to help us with this extra cost, please go to our website or email us.

Adut Goes Home!

Three months ago, a little girl called Adut arrived at our hospital on the brink of death from Tuberculosis, which had spread to infect many of the organs in her body. Two weeks ago, Adut was back on the oxygen machine gasping for air, and her parents asked to take her home to die peacefully as she seemed to be deteriorating despite our best efforts. That night we gathered in the ward as a team and cried out to God for a miracle – and He answered!

From that day on Adut started to improve, and we finally got to celebrate as a team and discharge her to go home! Our volunteers Isaac and Rebekah did an amazing job providing top notch nursing care for her these past 3 months. Sadly, we also say goodbye to them this month, as they head back to New Zealand.

Pray for our upcoming furlough we still need accommodation and vehicles to use in CA and FL.