Suzy in South Sudan!

After an amazing first month back in the field, it is a reminder that God is in control and moving mightily through In Deed and Truth (IDAT) here in Tonj and all the surrounding villages.

We celebrated our pastors graduation and we are now sponsoring 25 pastors from 17 IDAT church plants!!

One pastor that really impressed me was Ps. John Madut Agaar from a village called Machar. Machar is known as the center for witchcraft and if you go there, you will encounter many idols and shrines, along with witchdoctors and spearmasters. John has a very powerful ‘Saul to Paul’ testimony. Before becoming a Christian, he was a ringleader of fighting, cattle raiding and tribal violence. His father was a spearmaster and he was set to inherit that role. It came to the point where his family feared he would be killed and asked him to not go out and fight anymore. Around the same time, he was invited by our CC Maloney Ps. Kharlo to come to church. In church, he experienced peace like never before and after a few weeks gave his life to Christ. His life completely changed, and he went from being an angry and harsh person to being gentle and caring. His family were upset that he started going to church and that he chose to walk away from witchcraft. His father has 4 wives and the half-siblings turned against him and started persecuting the IDAT church plants in that area. John eventually became Ps. Kharlo’s assistant pastor. As word got out that John was a changed man, more people started to come to church and more villages were asking for a church to be planted in their area. Some of the people of Machar also asked for that. Machar means ‘darkness’ and John boldly stepped out in faith to go to Machar and pastor the church there. He is well known in the area as the son of a spearmaster. In the beginning so many curses and spells were cast on him and the church. John said he is the right man for that church as he fully understands all warfare against him and what the battle entails. His weapons of choice are no longer an AK47 but prayer and the Word of God! Pray for John’s protection. Check out our pastors page at: https://pastors.indeedandtruth.org/

The IDAT Ward!

During the rainy season we experience higher patient numbers due to malaria and right now the ward is well and truly overflowing. It has 26 physical beds but often more than one patient is allocated to them as mothers receive care alongside their newborn babies.

This month we also had multiple sets of twins arrive! Our veranda has become an overflow ward and we shuffle patients making sure the critical, smallest, and sickest children are placed in beds where they can be closely monitored. We have eight premature babies in the ward as of writing this newsletter (our smallest weighing just 930g) so all four incubators are also occupied! Our team works tirelessly around the clock caring for each and every patient, demonstrating God’s love, and providing a place of hope for the most vulnerable in our community. We are now praying about adding a second ward.

“But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” – 1 Peter 2:9

CHE Testimony!

This is the family of John Akot with his wife Susanna Angong from the village of Teakic near Tonj. Two months ago they gave their lives to Christ when CHE volunteers, Martha Them & Marko Maputo, visited and shared Jesus’s teaching from the sermon on the mount about trusting God and refusing to worry.

Since that time John has experienced a new peace in his heart and has let go of some addictions he was struggling with. We never get tired of these stories of God transforming our community – one family at a time!

Home in Tonj!

No matter where I go, it’s always so lovely to come back to Tonj. Home is where the heart is after all!

Coming back was quite emotional and yet also healing. Taking a breather and focusing on some of the field needs has brought a slice of joy and hope in the middle of a hard season for our family. Both Jed and Agum have loved being home.

Praise Jesus for His hand of favor over my main goal to purchase some land for our x-ray room and Maternal Waiting Village, which happened in the first week

Scholarships!

Here at IDAT, we believe that scholarships are a powerful way to increase our team’s capacity and to get the right people with the right heart for the right jobs, as well as providing an opportunity to outstanding young people, who may never have been able to pursue further studies.

Monica is a maternity clinic assistant who has just been accepted to study midwifery in one of the top midwifery schools in South Sudan. She loves to share about how her life has changed since joining IDAT 18 months ago. She tells how she used to fight often, but now, since being in a Christ filled atmosphere, attending Bible study and volunteering as a youth group leader, she refuses to fight, and people are wondering what has happened to her. Monica is looking forward to serving her community as a midwife and helping to save the lives of mothers and babies.

The IDAT Ward!

Serious and extensive burns continue to be an issue for children in Tonj and surrounding villages. On any given week our ward will have at least one patient admitted for management of major burns.

These are usually the result of boiling water being spilled onto a child, or a toddler falling into a fire. Although the initial treatment can be devastating for the parents to witness, the relief and joy they experience as the child starts to recover is something quite special. Our resources and dressing techniques are basic, but effective! Thank you for financially supporting our medical work so we can be Jesus’ love to the people of South Sudan.  With the large numbers of inpatients, we are seeing our need for a second ward ($60,000) is needed. Would you join us in praying for this? A second ward means more staff and bigger monthly overheads. We want to hear clearly from the Lord if this is the direction we should go.

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:10

CHE Testimony!

Nyandit Manyuol and her family had never had anyone explain the gospel to them before. Last month three of our CHE volunteers Daniel, Aguek and Amer visited her home to share a health lesson about malaria prevention, together with the story in the bible about the good Samaritan found in Luke 10.

They were deeply touched and made a decision as a family to become followers of Christ. In the past six months over 1,200 people like Nyandit and her family have dedicated their lives to Christ through CHE. The harvest is ripe! Please pray for the Holy Spirit to continue moving as our team of over 1,000 Community Health Evangelists (CHE’s) continue moving home to home throughout Tonj promoting health and preaching the gospel.

‘CHE‘ Community Health Evangelism Expansion!

Last week we had several days of CHE leaders training and planning for the next six months. It was exciting hearing testimonies such as Pastor Joseph baptizing two more witchdoctors on Sunday, and six more villages in Maloney begging Pastor Santino to bring them the gospel! Our team had a goal of reaching 20 villages with the gospel through CHE by the end of the year, but the harvest is ripe, the Holy Spirit is moving, and our team are passionate – so we are now praying and believing for 25 villages by the end of the year! Would you join us in praying for that? We currently have 19 villages with 18 villages on the waiting list.

Malaria Season!

From May to November every year we have our rainy season, but the more accurate name would be the ‘malaria season’. With the blessing of rain comes this deadly disease of malaria. In our region of Tonj the common parasite P. falciparum causes malaria in humans with devastating effects on children under five years of age. This parasite is the leading cause of death from malaria in the world. More than 200 million people a year get malaria and half a million die, with 94% of these deaths coming from this particular parasite in Africa and infants accounting for 67% of those deaths.  As we enter malaria season, we are rapidly seeing an increase in patient numbers. However, the team on the ward are also managing increasingly complex patients. Some children arrive incredibly unwell, and with other severe infections, like Adit pictured here, suffering from TB and pneumonia, which then leads on to complications such as severe acute malnutrition and dehydration.

The time and resources required to manage these children are immense – how grateful we are to have solar power, oxygen concentrators, therapeutic milk, and passionate hard-working staff. Without a doubt these children would not live were it not for our generous partners and the care provided by the team at IDAT. Please continue to pray for the mothers, children, and babies in the ward. Pray that we can continue to demonstrate God’s love to these families, that they will hear the gospel and be transformed by it!

Facing Fears!

In Tonj there is no blood bank. When a patient needs an urgent transfusion, we need a donor (or two or three) right then and there. We have come to realize that donating blood is a culturally difficult thing to do in South Sudan, even for a family member, which makes us so proud of our staff when they overcome their fears to save the life of someone they have never met.

This is Mary, a midwife assistant who was working night shift when one of her patients needed an urgent transfusion. These are the twins that were born to the mother who received her blood. We are praising God for Mary and that all three, mother and babies, are now healthy and well.

The fear of last year’s food shortage is real as many families already face hardships this year. IDAT is ready with food and seeds in stores and in May we did our first food distribution.

“For I, the LORD your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.” Isaiah 41:13

We were able to feed and supply seeds to over 500 families who lost their homes and gardens in last year’s tribal clashes. Many of these families are still living as IDP’s (internally displaced people).

We will continue to support this need throughout the summer. If you would like to partner with us to provide food to these displaced families, please donate through our website or send a check to the address below and designate your donation to ‘benevolence fund’.

CC Tonj Church in Progress!

We have a great problem! And this is one area of our ministry challenges that I am excited to share with you and ask you to join us in prayer.

The Lord used a simple Bible passage to move us to ministry in Tonj back in 2000. And it is the passage where we got our ministry name and vision.

1 John 3:16-18 – “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”

We never saw ourselves as a church planting ministry and so we started with one church for our own needs, known as CC Tonj. We started with about 20 regulars and a few more on Christmas and Easter. This church has slowly expanded over the years. We moved it to a local school and then outside at the local school.

Eventually we went back to the compound because carrying our benches and chairs became difficult for the growth.

When our Community Health Evangelism (CHE) program started in 2012 we had the desire to empower local church ministry in the CHE villages. This is when our church planting ministry really took off.

We started investing in local pastors, training them to not just plant churches but for the churches to thrive, grow, and multiply.

In 2016 we realized CC Tonj needed its own land. It was an amazing witness of the power of God to our church that was fasting and praying for the right land when the Lord did above and beyond what we asked or thought possible. We found a huge piece of land in a residential area with no buildings on it. It was about 16 plots and worth $10,000. It was perfect except the land was swampy in the rainy season. We approached the land commission and they sold it to us for just $200!!

In 2017 we raised enough money to start building our church. In 2018 we purchased all the materials and trucked them to Tonj. By 2019 we realized the church had already outgrown the building plans we had. As we redesigned and bought additional materials, we were also blessed by a UN Road building crew that helped us grade our land in 2020. Then the pandemic happened, and everything went on hold…including church. Our construction crew used the time to started putting up the fence.

When we started church again last September, we started meeting on the new land in a makeshift bamboo tarp structure.

This is when we dedicated the land unto the Lord for His purposes and ministry. We have watched this church continue to grow steadily every week.  In 2021 we found a contractor and broke ground!!

1 John 3:16 says “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” Easter was a time to reflect on what Jesus did for us and so we laid this land at the feet of Jesus. We had around 3,000 people in attendance and baptized several hundred new believers. In verse 17 “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” It is interesting to me that the first ministry we used the land for was the food crisis last year. We put a container on the land and filled it with food for distribution.

Lastly, verse 18, we want our ministry and this land to be a physical blessing IN DEED and a spiritual blessing IN TRUTH. So the problem we face right now is we have so many people coming to church but no building. We are entering the rainy season and ask for favor in completing the building.

Maternal Care!

Complications during pregnancy and childbirth are a leading cause of death among women in South Sudan, which currently ranks fifth highest in the world for maternal mortality. One of the goals of the In Deed and Truth Medical Clinic is to make childbirth safer and provide a place women can come for prenatal care as well as care for her delivery and post-natal treatment.

In an unforeseen emergency during labor, you can a get a ‘stat’ cesarean section in a Western hospital, in about 15 minutes. Here in Tonj, you’re lucky if it’s an hour, and overnight it will be three at least. Despite this, in the last 6 years we have never lost a baby for want of a quicker c-section.

The best is when God steps in and makes it unnecessary, like for the second-born twin here. His placenta was born before him and he was in a position incompatible with birth. His heart tones were barely detectable. We began to pray and also arrange a c-section for a dead baby. Somehow, after minutes without an oxygen supply, he was born naturally, responded beautifully to resuscitation and was discharged a healthy baby, showing no signs of his ordeal. Praise God for His help!

Ward Care!

The 25-bed ward is at full capacity, filled with sick neonates, infants, children and pregnant mothers.

This past month has seen an influx of young children admitted with severe dehydration due to vomiting and/or diarrhea. It is scary how rapidly they can deteriorate even within a few hours.

We are fortunate to have the resources to effectively treat their dehydration, as well as the underlying cause. We import a special therapeutic milk that aids in building their strength and stabilizes their condition so they can be referred to the government nutrition program to receive PlumpyNut, a lifesaving peanut paste used to treat severe acute malnutrition in young children. We are heading into a season of food shortage and ask for your prayers and wisdom as we treat these precious children. The milk is expensive to buy and has to be brought in from Kenya.  Despite our best care and prayers, some don’t make it but those that do we like to celebrate their victory stories, like Deng! He is a 1-year-old boy who arrived to the ward severely dehydrated and also acutely malnourished.

We rehydrated Deng using a feeding tube as he was too weak to drink. We also started him on a careful treatment plan for malnutrition using the special therapeutic milk. After one week we were able to discharge him home.

**Pray for the current food situation.

The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’ – Mathew 25:40