We have seen many cases of children in bad situation and through prayers and our limited supplies, ability and facility, God is coming forth as usual and healing these little ones, we are seeing His miracles first hand every day. When the Doctors are out of options, they just wait on God and the Lord Jesus, and in deed he has been so gracious the last 3 weeks, that many children and patients turn a corner and come back to life even when all odds were against them.
There is this child, one year old who was brought convulsing. He was in a very bad state, and the doctors had to be there to help him breathe. Nobody thought the child will make it, they were to go to Wau but the family had no money so they had to stay. Praise be to God the child can now breathe on its own.
Santino Shareing the gospel to street kids that recieved Mosquito Nets
Malaria in South Sudan stills the number one killer, especially among infants and children. One way to combat this fatal disease is through using treated Mosquito nets, In our clinic in Tonj we see a huge number of patients with malaria, 90% of the 100 and plus patients we see daily is malaria. The other issue it’s the same patients with the same problem of Malaria we see more than 2 times a month, the medication are very good, we use Coartem (Artemether. Lumefantrine) one of the best malaria drug. So we suspected the issue to be in something else, from our lab and our CHE program we discover the issues are people habits and awareness more than curing and anything else. We do have a Community health Education (CHE) program here in TONJ that takes place in the community through home visit and dialogue about diseases and prevention, one of the Topic that is discussed is treated Mosquito nets, use and benefits. We also discuss that in our daily health talk during the clinic work hours, especially in the morning. We have seen a great interest from the homes we visit in our community and from patients that come to our compound, Not because we talk about the only, but we believe because we have put value in the , what Mosquito net I mean we didn’t give the MN away for free, we have asked them to pay a montery value that will give value to the Mosquito nets and I CAN SAY IT WAS VERY SUCCESSFUL. In the past people look down on the this type of Mosquito net, they have even nicked name it Makuien Akol meaning the bright face Bull of the day, they mean people see you through the net very clearly even at night time. No privacy, everyone hate it specially the adults and couples. Now they have a better understanding of the use and why treated one are very good, therefore they have better value to these Mosquito Nets. The price is asked of them for one mosquito net is half the price in the market. For example if its 15 ssp we asked 7ssp. And in no time they were all gone. We have made sure it didn’t end up at the hand of the traders, we have limited the quantity that one person can get and also we made sure to target Mothers and children, weather in clinic , homes we visit or the villages. We also serve outside villages like Malony where we have satellite clinic. Beside the home visit and the clinic distribution, we recently received street children that were collected and brought to Tonj from Wau. ( the second largest city in South Sudan), we have given Mosquit nets to them, about 54 children and 15 adults caretakers for the children. This group were sleeping no nets no matteres just a Tarp pastic sheet on the floor. More than 350 Mosquito nets that we were able to give and These Mosquito net are one of the best ones many people confirmed that, they have seen many bugs that are dead by the time they are ready to go under it. To sleep.
MAF has donated all the Mosquito net, KeA one of MAF missionaries who was station in Juba, Through MAF Sweden arrange for all these treated Mosquito nets to be donated to people of Tonj.
This is one of the best gifts people can receive in this season of rain, flood and Mosquitos. More than 250 house holds that has received at-least one Mosquito nets.
Tonj is about 63 Miles away from Wau, which is the biggest city around here. One of the issues the city is effected by is Street Children. Children from3 or 4 other states goes to Wau and lives in the street, involved in all kind of problems that you could imagine, from stealing to getting abused by people, to some time even getting killed in the street. The city is really effected by it. So some people from Wau decided to round up all the street children and sent them to the state where they come from originally and ethnically. So we have received here in Tonj about may be 30 kids, mostly from the area of Tonj and some from other state and counties. the county here also rounded the small number of the street kids in Tonj town and put them with the same group came from Wau totaling the number to 54 kids.
I was looking for one of the kids I know, so I went to see him in the place where I heard they are keeping the kids, to my surprise I see all these kids in the building that are suppose to be the county offices, still under construction, so they have 1 big hall, they have just a 1 big piece of tarp and nothing else to sleep in. There were some police men guarding the kids, and to keep them off problems. The commissioner of the town is working hard to feed them, but we all see its very hard on him with the limited resources he has.
I started going through the kids, looking for this one kid I know, I started to notice many of the street children are with wounds, rashes and scabies around their hands, and different parts of their bodies, most of them wore torn filthy clothes that filled with lies.
Since We have a clinic, I asked our clinic staff if we could help these kids, and that what they have done. Our clinic staff including Dr. Tom went to the place and saw all the kids and started treatments to many health issues these kids have got. the following day they took the kids to the river made them wash their bodies and then applies this lotion to heal the scabies.
Stephanie Staubs ayoung lady missionary with us here for 3 month, gave money and bought all the kids treated Mosquito nets. We had Donated T shirts from American, donated Harvest Crusade t-shirts as well, that we were very thankful to still have some of them, we gave these kids these T-shirts, and it was a huge Joy for us to see the smiles on these little one faces.
Few days ago I had a meeting with the Director for child protection State level , He came all the way from Kuajok to see these kids, I was impressed by the level of care they have shown during the meeting towards these kids, they have shown seriousness about the kids beingreunited with their families and reintegrated them back to the society, a representative of a UNICEF was present as well. Big Job awaits them.
In the meeting they have invited us to help the kids in anyway we can, since they know we are faith based mission organization, they invited us to minister to the kids, sharing the Bible with the children and teach them about God. We happily accepted the invitation, actually we have already felt free to show Jesus film and share the gospel message with them before they gave us the permission to do so. Pastor Kibe and Pastor Santino went one night and showed the Jesus film to the kids, for many of them it was the first time to see a movie about Jesus. Kibe is planning to show more Movies that will teach God’s love and good value to the kids, Walking with Jesus and God story to mention few.
Commissioner Mario Monydiedh handing T-shirts for the street children
These Children are as young as 7 years old to 13 years old, all boys, In fact, the few weeks we have been working with them now, we have seen behaviors makes us so concern about the little one that are among them, and we pray the reunion would happen as fast as possible to save these little one from the older one influence.
Stephanie and Kibe are going to have continuous ministry with these kids, where they will play kids games and sport event once a month.
We are starting a fundraiser from here in conjunction with some people back at home church in California for the purpose of feeding these kids. It will cost about $100 to feed a child for a month,we are hoping to raise funding for 54 children for up to 3 month, hoping by then they have all be reunited with their families and found homes to live. if you want to donate please go to the website. https://www.indeedandtruth.org/donate.php
Please pray for wisdom, as there are reasons for these kids to leave home, some kids are not happy with the thier families and are not willing to go back to their home. some stories are just sad stories led the kids in the street, we are planning to share some of the stories in the coming weeks, so we really urge you to pray for wisdom as we work with these kids and share the gospel message with them day to day.
As usual STS training was conducted by Billy, this time he brought along his sister and brother in-law, Kate-Beth and Dan, who are missionaries in Hungry, they were others who were facilitators as well.
The STS training was focusing on Old Testament stories, learning the stories fromthe heart and digging out the treasures.
We still do not have Old Testament available in Dinka in South Sudan. Being in the training is the perfect place to learn the stories and get it right. It was safe place for people to ask question even the hard question and not feel embarrassed.
The creation stories from the first chapters of Genesis were really fun to learn, sometimes stories could be hard to learn and memorize, and many times they appear to be easy, only to find it takes time and work to master them down. It was more fun for our translators, who were doing it from English into Dinka or Lou.
Dan and His wife Kate-Beth sharing/acting story, Andrew translating (in the middle)
There were so much truth to learn from these stories, The Dinka people here in Tonj have so much myth about creation stories, so these myth were straighten out. By the time every one is really getting deep into the stories, time seems have flown by. We wished we could camp in these words discussions for days on ends
One fun aspect was new to us in this training was in the part where you retelling the stories again; you ask people to act the story while you are retelling it to them. That fact brought the entire training to so much laughter and fun.
We were seeing crazy moves being acted out, some of our participants can win Oscar trophies and some will need a lot of prayers and maybe fasting to know how to act.
The Lou speaking group discussing a story from the Old Testament
I am glad we had the opportunity to let the participants to depart with more than 10 stories all from Genesis. They have learned them so well and got many new treasures, for them to share with their congregation for the first time.
The participants were from 7 different areas. This time we had a new area joining in the training from Pagol for the first time, the rest are same groups we are doing follow up training to master the storing tool.
God is doing something amazing in Pagol, this new place. Our pastors from Tonj here went to the Pagol area and taught a STS training for a day and half in March this year. People in Pagol were so much touched by the new treasures from this new way of studying God’s word that they went and told other people in other villages, they were so encouraged, two churches were born as direct result from STS.
From Left to right: Steph, Maureen,Tiana, Whitney and Stephanie
Towards the end of July we had our missionary ladies in the compound at IDAT host a purity conference with school girls from Tonj. Having four ladies in the compound have helped a lot to pull the day off.
Whitney, Stephanie Staubs, Stephanie cracker , Tiana Duncan and Maureen Aduvuka our lab technician worked very hard for a week to put it together. They visited three schools around here and invited the girls for the conference.
Sharing testimonies and reading scriptures and playing games marked the day with seriousness of God’s word in their lives and the games / sharing brought a sweet fellowship among the girls. It seem all the girls enjoyed their time and they were encouraged very much by our missionaries.
Pray for the local girls here in Tonj, the harvest is great but laborer are few.. The one day conference is just a beginning, there is many things need to be done. Pray for our missionary ladies that remain in Tonj to continue the good work.
Here are some photos from the day. Enjoy!
Stephanie sharing in a sessionThe girls pose for a photoTime for fellowshipGirls enjoying the games sessionHaving tea and snacks
