Dave Mueller is welding and his son Forest working with Hydro-form bricks, the new Clinic
We had the privilege to host Dave and Forest Mueller in March/April for 3 weeks, they have come out to help us with the Clinic building, David have blessed us with welding windows and doors frames and most importantly building the wall for the clinic which we are using special type of brick that interlock Hydroform, half of the building wall is finish.
Dave has build a hospital in a South Sudan in the past and here he was sharing his expertise with us, though it’s difficult with the heat and the process of starting things from scratch and doing things manually what a blessing to see his heart to help and put his best for the Clinic to be the best and strong building standing around.
Many people are blessed to see a father son and the heart they have for the kingdom and mission, for them it was more than building walls, they were building living stone, Dave shared some messages in our daily devotion and in our Sunday service, what a blessing that was specially for our staff.
The crew that was helping Dave and Forest were young men, the beauty of having them working with experience people like Dave Mueller is they are learning some skill, and picking trade like to be precise or diligent in what you do and not cutting corners, I was very grateful to see that what they were picking up. They are far from perfect but in this part of the world they are closer to perfection more than ever.
Much gratitude for the Mueller’s (specially for Joy Mueller for arranging and putting the trip together) and the great time we had with them and looking forward more opportunities to work with them in the near future.
For Anoch, in just one day her whole life has been changed. She went from being a normal 12 year old Sudanese girl, fetching water, sweeping, cooking and caring for her younger siblings to never walking again. How so? She was shot. Not from recent cattle raids, or the fighting in the town yesterday where the police came and fired guns to disperse crowds, no she was not harmed in either of those cases. Her injury came when her grandfather was trying to unload his gun and accidently shot her at point blank through her thigh. Her family carried her writhing in pain and distressed but thankfully the bullet had passed right through her leg. After stabilizing, cleaning the wound and praying our ambulance drove her the following day to the nearest hospital 75 miles away in Wau. But what happened next was quite unbelievable. The hospital refused to admit or treat her without a police report because it was a gunshot wound. Despite pleas and explanations from our staff that it was an accident and even with the child’s family verifying the story the hospital would not change their mind. This was so disheartening to me and a picture of how hardened South Sudan has become from the years of suffering and war. This poor child was transported back to Tonj, a three hour drive on a dirt and bumpy road in sweltering temperatures where she spent her second night in our clinic. By now the leg was very swollen, an infection had set in and the blood flow was disrupted. Our whole team was praying for options, medevac to Kenya or Juba, try and go back to Wau? These arrangements are challenging, requiring time to arrange transport, care and translators. Meanwhile we could see her leg was dying, smelling very bad and she was afraid. We encouraged the family to put their trust in the Lord and not to lose heart and not to call on the local magicians and witchdoctors. Sabet reassured Anoch we were going to take care of her and she would be OK. No matter what, we were here for her and would stay with her to find someone to take care for her medical needs. After the family received the police report Sabet decided to call the doctor and talk to him directly. He was told to bring her back to Wau. Knowing that Wau is our best option but very unreliable we prayed for her and sent a medical worker with her back to Wau. Sure enough on arrival they were told they could not be helped, but Moses, our community health worker (CHW) refused to return to Tonj and insisted they help Anoch. After hours of persistent pressure and negotiating, the hospital admitted our patient. Moses waited around until he was confident they were taking proper care of her and then returned to Tonj. By this time there was no other option but to amputate her leg. Please pray for Anoch and her family during this difficult time.
“Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.” – Proverbs 3:27
I am preparing to leave Tonj, South Sudan after 3 months of helping out in surgery, and would like to share some experiences.
Three days after I arrived here, IDAT had a team working in theater. The team functioned almost at the outset like veterans, though most were new to theater. Each of us on the team sensed the leading of God almost daily.
Gabriel and Santos, two South Sudanese and Anne is the anesthetistPatients lined up for surgical bookings. Regrettably, we turned away many for lack of sufficient facility and equipment. Still, we did 60 surgeries in theater, most of them hernias, common among the Dinka people in South Sudan.
The picture shows Gabriel and Santos, two South Sudanese, closing up a surgery. Anne is the anesthetist (and seasoned midwife). Not shown are Margaret and Auxillia, also anesthetists-in-training (and skilled midwives). These young men have become skilful at assisting in surgery, and closing surgeries with minimal supervision.
What lies ahead? We hope to build a theater to attract and heal the South Sudanese. Early building has begun on what the citizens call Sabet Hospital. We believe the Lord is preparing a way forward. Please pray that we may be sensitive and obedient to His leading.
“And it shall come to pass afterward
That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh;
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
Your old men shall dream dreams,
Your young men shall see visions.” – Joel 2:28
Mapel is a small town about 18 miles away from Tonj. It’s for the Lou tribe , otherwise known as Jur Chol locally. They have their own dialogue and well known for how hard working people and very amazing powerful traditional dance. We have mentioned in the past, we have been evangelizing remote villages and have worked with church leaders from this area for more than 8 years. The church always is battling with witchcraft, worship of idols, ancestral spirits worship and traditional beliefs.
This time in March, we have taken the STS to Mapel, if anything was clear from the training, it was the fact everyone participated was bringing a point of view on the stories was fresh and enlightening to the participants, I believe it was the Holy Spirit working, and people opening their hearts to His conviction, revealing His truth from the stories of the Bible, I have seen the excitement when the lights came on, I saw eyes were wide open and the mouth opening wide, and hearts are comforted with the Truth of same Bible stories, that they have heard before and amazed of the treasures that are seeing for the first time.
The other thing I notice in the training, is the excitement of the Mapel men and women, that they could do this on their own, they could go through the story, ask question and come to these truths alone, without the help of a pastor or someone who reads, Never ever before they could hear the word or read it (most people are illiterates) and understand the Spiritual observation and apply these spiritual application to match their present lives today.
What a blessing is to have the tool of the oral inductive Bible study in the STS.
At one point learning and discussing the Mary, Martha story, the conclusion that brought by Mary Nybang, one of the old ladies in the training, and I quote here “we have been the Martha’s (the Women in the Church) for a long time in the church just being busy with cooking, cleaning and never been the Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus and learning from Him, Always we felt we couldn’t because we can’t read, always dependent on our husbands to understand the word of God. Now STS gave us the opportunity and the tool to be independent and be at the feet of Jesus like Mary, we are able to learn the stories and ask questions and get all the treasures of the word of God, we are now sitting at the feet of our Lord and we are able to be the daughters Mary’s.”
What a blessing to hear Mary Nybang testimony from Mapel, I can testify to what the Lord is doing using the STS among the Lou tribe.
They were more than 50 pastors and church leaders including 10 women, from various villages around mapel town.
Pray for the Lord to give us the wisdom, as we pray for Oral bible school in small villages in the 4 areas that our pastors comes from, Maple, Tonj East, Tonj North, and Cubit.
Our 13 pastors have been doing the stories since last year, they have testimonies from their own churches, each one of the pastors trained his own church leaders from 5 people to 15, we are very excited to see they are putting emphasis on training leaders, starting in their own villages and churches, very glad they are putting what they learn on practice.
Let me take this opportunity and share my heart with you, I love to continue work with some pastors after they graduate, I would like for them to train others, specifically in the mention 4 areas, Mapel, Tonj east, Tonj North and Ciubet (pronounce Chuaibet).
Pray for Santino Bak one of the pastors in our school, who his heart is to train STS and to be a CHE (Community Health Evangelism) trainer, he is sharing with me how it’s very important to train to transform, he sees STS and CHE are tools for transformation.
Santino would love to go around and teaches in these 4 centers STS, we are praying for a bike for him so he can use it to visit and train these 4 centers with the simply stories and possibly CHE training in the Future.
God is doing someone great among the pastors would love your prayers and support for it to continue and many would be saved and transformed.
Learned a new trick today, If you wrap a wet sock around your water bottle the evaporation of the water in sock cools your water. No more drinking hot water. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. This year I have learned to pull teeth did three more teeth Saturday, repair hernias and now I have learned how to cool water without a refrigerator.
People have asked me to tell them about the Dinkas and how they live. Dinkas are a proud people they fought many years to be free and have succeeded. They are the tallest darkest Africans. They live in grass huts many have cell phones and some have small motorcycles 100-160 cc. More have bikes and a few have cars but most walk long distances. Tonj is sorta urban. As there are many homes in area and cell phone towers and a market where you can buy some things.
Probably most folk have 2-3 sets of cloths and 1-2 pairs of sandals. Some have more and some have none as in all places there are have and have nots. Most people tend cattle and do subsistence farming.Cows are wealth and men try to amass a bunch of cows they do not tend to sell them but amass them like people keep money in the bank. When a great need for money arises they sell cows .
One of the biggest uses of cows is to buy a wife from the father. Daughters bring their dads cows but fathers like sons also for pride and I am sure protection. Families often help their sons get the cows to buy a bride. I am sure the females take pride in having a high bride price. Men in this society can have more then one wife. I believe each wife and her children tend to have their own hut and the husband visits his wives. Often wives view each other as sisters and the old wives must give their OK to a new wife being brought into the family. The older wives make the newer wives do more of the work which is their payback. Dinka women love to have babies and love their children. The infant mortality rate is about 50%only 50% of children reach age 5 years.Often we meet women who have had 8 pregnancies and only have one child.
Women have no sex during pregnancy and till child is weaned at about 2 years which is one reason men feel they need more then one wife. I am told only the mother tends to hold the babies but I do not know if this is true . When the mother with triplets comes in grandma and the mother’s sister each had one. I seem to be getting along well with the Dinkas I see smiling faces constantly. As in America the 16 year old female believes she knows everything. I sometimes laugh because the 16 year old with a baby thinks she knows everything about children.I have fun with the babies I see everyday when they are not sick I play with them. Sometimes I think mothers bring in the children just so I can confirm they are OK but we take care of a lot of sick kids and they scare me. I remember the first Christmas I was here the children would die of malaria and it would kill me and the parents would try to encourage me.
One thing is where ever you go people are people we all have emotions of love, hate, frustration , fear, jealousy, generosity etc. We all have good days and bad days and we all have a tendency to goof up. We all have to learn to forgive each others faults and leave rest in God’s hands. Tom
