Commitment to Christ!

Our family is blessed to be ‘chosen’ by God for His mission in South Sudan. We don’t go in our own strength or power but with the knowledge that our God is the Lord, He is greater than ourselves, gracious to use us in ways we don’t feel equipped or worthy. He gives us true comfort and assurance our names are legible for all of eternity in the heavenly leaves of His book of everlasting life. We embrace this calling with full trust in Him and a confidence that none can reverse this blessing.

“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, The people He has chosen as His own inheritance.”
 – Psalm 33:12

Some might say this is a good time to be getting out of the USA. Some might say this is a bad time to go to South Sudan. It depends really on what we are focused on. Both countries have uncertain futures that generate fear in people. We’re focused on what we know is true and certain, our never changing Rock, Jesus Christ. He cares about our lives wherever we live in this crazy world!! He is the Prince of Peace and we have peace about leaving. If God is the center of our lives and we are in His will, we have nothing to fear. We will continue to pray for Godly and honest leaders for both countries, true revival. We will continue to seek God for our lives and our ministry, to live in such a way that those around us will experience His love, mercy and saving grace. What a tragedy that no matter where you live in this world, your eternal security is not based on who will lead your country but who is leading your life, your heart, your soul? If you are living with fears and uncertainty and want the same assurance our family has please visit the website PeaceWithGod.net.

A New Home!

This will be our last newsletter from USA. With our departure date of December 4th looming we are frantically packing and planning for our next term in South Sudan. We are planning to return for a three year term. When we left South Sudan we were sleeping in a tent and this month our house was finally finished just in time for our return.

Our old house was two team rooms knocked together. This new house has three main rooms, a kitchenette and bathroom, the ceiling is higher, the rooms are deeper, there’s a wraparound veranda, giving us a lot more space. The security is always a top priority and we gave this a lot of thought based on our years of experiences living in South Sudan. This house has no windows facing the outside fence, so any sneaky intruders cannot hide and break in the house out of view of the guards. They’ll be forced to come to the front of the house where all the windows have glass, wire mesh and security bars. No stray bullets flying through the windows from outside either!! All three kids will be in one room, directly connected to our room. The metal roof has been treated with a heat resistant coating, insulated and together with the gypsum ceiling we should be able to reduce the temperature in the house. With the ceiling fans we hope to get from 120°F into the 90°F range (we’ll let you know if it works). Hopefully we won’t have any mice or rats running around at night either! A massive thank you to all who donated to help us build our family home.

Visits!

It is goodbye for now but we really hope many of you will choose to visit us and our mission work at some point over the next three years. God is moving and doing an amazing work in South Sudan and we want to share with you.

With South Sudan having so many problems we appreciate your prayers for our transition. It has been quite a crazy month since we realized we are actually leaving. The excitement of going home and being with our team and friends is mixed with sadness as we say goodbye to family and friends here. This is the longest we have been out of Africa in seventeen years but despite this all three kids are looking forward to going back and for that we are truly thankful.

Eastgate Christian Fellowship has been our home church family while we’ve been in Florida and we are so grateful to Pastor Rob and the church for the love and support they have given to us. But there are so many of you that have reached out and helped us get through this ‘season’ and we are truly grateful for the body of Christ and the old and new friends we have had the privilege of spending time with on this journey. When we arrived on the West Coast, we had no idea we’d be leaving from the East Coast and not saying goodbye in person to those of you we cherish there, it is very hard.

We’re Going Home!

After more than two years we are so excited to announce Agum’s approval for permanent resident status! As soon as we have her passport we can leave for Africa. By faith, we have already purchased our tickets and fly on December 4th!! We bought our one way tickets to avoid losing the incredible missionary fare on Delta. This secures us lots of benefits including 3 free bags each plus 2 hand luggage. So we are now prioritizing our packing to fit into 25 pieces of luggage! Yes, we are all excited and YES, we are completely overwhelmed. There is so much to do before we can go!

We have been asked about the stability in South Sudan and we have to say that we can only take one day at a time. The country has been unpredictable many times in the 17 years we have served there. The deterioration of the country’s security is mostly in and around Juba but the consequence on the economy is felt throughout South Sudan. We are far from Juba but our family will have to land in Juba and that is where we might find ourselves caught up in a problem. The safest place for us is in His will and we are committed to the calling until He calls us to something new.

East Coast Road Trip!

Our summer was incredible. We packed in a lot of things we really felt we should do before leaving. One was making a visit of East Coast partners and strengthening those relationships. It was so wonderful to see old friends and meet new friends. We loved the beauty and history of Savannah, GA. Having our dear friends show us around the monuments and museums in Washington DC was a real treat. Spending time with people we love in Philadelphia and Danville, PA was fun, and an area of USA we’d never seen before.  When we reached Rochester, NY it was hard to believe we had traveled all the way North from Florida. It was great to relax there for a week with our friends and have an opportunity to connect with their church. Suzy was super excited to have her old roommate join us for the day at Niagara Falls, and what a magnificent and breathtaking sight. Finally we drove back to Florida, stopping in Wilkesboro, NC to visit our missionary friends from Africa.

Praise God for the opportunities to share what He is doing in South Sudan through In Deed and Truth and how those wanting to be involved can best partner with us and the needs.

“Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will repay him for his deed.” – Proverbs 19:17

Malaria Packs!

Many of you received our prayer request and responded to the need for malaria packs. Last month we saw over 3,000 pregnant mothers and children under age 5 in our clinic, mostly diagnosed with malaria.

This is Nyang, who brought her son, Deng to the clinic but collapsed waiting in line due to complications of malaria. She wasn’t aware that she was also sick! She was admitted and following treatment and much prayer she was completely healed and went home on the 4th day. Rejoicing with Jesus that we can help more families like this thanks to your generous help. So far we have been able to purchase 1,000 malaria packs. Each pack costs $10 and consists of a mosquito net, medication and rapid test kit. Well done everyone!!!

Lingir Village!

As we’ve been working with our CHE – Community Health Evangelism program we’ve been visiting and praying over our CHE centers and asking God to direct our paths. We want to connect each CHE village with a church community in the USA as prayer support for that village. As we visited them it was evident the need for prayer covering for each of these centers. Over the next few months we will introduce these villages to you and highlight their critical prayer needs, starting with the village of Lingir.

Lingir is a Dinka village located around 30km from Tonj, which is a 2 day walk to our clinic. Although Lingir’s core community is about 250 people, it is located in the center of a cluster of 15 other nearby villages with a total combined population of around 3000 people! This is a community we don’t know personally but have attended to a number of very poor and malnourished patients from there in our clinic who describe extreme poverty in their village. So we knew we needed to check it out.

“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” – 2 Chronicles 7:14

There is no medical clinic near to Lingir, and no means of transport other than walking, so people face a 30km walk to Tonj to access our medical care, a daunting prospect for pregnant women and small children.

There is a fantastic local man called Lual who sometimes travels to Tonj to buy malaria medicines for the community. However he had run out when we visited. He is very passionate about helping his community and earlier this year mobilized the community to volunteer their time to build a mud brick structure for a medical clinic in the hope that it would encourage the government to provide a health worker and medicines. Unfortunately the rains came before the structure could be protected with a roof but they hope to rebuild next dry season.

On our recent visit it was heart breaking for the IDAT team to witness this remote community with so much need in so many areas. Dr Jono said, “The community of Lingir is possibly the poorest place I’ve ever visited in all my years of missionary work.” They have no medical clinic, no school, no employment, no market, no bore hole for clean water, no access to vaccination, no trained birthing assistants, and many children severely malnourished from lack of food. It is a real challenge for each family to produce enough food during the rainy season to last them a whole year. As a result many of the children we saw were malnourished, and most people were living off just one meal per day. During the rains it often floods, destroying their precious crops.

A large proportion of the community had symptoms of malaria. Another challenge is access to clean water. There is no borehole in the region, so people rely on collecting water from the river or from small wells that have been hand dug but have dirty water, and often dry up in the dry season.

The sub chief is also a prominent witchdoctor who appears to have a lot of influence over the people. We saw places of animal sacrifice and spirit worship as we travelled around the village. The people were really encouraged by the gospel message that IDAT Pastor Joseph shared. We praise God for the opportunity as several made commitments to Christ.

Please commit to pray for Lingir and all the challenges we have shared. Pray for a church to raise up in USA and partner in prayer with this village. Pray for our CHE program to be established there.

CHE!

Over the past month the IDAT Community Health Evangelism (CHE) team has had the privilege of meeting with the leaders and churches of 8 different villages to share the CHE vision, and to gather information about the communities’ attitudes and resources. Every single village has begged us to please come back and start the CHE program! The very first chief we met said that what his people needed the most was Jesus, so he was excited to hear that sharing the gospel and discipling believers is a key component of the CHE program. We have heard many encouraging stories during our community visits. For example the Christians of our church plant, Calvary Chapel Warrak, were so moved by the suffering of people in their community they started a special church garden in addition to their own personal gardens. Every few weeks the people from the church would gather together to plant, weed and harvest sorghum and peanuts. Then they built a shelter for storing the crops in, and distributed the harvest to widows and needy people in their community.

In the village of Bobi, where there was no school for local children, Pastor Pasquelo, who was trained by Sabet and graduated in 2012 from IDAT Bible school, has volunteered his time during the week to run a small village school under a large tree. His only resources are a blackboard and chalk!

It is awesome to witness the fruit of our ministry in these remote villages. One transformed life can transform an entire community! That is where CHE is so powerful. It teaches ministry is about relationships, which are more important than having all the latest equipment and right facilities. Simply take what God has provided you with and be the best steward you can be, no matter how small the resources or insignificant you feel, give it to the Lord and allow Him to use you and bless you! It is awesome to see the initiative of a few CHE champions being so blessed by God. They get it…they are more blessed to give than to receive. They are not waiting for us to make a difference with their people, they are making the difference themselves. They are the future of South Sudan that can transform this politically messy country into a nation that glorifies God. We are working with 10 potential villages for future CHE centers. We are praying for 10 supporting churches in USA to ‘adopt’ a CHE village and commit to praying for their leaders, elders, chief, CHE volunteers and CHE committee. Please email us if you are interested in more information about adopting a village.

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
–Mark 10:45

Visiting Friends!

Our family was blessed to take some much needed time together to visit Troy and Jeamette Lock in Idaho. Jeamette served IDAT as the stateside coordinator for 13 years. This was followed by a visit to Montana to spend time with Amanda, who was a mission pilot in Africa with AIM AIR and medevac’d us when Matoch (7 year old boy) was shot in 2010.

August, we are doing an East Coast drive up to Rochester and back. We’ll be visiting ministry partners and friends along the way. Please email us if you would like us to share with your church group or if you can offer us a place to overnight.

Security!

At the beginning of July, South Sudan marked it’s 5th anniversary whilst renewed fighting broke out in the capital city, Juba. Clashes resulted in many military and civilian casualties. The entire country has been on alert for the past month. Thankfully, Tonj has not experienced the violence and bloodshed but like all areas people are suffering from lack of medicine, food and supplies caused by the insecurity. Please pray!

Sabet’s Back!

After nine months of separation our family is happy to have Sabet back. We recognize the challenges our family face after such a long time apart and have prioritized spending quality time doing activities that will help us adjust quickly. Thank you for your prayers. We have a busy summer planned and we’re excited we’ll be together travelling and serving.

Our first really fun event was visiting our friends, the Alligood’s, in Orlando where we spent four days relaxing and catching up after 9 years. They kindly arranged for us to go to Universal Studios for free!

Sabet just returned from 9 days in California where he attended the Calvary Chapel Pastor’s Conference. He visited our sending church, Horizon Christian Fellowship in Rancho Santa Fe. Pastor Bob encouraged him and introduced him to Will Graham, the grandson of Billy Graham, what a blessing! The pastor’s conference was a time to sit, be spiritually fed and refreshed in the Lord. Sabet travelled with one of our board members, Dr. David Pierce. A BIG thank you to those who hosted Sabet and David. They enjoyed times of fellowship and meals with many of you, thank you!!

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” – Matthew 11:28-30

Measles and More!

June and July are our toughest months in the medical clinic in Tonj. Many contributing factors cause this particular season to be more challenging but it’s mostly due to the clinic being understaffed while our team rotate to take rest. Another factor is the high number of patients seen can jump from 100 to over 200 people every day. This is mainly due to increased malaria cases in the rainy season. This year we have the added challenges of displaced people, lack of food and a measles outbreak. Despite this we have only lost one patient to measles and God has expanded our team and provided cover for our team rotation.

Please pray for God’s hand on our team, each patient we treat, for His healing power, love, mercy and grace to be poured out in abundance over every day we serve and that our team would be effective in communicating His love and grace through good deeds and sharing the truth of the gospel.

Church Plants!

Before leaving South Sudan, Sabet was able to meet with the pastors and elders of four churches we planted in villages near to Tonj. He got to hear the awesome work God is doing among these faithful servants and through their churches. They shared about the tough times they were going through, how they are hated and persecuted for their faith but this makes them more determined to faithfully continue in worship and service to God in their villages. The testimonies they came with were really encouraging and evidence of the fruit that comes from a Spirit led church. Please visit our blog at blog.indeedandtruth.org to read a full testimony of these stories.

Please pray for Calvary Chapel Tonj and for the churches and pastors in and around our area. God is doing an amazing work and we are excited to see Him moving in the hearts of His Saints. Pray the message of Agape love would fill hearts and replace the hate and retaliation that Dinka’s have towards each other.