Category Archives: Ministry

Celebration Day!

Saturday October 28th marked the “Grand Opening” of In Deed and Truth’s medical clinic called Noah’s Place. Our dedication service was attended by over 1,000 people, five board members and the State Minister of Health. This is an overview of our special day so you can join in with us as we thank the Lord for all He has done and the gift this clinic is to us and the people of Tonj.

We have three clinic chaplains, all who graduated from IDAT’s Pastoral Training in 2012. Pastor Joseph opened the ceremony with prayer.

Our church, Calvary Chapel Tonj, has a choir who opened the celebration with worship and praise to our Lord.

Suzy welcomed everyone in Dinka and gave a testimony of events that led to her and Sabet starting this medical work in Tonj and building the clinic.

Sabet introduced all departments working under In Deed and Truth Ministries, starting with:

The board of directors, Ted Miyake and his wife Carol, Jim Ennis and his wife Dena, Dr. Dave Pierce (absent Dawn Christmore and Kristin Schneider).

The Macleod family, Dr. Jono Macleod, Dr. Destinee Macleod, Zoe, Ellisha and Shiloh.

All the Medical staff, doctors, clinical officers, midwives, nurses, and community health workers.The construction team that completed the building.Volunteers Travis (construction) and Amy (medical).Albino Dut our compound manager.Andrea Mangok (Administration and Finance)
IDAT Pastors, Joseph, Judah and Santino.

Angelina, Adel and Mary our Kitchen Assistants.

He also acknowledged our security and support staff. Lastly, we welcomed home our four medical students:

Gabriel Wol, Peter Malook, Joseph Maker,  and Marco Maluth, who graduated on October 21st in Kenya and were flown home especially to celebrate with us. We also acknowledged Gabriel Gojoh (center), our senior Clinical Officer, who graduated last December and completed his internship and now serves us full-time in the clinic.

Gabriel Gojoh

We were blessed to have several of our church plants in Warrak, Kurnyuk and Maloney attend. The Sunday school children of CC Kurnyuk danced for the crowd.

They made a welcome sign for our Board of Directors.

The Chief of Maloney Village,  Manut Baak, where we’ve served with medical outreaches over the past 8 years and planted a church,  came especially to congratulate us. 

Three patients whose lives were transformed by the clinic attended and shared their story as a testimony of the importance of the clinic to the community and God working through it to change lives.

Donato Ngong was helped when he was 12 years old in 2008. He was attacked with a machete and left for dead. His story is on this blog, check under Donato.

Mayan is the chief of Lingir village. He gave his life to Christ after his daughter, Abeyei spent several weeks with us. He banished witchcraft in his village!

Manyoldit is the father of Abuk. She had tetanus and they took her to several witchdoctors, spear masters and other clinics before bringing her to IDAT.  She was lifeless and in a coma but the Lord completely healed her.

CC Tonj Sunday school danced for us.

Pastor Jim Ennis, CFO for IDAT, spoke on behalf of our board members.

The women’s union sang for us.

And our CHE village of Bobi danced.

Board member Ted Miyake led the dedication prayer and invited church leaders to lay hands on the building as he prayed.

We all sang the National Anthem together.

The Honorable State Minister of Health, Lual Longar gave a closing speech.

There was only one thing left to do. Pastor Ruben from CC Warrak honored Suzy, Dena and Carol with a special crowning and more dancing!

Sabet did the honors!

We are most grateful to our Lord Jesus for the amazing way He has carried us and provided for this clinic. He has done above and beyond what we asked or thought possible. Thank you for supporting this clinic and for supporting us and the people of Tonj.

Sabet and Suzy Kuj

Miracle Children by Dr. Jono Macleod

Here’s the story of Nhom-Rom, a small child who made a miraculous recovery while we were at devotions…

One of the things that keeps us going here on the tough days is the miracle children that God sends our way. Three year old Nhom-Rom was in a critical condition in our ward after spending the night convulsing at home from Cerebral Malaria.

I was heading out the gate for an early morning jog when I saw two desperate looking ladies running towards me holding a limp twitching child, which they all but thrust into my arms. The child had been convulsing most of the night, but they owned no torch or light (imagine!) so had to wait until morning to be able to see the path into town. So I turned and ran with the ladies into the clinic where we injected the child with a variety of medicines to treat infection and stop the seizures, tested for malaria (positive of course), and prayed for God to spare this precious life. Now you can probably guess that children who have been continuously convulsing for several hours from a brain infection have a poor prognosis even in the US, let alone in our low-tech clinic in the middle of South Sudan. If they recover it is usually days before they are sitting up eating again. Well half an hour later the child finally stopped convulsing but was still totally unresponsive, so we left the drip running and headed to morning devotion where we prayed for the child some more. We could hardly believe our eyes when we returned to find the child sitting up breastfeeding!!! We celebrate and thank God that we got to witness another miracle child here in Tonj, and the family left for home grinning from ear to ear!

Hope this encourages you today! Thank you for partnering with us and making it all possible.

Saved By Grace

Deborah Achok came to our clinic severely malnourished. She’s 18 years old and has a 3 month old baby boy called Kuol. Since giving birth she has not been able to keep food down and vomits if she tries to force it. Her husband abandoned her and so her mother and her sister accompanied her and Kuol to our clinic.

The mother was concerned because the family paid money to a witch-doctor and Deborah’s condition just got worse. So they concluded that witch-doctor put a curse on her and the baby, who was now struggling to get enough food from his malnourished mother. So they then went to another witch-doctor who sold charms to them to protect them from the curses of the previous witchcraft. After weeks of mother and child both deteriorating they were finally brought to our clinic.

As I was doing my morning rounds with Pastor Santino, Dr. Jono filled us in on Deborah’s condition. Immediately we could see she was not in good physical health and both her and the baby were wearing charms. We chatted about that and the sister told us about the visit to the witch-doctors. After a lengthy presentation of the gospel and why witchcraft and wearing the charms are so harmful, Deborah asked me if I would remove them. It was my pleasure to not just cut them off but throw them into the fire.

I then asked Deborah if she would be willing to take that step of faith one step further. And she said she was ready. Santino further counseled the sister and the mother and all three ladies together prayed and asked Jesus to be their Savior. Hopefully they will come to our church on Sunday. Please join us in praying for that.

P.S. Lots of photo’s, news and prayer requests on our Instagram.

Gabriel’s Graduation

We are praising God for the opportunity He provided for Gabriel to go to medical school in Kenya. Against the odds, Gabriel was accepted at the Presbyterian University of East Africa three years ago and excelled in his class as an ‘A’ student, studying clinical medicine, surgery and community health.


Gabriel with fellow IDAT medical students.
Gabriel with fellow IDAT medical students.

Today, Sabet and I were able to celebrate this momentous occasion of having Gabriel graduate as a clinical officer (physician’s assistant). We are thrilled to have him return to Tonj as an intern for In Deed and Truth Ministries and serve the Lord under the guidance of Dr. Jono Macleod. Thank you for praying for him.

Gabriel Taking His Oath


 

Testimonies by Midwife Larné Wilson

Larné is currently serving as a midwife in our medical clinical. She shares a couple of testimonies from her week in the clinic:

An older woman came in to be seen saying she had been pregnant for a year and still hadn’t had her baby yet. I soon found myself
explaining to her about menopause and she seemed to accept this. Upon asking her spiritual history, she told us that she used to attend a church in the village but ever since moving to Tonj, she hadn’t been
going to a church. In fact, she had become more involved with the
witch doctors. She agreed to see the pastors and when I followed up
with her, she had re-dedicated her life to Christ and removed her
witch craft necklace that she’d been wearing and smashed it on the
ground! Rejoice!

Last Friday was an incredibly busy and long day in the clinic. At
the end of the day a woman came in early labour and I knew she
would be here late into the night. I thought about broaching the
subject of Jesus, but then decided to finish my day and do this in the
morning, as she will hopefully have had her baby and will be in a good space to be able to hear and make a decision. Early hours of the next morning I was called in a hurry as the woman was feeling ready to push. I made it into the room only just in time as the CHW (Community Health Worker) caught the baby. It was immediately evident the baby needed resuscitation…but also that something wasn’t right about the baby. He had some severe malformations. Although I worked really hard to resuscitate him, I knew from the start that he was actually incompatible with life. He wouldn’t have survived in any high-tech western hospital. Unfortunately the baby passed away. Of course, first thing as dawn broke, the woman’s family arrived to take her and the baby away and I realised my big mistake as she declined to meet with the pastor in her rush to leave. Not only was this my first time a baby had died within my care, but I had put off talking to her about Jesus the previous day because I had been keen to finish my work day…and now I had completely missed the opportunity. I felt terrible all day long.

Later that night though, this same woman returned due to pain (which, after assessment was a very normal pain after having had 6 babies). I was overjoyed that I would have a second opportunity at sharing the Good News with her and this time I was not going to let it pass! I promptly got Sabet to come and talk to her and we had the privelage and joy of watching this woman who had lost her baby only that morning, accept Jesus into her life as her Lord and Saviour. What a great way to end an emotional day! I now know that she will be given peace and comfort in this time of pain. I’m also unlikely to let an opportunity pass me by to share Jesus with someone, as a situation can change in a heart beat and the moment can pass far too easily.