Clinic Opening!

Thank you for all your prayers for the Grand Opening of our new medical clinic, “Noah’s Place”. We celebrated with a dedication service attended by board members, officials and over 1,000 people from the local community. The most amazing part was having everyone lay hands on the building during the dedication prayer. It truly was a joy filled day, with testimonies of how the Lord has used this clinic to save and change lives. We can’t thank you enough for praying for this clinic over the years. After 10 years of seeing patients in small makeshift cubicles it was amazing to move into a new, clean and modern space that brings order and peace to a potentially chaotic day!

We are today fully staffed by South Sudanese nationals, 2 doctors, 5 clinical officers, 2 midwives, 1 nurse, 20 Community Health Workers and three pastors. They are led by missionary doctors, Jono and Destinee Macloed, who serve as medical directors and advisors. We are thankful that our capacity to see the most vulnerable in South Sudan, namely pregnant mothers and children under five, will increase now that we are better equipped. If you are medically trained and would like to volunteer in 2018, please email Rosa on info@indeedandtruth.org.

Visitors!

We were so blessed to have board members and friends come to the clinic opening. It was a wonderful time of fellowship, encouragement and getting lots of treats!! We were able to squeeze in an outreach to Warrak, one of our CHE villages we serve in. The church we planted there came out to greet us on the road about a mile from the village, singing and praising God. Pastor Ruben’s church started a community garden and they sold the groundnuts they grew to buy a bull for the clinic opening. Such a huge sacrifice to honor what the Lord has done through IDAT. It is very humbling when people have nothing and give you the very little they have. They were so happy to have visitors from USA.

“Each one should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not out of regret or compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver.” – 2 Corinthians 9:7

Soccer Tournament!

In celebration of the clinic opening Sabet arranged for a community soccer, basketball and volleyball tournament with the finals being played the day after the opening. Many of you donated soccer shirts, balls and shoes that arrived on a container last year. The IDAT logo was printed on every shirt. Ten teams competed over a one month period, playing for the IDAT Cup at the final. The entire town came alive, every game was packed, especially for the final which was attended by the Governor of Tonj State.

Prayer and Praise!

Praise God, we have raised funds to build the new ward. Please pray the Lord raises up a project manager to oversee construction and that we can start building during this dry season.

CHE Update!

This month our passionate and committed CHE team have traveled distances of up to 80km by bicycle and motorbike, passing through knee deep swamps, lion infested forests, and through 3m tall grass filled with sharp seed ‘spears’ that penetrate the skin; they have been drenched to the bone in thunderstorms, been bitten by countless mosquitos, and have fallen off their bicycles many times on the muddy paths. But these guys have not stopped smiling and praising God as they further his kingdom here in Tonj!

This month the CHE team have continued teaching their spiritual and health lessons out the villages, and have also helped run medical outreach clinics which are held under trees or in bush churches. Two days ago members of the CHE team saw 232 patients with Dr. Jono in the village of Bobi, and the community were so excited they didn’t stop dancing for the whole seven hours the team were there! During lunch CHE members from Bobi explained how they have been sharing the CHE teaching with a neighboring village, and as a result 39 people from that village accepted Christ and want to be baptized. They are planning on starting a new church to help care for these new Christians. Please continue to cover the CHE team, villages and program in prayer. Pray for transformation of entire communities.

Investing in Lives!

All of our Community Health Workers (CHWs) are young men and women who have finished high school and need work. They come to us without any medical experience and we train them from scratch. We’ve sent several of our CHWs for medical training in Kenya and also in South Sudan. Gabriel competed three years of Clinical medicine, is our first graduate and is now working full-time in our clinic as a Clinical Officer.

With the high number of patients during the week it has been hard to get quality time to train ‘on the job’ so our volunteer, Amy Neilsson, agreed to help us with this need. We asked our CHWs to attend a training workshop covering the key topics and skills that are relevant and crucial to their work in the clinic. It acted as a refresher course as well as introducing some new knowledge. The response was so encouraging and they willingly gave up their day off on Saturday to participate. It was great seeing everyone so interested and keen to learn and asking lots of questions. Not just educational but also heaps of fun, with a few games and ending on a feast of goat!! Since then they have been asking if we can make it a monthly event!

“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” – 2 Peter 1:3

Farming God’s Way!

In our CHE program in the past we have taught ‘Farming God’s Way’ (FGW). This month Sabet was privileged to attend a workshop in Kenya and took a young man from Tonj, called Mattiang, with him to learn.

FGW is about understanding biblical views that change our world view, so when we do farming we are doing more than growing food, we are conserving God’s nature, we are being good stewards and effective with limited resources, we are practicing generous giving, we are able to come out of poverty, we are Farming God’s Way! We learnt there is honor and dignity in farming. Pray for Sabet and Mattiang as they bring what they learnt to others and begin training those in the CHE villages. It will not be easy as change never is and we will be breaking old cultural farming habits and lies that have produced poor yields and replacing them with new and proven methods, producing an abundance and filled with truth and God’s favor! Our prayer is through this amazing program we can help people to help themselves and alleviate poverty one village at a time!!

CHE Update!

Over the past month the CHE program has continued to progress well in the villages of Guaria, Warrack and Bobi. Health lessons on antenatal care, care of a newborn baby, & intestinal worms, and bible stories from the book of Genesis have been taught by our training team to the 12-15 CHEs (Community Health Evangelists) in each village.

These CHEs have been visiting 5-10 neighboring homes per fortnight to pass on the health and spiritual lessons.

Homes or ‘compounds’ in South Sudanese villages typically have between 5-15 people, so the CHE teaching is now reaching over 500 people in each village! During the dry season when the harvesting has finished they will be visiting even more homes. These CHEs are all volunteers who are passionate about improving the health of their community, and spreading the gospel.

“The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.” 
– Proverbs 21:5

Making A Difference!

Newlyweds Amy and Travis, from New Zealand, are volunteering on short-term missions for five months. Travis, a contractor, has been working tirelessly to help us finish the medical clinic in time for the Grand Opening on October 28th. This week our family got to jump in and help out. We normally spend a day doing an outreach to a specific community but due to heavy rains, this has been increasingly difficult to get into villages. So we agreed to shift our focus to helping finish the New Medical Clinic. For this week’s service project, we were blessed to have fellow missionary kids from Every Village join us for painting the new clinic’s office building!

While Travis has been working around the clock on the clinic, his wife has been overseeing the observation ward and managing the care of inpatients. With August being our busiest month due to malaria, she definitely had her work cut out with every bed full and 3 sets of twins! She diligently helped the mothers with nursing and supplement feeds to insure each baby was 2 kg before going home. She has led some community health worker training in basic nursing skills and monitored the care to each patient.

This has really freed the doctors and allowed us to see more patients. And she has organized our stock control, saving us hours of reporting and paperwork!

The New Ward!

Our new clinic is an out-patient facility but we are very aware of the growing need to accommodate more inpatients. We have the land to build a large ward next to the new clinic. Here’s where YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE and jump in to help. We have an opportunity for you to contribute a financial gift towards us building this much-needed ward and every gift will be generously matched by “Kiwis for South Sudan” up to $25,000!! That’s right, your donation doubled!!! We’ll have enough to finish the ward quickly and furnish it!! We’re also in need of a project manager to oversee the team building this ward. If you feel gifted in this area we are looking for a 3-month commitment, please email us.

Prayer Requests!

• Clinic to be ready for the opening on October 28th.
• CHE’s in the villages.
• Provision for new ward.
• Continued protection over our families and ministry.

CHE Committee!

Our three villages practicing Community Health Evangelism each selected a committee to oversee the CHE’s volunteering in their village. This past month we celebrated the completion of the committee training. God has really shown us favor in selecting the committee members. We are blessed to have such an amazing group of people dedicated to transforming the lives of those around them. They are not paid and serve completely as volunteers. In Guaria, the entire village of more than 500 people turned out to celebrate and honor their committee. This is really encouraging and gives us great hope for a successful CHE program.

The next step is to have each committee select Community Health Evangelists from within their village. Then training of the CHE’s will begin. Hopefully by the end of this year we will have three churches partnering in prayer for each one of these villages. Praying specifically for the Chief, committee, CHE’s, believers, non-believers, IDAT CHE team and the challenges within each community.

Ministry of Health!

God has been hearing our cry and has answered our prayers. Over the past few years we have experienced several challenges when dealing with health officials both from Tonj State and at the national level. This year Sabet and Dr. Jono attempted to reconcile some of those issues but were shut down. Our clinic is privately run and funded so our dependence on the government is minimal. However, we do have to report to them and we also depend on them to renew our yearly license and to give exemption to our medicine being brought in from Kenya. This year we did not get exemption even though our clinic was the only one supplying medicine when the government clinics ran out. Earlier this month though we received a visit from the National Minister, the Hon. Dr. Riek Gai Kok.

He was visiting all health facilities in our area and absolutely LOVED In Deed and Truth and the work we are doing. So MUCH with so LITTLE! He was very impressed and even made a special mention of us on national TV, repeatedly singling us out for praise and encouragement. God has truly done above and beyond what we could have asked or thought possible! Praise Him!!

“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” – Mark 16:15

Get Involved!

God is transforming lives in South Sudan. If you feel God is calling you to get involved, we have short-term mission trips throughout the coming year. Whether you represent a church or have a personal interest, we encourage you to visit our website or email us for more information.

As our ministry grows we are looking to expand our team with long term missionaries. Here are just a few of the areas we are needing help:

• Auto Mechanic
• Construction
• Youth and Children’s Ministry
• Medical Professionals
• ESL teacher
• Sports/Recreation Outreach
• Community Transformation
• Church Development

There’s no better place to be than in the center of His will!