Suzy in South Sudan!

Thank you for praying for my travels. I arrived back in Tonj and was able to travel with the medevac patients from Juba to Wau. They are all recovering well and thank God for the outpouring of prayers and support for their healing.

One of our goals as a ministry is to host teams and long-term missionaries which means improving our current living accommodations on the IDAT compound. In 2023 we received grant funds to increase our solar power. The team from Offgrid Tech arrived and installed it just days before we were hosting the 21-person Samaritan’s Purse cataract team.

Benjamin and Ernest are USA-based Ethnos 360 missionaries traveling around the world and serving mission organizations like IDAT, in remote locations. This two-man team worked long hours, in the hot sun, to install new solar and repair our generators, and service our vehicles. This is truly a gift!

Cataract Team!

One of the blessings of hosting teams is meeting other like-minded Christians willing to sacrifice their own agendas and lifestyle and use their God-given talents, their time and resources to serve others. They are Kingdom-focused, generous, selfless, prayerful, and living out their faith to make a difference in the world. My prayer back in 1999 was to build a platform in South Sudan for such servants of the Lord, so they could come and serve those less fortunate in the world without worrying about security, what they would eat, drink, where they would sleep, transport, etc. Jesus has answered that prayer and fulfilled that vision.

Psalm 37:4-5 “Take delight in the LORD, and He will give you your heart’s desires. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in Him, and He will act.”

It has been an honor and privilege to host the Cataract Surgery team from Samaritan’s Purse again this year. This one-week mission started week’s beforehand with the IDAT team announcing through the radio the upcoming opportunity to towns and villages as far as 100 miles away. Back in 2013, we sent Martin Marop, one of our Community Health Workers, to train with the Tenwek Hospital eye team so he could prescreen these cataract patients. Since then, Martin has completed nursing school and we are so proud of him. He traveled to three surrounding areas to prescreen over 500 prospective patients.

The Samaritan’s Purse ophthalmologist said Martin saved them so much time enabling them to operate on even more patients.

This year we had four ophthalmologists rotating and each surgery took about 5-10 minutes only to remove one cataract.

The best part is seeing patients rejoice and praise God for restoring their sight.

• Please prayerfully consider supporting this growing ministry.

Medevac Patients!

Thank you for praying for our medevac patients. Our CHE manager was involved in a horrific motorbike accident leaving three people requiring urgent surgery. With no adequate facilities in Juba to handle the type of injuries they had, we decided to send them to Tenwek Mission Hospital in Kenya.

I am so grateful for the body of Christ that works in unity to glorify God and be the hands and feet of Jesus in a crisis. It was wonderful to have so much support from other Christian ministries like Mission Aviation Fellowship for the flights, African Mission Healthcare for logistical support in Kenya, and Tenwek Mission Hospital for their missionaries, surgeons, and staff who took such good care of our patients. Last but not least, YOU, our partners reading this newsletter, stepped up and allowed God to use you by generously giving to this urgent need. All three patients are doing well and should make a full recovery with no long-lasting effects.

Beard Family!

We are excited to have the Beard Family from Australia return to Tonj for the third time! They will be in Tonj for 2 months to help with the upcoming cataract team from Samaritan’s Purse and to organize three youth conferences with CC Tonj Church.

We now serve in four regions including Tonj and we are planning youth conferences in three of these regions, with an estimated attendance of 500 to 1,000 youth per conference. If you feel led to help support this event, please email us. We are hoping to raise $5,000. This is an investment in the next generation of adults in South Sudan. Please pray for a good turnout, for a touch from the Holy Spirit for each youth attending, and for long-lasting impact and transformed lives. This year’s conference theme is “Your Identity in Christ”.

The Beard Family is planning to move their family to South Sudan in April 2024 and serve full-time with IDAT. Ben is a nurse and will serve alongside the IDAT Hospital management team to improve services and design systems to make our hospital more efficient and cost-effective. This is an important role for the continued growth of our Maternal and Pediatric Unit. He will also work with the pastors, teaching and leading as needed. Sarah is gifted administratively, serving in her church back in Australia. She will take on many of my field tasks, like hosting teams, procurement, and field finances, as well as coming alongside our national team and working with the women and youth of CC Tonj. Together they will continue to homeschool their three children, Jonah (10) Seth (8), and Ryelle (5).

Prayer and Praise!

We have a team of four coming to help us with the three youth conferences. They will also go on three medical outreaches, visit a village church, and CHE villages, and attend a multi-church baptism. They will be in Tonj for 10 days. Please pray for them as they prepare to serve, and pray for their health and safety while in South Sudan.

We have been blessed with funds to improve our compound living quarters for missionaries who want to serve. This has enabled us to build and increase our current facilities and host large teams such as the 21-person team from Samaritan’s Purse to perform cataract surgeries. One of the things we need for these large teams is adequate power. The solar team from Offgrid Tech is coming to install new solar, service our hospital solar, repair our hospital generator, teach off-road driving to some inexperienced drivers, install solar water heaters and a water pump, and various other projects that need attention. We hope they can visit the new school and design a solar system for the bible school and church.

Pray the school will be completed before December and pray for the Samaritan’s Purse cataract team.

“May He give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed.” Psalm 20:4

Food Shortage!

I am so grateful that for the past four years, In Deed and Truth Ministries has been able to step in and bless the Tonj community with food whenever there is a shortage. Food insecurity in South Sudan affects more than half the 12 million population. Can you imagine in America or Europe, 1 in 10 people being severely malnourished and being a child under 10? This is a reality in South Sudan and something our ministry sees every day.

Jesus wept over Jerusalem. I have spent many nights weeping over Tonj, and over South Sudan. Oh LORD, the poverty, hunger, sickness, oppression, insecurity, and suffering? In Deed and Truth as a Christian ministry has a responsibility to bring Light and Hope to such darkness and desperation. A little compassion and love go a long way toward transforming hearts to follow Jesus.

Watching people suffer spiritual poverty is the hardest of all. LORD, fill our cups to overflowing with compassion, give us the boldness to share the ONLY solution to this World crisis, which is faith in Jesus Christ.

Tonj Bible Institute!

The Bible school is progressing nicely and I wanted to share a few photo’s of the six week period from mid-July when we started building to the end of August. Our prayer is the school will be completed by the end of October. We will have our fourth 11-day Pastoral Ministry Diploma intensive class at the end of November, so we are hoping to have it all set up and ready before then.

Testimony from CC Tonj!

Calvary Chapel Tonj Senior Pastor, Mabior Bona Bol, received a phone call from one of his congregation, Agoth Anyuon. He told Mabior that a noise of stones was being thrown on his metal roof at night, every night for 2 weeks. They would go outside but no one was outside, but the noise continued. All the neighbors could see this problem and how much it was disturbing everyone, no one could explain it and they were afraid so they decided to call the church to come and pray.

Ps. Mabior came with several church members every day for one week and prayed over the house and with the neighbors. He himself witnessed the stone-throwing while he was there. But on the fourth day, as Mabior was sharing the gospel, there was a spiritual breakthrough and 44 people repented and gave their lives to Jesus. They continued to visit every day but after that breakthrough, the noise completely stopped! This is a great reminder that this world is not our home. Don’t get too comfortable! We have an enemy roaming like a roaring lion seeking who he may devour.

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12

Team Building!

What does it take to lead a ministry? As In Deed and Truth Ministries (IDAT) has grown ten-fold in the last few years, it has become evident we need spiritually grounded indigenous Christian leaders to carry this ministry into the future. It is our responsibility as missionaries, to prepare others for ministry, to lead through service, and to mold and shape our experiences to develop responsible and dedicated disciples. Developing leaders is so rewarding and training them to do what we do, better than we do it, is our goal for the survival and health of the ongoing mission. Working hard now to make ourselves dispensable in the future is our highest priority. Developing faith in promising young adults who can, in time, lead this mission.

2 Timothy 2:2 says, “and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.”

Our core leadership team, pastors and senior medical team took a few days to reflect on the mission and vision of IDAT and to build each other up in the Lord.

The Vision!

The mission of In Deed and Truth Ministries came from John’s exhortation in 1 John 3:16-18 to lay down our lives and love others – following Christ’s example by helping the poorest of the poor in South Sudan and bringing the hope of the Gospel through good Deeds and God’s Truth.

The vision of In Deed and Truth Ministries is to empower nationals to relieve poverty and bring hope, one household at a time.

In practice, our medical team are now leading two medical outreaches a week to CHE villages that can not easily access our hospital. They see over 150 patients at every outreach. If missionaries are available they will also attend but these outreaches happen regardless and pastors will set up a counseling and prayer station at every outreach.

Our prayer and vision is to one day have a small PHCU (Primary Health Care Unit) in every CHE village (we are currently in 59 villages) medically staffed to treat the 10 most common ailments, referring more complicated cases to our hospital. We estimate the cost to build one of these units about $10,000 and the cost to equip it with staff and medicine another $10,000 per year. Imagine a Church plant and PHCU in every village lead by our national pastors and medical teams! That is the vision of In Deed and Truth. Our Christ-centered, community development program called CHE, is already paving the way to make this a reality. If you feel the Lord is stirring you to be a part of this vision, maybe to leave a legacy in one of these villages and build a PHCU in your family’s name or in memory of a loved one, then contact me about partnering with IDAT.

Investment in Training!

IDAT has prioritized investing in educating our future leaders and equipping them for the ministry. We currently have 1 medical doctor, 2 clinical officers, 2 midwives, 1 nurse, 1 HR manager, 1 ultrasound technician, 1 x-ray technician and 1 lab technician in school. In addition to this we have 20 of our 45 IDAT pastors taking a diploma class in Pastoral Ministry! This month they completed their third of five sessions towards that diploma.

In addition to our 20 pastors being trained by Intensive Care Ministries, our own Senior Pastor Mabior Bona Bol invests his time for 3 days every month training all 45 pastors.

If you are looking for a way to get involved and to partner with IDAT and make a difference, then prayerfully consider sponsoring one of these pastors.

https://pastors.indeedandtruth.org/

Church Planting Ministry!

In Deed and Truth Ministries is a church planting ministry that planted our first ‘mother’ church over 20 years ago. The most effective way to reach people with the Gospel is through church planting. Today, Calvary Chapel Tonj is a vibrant church of 1,200 people with 34 ‘baby’ churches planted in our CHE villages around Tonj South and Tonj East. These churches have brought reconciliation and peace and transformed entire communities. As our CHE program has expanded rapidly (it’s now in 59 villages), and CHE’s are sharing health and spiritual lessons door to door, we found there were new believers putting their trust in Jesus but with no church in their villages, they were wandering like sheep without a shepherd. Through CHE we formed bible listening groups for these new believers and then sent our pastors to help them establish a church. This method worked until we started to have so many church plants we didn’t have enough trained pastors to cover them. We have been praying the Lord would bring more laborers for His harvest and He has answered that prayer and raised up men from within these communities. These men are called by God, they love Jesus and want to represent Him with the message of hope and salvation. Today we have 35 church plants and 45 pastors!

As we appointed these men of faith to oversee our new churches, we knew their greatest need was for pastoral ministry training. We are blessed to have our Senior Pastor Mabior Bona Bol, a gifted and powerful preacher at CC Tonj, gather these men every month for accountability, fellowship and pastoral training.

The real need is for deeper bible study and understanding. This need is what compelled us to pray and ask God to give us a bible school. Since May 2022 we have partnered with Intensive Care Ministries in training 20 of these pastors at a deeper level, working towards a diploma in Pastoral Ministry. This is a program we want for all our pastors to go through. They also have a certificate class for any person feeling called to serve in ministry. As you can see from the photo, space to teach and train has been a challenge. Our desire is to be equipped to run these classes in the future for years to come. At the end of last year, we launched the plan to build Tonj Bible Institute and through your generous donations we have started to construct our school.

This building project will take approximately three months. Every brick has to be made, so we started making bricks by faith in April!

We already had land to build on where our church is, so in June we broke ground and started digging the foundations.

God has given us this amazing opportunity to work with Him and partner with Him in this ministry. He has given us the foundation of Jesus Christ to build this ministry on and He is the master builder, creating beauty out of dust.

“For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building. According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 3:9-11

We’ll keep you updated on the progress over the next few months. The official opening ceremony will be in early December. If anyone would like to attend, please contact us for details.

• Prayer point – As God’s fellow workers would you prayerfully consider helping us support these 45 pastors? We have set up a website and each pastor is available for sponsorship. For as little as $25 a month you can partner with these men of God and their calling.  https://pastors.indeedandtruth.org/