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.

April 2016 Newsletter

The Macleods Return!

Steve and Larne Wilson arrived along with the Macleod family and Jono’s youngest brother Anthony. All are from New Zealand and we are excited for the vision the Lord has given us for this next year of serving together in South Sudan.

Photograph
Larne, Steve, Anthony, Macleod Family

Churches Adopt CHE!

CHE (Community Health Evangelism) is a big topic on our agenda and the Macleods really want to be involved in helping that program to keep going in the villages. We have 10 CHE centers around the Tonj area and we are praying for 10 supporting churches to each ‘adopt’ a center and commit to pray for our CHE program in that village. As we link our partnering churches with these villages our hope is that they can visit, get involved, train CHE’s and make key relationships on the ground building on those relationships year after year. Our team will spend the next few months collecting data from the clinic patients about the challenges and needs the community are facing in their homes as well as recording which villages do not have churches etc. This will help us determine the direction our CHE program should go and the areas we should reach out to first. From there we plan to start with three villages that we believe the Lord will clearly show us. We are planning a Training of Trainers (TOT1) 5 day workshop for our entire South Sudan team and if you’d be interested in learning more about CHE, attending a TOT1 training and receiving your TOT1 certificate we welcome you to join us. You can contact us for info.

God is Working Here!

Meet Yar Achol and her son Chol. Our pastors met her in the clinic when she came out of total desperation.

Photograph
Yar Achol and Chol

She had visited over 10 witch-doctors to get healing for her son, of which none worked and she run out of things to sell, so the Lord brought her to our clinic. Our doctors suspect the child has hydrocephalus. Surgery is not available in South Sudan and without it he may die. We shared with Achol about Jesus and she believes He brought her to us. After much counsel she decided to ask Jesus to be her Savior. Since praying the child has not had any seizures which were a regular occurrence. She said she now has peace and is not afraid of what will happen to Chol.

“Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.” – Psalm 46:10

Mama Sabet

What can I say about Mama Sabet? She’s an amazing lady that brought an amazing man, my husband Sabet, into this world. She lived a hard life, gave birth to nine children, including one set of triplets, she buried four children, raised 14 grandchildren and was mother to our Agum for the first 5 years of her life. Her most important decision was asking Jesus to be her Savior and it’s because of that, we are confident we will spend eternity in heaven with her.

Hububba
Hububba

Due to the separation of North and South Sudan during the civil war, I only got to meet Mama Sabet in 2008 for the first time. Sabet and I had already been married for 8 years. She always told Sabet, if you marry make sure she’s a Dinka, and if she’s not a Dinka, make sure she’s South Sudanese and if not South Sudanese then African. So when he told her he was marrying me she was not so happy! But when we finally met face to face, we quickly bonded and her greatest gift to us was agreeing to let Agum join our family. It truly was a special time to spend the last few weeks of her life with her. During our last prayer night she heard Hannah praying for her and sat up and started praying! Sabet flew with us to Nairobi and the day before we left to return to USA , Hububba died. I’m so glad Hannah and I were able to be there for Sabet when he got the news. We did not want to share it until I had the chance to tell Agum and Jed.

Sabet has now returned to Tonj and will help arrange the memorial service. He will stay probably another 2 weeks and then travel to Florida.

Please pray for Sabet, Dominic (older brother in Australia), Angelina, Awomb and Maker (triplets in Tonj), Simon (Sabet’s uncle) Andria (Sabet’s dad), our children and Hububba’s 14 other grandchildren that lived with her: Sabet (14), Ater (13), Nichol (12), Aman (10), Gai (10), Deng (9), Abu (8), Katrina (8), Sarah (7), Anek (6), Nyakweng (4), Friday (4), Suzanne (2),  and Amoo (6mths). We will all miss her terribly.

Mawien

Prayer request and update for 4 day old Mawien who came in to our clinic 4 days ago with neonatal sepsis & unable to breast feed.
Thank you so much for your prayers for baby Mawien. He did show significant improvement after sending our the prayer request, but unfortunately the next day his parents discharged him and decided to take him to the witch doctor and we haven’t seen them since. This was very sad for our whole team, but makes us all the more determined to continue shining God’s light into the darkness here in Tonj. Please keep praying for this family that they would take to heart the good news of Christ we shared with them while they were here.

Maloney

It was truly humbling and really touched my heart to have five friends  from the Maloney community walk to Tonj just to greet me and Hannah. They heard we had come from USA and wanted to welcome us. They came bearing gifts of chickens!!

Maloney

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