“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” – Numbers 6:24–26

Christmas greetings from all our team both in USA and South Sudan! We want to say a huge thank you for not only touching our lives with your continued love and support of our family but also the love you have poured out on those we serve in South Sudan. Thank you for praying for us and for encouraging us with your notes, calls and emails. We are blessed to have you part of our support team.

This year has been a challenging one for our family as we have been working stateside while securing Agum’s US citizenship and Sabet has spent more than 6 months apart from us, mostly due to caring for his mother’s health needs. Many of you have provided words of encouragement and hope and helped us to keep our focus on the Lord and His plans during this time. It’s because of these prayers our family and ministry are both doing so well. The Lord has raised up remarkable Godly men from within to serve in areas we are not able to and we are now witnessing and enjoying the fruit of years of prayers and labor. Several of you have labored with us, over the years, for these souls that are now serving the Lord in South Sudan. Your touch on our lives has been extended to touch and change these lives for eternity. It has been our greatest privilege to be used in this way.

2015 seemed to go by so quickly and yet here we are making preparations to celebrate the wonder and splendor of our Savior’s birth. It’s my favorite time of year so I don’t mind entering this season again when the last celebration feels like yesterday!! As soon as Christmas passes we are heading to California to attend the Calvary Chapel Missions Conference in Murrieta starting on January 4th. We are so excited to have this opportunity as a family to see our friends and church family in California! The Lord knows if Sabet will be able to join us and that is our prayer and our hope.

Every day in South Sudan is hard; it’s hot, there are scorpions and snakes, deadly diseases, poor quality of all basic, essential needs, like; medical, water, food, education, jobs, transport, housing, electricity, communication and security. These are things we take for granted every single day and yet considered a privileged lifestyle by South Sudanese living in extreme poverty. This year you chose to join hands with us and with our brothers and sisters of South Sudan. Your contribution both prayerfully and financially directly impacted their lives and allowed us to continue in the calling the Lord has placed on us. We are humbled and blessed by your generosity and love.

2016 for South Sudan looks bleak with continued conflict devastating the country’s progress and threatening the world’s worst food crisis to date. It is going to be a tough year ahead but our family and our team are ready for the battle. We are committed to the calling and to the ministry’s success and impact on the ground. We are looking forward to returning as a family to Tonj. We are excited to begin Community Health Evangelism across the villages and to move into our new clinic building. We can’t wait to have our first ‘home-grown’ South Sudanese missionary (not including Sabet) graduate from medical school and serve in the clinic. Our pastors have done a fabulous job ministering to patients and pastoring our church plants. We have much to reflect on and much to look forward to. We hope you will join hands with us for another year of service to the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings.

We wish you and your family joy and peace this Christmas!

Our vision here at In Deed and Truth Ministries is to transform ordinary South Sudanese communities into fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. Our ministry provides a platform for those who feel called to help us reach that vision, not part-time but fully invested in this Kingdom work, to go all the way with us. As Jesus commanded:

Matthew 28:19 – “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

As fully involved believers that are committed to Jesus and earnestly live for Him your “GO” may be committing to pray, volunteer or financially partner with our ministry so we can “MAKE DISCIPLES” in South Sudan together. And as most of us find as believers, this is often hard to actually put into practice. We get frustrated or overwhelmed by the size of the task and often live with a sense of defeat, “Will my effort make the slightest difference?” The answer is YES!! Allow the power of Jesus to use you and include you in His greater plan to impact and transform lives thousands of miles away. He calls us, He equips us and He goes with us. He has sent us His Helper, the Holy Spirit, to direct our lives and empower us.

Philippians 4:13 – “I can do all this through Him who gives me strength.”

Please pray for our ministry, we currently have 46% of our monthly needs met by fully invested financial partners. If the Spirit of God is leading you to financially partner with us in making disciples and to get involved, now is the time. As the Spirit has filled us and directed us to make known this need, please pray if this is an area the Lord is directing you to be involved in.

Testimonies from the Clinic!

One of the ways God is using us to reach His precious people in South Sudan is through our medical assistance. Most people living in South Sudan live in extreme poverty as it is still one of the poorest countries in the world. After gaining independence after years of civil war with the North, basic needs are still not met. We serve a community that extends to regions further than our immediate town and reach over 100,000 people. Our goal is to exit our ministry one day and leave it self-sustainable in the hands of God fearing South Sudanese people. We have started this process by first ‘making disciples’ and then giving those faithful ones an opportunity to be used by the Lord to serve their own community, five of which today are in medical school and 13 are pastors, have planted 7 churches and minister all over North, East and South Tonj county.

Meet Bor, he is 6 months old and arrived in our clinic with a massive neck abscess. His parents brought him with the complaint of neck swelling for the last five days. He was having trouble breastfeeding, suffered high fever, kept vomiting and was crying all the time. His parents walked a day and a half to bring him to our clinic from the remote village where they lived. After incision and drainage of more than ½ pint of pus we were able to admit him and monitor his recovery. After prayer, antibiotics, cleaning and dressing, Bor made a full recovery.

It still excites us to see what the Lord is doing in Tonj every day. We’re so grateful to God for making us to be a part of it and to partner us with those who want to make a difference in this world. What a blessing to witness the work of the pastor’s at the clinic sharing the gospel and praying patients like Bor and his parents. The pastors have a table well situated and once patients get their prescription and medicine, they join the pastors on their table for prayer.

Here the pastors are able to have a one on one chat with the patient, getting to know of their spiritual well-being and whether they attend any church. The greatest joy is that these patients aren’t forced to go for prayer, they go there willingly. They are able to share their prayer requests, whether it be personal prayer, prayer for their husbands or wives, prayer for the peace of the region. They leave the clinic knowing clearly that it is the Lord who heals and provides the medicines, and life won’t be well unless we care for the ‘whole’ being which includes our spiritual health and the truth about our eternal salvation. It is not about loving in word or in tongue but in DEED and in TRUTH!

• Prayer for our family as we continue to endure months apart. Suzy’s trip update is on the blog.