Kuj Family

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Postcard

Jesus Christ was our greatest gift ever and yet He was born in a humble stable with no frills or extravagance and for one purpose, to save us from our sins. We love Christmas in South Sudan because it also has no frills and is not lost in gift exchange, shopping and overindulgence. John 3:16 tells us clearly, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” As missionaries in South Sudan we are constantly surrounded by extreme poverty and overwhelming needs. The saddest part of what we do is witnessing people’s suffering without a hope of it ever being different. Psalm 24 says, “The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.” In Deed and Truth Ministries has always valued people as individuals that Christ died for. He is our only hope and He is their only hope, today and for eternity. God is about people not about programs and He gave us all an amazing Christmas gift, His Son Jesus Christ. So we pray we would follow His example and give Him all that we are and all that we have as a family to be used as He wills in 2015.

We are so grateful to each person that has prayed for us and supported our calling to minister to one of the world’s poorest communities. Thank you for demonstrating His love and compassion to those in need. We are surely blessed in this world by having you in our life.

On behalf of the entire In Deed and Truth Ministries team we pray God’s blessing upon you this Christmas and throughout 2015.

Newsletters

November 2014 Newsletter

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Prayer Walk!

God is so good! We had a fabulous time of fellowship and praying for our ministry. From coast to coast and half way around the world people gathered for a specific time of prayer.

Group photo
Del Mar Surf Station Prayer Walk

“That you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” – Col. 1:10

We acknowledged this ministry belongs to God and we trust in Him to supply all of the needs for this upcoming year. Collectively, we prayed His Kingdom would dominate in Tonj, South Sudan. We asked for an effective and powerful ministry among the Dinka people. Specifically we lifted up our discipleship training of indigenous pastors and the new class we want to start in 2015. This was a positive start for funding toward the Bible school starting next year.

A big thank you goes out to all who walked and prayed in Tonj, Panama City Beach, FL and Del Mar, CA.

Cataract Team is Back!

Cataract Patient

We are excited to host another cataract surgery for the fourth year in a row. The eye medical team, from World Gospel Mission and Tenwek Mission Hospital in Kenya will spend a week with us serving the community of Tonj and surrounding villages. These fast paced operations result in restoring sight to more than 40 patients a day. Over 600 people have received sight in the past 3 years. Our favorite part is when the bandages come off the next day and the patient can see! There are no words to describe witnessing a person once blind but now with sight, amazing! Our team has been gathering and screening potential patients for the past few months. Hopefully this will allow the eye team to get straight into surgery from day 1. We estimate this week of surgeries will cost over $15,000 but for 200 patients to regain sight that is only $75 per person! If you feel called to partner with us in transforming a life spiritually and physically please donate online under cataract surgery to designate your donation.

Our pastors will be on hand to pray with every patient and share the gospel. May His grace abound to many.

Cataract Testimony

Angok Aken is 67 year olds and just celebrated his one year since he was blind and is now able to see. Before his cataract procedure last year one of our pastors shared the story of our Lord Jesus being out on a boat with His disciples. A raging storm and wind rose up and when they were about to drown, Jesus stood and rebuked the wind and the waves. The storm ceased and the waters were calm. “Where is your faith?” Jesus asked. The disciples marveled that even the wind and waves obeyed Him. When Angok heard this story he jumped up and said, “That is a real God who can talk to wind and waves.” That day he asked Jesus to be his Lord and Savior. Then he received his surgery and his eyes were open, both physically and spiritually. After one year he has stopped drinking alcohol and smoking. His reason: he doesn’t want to dirty his body anymore because Jesus now lives in him. It has been a year but he said he will never forget the day Jesus came into his life and changed it forever.

Sabet in South Sudan!

On this recent trip God answered a prayer from after 13 years. In the beginning of our ministry Suzy and I faced a lot of opposition, resistance to the gospel and even our lives being threatened. In 2001, two men planned to ambush us on the road but the Lord redirected us that day and the army arrested those men. We began praying for them. During this trip I went with a group from our church in Tonj to a prayer meeting. I was rejoicing it was in the house of one of these men and his wife. They personally asked me to pray for them and their transformation. They said women from our church had been visiting them and praying for them. I was amazed and humbled at how God is working as this man and his wife bowed and prayed, acknowledging Jesus Christ as Lord of their life. Yes, the gospel is going out like never before in Tonj and we praise Him for His work in South Sudan.

Prayer Requests!

  • Pray for provision of the 2015 Discipleship Training for Pastors class.
  • Pray for every patient coming to the cataract clinic that this would be both spiritually and physically life changing.
  • Pray for our CHE (Community Health Evangelism) training this month.
  • Pray for the flood victims.
  • Continue to pray for Agum’s immigration application.
Newsletters

October 2014 Newsletter

Back in Tonj!

Today was a very special day, I was able to return to Tonj after being gone for almost 9 months. The welcome I received from the church showed great love for me as their pastor and the bond we share together in Christ. They celebrated the new arrival of the Macleod family and warmly welcomed the return of Dr. Tom.

The children from Sunday School sang special songs; it was so awesome! They can really teach us adults in the church how to worship God biblically with spirit and joy. It is custom in the church here to welcome visitors with songs and prayers.

I was blessed to hear the reports from our church elders about the activities within the congregation. Christina and Victoria, two of our church women, who along with the rest of the ladies from our church have been serving through evangelizing the community with home visitations. They have been praying and fasting for transformed homes as well as holding prayer meetings every Saturday. These have been deep, spirit filled meetings, fasting and praying for homes to be transformed, focusing on different homes every week. The prayers during the corporate prayers during Sunday service were spirit filled and deep, it was awesome to see God in the middle of our meeting, Sunday was a long service but for sure was a spirit led and filled.

Shukran Dr. Jan!

Dr. Jan

Dr. Jan Zijp from the Netherlands used his summer vacation time to cover while Dr. Tom took his 3 month home visit to the USA. Jan is known as the Tonj river swimming doctor! Living and working conditions are much harder in South Sudan than what he is used to in the Netherlands but he stayed strong spiritually, sharing Jesus’ love with his patients. So many were touched by his love for the community, the way he identified with the local people, taking tea with them, visiting their homes and praying with them. He not only impacted the clinic on his trip but left a part of him with the church and town as well.

Medical students!

Marco

In Deed and Truth is committed to raising up Godly leaders through discipleship, mentoring and education. Our desire is to pass the baton one day and see our ministry run by South Sudanese who love Jesus. It is our greatest joy to witness this transformation first hand and to pour blessings of opportunity on those sincere in their faith and commitment to serve the Lord. In 2013, after 4 years serving in our medical clinic and being discipled in our church, we enrolled Gabriel Gojo in medical school in Kenya.  He is now in his second year of three years for clinical officer training and impressed us all getting As in his exams.

This has been such an inspiration to our other community health workers and this fall we were able to send four more.

One answer to prayer was for Marco Maluth, the Lord’s answering to prayers after one of the original candidates dropped out. We had sent his application for next year and were totally surprised when they offered him a placement for this year. The timing of my flight enabled him to be flown immediately back to Kenya.

Now we need to pray as all these students must pass exams to stay in school. Pray for these young men who represent the next generation of our ministry leadership.

Testimony and Baptism!

Baptism

Akol is a young man we have helped for a few years with his diabetic needs. We purchase and store insulin for him. His younger brother Chan sometimes visits with Akol and has met with one of our clinic chaplains, Pastor Santino. One day while they were chatting Pastor Santino felt led to share the gospel with him. The power of the Holy Spirit came upon them and Chan repented and prayed to receive Jesus Christ as his personal Savior. Before Chan had believed in witchcraft powers, trusted in charms and had bought from the wirtchdoctor. When he got home he shared with a friend what Santino told him about Jesus and that he no longer trusts in the charms but in the Son of God.  His friend also believed and together the boys burned their charms. This story really encouraged me on my return to the field, hearing how the Lord is using the pastors and continuing the work He began in me.

I had the great joy and privilege of baptizing Chan in the Tonj River together with Pastor Santino. Jono and his daughter came to watch and this drew a crowd, so we shared the gospel again and Chan’s decision to follow Jesus.

“Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” – Acts 3:19

Prayer Requests!

  • Pray Jono and Destinee will get settled in
  • Pray for the upcoming cataract surgery outreach
  • Pray for the Prayer Walk on November 1st
  • Pray Agum’s immigration application would be approved
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Journey to Africa! by Jono Macleod

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Dear family and friends,

Thanks for your prayers for our journey to Africa – boy did we need them! It was over 30 sleepless hours from when we left our accommodation in Brisbane, to when we arrived at the mission house in Nairobi.

Bryan you certainly have a God given gift for building relationships with people in positions of influence, and it was great to see you in action at Brisbane airport. For those of you who don’t know we had a bunch of top notch medical equipment donated last week for IDAT including an oxygen concentrator, portable ultrasound (good for outreaches), fetal doppler, ECG machine, and 4 monitoring devices. Toshiba also gave us a top of the range $60,000 ultrasound machine which is 2 years old for only $5,000 (which Mahu Pressy and a Tauranga church paid for) – this will be awesome for obstetric care in Tonj. However our airline wanted to charge us $51/kg for this medical equipment – $2500!!! Our multiple calls to the airline for an exemption on charitable grounds were totally rejected. But then Bryan got onto the case, and many phone calls and emails later we were talking to the manager at Thai airlines in Brisbane called Steve. Well for some unknown reason Steve decided he loved us (I suspect Bryan built us up to be modern day Mother Teresas, but parents are allowed to do these things), and not only did he personally check in our 13 items of luggage, and ‘approve’ our oversized and overweight hand luggage, and call ahead to Bangkok to ensure that they didnt try to charge any excess fees, but he also allocated us 2 whole rows to ourselves on the first seats behind business class, and gave us free tickets to the business class lounge where we were able to relax and eat heaps of free food while waiting for our plane. We knew this was favor from God due to the prayers of friends, family, and the IDAT support team (thanks for sending out that email to everyone Suzy).

However when we boarded the plane we descended pretty quickly from the ‘mountain of the Lord’ to the ‘valley of despair’! The 9hrs to Bangkok, 4hrs in transit, then 9hrs to Nairobi were definitely the most stressful of the past year. Zoe did pretty well, as long as she was eating and drinking junk, and her cartoon marathon was not interrupted, she was happy (usual rules out the window!). But poor Ellisha just couldnt sleep, couldnt feed, and couldn’t stop crying. We would have felt sorry for the other passengers on the plane, but Ellisha’s cries were echoing so loudly in our ears that we weren’t capable of thinking of anyone else. It was hard to know whether to just keep torturing the people sitting around us, or to take her on laps around the plane (which also settled her slightly) to spread the misery amongst everyone. At times we had to have 5 minute cycles of holding Ellisha so that during the 5 minutes off we could pray and regain our sanity!

However in the scope of life it was only a day, and the plane did finally land in Nairobi, and immigration and customs were both super kind to us. So shortly after we arrived we were picked up by an IDAT staff member (thanks for arranging this Sabet & Suzy), and off to bed in the mission house.

Now that we are all rested again and with the perspective that hindsight brings, we are actually thankful that God allowed us to go through this horrible valley experience, as it has been a great reminder of our limitations and weakness. It is almost hilarious to think that we were travelling on the planes to become missionaries, and yet were the most weak and pathetic people on the plane! But what a great reminder to us that actually this is the truth every day – we are weak, and sinful, and very very human – but Christ’s power is made perfect in our weakness. When we are weak, then we are strong. We are definitely not modern day mother Teresas! But we serve a loving and merciful God, and we are very excited to be going to share this love and mercy that we have received with the people of South Sudan.

Love you all heaps, and thanks for your prayers and support

Jono & Destinee.

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Septemer 2014 Newsletter

Save the Date!

Our Prayer Walk is back!! Mark your calendars for Saturday November 1, 2014 from 10am – 2pm. If you are in Southern California, we invite you to join us at the Del Mar Surf Station for a time of fun and fellowship as we celebrate all the Lord has done over the past 2 years. We will walk along the beach and lift up prayers together for South Sudan, asking the Holy Spirit for wisdom, favor and provision. This is a fundraiser and we ask you to invite neighbors, family and friends to ‘sponsor’ your participation in the walk. This year we hope to raise $75,000 to start another 3 year discipleship school for 50 indigenous pastors. This class will begin in February 2015.

Graduation
Pastor Simon at IDAT’s 2012 Graduation

In 2012 we graduated 13 pastors from our previous class. Pastor Judah is a full-time chaplain for In Deed and Truth’s medical clinic; Pastor Joseph is an evangelist showing the Jesus film on his bicycle and has planted 5 churches; Pastor Santino planted and pastors a church full-time in our outreach village of Maloney; Pastor David broadcasts Dinka messages on Christian radio. The remaining 9 pastors have churches all over Warrap state with as many as 500 people per church. We see the fruit of the seeds sown from this class and can’t wait to see how the Lord will work through this new class.

“That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.” – Colossians 1:10

We are in need of teachers and one year interns to help with this class – contact us.

The Macleod Family!

Missionaries Jono and Destinee Macleod are joining In Deed and Truth Ministries to serve as medical doctors. They are from New Zealand and have two young daughters, Zoe 2 ½ and Ellisha 7 months.

Macleod Family

They both graduated from Auckland medical school in 2008. Jono works mostly with pediatrics and Destinee mostly in obstetrics and gynecology.

Although they grew up in different parts of NZ, they both experienced the call to be medical missionaries at the age of 10. In 2012 they spent a year volunteering at Tenwek Mission Hospital in Kenya. During that year God broke their hearts for South Sudan. In Deed and Truth has partnered with Tenwek over the years so they visited us for a week and sensed the Spirit nudging them to join our team. Through much prayer and seeking the Lord’s will, their burden for South Sudan just grew stronger and stronger and a year after their visit they approached us about serving with In Deed and Truth.

Everyone is so excited they are coming and our only sadness is Suzy and the kids will not be ‘in country’ for their arrival. Having raised our children from babies in South Sudan we fully understand the challenges they face coming with their little ones. We ask you to pray for the protection of their health, especially from malaria. They arrive in Nairobi on September 13th and move to South Sudan on September 22nd.

Sabet is Leaving!

That’s right! At least one of our family can leave for Africa. Sabet will be sworn in as a US citizen on September 17th and fly to South Sudan on September 20th. He arrives in Nairobi Kenya late Sunday night and joins the charter to Tonj early the following morning.

This travel itinerary needs a lot of prayer. First he has to get his US passport within 2 days of being sworn in. We were told this is possible but not guaranteed. Then he must make all his connections in order to get to Nairobi before the charter leaves. There is not room for a dealy or missed flight!

We are so excited he will be able to travel with the Macleod family to make sure they are welcomed and have everything they need. This has been our greatest burden about being delayed in USA. Even though we have made our plans we understand the Lord is the one to direct our steps.

Prayer Requests!

  • Pray many would be generous with their time and money, come out for the prayer walk, and be an amazing witness in the community of Del Mar.
  • Pray for the Macleods as they adjust to the heat and challenges of South Sudan.
  • Pray for Dr. Tom as he returns from his summer break and rejoins the team in Tonj.
  • Pray for Dr. Jan’s re-entry process in the Netherlands. He was covering Tom this summer.
  • Pray for favor for Sabet’s travel plans.
  • Pray for one year interns and bible teachers to volunteer in 2015.
  • Continue to pray for Agum’s immigration process.

News From The Field