Hello all I am a little down. Walked into the observation room to see a little one with pertussis ,malaria and probably pneumonia. I admitted the child last night and saw the child at 9am this am at recheck at 3 pm the child was not breathing and the heart rate was dropping.I did mouth to mouth and the heart rate improved and I used my IV suction tubes to try to clear the airway and called for help. In the meantime the grandmother kept grabbing the baby from me for in her eyes the baby was dead. In Dinka land if there is no movement they are dead . The infant did die and it is so frustrating.I wish I would have checked the infant sooner but I can only do so much. At times lately I feel we are dealing with spiritual warfare. I have mentioned the witch doctors a few times and I have seen most of the deaths come in patients who see the witch doctor before seeing us. In my eyes they are powerless for they cannot stand up to the God I serve. I actually pity the witch doctors for they are deceived.I will once again ask for your prayer support. There is much good going on here. Many children and mothers are living because we are here. I see smiling Dinka faces all the time and most of the time I can even laugh with the patients.
Home Visit
Today a team of eight of us made a home visit to Mary Gai. She has served in the medical clinic faithfully washing the linens and cleaning. She recently gave birth to her ninth baby and because our team was in Kenya over Christmas we did not assist in her delivery. We were eager to see her newborn son and meet her family. The Southern Sudanese feel so honored when you go to their homes, it’s amazing how powerful the impact has for such a little effort on our part. They feel valued…oh if only they knew how much Jesus valued them. The baby is doing really well, eating well and putting on weight nicely. We were able to encourage Mary with some health advice for her, the baby and family. Then we prayed over her home, blessed her children and her family. Mary’s husband works for the government and told us it’s the reason he can’t attend church. Even though some of the children come to Sunday school we rarely see them in church so we invited them to come on Sunday. Pray Mary brings her son to the clinic for his vaccinations on Friday and also attends church with or without her husband.
Update from Dr. Tom
Hello all. Nothing out of the ordinary . Today we had a third child in 3 weeks convulse aspirate and die. In each case the parents have waited 5-8 days with child being sick then gone to witch doctor then finally showed up at our clinic. It is hard to imagine in America that witch doctors still have so much influence here. Truth is they do and families argue whether to bring the sick to our clinic or the witch doctor.Tonight a child with convulsions was brought into the clinic . They were headed to the witch doctor when the convulsion started so they came to us first. I pray the child makes it through the night and we are hopeful because they never made it to the witch doctor.I see around an average of 60 patients daily. I enjoy the little ones . The scarey thing about little ones is that usually they get better but they can go bad very quickly and unexpectedly. I spend a lot of time training the community health workers I work with. I tell them what I am doing and thinking and why. Some day they may be out in the villages treating the malaria and common things to be able to get care to those in far villages (hours of walking away) so we can treat the malaria sooner. The community health workers are smart and maybe someday will put the village witch doctor out of business.
Church in Pictures and Pastor Kibe
One of our greatest burdens has been for the church we planted in Tonj town. When Sabet is not there we don’t really have an assistant pastor to help us. Because we teach in English with translators we attract an international crowd. Last year we were finally able to move the church off of our compound and into the community which has caused it to grow. Recently our team began praying for a missions minded person with a pastor’s heart to come alongside Sabet in pastoral care of our team and national staff. As we sought the Lord and His will for Tonj we realized the church was also lacking cover when Sabet is not around, even though our team always jump in to help, it can be challenging for them. As we shared the need with fellow missionaries while in Kenya, we were not expecting such a fast response. A missionary friend and pastor of Calvary Chapel Nairobi said he thought a young man in his church fitted exactly what we were looking for. So Kibe has joined our team and today was his first experience in a South Sudanese church. He has ministered in rural and troubled places in Kenya but had never flown or traveled outside of Kenya. The elders prayed for him as we welcomed him into the church and community.
Sabet started teaching through the book of Acts. Below is our church in pictures:
IDAT team leading worship
Sabet playing cajón
Margit playing guitar
IDAT team worshipping
Church in prayer
Sabet praying – notice the bullet holes in the wall, a reminder left from the war
Hannah collecting the offering
Sabet teaching Acts
Jed and Agum get a ride home after church
Home Sweet Home
It’s always good to hear our kids say “home sweet home’ as we bounce along the dirt airstrip in Tonj with our team waiting anxiously under terminal “tree” to greet us. We are blessed with children that don’t get tired of the heat, dust and poverty surrounding them. Thank you Jesus for these three special blessings in our lives, Hannah, Agum and Jedidiah.
It was a crazy week for us with the embassy appointment requirements as well as packing to go back to Tonj. We were blessed to get a flight share that could carry our family and our new pastor Kibe. It has been a long time since we flew out of Wilson airport and avoided immigration in Juba, so it was a very nice treat for us. They welcomed us at Rumbek airport and cleared our family as Southern Sudanese returning home!! And 30 minutes later we were landing in Tonj and it felt so good to be home. Little notes were waiting on our doors that just made it so much more special.
And even though February is typically the hottest month we are now enjoying cool breezes. Pray for us as we prepare for 6 weeks of visitors from Diguna mission, Every Village, World Gospel Mission, Simply the Story and the Bridge International.