Ministry, Pastor Training

Pastor Joseph plants a church

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Joseph

…”Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory…” – 1 Chronicles 4:10a

One of our discipleship pastors, Joseph planted a church in Warkar last Sunday. Before then he had been going house to house to mobilize and evangelize the people. When he shared about planting a church there, the people of Warkar were very excited.

Joseph with congregation

After praying over it speaking to them they came to an agreement of where the church will be, the young men and women participated in clearing the bush.

After they had completed all this work he reminded them that the following day they should come to church. On Sunday, the first service, there were about 40 people in the congregation.

He preached from the book of Matthew 28:19-20 where Jesus said, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”. He encouraged them that when they believe in Jesus they have to follow him. He told them that God is calling out for people who are willing to go out and win souls.

Teaching from the book of Exodus 32:1, Joseph said that when the people saw that Moses was so long in coming from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and asked him to make gods who would go before them because they did not know what had happened to Moses. He encouraged the people that they should turn away from some of their traditions such as witchcraft which is a form of slavery and turn to worship of the true God by repenting and turning to Jesus.

Please keep Joseph and this young congregation in your prayers.

Medical Clinic, Ministry

Prayer request from the Medical Clinic in Tonj

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Child with Nurse

“The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.” – Psalm 34:17

Yesterday we had two serious cases in the clinic. We had two children from neighboring villages who had profuse nose bleeding. A five year old boy was brought to the clinic in the evening with nose bleeding but was in stable condition. The medical team tried their best but could not control the bleeding with use of drugs or medical techniques. The child bled throughout the night until yesterday  morning. He bled for 18 hours  and lost a lot of blood and needed urgent blood transfusion. During the time for referral he had frank bloody diarrhea and he died while on oxygen due to severe anaemia.

The second case came around 1:20 pm, a child of about 6 years old was brought to the clinic with profuse nose bleeding and was losing 500mls of blood every hour. The blood was obstructing the respiratory or breathing system and complicated resuscitation. The child had a very high fever and yellow eyes. He died within 20 minutes of admission.

This was alarming to us that it might be a viral disease associated with bleeding, either yellow fever or ebola.

All the medical staff and Community Health Workers had an urgent meeting to discuss about safety measures and awareness on the cases. We referred an adult man to Wau Hospital with similar symptoms a few days ago. The Minister of Health was alerted of what is going on and he will be sending his team to do surveillance.

Please pray for the two families who lost the two children, also pray for our medical staff for protection against this disease.  Pray that God would strengthen them and encourage them as they continue to serve His people.

Newsletters

August 2012 Newsletter

Testimony of CHE Training!

CHE Workshop Participants in TonjMissionaries, John and Beth, from World Gospel Mission Uganda returned to Tonj for the 2nd C.H.E (Community Health Evangelism) training session. Twenty-one leaders from seven counties across three states in South Sudan came together as we hosted this life changing workshop.

We all were amazed how eager and hungry these leaders are as they contribute with passion in every part of the training, which focused on equipping the CHE teams for the next stage, implementing CHE programs into the community.

CHE covered several things, mainly prevention of diseases, best methods of communication, learning to identify and use simple available resources to meet needs, and sharing the gospel. The tasks the groups accomplished after the first CHE training back in April proves that CHE is working in the community and transformation can be achieved. Despite South Sudan’s dire situation, we heard stories of inspiration. One CHE encouraged their whole village to clean up the trash and they did! The team took the initiative and backed it with reasons of hygiene and dignity and presented it to the leaders of the village which gained the community support. The CHE team themselves were surprised and encouraged by the result. Other teams did equally well and we were told this was the best CHE training done in East Africa. Thanks for praying, CHE # 3 will be in October.

Medevac for Cancer Patient

Ayak at Tenwek Mission HospitalFour weeks ago 12 year old Rebecca Ayak was brought to our clinic with a very swollen right forearm and suffering a lot of pain. She was diagnosed a year earlier in Juba with a tumor and referred for treatment to Uganda but the family went back to the village due to lack of money. Clinical officer Dennis and visiting missionary Dr. Rossi, both felt Ayak’s only hope was to medevac her to a Kenyan hospital. We do keep a running Medevac Fund for situations that arise unexpectedly like this as the costs can quickly accumulate. We always believe Jesus is our guide and brings such patients to us so we can help them without hesitation. Through our relationship with Tenwek Mission Hospital, Sabet made arrangements for her medevac and along with her brother traveled to Kenya with her. X-rays confirmed it was bone cancer and she was taken to surgery right away. Unfortunately, her arm was amputated.

Ayak has shown remarkable courage and the battle is not yet over. She really needs your prayers for a full healing and recovery. Some spots were seen on her lungs and doctors suspect the cancer has spread. We have to wait for her arm to heal so she can get more tests done and possibly get chemotherapy. Had she received treatment last year she may have not lost her arm and needed further treatments. She is in a foreign land for an unknown length of time. If you can help us financially to cover her medical bills and accommodation please go to the donate page on our website and give a gift under Medical Evacuations. Alternatively you can send a check to our support address and memo ‘medevac’. These funds will be used to pay all her medical expenses, flights and food/accommodation needs in Kenya. For updates on her condition please visit our blog. On behalf of Ayak and many others who have been helped and lives have been saved we are very grateful for your continuous support and prayers.

Meet Gabriel!

In Deed and Truth Ministries is about transforming the lives of those the Lord places in our path, whether it’s a staff member, church member or patient. One of our community health workers in the medical clinic has shown incredible spiritual growth and transformation despite his difficult living conditions and lack of opportunity. Gabriel is 22 years old and worked at night in the clinic while trying to complete his final year of high school. He’s the only working male in his family and so all the money he earns goes to his family. His father died and his uncle controlled him, many times not letting him go to school or work so he could farm the land. He is one of the most reliable staff working with integrity and maturity, handling patient cases with outstanding care and sensitivity. He graduated high school with exceptional exam results, coming second in the whole of Tonj County. He loves soccer and joined in to several soccer outreaches and now leads kids games in several villages. Sam, our clinic chaplain, has been spiritually building Gabriel up to be a Godly leader and man in this community. Pray for him, his desire is to be a doctor and we are praying how we can be a part of that dream for him.

“and be renewed in the spirit of your mind” – Ephesians 4:23

Medical Clinic, Ministry

Prayer Request

Amel

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” – Psalm 46:1

A woman by the name Amel Lual was brought to the clinic yesterday. Thirty years old Amel had severe burns on her both feet. This happened while she was sick. She was cooking in her home while of a sudden she started having convulsions and she fall down and her feet fall on fire and got burned. She needs to be refered to Wau for further treatments and an x-ray. Our Doctors reported that nothing that can be done to her for now because the bones are already out and her legs need to be amputated to prevent gangrenous. Please pray for healing physically, psychologically and emotionally . Another woman was brought to the clinic at around 1:00 pm after a brick fall on her from the wall. Alakor Yar 28 years old is five months pregnant and was sleeping on her back on this rainy morning when this happened. She was covered by the brick wall from the chest to the knees and could not move. Neighbors heard her yelling before they rescued her. On arriving in the clinic she was semi-conscious, we prayed for her and thanked God that she wasn’t hit on the head and has no obvious fracture. Please Pray for viability of fetus because the midwife couldn’t get the fetal heart tones, also pray for her to be healed emotionally and psychologically as well.

Alakor

Medical Clinic, Ministry

Medical Clinic Update

Dennis w/ Patient

“Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.” – 1 Peter 4:10

We had a busy week of more than 20 children of age 2 weeks and less than 2 months admitted with asthma and pneumonia in our clinic. Most asthmatic patients present with chest tightness, wheezing, cough, and breathlessness. There is a lot of prolonged expiration and diffuse wheezes on physical examination.

Asthma is not a common disease in this community, they have little or no knowledge at all on this disease, and therefore there is prevalence of hospitalization for best monitoring and assessing of the severity as we continue to give medications and patient education on self management which is an integral part of effective asthma care. Also ways to control environmental factors that predispose to this disease for long term control.

Drugs used and how to use where most are administered orally and by inhalation where by the clinic’s goals are met when patients are admitted so as to prevent and minimize chronic symptoms and to eliminate the need for emergency visits to our facility which offers only the best we can possible.

Pneumonia is common illness in this community and we admitted about 18 patients this week who came in with symptoms nearly all these patients were children. Symptoms resolve normally in 24 hours so a need for hospitalization in our first level facility, which needs a lot of support to make it better for sufficient patient care to prevent such complications like pneumonia condition which is life threatening.

Malaria is also common in this community. Most of the patients suffering with this sickness are children. Our medical team went to Maloney outreach on Wednesday and treated over 70 patients with malaria.

Every patient who comes to the clinic are given an opportunity to hear about Jesus and also have the time for prayer and counseling after seeing the doctors. We have seen a good number accepting Jesus. They come from villages that have never heard of God, they don’t have any churches or any spiritual leader.

But we strongly believe those who have heard the gospels go out and share with their communities and families. The Bible says “…so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” Isaiah 55:11. Amen.

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