Passion and Vision for 2023!

This month marks 24 years since I took a huge step of faith and embarked on a journey that would change my life forever. I went on a mission trip to war torn South Sudan, where the threat of bombs and land mines were real. I landed on a dirt airstrip in Tonj and watched naked children emerge from the towering, sunburnt grass and run to grasp one of my fingers. A town recovering slowly from the previous year’s devasting famine. A town in distress and without hope.

The calling was strong, the love and burden for the people was deep and the passion to see Jesus give the hope He had given me, was overwhelming. I was moved by God to do something and my life has never been the same.

“Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who builds it.” Psalm 127:1

I have spent years weeping, praying and fasting for the church in South Sudan to be raised up and reaching into the remotest villages. Many of you joined us on bended knee to intercede for South Sudan and today we celebrate the answer to those prayers with 32 church plants and 35 national pastors.

Last year we cried out to the LORD and asked Him for help in training our pastors. He answered that prayer and connected us to Intensive Care Ministries. We have now launched a class for 20 pastors to study and receive a diploma in Pastoral Ministry.

Our vision is to train two of these pastors to co-teach future classes in Dinka so ALL our pastors can get the benefits of Inductive Bible Study. In December, we launched Tonj Bible Institute (TBI) because we want to be an official Bible School, registered with the Ministry of Education and the Bureau of Religious Affairs.

We plan to add more classes each year to accommodate the growing number of pastors needed for the churches being planted. We are currently using our staff devotion room as a classroom for the lessons and our compound team rooms as a temporary student dorm.  Calvary Chapel Tonj is situated on a large piece of land that can easily accommodate this classroom and dorm. We found a reputable builder and his quote was very reasonable. We have gone before the Lord, asking God to supply the $50,000 needed to complete this project in 2023. It’s a BIG ask but we trust and believe in our BIG God who faithfully supplies all our needs and can raise up like-minded individuals to accomplish this vision. It’s very exciting and I can’t wait to see this project completed.

Above is a ‘Partner Pyramid’ showing the various levels of support we have thought and prayed over to present to you and ask you to prayerfully consider investing in building our Bible School. Could one of these levels work for you? There is a designation on our website donate page or you can send a check marked ‘TBI Fund’.

Meet William Majok. He is currently an assistant pastor of CC Tonj and currently in the bible school. William is excited to be one of the pastors chosen to teach future classes and will also run the school.

Please pray for him. You can read more about his story on our pastor’s profiles page: Pastors.indeedandtruth.org

Happy New Year!

As we celebrate the New Year, we thank God for YOU our partners and supporters. It’s because of you we are now going into our 24^th year of serving in Tonj, South Sudan!! We are so grateful for the way you supported us in prayer and partnered financially with the vision of In Deed and Truth Ministries. 2022 was a great year and also a very fruitful one! We closed the year in such a positive way, ordaining our Senior Pastor of CC Tonj and opening our bible school, Tonj Bible Institute!

Here’s a recap of how the Lord used us in 2022 and impacted an entire community for the Kingdom of God.

In 2022, our Maternal and Pediatric Mission Hospital treated 40,000 patients!

We saw over 9,500 pregnant mothers, an increase of 500 since 2021. We delivered 653 babies in a safe environment, which is a growth of 20% from the year before.

We vaccinated thousands of children and cared for 1,707 inpatients that were admitted on our ward. Many of these were premature babies in need of oxygen and an incubator.

Our 24-hour care literally saved hundreds of lives physically but we also poured into each patient spiritually, making sure every patient was prayed for and heard the gospel. Many prayed to receive Jesus Christ as their personal Savior before going home or being discharged from the ward. Our chaplains pray with them, pray over them, and bless them.

CHE!

In 2012 the Lord gave us a vision for Community Health Evangelism (CHE) Centers for villages in and around Tonj. CHE continues to impact and transform these villages. We are now in 46 villages and have trained 2,600 CHE volunteers who have made over 35,000 home visits teaching spiritual and health lessons. As a result, more than 6,000 people made decisions to follow Jesus, 2,753 people joined our bible listening groups, 27 village schools were started, 22 CHE community gardens were planted, 5 bore holes were drilled to provide safe drinking water and our village medical outreach teams treated and vaccinated over 5,000 patients! We are excited to expand our CHE program to 20 more villages in 2023!!

James 5:11 says “Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord—that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful.”

Church Plants and Bible School!

We are excited to dive into this year, ready to glorify Him. We currently have 32 church plants, with a combined annual attendance of 200,497 in 2022! Of those, 11,330 were new to church, 10,416 made decisions to follow Christ and we baptized 3,594 people.

We ended 2022 with the opening of our bible school, Tonj Bible Institute, with 20 national pastors enrolled!

CHE Conferences!

This past month has been busy for our CHE (Community Health Evangelism) program as we gathered together 2,600 CHE volunteers from 46 villages, for four CHE regional conference days.

The first conference was at CC Tonj where over 1000 CHEs and community leaders gathered in our new church. The second conference was in Malony, the third in Tonj East, and the last in Mapel. Each day was packed full of worship, teaching, prayer, games, dancing and of course feasting!

To get to the third conference in Tonj East (120km) the road was not good in one particular area. The entire community came out to fix the road to make sure our vehicle could make it, putting into practice what they have learnt through CHE about serving others and finding solutions to their problems by working together in unity.

We can see why the enemy didn’t want us to reach this area because at the Tonj East conference the head Chief decided to follow Christ, and encouraged the rest of their community to do the same!

In Mapel the army chief made a donation to the local CHE activities, and said he will be giving all his soldiers leave for church on Sunday mornings.

We heard many exciting testimonies of people’s lives being transformed through CHE in each region. We continue to receive more and more requests from community leaders for CHE than we can keep up with, and we’re excited about launching CHE in 20 more villages in 2023! This will make our CHE villages to be at 66 and our goal is to eventually reach 100.

God is in the business of transforming lives through Jesus Christ. It was a genuine act of love for Christ to give His life so we could have eternal life. As we witness hearts being transformed in South Sudan and reflecting the image of Christ we also witness generosity being shown to others.

John 3:16-17 is a well known verse but a good verse to ponder on as we go into this busy Christmas season and remember who we are celebrating and why!

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. ¹⁷For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”

As we reach the end of 2022, we want to thank you for all the generosity shown to In Deed and Truth Ministries this past year. It has been an honor to partner with you in this Kingdom work. You have been entrusted with many resources, including where to use them to bring Glory to God. We are humbled that many of you were led to support what the Lord is doing through In Deed and Truth Ministries in South Sudan. I encourage you to prayerfully consider laying up treasure in heaven this Christmas and experiencing godly joy as you are rich toward God who gave so generously His ‘only begotten Son’ to us.

Praise Jesus!

After 8 years serving with IDAT, missionary doctors’ Jono and Destinee Macleod are returning to New Zealand. Destinee is going back to medical school, and their eldest daughter Zoe will start secondary school. Please pray for them as they make this difficult transition. Jono will continue serving IDAT as CHE Director and work with the CHE team remotely.

The photo of Achot says it all – Thank you, thank you, thank you for generously giving to save this sweet girls life!

Restoring Sight and Hope!

It was an honor and privilege to host the Cataract Surgery team from Samaritan’s Purse once again.  This one week mission started week’s beforehand with the IDAT team announcing the upcoming opportunity to towns and villages as far as 100 miles away. Hundreds of people responded and walked for days to reach us. Our medical team pre-screened over 1,500 prospective patients knowing the team would be able to do around 400 surgeries.

The vision for IDAT has always been to host teams that can come into Tonj and focus on what God has called them to do without worrying about team safety, transportation, sleeping arrangements, preparing food, safe drinking water, laundry etc. When Samaritan’s Purse first approached us about hosting 20 people alongside our existing team, we knew it would be a stretch but with a bit of juggling we made it happen!

We transformed our maternity delivery suite into an operating theatre, allowing for three surgeons to be operating at once.

The IDAT team’s prescreened patients were checked by the Samaritan’s Purse ophthalmologist and then added to the surgery line. This simple surgery that is readily available in Western countries, is truly a gift here in South Sudan.

Many of the patients walked for days to get this life-changing surgery and have their sight restored.

The team started early and worked non-stop to maximize the number of patients treated. The surgery only takes about 15 minutes and is done using a microscope.

After surgery the patients would spend the night and have their bandages removed the next day.

“Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.” Romans 12:12

Our Hospital waiting area was transformed into a sleeping quarter for the operated patients and their caregivers. Our chaplains were available 24 hours and in the evening showed the Jesus film to the patients.

The following morning the doctors removed the eye patches and gave post-surgery information before releasing the patients to go home.

This is the best part, seeing patients rejoice and praise God for restoring their sight. In just one week 442 cataract surgeries were completed! We are grateful for the prayers and partnerships that enable us to love so many patients and open the eyes of the blind.

2022 Youth Conference!

Calvary Chapel Tonj hosted its 2nd annual youth conference themed ‘You Have Been Called!” More than 600 youth were in attendance from 20 of our village church plants. It was awesome to have our new church building ready to host this event.

It was two days of excitement with teaching from our missionaries, missionary kids, visiting team and local pastors and youth.

The worship was lively, full of dancing, jumping, singing, clapping, trumpet blowing (horn) and joy.

Then it was time to get silly and play some games! Everyone got involved and loved the games!! This was the perfect way to get youth from different churches and areas to know one another. There was so much love and laughter as IDAT staff and missionaries made fools of themselves and youth competed in teams.

Of course, we were there to share the love of God and to hear from Him through His Word.

We had breakout sessions on purity, marriage, Godliness in women and men.

The entire event was bathed in prayer for this next generation to be raised up as Godly leaders in this country.

Through generous partners who helped us fund this conference we were able to provide meals to the attendees and volunteers. During this season of food insecurity, it was a huge blessing to be able to feed so many youth. Thank you to Destinee for organizing this event with Calvary Chapel Tonj pastors and leaders.

The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart to all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom He has chosen as His heritage! Psalm 33:11-12

We are trusting that the seeds planted will grow and produce good fruit in this future generation of leaders and believers.

Testimony!

Back in July’s newsletter we shared a story of Rebekah.  Ps, Mabior prayed for her as she was suffering from an intensely itchy, skin peeling condition for three years before coming to IDAT. It was so intense she was scratching herself with a knife.

We moved her into a home on the compound where she received daily medicine, skin treatments, food and love. Praising God for His leading to reach out and help her.