New Nurses In the Clinic

“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” – Ephesians 2:10

A newborn was brought to our clinic with neonatal tetanus and is in the ICU. We have an Intensive Care Unit actually is just a room in building next to the observation room. With the added nursing staff the patients are well cared for in the competent hands of our three nurse midwives.

Dennis and the team have been caring for a young child with pneumonia and meningitis. Who before arriving at our clinic had convulsed for over 7 hour. The convulsions were stopped with meds but after convulsing that long the child remained in a coma for 6 days. We are still trying to wipe out the meningitis but the child is awake and breast feeding. Please pray for this child and the newborn with neonatal tetanus.

Last night Annie diagnosed a woman with cord compression who had been trying to deliver for 2-3 days in the village. Annie immediately realized that a C-section was needed and began the transfer process. The mother and her in utero child were transfered to Wau by our ambulance being accompanied by Auxillia our nurse midwife.

Auxillia who was hearing a fetal heart beat insisted the woman be seen by the surgeon. She stayed and did the resucitation on the newborn and the parents were very happy with a healthy baby boy.The surgeon told her that we must have a good team at IDAT because our diagnoses are always right. A good team with God as the head .

When the ambulance pulled up to the hospital in Wau several of our patients came to see who was brought this time to wau. A lady with obstructed labor who had C-section with out come of a healthy mother and baby. A woman who almost bleed to death during village delivery who we transfered to Wau for a transfusion.

All these people were helped by quick diagnoses and transports to Wau. But we are greatful to God for the construction of our new clinic and many of these things will be done in here in our clinic.

Please pray that God meet with all the medical supplies needed in the clinic, and will provide all the materials needed for the completion of our new clinic.

Shooting in the Clinic

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” – John 10:10

Gun Shot Patient

It was Sunday afternoon after our church service when everbody was relaxing after working hard the whole week. Our nurses were over to the clinic attending to patients after being alerted that there was an emergency.

Suddenly we heard some gunshots which seemed to be coming from our clinic. Our visitors and everybody in the compound was terrified. We all went over there to see what was happening.

We found a 22 year old  woman  who had a severe bullet wound on her left foot after being shot by her husband after a domestic fight. After shooting her, the husband ran away and her relatives brought her to our clinic. Her husband’s relatives came to provoke a quarrel, and there was a high commotion between the two families. It was intense and when things got out of hand, our security guard Dut was forced to shoot some rounds in the air in order to scare the warring parties. We thank God everything was contained within a short period of time and nobody was hurt.

The patient was then rushed to Wau hospital with our ambulance. It is very difficult to work under this environment but we thank God for his blood is always on our side to protect us.

Please pray for these woman who is still in Wau Hospital undergoing treatment for healing, and for security for our medical staffs.

CHE Trainers

“Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble.” – 1 Peter 3:8

The Community Health Evangelism or CHE as it is popularly known had a 5 days workshop at In Deed And Truth ministry in Tonj. A team of three missionaries based in Uganda and one from Eritrea conducted the workshop. The learners were about 20 Sudanese pastors from Rumbek and Tonj.

CHE workshops are learner centred and this one was no exception. The learners fully participated in discussions  especially when they were divided into small groups of three or four people. The teacher would ask a question to the larger or smaller group that would start off a discussion or raise suggestions. He might also have a role play acted by three or four people or show a picture. By asking particular questions he made the learners come up with solutions to the problems at hand.

The pastors were enlightened on how to think of local solutions to their local problems. This requires one to think of ‘development’ rather than ‘relief’, prevention rather than cure. Diseases such as diarrhea, typhoid, cholera, malaria, malnutrition and others were ranked in occurrence and participants debated their causes, how they could be prevented, etc. It was pointed out that malaria was caused by mosquitoes only and not by eating mangoes or ‘bad food’ as some suggested.

Lapse and reocurrence of diseases in our bodies was likened to the way we sin then for a time think we have conquered it only for us to sin again. A lot more was taught and participants were finally urged to start seed projects in their villages.

From Dr. Tom in the field

I can’t help it like to laugh and have fun. The Dinkas I believe are learning to enjoy my crazy humor. I tell them I can talk baby talk as I speak jibberous to the little ones and they smile. Nothing gives me more joy then the smile of a baby. Today I took a Ground nut (peanut) out of child”s nose. I am getting pretty good at it . I can almost take them out with my eyes closed and I still jump for joy when they pop out. I have added picking up the nut I got out of the nose and pretending to eat it. They look at me crazy then I show them the nut and we all laugh.

Tonight at our prayer nite around the camp fire a snake happened to wander through the group and was spotted by Dennis and Pritty. They in no time cut it in half with a shovel . We were having troubles listening to the prayer while this was going on. You do not want to be a snake on this compound. There is zero tolerance for snakes.

We have quite a few sick little ones admitted  but thank God they appear to be doing well. A infant 5 days old was rushed into my room  today  having troubles breathing it was on it’s last gasps. I got my tube out sucked out it’s airway and beat it a bit and she started breathing better. A shot of ceftriaxone then we placed  her on oxygen and prayed. She made it to the 2nd shot of Ceftriaxone  tonight and is breathing and breast feeding well (a thut putt). PTL.

Sunday after church we had a woman with a gun shot wound to the lower leg. Small wound in but then the bullet hit bone and bone and bullet coming out making a terrible exit wound and the leg will need to be amputated. It was a sad domestic quarrel. Love, Tom

The Muellers!

Clinic Construction
Dave Mueller is welding and his son Forest working with Hydro-form bricks, the new Clinic

We had the privilege to host Dave and Forest Mueller in March/April for 3 weeks, they have come out to help us with the Clinic building, David have blessed us with welding windows and doors frames and most importantly building the wall for the clinic which we are using special type of brick that interlock Hydroform, half of the building wall is finish.

Dave has build a hospital in a South Sudan in the past and here he was sharing his expertise with us, though it’s difficult with the heat and the process of starting things from scratch and doing things manually what a blessing to see his heart to help and put his best for the Clinic to be the best and strong building standing around.

Many people are blessed to see a father son and the heart they have for the kingdom and mission, for them it was more than building walls, they were building living stone, Dave shared some messages in our daily devotion and in our Sunday service, what a blessing that was specially for our staff.

The crew that was helping Dave and Forest were young men, the beauty of having them working with experience people like Dave Mueller is they are learning some skill, and picking trade like to be precise or diligent in what you do and not cutting corners, I was very grateful to see that what they were picking up. They are far from perfect but in this part of the world they are closer to perfection more than ever.

Much gratitude for the Mueller’s (specially for Joy Mueller for arranging and putting the trip together) and the great time we had with them and looking forward more opportunities to work with them in the near future.

The Clinic

News From The Field