“Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.” – Proverbs 3:27
I am preparing to leave Tonj, South Sudan after 3 months of helping out in surgery, and would like to share some experiences.
Three days after I arrived here, IDAT had a team working in theater. The team functioned almost at the outset like veterans, though most were new to theater. Each of us on the team sensed the leading of God almost daily.
Gabriel and Santos, two South Sudanese and Anne is the anesthetistPatients lined up for surgical bookings. Regrettably, we turned away many for lack of sufficient facility and equipment. Still, we did 60 surgeries in theater, most of them hernias, common among the Dinka people in South Sudan.
The picture shows Gabriel and Santos, two South Sudanese, closing up a surgery. Anne is the anesthetist (and seasoned midwife). Not shown are Margaret and Auxillia, also anesthetists-in-training (and skilled midwives). These young men have become skilful at assisting in surgery, and closing surgeries with minimal supervision.
What lies ahead? We hope to build a theater to attract and heal the South Sudanese. Early building has begun on what the citizens call Sabet Hospital. We believe the Lord is preparing a way forward. Please pray that we may be sensitive and obedient to His leading.
“And it shall come to pass afterward
That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh;
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
Your old men shall dream dreams,
Your young men shall see visions.” – Joel 2:28
Mapel is a small town about 18 miles away from Tonj. It’s for the Lou tribe , otherwise known as Jur Chol locally. They have their own dialogue and well known for how hard working people and very amazing powerful traditional dance. We have mentioned in the past, we have been evangelizing remote villages and have worked with church leaders from this area for more than 8 years. The church always is battling with witchcraft, worship of idols, ancestral spirits worship and traditional beliefs.
This time in March, we have taken the STS to Mapel, if anything was clear from the training, it was the fact everyone participated was bringing a point of view on the stories was fresh and enlightening to the participants, I believe it was the Holy Spirit working, and people opening their hearts to His conviction, revealing His truth from the stories of the Bible, I have seen the excitement when the lights came on, I saw eyes were wide open and the mouth opening wide, and hearts are comforted with the Truth of same Bible stories, that they have heard before and amazed of the treasures that are seeing for the first time.
The other thing I notice in the training, is the excitement of the Mapel men and women, that they could do this on their own, they could go through the story, ask question and come to these truths alone, without the help of a pastor or someone who reads, Never ever before they could hear the word or read it (most people are illiterates) and understand the Spiritual observation and apply these spiritual application to match their present lives today.
What a blessing is to have the tool of the oral inductive Bible study in the STS.
At one point learning and discussing the Mary, Martha story, the conclusion that brought by Mary Nybang, one of the old ladies in the training, and I quote here “we have been the Martha’s (the Women in the Church) for a long time in the church just being busy with cooking, cleaning and never been the Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus and learning from Him, Always we felt we couldn’t because we can’t read, always dependent on our husbands to understand the word of God. Now STS gave us the opportunity and the tool to be independent and be at the feet of Jesus like Mary, we are able to learn the stories and ask questions and get all the treasures of the word of God, we are now sitting at the feet of our Lord and we are able to be the daughters Mary’s.”
What a blessing to hear Mary Nybang testimony from Mapel, I can testify to what the Lord is doing using the STS among the Lou tribe.
They were more than 50 pastors and church leaders including 10 women, from various villages around mapel town.
Pray for the Lord to give us the wisdom, as we pray for Oral bible school in small villages in the 4 areas that our pastors comes from, Maple, Tonj East, Tonj North, and Cubit.
Our 13 pastors have been doing the stories since last year, they have testimonies from their own churches, each one of the pastors trained his own church leaders from 5 people to 15, we are very excited to see they are putting emphasis on training leaders, starting in their own villages and churches, very glad they are putting what they learn on practice.
Let me take this opportunity and share my heart with you, I love to continue work with some pastors after they graduate, I would like for them to train others, specifically in the mention 4 areas, Mapel, Tonj east, Tonj North and Ciubet (pronounce Chuaibet).
Pray for Santino Bak one of the pastors in our school, who his heart is to train STS and to be a CHE (Community Health Evangelism) trainer, he is sharing with me how it’s very important to train to transform, he sees STS and CHE are tools for transformation.
Santino would love to go around and teaches in these 4 centers STS, we are praying for a bike for him so he can use it to visit and train these 4 centers with the simply stories and possibly CHE training in the Future.
God is doing someone great among the pastors would love your prayers and support for it to continue and many would be saved and transformed.
Learned a new trick today, If you wrap a wet sock around your water bottle the evaporation of the water in sock cools your water. No more drinking hot water. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. This year I have learned to pull teeth did three more teeth Saturday, repair hernias and now I have learned how to cool water without a refrigerator.
People have asked me to tell them about the Dinkas and how they live. Dinkas are a proud people they fought many years to be free and have succeeded. They are the tallest darkest Africans. They live in grass huts many have cell phones and some have small motorcycles 100-160 cc. More have bikes and a few have cars but most walk long distances. Tonj is sorta urban. As there are many homes in area and cell phone towers and a market where you can buy some things.
Probably most folk have 2-3 sets of cloths and 1-2 pairs of sandals. Some have more and some have none as in all places there are have and have nots. Most people tend cattle and do subsistence farming.Cows are wealth and men try to amass a bunch of cows they do not tend to sell them but amass them like people keep money in the bank. When a great need for money arises they sell cows .
One of the biggest uses of cows is to buy a wife from the father. Daughters bring their dads cows but fathers like sons also for pride and I am sure protection. Families often help their sons get the cows to buy a bride. I am sure the females take pride in having a high bride price. Men in this society can have more then one wife. I believe each wife and her children tend to have their own hut and the husband visits his wives. Often wives view each other as sisters and the old wives must give their OK to a new wife being brought into the family. The older wives make the newer wives do more of the work which is their payback. Dinka women love to have babies and love their children. The infant mortality rate is about 50%only 50% of children reach age 5 years.Often we meet women who have had 8 pregnancies and only have one child.
Women have no sex during pregnancy and till child is weaned at about 2 years which is one reason men feel they need more then one wife. I am told only the mother tends to hold the babies but I do not know if this is true . When the mother with triplets comes in grandma and the mother’s sister each had one. I seem to be getting along well with the Dinkas I see smiling faces constantly. As in America the 16 year old female believes she knows everything. I sometimes laugh because the 16 year old with a baby thinks she knows everything about children.I have fun with the babies I see everyday when they are not sick I play with them. Sometimes I think mothers bring in the children just so I can confirm they are OK but we take care of a lot of sick kids and they scare me. I remember the first Christmas I was here the children would die of malaria and it would kill me and the parents would try to encourage me.
One thing is where ever you go people are people we all have emotions of love, hate, frustration , fear, jealousy, generosity etc. We all have good days and bad days and we all have a tendency to goof up. We all have to learn to forgive each others faults and leave rest in God’s hands. Tom
On 15th of March 2012, 10 members from Kingdom Assignment Sudan (KAS Charity) arrived in Tonj South Sudan via Charter Flight. After the initial “culture shock” and adjustment to the weather the team got to work on the main purposes for the visit. Firstly assisting IDAT staff in the running of the medical clinic and pharmacy, secondly furthering the progress of the medical clinic build in Malony village and lastly spending time teaching 13 pastors.
Although the visit to Tonj was only a relatively short trip a lot was achieved and great progress has been made on all fronts.
The medical staff were able to spend a lot of time learning from each other and also give several members of the IDAT team some much deserved rest…
Roger the KAS chairman was able to spend a lot of time in and out of the classroom with the 13 pastors teaching…
All the other KAS members were kept busy helping in the clinic, pharmacy and doing other jobs including driving the ambulance to collect patients and other minor maintenance jobs.
Several KAS members spent time focusing on the build of the medical clinic in Malony and for that the trip has been a huge success! A builder was located and secured and after several days of negotiating he and his staff are now on site and are going full steam ahead. Large amounts of materials have also been delivered to the Malony site which proved to be a difficult task.
All in all the trip for KAS members has been a huge blessing. To see the work that IDAT is doing for the community and to be able to assist in that has been an amazing experience. All members of the team stayed within the ‘In Deed and Truth’ compound and were very grateful to all the IDAT staff for their warm welcome and Hospitality it truly has been a life changing experience!
Last night in our clinic we saw a patient injured in a cattle raid – a young man, living about 20 kilometers from Tonj. A gunshot wound had pierced the patient’s lower leg and shattered both bones. The patient had stayed in a small clinic overnight and had come to our clinic 24 hours after being shot.
Even if the patient had immediately gotten good medical care, he still might have lost his leg. But a day’s delay in treatment means almost certain loss of the leg.
The unfortunate young man deserved good medical care just as much as we in advanced countries enjoy. In the meantime, we can perhaps play some small role in bringing better medicine to his countrymen one small step at a time. A little help goes a long way to improve somebody’s life and all glory is to our God.
The medical team from Australia, though only here a few days, have already enabled us to double, even triple, our daily surgeries. May the Lord bless them for their sacrifice.
Not only have we broken through our previous limitations, but community health workers have begun to first-assist the surgeon, while Dennis tends to the clinic, and Tom relaxes from his labors in Rumbek. All of us hope South Sudanese will rise to become clinical officers, nurses, and surgeons who will raise the standards of medical care in South Sudan. Our labor in the Lord is not in vain.
On 15th of March 2012, 10 members from Kingdom Assignment Sudan (KAS Charity) arrived in Tonj South Sudan via Charter Flight. After the initial “culture shock” and adjustment to the weather the team got to work on the main purposes for the visit. Firstly assisting IDAT staff in the running of the medical clinic and pharmacy, secondly furthering the progress of the medical clinic build in Malony village and lastly spending time teaching 13 pastors.
