Kingdom Assignment in Sudan!

In 2009, Kingdom Assignment Sudan co-founder Andy Dunt left Australia in search of a remote village in South Sudan called Maloney. In Deed and Truth Ministries crossed paths with Andy and joined in his vision to provide basic support to this rural community. Just 45 minutes drive from Tonj across barren swamp land this isolated settlement was the perfect place to begin our weekly medical outreach. Now, three years later, the partnership of our two ministries has provided this disadvantaged village with life-saving resources ranging from a bore hole providing safe drinking water, weekly medical professionals and drugs, a church plant and soon its very own medical clinic. Last month Andy was able to return to the village he has loved and supported bringing with him a group of construction and medical professionals and a pastor. It was our joy to host this dedicated team on their life changing mission as they lay down their lives to serve. They experienced first-hand the harsh world of South Sudan and witnessed the vast needs of the people. To learn more about their ministry vision for South Sudan go to www.kingdomassignmentsudan.org.au.

Midwife on a Mission!

Stephanie Williams has served as a midwife in the medical clinic for the past two years. Selflessly, she has worked day and night delivering over 200 beautiful Sudanese babies and giving them the best chance of survival in life. With one of the world’s highest infant mortality rates, South Sudan, her women, and In Deed and Truth Ministries are blessed to have had such a devoted and passionate midwife bring hope to every birth.

STS Training Returns to Tonj!

Simply the Story (STS) team came back to Tonj to follow up with our pastors on last year’s training. The emphasis was to train the pastors to be trainers of others in using the STS method as a way to evangelize and share the gospel. The team was able to put what they learnt into practice in a nearby town called Mapel, which is home to the tribe of Jurchol. More than fifty pastors and church leaders attended the three day workshop.

STS is built on the foundation of ‘storying’ and develops storytellers who use inductive bible methods to dig deep into a bible story and learn spiritual truths for themselves and to share with others. The lives of those who gain the skill of STS are forever impacted and changed. For a country high with non-literates, this oral style of bible study has proven to be a huge success.

In Africa, people love to tell you a story. It can be a slow process but people listen attentively to every word that unfolds. It is why STS has been a fruitful outreach to our waiting patients.

Prayer Requests!

• Pray for the continued building of the new medical clinic. We are on the final stages and excited to see it finished.
• Pray for CHE trainers arriving this month to train trainers in community evangelism.
• Pray for completion of Agum’s adoption we are half way there!
• Pray for Stephanie to readjust easily into her culture as she returns to USA.

“Whoever receives one of these little children in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me, receives not Me but Him who sent Me.” – Mark 9:37

“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” – John 16:33

Thank you for your recent prayers for us here in South Sudan. Today things did not turn out the way we thought they would. Sadly young Anoch, the 12 year old amputee, died following her surgery. She was severely anemic and needed a blood transfusion before she could be operated on. Our Community Health Worker reported the Wau hospital did a blood transfusion on arrival, so we are not sure what went wrong exactly. We have many unanswered questions for those at the hospital but we have chosen not to pursue this any further. Her father came to us this morning requesting our ambulance to carry Anoch’s body back to Tonj. We are all so sad for this family. Sabet was able to pray with Anoch and she acknowledged she had understood his invitation to receive Jesus as Savior. Please pray for her family especially the grandfather that shot her accidently. When unexpected events unfold you realize how fragile life really is and how quickly our lives can change forever. Our hope is in Him, HE is our ROCK and our ANCHOR. Pray for Sabet and I as we continue to minister the love of Jesus to this family.

In His Love,

Suzy (for Sabet too)

For Anoch, in just one day her whole life has been changed. She went from being a normal 12 year old Sudanese girl, fetching water, sweeping, cooking and caring for her younger siblings to never walking again. How so? She was shot. Not from recent cattle raids, or the fighting in the town yesterday where the police came and fired guns to disperse crowds, no she was not harmed in either of those cases. Her injury came when her grandfather was trying to unload his gun and accidently shot her at point blank through her thigh. Her family carried her writhing in pain and distressed but thankfully the bullet had passed right through her leg. After stabilizing, cleaning the wound and praying our ambulance drove her the following day to the nearest hospital 75 miles away in Wau. But what happened next was quite unbelievable. The hospital refused to admit or treat her without a police report because it was a gunshot wound. Despite pleas and explanations from our staff that it was an accident and even with the child’s family verifying the story the hospital would not change their mind. This was so disheartening to me and a picture of how hardened South Sudan has become from the years of suffering and war. This poor child was transported back to Tonj, a three hour drive on a dirt and bumpy road in sweltering temperatures where she spent her second night in our clinic. By now the leg was very swollen, an infection had set in and the blood flow was disrupted. Our whole team was praying for options, medevac to Kenya or Juba, try and go back to Wau? These arrangements are challenging, requiring time to arrange transport, care and translators. Meanwhile we could see her leg was dying, smelling very bad and she was afraid. We encouraged the family to put their trust in the Lord and not to lose heart and not to call on the local magicians and witchdoctors. Sabet reassured Anoch we were going to take care of her and she would be OK. No matter what, we were here for her and would stay with her to find someone to take care for her medical needs. After the family received the police report Sabet decided to call the doctor and talk to him directly. He was told to bring her back to Wau. Knowing that Wau is our best option but very unreliable we prayed for her and sent a medical worker with her back to Wau. Sure enough on arrival they were told they could not be helped, but Moses, our community health worker (CHW) refused to return to Tonj and insisted they help Anoch. After hours of persistent pressure and negotiating, the hospital admitted our patient. Moses waited around until he was confident they were taking proper care of her and then returned to Tonj. By this time there was no other option but to amputate her leg. Please pray for Anoch and her family during this difficult time.

“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.

Patients 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 15^th 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.

Dr. Michael stick arrived in Tonj on Friday January 20^th and he has been doing surgeries here in Tonj. Many patients have come from far distances to book for surgeries mainly on hernia repairs. Major surgical cases must go to Wau Hospital which is 2-3 hours drive away. Dr Stick and our medical staff together with community health workers have prepared a surgical theater that is at the government hospital. The first surgery was performed on 24^th January and was a hernia repair. There are so many people in this area that need hernia repair and since we didn’t have any clinic or hospital here in Tonj which does surgery these people are very happy to have Dr Stick with us.

So far we have had 28 surgeries performed just on hernias. Praise God! All cases have gone well and we have seen no complications. We praise God for the addition of Dr Stick and to our medical staff who are working tiredly day and night to serve this community.

Yesterday I had a chance to chat with two adults in the clinic who had been operated on and returned to the clinic for the wound care. Inal Deng Lual, 50 years old, was operated on 23^rd February 2012 for a hernia. He told me that he had lived with that deformity without knowing that one day he would have a miracle of healing. Sadly, when I ask him if he knew God, he said that he had never heard anything about God. But he is so very happy for the healing and I encouraged him that God is his healer. If he believes in God he will receive even a spiritual healing.

The second man Majok Madut Madir who is 32 years old, was operated on 14^th February and he is also coming for the wound care. He told me he feels much better though he still has pain on his wound. He knew a little about God because he said there must be somebody who created everything in this world including him. I prayed for them both and latter referred them to one of our Pastor trainees, Pastor Joseph, who will be doing some follow-up with them.

God bless our medical staff for their hard work, Surgeon Dr Stick, Indeed and Truth Team for their support and also you for your support and prayers for us for these surgeries to be successful.

“God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them” – Hebrews 6:10.

Bush Pastors Graduate!

After decades of conflict eased, In Deed and Truth Ministries began to disciple bush pastors in Tonj, South Sudan in 2009. As part of the vision the Lord gave Sabet, most of our support and care for these men of God is in developing their level of understanding of the bible and assisting them in Kingdom work.

We met Joe and Nancy Losee in Kenya in 2008 where they were serving as missionaries for 10 years teaching pastors living in rural areas. They were praying for opportunities to go into the interior of South Sudan with the foundation course they had developed. For years we prayed the Lord would provide a biblically based curriculum and the right people to support Sabet so this program could be launched. With such a history of war, insecurity and harsh conditions we were not sure what to expect. Three years ago, Joe and Nancy visited Tonj and what spoke to them the most was how the Holy Spirit was at work during decades of civil war, despite no bibles, radio, books or school. The hunger for understanding God’s Word was evident in the heart of the pastors who had requested for Sabet to bring missionaries to teach them but during the war it was so remote and dangerous that few came. Joe and Nancy committed to helping us launch the school and came to teach alongside Sabet. They were also trained in the curriculum we are using called BTCP (Bible Training Center for Pastors) which a ministry in Kenya translated into Dinka.

Despite many setbacks and initial drop-outs, God’s love and plan has been transforming the lives of these precious pastors. Sowing seeds into this ministry has been a lot of work with many challenges but we are reaping great fruit.

Many supporters have helped us in watering those seeds through pastor sponsorship and volunteer teaching. We are now witnessing amazing results of this labor of love first hand. Last year one of the pastors planted a church in a village after a patient was touched by the Holy Spirit during a daily evangelism in our medical clinic. At the end of this year our first class of 13 pastors will graduate.

In Deed and Truth Ministries is walking this path with each pastor, enjoying the part in continuing the work that God has already begun. At the end of each term the pastors return to their villages and churches excited to put into practice what they have learned. This term the focus is on Teaching Principles and Methods. Using the book of Ephesians they learnt how to prepare a lesson plan for the entire book which is to be taught verse by verse in their churches during the summer break.

Prayer Requests!

• Pray for the Kingdom Assignment Sudan team visiting from Australia to help with medical outreaches and Maloney programs.
• Pray for Sabet in Juba working on Agum’s adoption, the family residency and his new South Sudan passport.
• Pray for Dr. Stick’s final month of surgeries and our clinic staff.

“Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.” – Ephesians 3:20-21