IN DEED AND TRUTH

Near the end of last year, a plane full of passengers including three generations of the Rittman family travelled from the United States to volunteer at Indeed and Truth’s hospital, church, and health outreach programme in Tonj, South Sudan.

IDAT hospital is a beacon of hope providing vital healthcare services in a country with some of the worst health outcomes in the world. The greatest need is hidden away in remote rural communities like those surrounding Tonj.

‘The hospital is run entirely by South Sudanese, everyone from the administrators to the medical staff. It’s a remarkable achievement,’ begins Kim, a doctor and long-time IDAT supporter who is visiting from Florida for two weeks, with her two teenage children Allie and Tucker and her father, Frank Stephens an experienced hospital chaplain.

Mobile Clinics

IDAT, began its community outreach programme, ten years ago, to tackle the root causes of common diseases the see at the hospital. By treating them in the community they hope to reach people earlier, educate them and encourage them to seek help earlier instead of relying on traditional remedies.

Kim and her kids joined the IDAT staff on their monthly outreach clinics held in some of the rural villages surrounding Tonj. ‘We did three different medical outreaches, each in a different village where we saw close to 300 patients a day - almost a thousand patients in total. Most of the patients were from villages where IDAT have community health workers or CHE’s, were able to get the word out to say that the doctors were coming,’ Dr Kim explains.

While Tucker and Allie helped register patients –Kim triaged patients who presented with minor injuries and not so minor diseases like malaria. In each location, the mobile clinic saved patients the many hours or even days they would have to walk to reach the hospital. The team got to experience the challenging wet season conditions when their car got stuck on the road.

Good Health Starts At Home

Dr Kim was interested to find out more about the outreach programme. She had the opportunity to see the CHE programme in action, during a visit to one of the 30 villages where IDAT ‘Healthy Happy Homes’ project is already making an impact; promoting practises that can easily be adopted to reduce accidents and combat the spread of disease. ‘To receive the healthy happy homes award households must make some changes to improve their physical and spiritual health. Twelve physical and five are spiritual,’ Dr Kim explains. ‘The physical aspects include having a pit latrine and a rubbish pit. Others relate to basic nutrition and healthcare; the children in the family have to be vaccinated and well nourished. The family need to know how to mix oral rehydration solution which is crucial in the treatment of diarrhoea,’ she says.

Dr Kim was impressed by the simple personal hygiene, food preparation and cooking practises, advocated by the CHEs to help reduce illnesses like diahorrea. ‘They have to have a tippy tap to wash hands (those are so clever), a drying rack for dishes which is four feet off the ground and sturdy enough that it can’t be knocked by goats or children. They leave their dishes out to dry on this rack because sunlight is the best form of sterilisation,’ she says.

Serious burns from cooking fires, particularly amongst children, are something they see all too often at the hospital. To encourage safer cooking,

Dr Kim says the home must have a CHE stove which is fuel efficient and enclosed so there is no open flame. ‘The stove is constructed in thick clay, so all of the heat come up through the top and is used much more efficiently and is much safer than an open fire.’

Physical changes can be short-lived without a transformed thinking that comes from a relationship with God. Knowing this, the community health evangelists share the gospel with the families in the programme. ‘On the spiritual side, to get the health happy home award, they had to have professed a relationship with Christ, be attending a Bible study, have shared their faith with someone else. You received a certificate of accomplishment if you got 14 of 17 targets. It was great to see the pride in accomplishment amongst the household that had achieved this,’ Kim says.

Responding To Hunger

With many of the people in the community struggling with hunger, one of the busiest days for Kim and the team was helping with a food distribution at IDATs church in Tonj. ‘The people there are hungry right now,’ Kim explains. ‘They are in the hunger gap between the last season and the new season. The harvest has run out and the new harvest isn’t ready yet. They are also dealing with flooding which may mean their crops are destroyed.’

As the distribution got going, Kim was pleasantly surprised how smoothly it went. ‘I was prepared for crazy but thankfully that didn’t happen! IDAT are based in the community and have good relationships. The families receiving food were connected through the church and CHE programme and had to register for the event. Before the distribution started, they addressed the crowds and asked people to be kind and patient towards those giving the help. The team split up to make the distribution faster. ‘Those of us that were helping were organised into sections and each assigned to different villages. We distributed six coffee cans of sorghum for each person in the household. In total, we gave away 30 metric tons of food – around 66,000 lbs. Each family brought their own bag and carried home the food for the people in their household. The food we gave was enough for two weeks although people will make it last for a month.’ They even had food left over. ‘At the end, after everyone had received food, the leftover was given to the unregistered people. There were so many extra unregistered people that we cut the cans back to five and in some cases four. There were just so many. We just kept trying to

‘Back in the US I have a patient who is in her 90salmost a hundred-years old, who survived World War II and was in East Berlin when Russia came through at the end of the war. They were very anti-German at that time. She ended up escaping in the 1950s and married an American man and came to live in the US. She has a very small stature, just a spec of a person but she has a real heart for those children because of everything she has lived through herself. She made four really soft blankets especially for premmies because she knew that IDAT have incubators. This worked perfectly because all the incubators were full, with two baby girls and two boys. On the last day, I was able to hand on her baby blankets to patients on the ward.’

Youth Conference

From serving the smallest, most fragile members of the community to the most energetic and robust. The team took part in a conference attended by more than 800 teenagers and young adults who descended on IDAT’s Calvary Chapel from the 30 surrounding CHE villages. The conference was held in a brand-new church building, dedicated just a few months previously in Easter 2022.

make loaves and fishes towards the end to make it stretch. We made it last and took the names of other families to see if it was possible to do another food distribution.’

Baby Blankets And Hope

As well as spending time in the community Dr Kim met some of the patients and their families on the wards. ‘In the maternity ward they have four incubators. One of the babies was probably the smallest little human I’ve seen in my life weighing no more than 800grams – but alive in South Sudan,’ she said incredulously. Dr Kim shares how a supporter back in the States helps her to bless these tiny patients by crocheting the baby blankets she brings with her on every trip. The blankets help keep sick and premature babies warm – which is necessary, even in the heat of South Sudan. Her supporter has a very personal reason for helping, as Kim explains.

‘We had 800 kids at the youth conference. Can you imagine 800 excited teenagers in one place?’ Kim exclaimed happily, painting a vivid picture of the energy and excitement. ‘The church holds a thousand people, and it was almost full. They called each village one by one. All the kids from that village would stand and yell in a competition to see who could yell the loudest. There were kids from over thirty CHE villages. It was incredible!’ ‘I was struck by the thought that amongst those young people who attended for those two days, they had the future pastors, the future church leaders, future government officials, businessmen and businesswomen, that are going to change South Sudan. They are all there! It brings a great deal of hope.’

Reflecting on the wider impact of IDAT’s integrated programmes Dr Kim said: ‘CHE is opening up opportunities to everyone. It’s not just about clean dishes and healthy households. It’s also about looking for opportunities for spiritual transformation, bringing people together and helping young people grow in their faith. Going around and seeing the different villages, you can really see the difference with the presence of CHE. They put a priority on education. There’s poverty but no impoverishment of spirit. There’s dignity and pride.’

Training Chaplains

Dr Kim’s was accompanied on the trip by her Dad Frank who while she was busy treating patients, put experience as a hospital chaplain to good use training the pastors and chaplains that counsel patients and support them during a difficult time. Kim was happy but surprised that her dad agreed to come - on what was his first ever trip to the mission field. ‘He was pretty reluctant when Suzy first asked him!’ Kim laughs ‘My dad was never interested in the mission-field, it wasn’t ever a thing that he felt called to do, although my whole life he was very involved in church.’

Frank admits his initial reluctance. ‘When Suzy asked me to come, my initial thought was, ‘I don’t speak the language or know the culture or society. Is this even relevant? But yes, it turned out it was,’ he says.

‘I’m absolutely, glad I did it. It was interesting to see the chaplains at work. The chaplaincy team play a crucial role at the IDAT hospital Most of the attendees on the training were serving in ministry in some way either as CHE’s (Community Health Evangelists) or as pastors or associate pastors.

‘I was able to carry out training for the team of hospital chaplains together with fellow pastor Cameron Neuman. We did six days of pastors training. They did two days of ward rounds where they took the pastors through and let them practise on the patients. Some of the team really understood what they are doing. They are embracing their roles and even want to expand their ministry to reach out to those in prison.’

Maf Transfer

The team travelled back to the States after a busy ten days – satisfied with the contribution they were able to make as a family. They were very happy with the service they received from MAF who provided a vital connection so they could catch their international flights.

‘Flying with MAF was beautiful! The pilots and ground staff are awesome and the equipment is well maintained. I definitely have no complaints about that,’ Frank says.

Kim, who has flown with MAF many times in South Sudan and other countries, said ‘I love flying with MAF. The very first time I ever flew with MAF was in Haiti. I knew we were in for a completely different thing when, before we took off, the pilot said, okay, let’s pray! On the way out, Tucker got to sit next to the pilot. He thought it was the coolest thing ever, so when we when the plane came in on the way back, he was a bit disappointed to see that the co-pilot seat was full!’ ‘The return charter brought us back to was full of medical supplies, food and mattresseseverything needed for the 30 person Samaritan’s Purse Cataract Clinic, which was due to happen a few weeks later. It’s an efficient way to serve the needs of the patients,’ Kim concludes.