One day while walking to the market, Agau, a member of the Parot Church Health Group in South Sudan, came upon a woman crying outside her hut. Agau stopped and asked her what was wrong.

“My children are dying!” she cried.

 Agau hurried into the hut and found four young children burning with fever.

 Agau assisted the mother in removing their clothes and cooling them with water. She asked the mother for salt, sugar, and water and showed her how to make rehydration drinks and administer them. Then she prayed for the children.

 “You know so much. Are you a doctor?” asked the mother.

 Agau explained that God had allowed her to learn these things. Then she told the woman about the Great Healer. He had given her knowledge so that she could help others as a follower of Christ.

 Agau went back the next day and found the children much improved. Now she continues to visit with this family, sharing her life and faith with them.   The Need for Health Outreach

The Parot Church Health Group is part of the Cush4Christ mercy ministry. The group is taught by Jan Buchanan, a member of Ottawa, Ont., RPC serving among the Dinka people in Aweil, South Sudan.  She is educating local church women like Agau so they can minister to the health needs of their communities.

 “The Lord has given me the joy and privilege of teaching a group of seven women from our local village church who are eager to learn about health, put into practice what they learn, and teach others. They have a heart to see our village transformed, not only with respect to health, but spiritually as well,” Jan explained. “The goal is to equip church women to care for their families and show Christ’s love through practical care. As they do this, the women in the group have had opportunities to share the gospel, and new women have begun coming to the Parot church.”

 Jan, who joined Cush4Christ in 2011, said the need for health outreach is great. “South Sudan is one of the least developed countries in the world, and the health care system is one of the worst in the world.”

 The Canadian’s interest in health ministry developed while she served in Senegal, West Africa, for 15 years. While interpreting for doctors on medical teams, she saw many people seeking treatment for diseases that were preventable or easily treatable at home. 

 When she visited the Cush4Christ team in August 2010 to seek a new field of service, she was presented with an opportunity to focus on medical mercy ministry. 

South Sudan has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world. According to a report published by the African Development Bank in 2012, as many as 151 children under the age of one die out of every 1,000 live births in some regions of South Sudan.  The report further indicated that one-third of children in the new nation suffer from malnutrition. Dehydration from diarrhea and vomiting is one of the main causes of death among small children.

 As many as one in seven women die in childbirth. That is the highest rate in the world, and is primarily due to the lack of access to health care. Other factors include malnutrition, a lack of education, and certain cultural practices.

 Although Jan is not a health care professional, she has taken various health-related courses. One course in Kenya last fall equipped her to teach childbirth education classes. She also has good resource books, and much of what she teaches is common knowledge to people from more developed countries.

 Jan focuses her health education ministry on women because the vast majority of people in the churches are women. They seem more spiritually open and more ready to admit their need for salvation than the men.

 “We continually pray for more men to come to faith, and their wives can be a means of them doing so,” she said. “In addition, the women are the ones who spend the most time with their children and have a huge influence on them. Most men here are away from the house all day and only come home in the evening. Some work in another town and hardly ever see their families.”

The Importance of Education

 The first lesson Jan taught the women of the Parot Church Health Group in spring 2012 was how to prevent and treat dehydration using an oral rehydration solution, or ORS. The women began using it with their families and others and quickly saw how helpful it was.

 The next lesson focused on hand washing and its importance in preventing sicknesses. Jan said the women began washing their children’s hands, particularly before eating, which is especially important since they use their hands, and not utensils, to eat.

 “Within a few months they noticed that their children were not getting sick as much, and they became fervent about sharing this practice with others,” she explained. “At the traditional church Christmas meal that year, they started a new tradition: they provided soap and water and had everyone wash their hands well before eating!”

 Jan followed these lessons with others related to using water in various ways for disease prevention and treatment. Other topics have included parasites, good nutrition for small children, and a special prenatal series on pregnancy and childbirth. For this series, a few traditional birth attendants were invited to attend, as well as a pregnant woman from the church.

Spiritual Healing

 In addition to instructing the women in her group about physical health, Jan also taught them Bible verses to transition from talking with their neighbors about physical health to spiritual health and the gospel.

 “We want to make sure that every woman in our village knows the importance of hand washing and how to make and use rehydration drink,” Jan explained. “We also want them to know that they are spiritually sick from the disease of sin and need to admit this and come to Jesus for healing, that the only way to have sins washed from our hearts is the blood of Jesus, and that He offers living water that quenches people’s spiritual thirst.”

 Not only do the church women offer practical help and teaching to their neighbors, but they also pray for the sick.

 “They are very aware of the need for God’s healing hand above and beyond the practical help they may be able to provide,” Jan said. “They have seen many answers to prayer, and the combination of mercy ministry and prayer has touched many people in the community.”

 One such person is a non-Christian man of influence who has a dozen wives. When he was very sick with malaria in September, health group women went to visit and pray for him.

 Not long after, one of his wives was in labor with her first child and was quite fearful. Women from the Parot Church Health Group went to help her.

 “They put into practice several things they had learned in the prenatal class, including having her get up and walk around instead of just lying down, as is their tradition, and giving her lots of verbal encouragement. And they prayed!” Jan said. “When the baby was born, they had the new mother put him to the breast right away, something the Dinka don’t usually do. One of its many benefits is to help the placenta come out, which it did promptly.”

 The husband hosted a celebratory meal a few days later and gave a special invitation to the church women, saying how much he appreciated their help. The women continue to pray for this man and trust that God will draw him to Christ.

Sharing Their Knowledge and Faith

 Jan said the Parot Church Health Group women were immediately excited about what they were learning and shared it with other women in their church during the announcement time at the end of the service.  Today, they continue sharing their knowledge about health, and interested women stay after the church service for instruction.

 “Some of the health group women have discovered they have a gift for teaching and take great joy in it. It didn’t take long before these ladies were saying, ‘The women in the other churches need to know these things too,’” she explained. “They began doing health teaching in sister churches of the South Sudan Community Church (SSCC), the denomination that began through the Cush4Christ ministry and with which the team partners.”

 Multi-church, daylong training sessions have been held, equipping women to return to their churches, teach others, and develop a mercy ministry in their own communities.

 “The Parot women have been an encouragement and a model for the women from the other churches,” Jan said.

 With a heart for health ministry and an eagerness to learn more and teach others, local pastor Kerubino Hol assists Jan in health education. She said his collaboration is invaluable not only because of his fluency in the Dinka language, but also because of his knowledge of the local culture and customs.

 Jan said the women in her health group recently shared how their lives have changed since they began learning about health.

 “Our children’s health and our own health have improved.”

“God has opened our minds to learn many new things.”

“My children hardly ever have diarrhea now. They used to have it a lot.”

“I am no longer shy about standing up and talking in front of people.”

“Before, we didn’t know how to help sick people. We are so thankful to God for the teaching.”

“We now know many things that we can use to help our families and other people in our community.”

 Buchanan has seen several of these women blossom and develop strong personal ministries of service, evangelism, and prayer. “It has been so encouraging to see these ladies grow; it has increased my faith and encouraged me to see God at work,” she said. 

—Lisa Knodel

Lisa lives in Springboro, Ohio, and attends Southwest Ohio RPC with her husband, Chris, and children, Kaiya and Kaden. She is a communications consultant and freelance reporter.