Just to let you know what has been happening with the Medical Ministry….. 

Sal continues to be forever busy seeing outpatients not only at Sons of Thunder, but also at five other outreach communities.  There have been two more communities that have written to request us to provide medical services in their areas; Siandazya and Siamasimbbi.  Both areas are very far from any kind of medical care.  To give you some kind of reference, they are approximately 30 kilometers (18-20 mile range) away from Sons of Thunder and we are the nearest medical facility.  The villagers of Siandazya have built a grass hut for us to use as a clinic building and have come to the farm with the headman to present their petition.  Still knowing that we are supposed to do what God puts in front of us, we will probably be starting in October to provide full services to them twice a month.  Along with outpatients, we have a full inpatient ward most of the time, caring for predominantly AIDS patients and Obstetrics.  For example….five babies were born in the clinic last Monday!!!  Besides that, Sal’s phone number is well known and he answers calls 24 hours a day, being his own EMS service.  I guess God prepared him with all his missed night sleep as a paramedic in the States!  Now if that weren’t enough, he also has been teaching Anatomy and Physiology at the Western School of Nursing.  God has definitely equipped him because I can’t keep up.  Just this past week Lena B told him, “I know what your gift is” and when Sal asked what that was, she said “You never get tired; you are always working in God’s strength.”  I believe that to be very true.

I, on the other hand have been busy administrating the rest of the ministries here, children’s home, primary school, farm, piecework, sewing, vehicles, taxes, budgets, payroll as well as hosting Traveller volunteers, student nurses and visiting teams from the States. I know that sounds like a long list, but the only reason I can do all that is because the Zambian leaders in each area are doing a fantastic job! Lena and Royce with the children, Phillip as headmaster of the school along with excellent teachers, Alexander and Abson over the villages and farm, Pastor George over the church, Terry with the vehicles, Eunice with the sewing classes and Advent at the guest house! As for my role with medical, I still manage to do Under Five once a month, but my biggest role has been with our HIV Community Care Program.  We sent seven people living positively with HIV to a workshop in town to become treatment supporters under a program sponsored by AIDS Alliance.  We also established a group of people from among Sons of Thunder residents to form a Home-Based Care group.  Since January after coming back from furlough, and following my trip to Swaziland to learn Community Health Evangelism or CHE, I began weekly classes with both groups together.  We started with team building and proceeded to cover the CHE classes targeting just HIV and all its ramifications.  HIV positive and negative people found working together to minister to our group of HIV clients now over 500. During those classes, we covered topics such as What is HIV, Transmission, Prevention and Treatment, Consequences of Sex Outside Marriage, God’s Plan for Marriage, Requirements of Marriage Partners, Emotions such as Denial, Fear, Worry, Guilt, Anger, Bitterness, Forgiveness and Unforgiveness, Counseling, Compassion, and Caring for the Whole Person.  We spent weeks discussing tradition, customs, culture and contrasting what it says in God’s Word.  From whatever God had us discussing over the month, the group would develop a drama to perform at each outreach site for that month. Always included with the drama would be corresponding scripture.  In the group, we have three pastors; two of which always go to the outreach areas with us.  So class would be on Thursday mornings and Friday the group would travel with Sal to the outreach site where Sal would see HIV clients receiving ARVs.   They perform the drama and bring forth God’s Word before Sal begins seeing patients.  While Sal sees the patients, the treatment supporters talk with individuals about adherence to medications, answer questions concerning living with HIV, teach lessons on perhaps nutrition or some other relevant subject and counsel and pray with individuals. The treatment supporters along with the home based care group visit homes in the areas that have been designated as needing a visit…perhaps a patient is too sick to make it to the clinic or perhaps there is a defaulter who for whatever reason is refusing to come to get help.

The treatment supporters have just sort of taken over areas of responsibility….Lena at Sons of Thunder, Abel at Katapazi, Kenneth at Sinde and Siakasipa, Sally at Kabuyu,  and Charles as secretary keeping written records of activity.  Two weeks ago I felt like God said my time of teaching Thursday mornings at Sons of Thunder was finished and I was to turn the lessons over to someone in the group to carry on….so last week Precious led the class with the CHE lesson she selected to facilitate.  The class reported it went well and they didn’t have to translate….they could just use Tonga!!!

Over the months, it has become apparent to me that each community where we offer HIV care, there needed to be a support group within the community and then as months progressed it also became apparent that a leaders group was developing in each area.  The treatment supporter overseeing the area would be instrumental in helping a support group form from among HIV positive patients.  A leaders group of both HIV positive and negative people would be crucial to carry out home visits and seed projects. I feel like my time teaching CHE at Sons of Thunder is over, but is just starting in all the other areas as the leaders groups are formed.  The same classes I taught here for the last 9 months (how appropriate J) are now to be taught in the outreach communities.  Sally, one of the treatment supporters has already begun teaching the CHE classes to her group!  So, Precious is continuing the teaching at Sons of Thunder and Sally is already teaching them in Kabuyu……you can see how God is growing this effective web of ministry, reaching people physically and spiritually….we speak truth right from God’s Word.  We don’t sugar-coat or tickle ears.  We just speak truth.  These people are already faced with their own physical death.  They need and want to hear the truth….Eternal life is at stake.

Some of the leaders on the farm were in the CHE classes and were so impacted that they asked me to please teach some of the classes to all the married couples on the farm.  Now, with so much in front of us to do, Sal and I will not just do something to do it.  We watch and pray until we see what direction God wants us to follow.  After months of waiting, God brought confirmation through many different ways and people and so I agreed to teach the classes.  At the same time as I was seeking God’s direction for these classes, I was doing a personal bible study on the Tabernacle and God clearly spoke to me the message for Sons of Thunder out of Exodus 25:8-9,  “Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them.  Make this tabernacle and all its furnishings exactly like the pattern I will show you.”  It is clear to me that God wants us to build Him a tabernacle so that He may dwell not only among us, but within us!  The message God spoke to George after his time of fasting and prayer seeking direction for the church “Building the Kingdom” rings the same message.  The Word says that “the Kingdom of Heaven is within you.”  Clearly God wants a people here prepared for Him….  “clean hands and a pure heart, ”  no longer ruled by the sinful nature, but living by the Holy Spirit.  We have had four classes so far and people are being convicted….some have stopped coming, some are hungry for more.  The classes are opening eyes and minds to the Truth of God’s Word.  God wants a holy people and just as He cleaned up and continues to clean up the physical surroundings here and shake that which can be shaken, He is once again giving us another chance to get in right relationship with Him.  Thank you Lord….You be glorified..