November 14, 2010

  • Sons of Thunder, birthed in 1996, is a Christian mission organization based out of Damascus, Maryland, USA.  Currently, it is situated in the Senkobo area on 10,000 acres of land.  There are seven villages totaling over 60 Zambian families all living and working on the farm.  Each one of the villages has its own headman and all of the headmen meet as a board twice a month with Alexander Mubanga as senior headman.  Alexander is also head farmer.  All of the families have gardens year round and maize fields during rainy season.  Eight of our residents feel called to entrepreneurship, starting businesses in partnership with SoT …….sewing center, furniture building, farming produce, dried maize, chickens, mechanic shop and groceries.  The goal is to be self-sustaining and raise the standard.  The current farming method adopted by Sons of Thunder and promoted is Farming God’s Way.  A man from South Africa, Patrick Cairns, has been here at Sons of Thunder about four times over the past two years and has taught FGW to all the SoT farmers. He is feeling called to come, assist and continue to give encouragement in the FGW method of farming, making SoT a training center and a beacon of hope.  Currently, SoT has 3 ministry gardens, a very large commercial garden and a maize field all FGW.   Other individual farmers (though not all) have also committed to FGW principles and method. 

    FGW Maize

    Maize Field Preparation Oct 2010

     

     Sons of Thunder Primary School was initiated back in 1999 with the building of one classroom per year.  The school currently has four classrooms and an office and offers grades one through seven. Almost  400 students are provided a free education in the rural community where there is no other alternative.  Four qualified Zambian teachers are paid by Sons of Thunder to provide quality education to the rural community. We have been given the status of ‘private school ‘ and have applied as a grade seven testing center.

    In January of 2010, we opened a preschool for the Sons of Thunder residents offering both preschool classes and Bible classes to children ages 3-6 years of age.  About 35 children attend the classes and families are happy their children will be better prepared for first grade.

     

    Although missionaries and mission teams from all denominations have been involved with Sons of Thunder, we have a Pilgrim Wesleyan Church on the ground here with a Zambian pastor.  Pastor George Malumani is a graduate of Jembo Bible College and has been the pastor here since 2006. He was ordained this year and is now an official Reverand.  The newly constructed church building was officially dedicated in January 2010.  Sons of Thunder also has five church plants all making up their own zone.  Camp meetings are held annually in August and the Zone Youth meeting will be here in December.  This coming year 2011 Sons of Thunder will host the District Youth Meeting.  Two of our pastors, Pastor Julius who was the full time chaplain at the clinic and Pastor Peter of Musokotwane church plant went to Jembo Bible College this past September in answer to God’s call.  They will be there for three years and our hope is they come back to serve in our Zone.

    Jembo Guys


    Julius and Peter’s Send Off Celebration August 2010       Pastors Julius, George and Peter

     

    Sons of Thunder Medical Ministries began in 2005 with one room.  It quickly spread to two rooms, then three and now it is a whole building with plans for expansion.  The medical clinic includes an outside waiting area on a covered back porch, a large inside reception area with sign in registration and indoor waiting, two exam rooms, a full laboratory, Labor and Delivery, a male ward, a female ward, pharmacy, storage, and male and female bathrooms, each with toilets, sinks, showers and a bathtub.  There are laundry facilities, kitchen area and a sluice room.  Sons of Thunder is a full service clinic seeing over 1200 outpatients each month including Under Five, Antenatal, TB and HIV care. Sons of Thunder Clinic is an ART Center for HIV patients under the Kazungula District Ministry of Health and we are a referral center for the other rural health centers on this side of Kazungula.  We have initiated 632 patients on ARTs to date and currently have 534 on medicine with 200 waiting to qualify.  We also admit patients and have an inpatient bed capacity of eight beds currently. Our inpatients get three meals a day; well balanced meals including nshima, eggs, kapenta, vegetables and even chicken on occasion.  All the fresh vegetables are supplied from our Farming God’s Way Clinic garden.  Because our ART numbers were so large, we decided to provide mobile ART services even before they were promoted by the Ministry of Health.  We travel to four different sites on Fridays to provide ART services within the communities of Kabuyu, Katapazi, Sinde and Siakasipa, all within the Kazungula District: Kabuyu the first Friday, Katapazi the second, Sinde the third and Siakasipa the fourth.  We also provided full services to Kasiya in the Livingstone District until they established and staffed a full clinic there.  Now we provide full services twice a month to Siandazya and Natebe alike in the Livingsone District .  Just recently we began outreach services to Makoli, also twice a month in the Kazungula District.

     While Sal is busy providing care at the clinic and outreach areas, my biggest role has been with our HIV Community Care Program(Sons of Thunder and Kabuyu, Katapazi, Sinde and Siakasipa).We sent seven people living positively with HIV to a workshop in town in 2008 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 2009, 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.

     

    As we left for furlough in May 2010, Boston University came and gave SoT seeds, fertilizer, watering cans, sprayer, and hoes to plant a PMTCT garden, which was planted Farming God’s Way during my absence.  The garden has already produced a harvest and has been found to be income generating to be used for food for vulnerable HIV positive mothers and exposed infants.  When the groups in the four outreach areas saw the success of the project, they also requested gardens.  We did not want to give the hoes, watering cans, seed and fertilizer without training in the method of FGW.  So, in coordination with Patrick’s visit from South Africa two weeks ago(God’s timing is always perfect) we held a three day workshop for 20 participants in Farming God’s Way, four from each outreach area and four from our home group.  Now the plan is to go out to the area on their respective Friday and assist them in planting an income generating garden initially to benefit positive Mothers and exposed infants, but afterwards to broaden the target base to include patients who need food assistance.

     

     

    FGW in Katapazi

    FGW Training in Katapazi Nov 2010

     

    After the gardens are established and we receive the new vehicle, the next step is to travel to the four outreach areas and teach CHE classes just as we did here at Sons of Thunder.  Some of those very same issues need to be addressed and discussed for healing to occur.

     

    In addition to this, we have been teaching students from the Western School of Nursing.  Sal has been teaching Anatomy and Physiology in the classroom and we have been hosting groups for their three week rural health clinical rotation. 

     

    Sons of Thunder Clinic is becoming well-known throughout Zambia and will soon be recognized as a nationally accredited HIV center.  Preliminary inspections by both the District and Provincial Ministries of Health have been made to help prepare us for the Medical Council’s accreditation review.  In order to help us comply with national requirements, the Ministry of Health has posted a male nurse to our clinic and is looking for a pharmacist or pharmacy tech as well.  Posting of these positions means they pay the salaries even though we are still required to provide housing. 

    In addition to national recognition, we have been awarded a grant from ZNAN (Zambia National AIDS Network) sponsored by the Global Fund.  This grant money is specifically targeted for HIV/AIDS care.  The monies are allocated for lab refurbishment, a new bush vehicle to do mobile ART clinics (antiretroviral treatment clinics), a CD4 machine with reagents (needed to do CD4 tests specific for ART protocol guidelines), an autoclave, and some top-up salaries.  The CD4 machine arrived last week but without reagents.  The vehicle is ordered but not yet received.  The lab construction is underway.

    God is good and His blessings abound as He establishes Himself as Our Provider!!!    Even with all these blessings, there is still much more to be done.  Monthly operational costs are still a great need to continue the work .

     

     

    Nursing Students 2010

    Last group of students from Western School of Nursing Sept/Oct 2010

     New lab Construction

    New Lab

    New lab Construction  (Clinic on left)

    (Chicken Coop on right – plan for more wards, laundry and kitchen)

    Plan for Maternity Ward across from Lab