What's the Problem?

We are all living in a world where the devil is working. Glorious will be the day when we shall be separated from the evil that he brings.

I have learned so many things as I live and work in Zambia. I know that when I leave this place I will come back to America a changed person. I will never look at life the way I used to and I am glad. I know it sounds cliché to say, “It’s a different world here!” but it really is. I am amazed daily at the differences of living here and living in the States. I am constantly being reminded of how luxurious life once was for me and I didn’t even realize it. I am always thinking of things that I took very much advantage of and only now that I don’t have them, I notice and appreciate them.
I am recommending to everyone a trip to a third-world country. If you haven’t been to one, you really need to go. Even on a short visit, you will gain immeasurable insight on how life is for a large percentage of the world’s population. If you have been to one, you know what I mean. I always want to take pictures of everything I see and experience so I may show people back home, but I know it’s not the same for them to see a photograph as it is for me to see the real thing.
I don’t want to go on and on about the poverty here because I know you have all heard it before. You’ve seen commercials about the orphans without shoes and read the pamphlets about how little it really takes to feed an African family. You know it’s here. I used to watch those commercials, too and often found myself feeling pity on them, but not really understanding the extent of it. It really hits me now that I am here. However, I don’t want to tell you about that. I don’t want to talk about looking out my window in the morning to see village children digging in my trash looking for food or things that they consider treasures. I don’t want to talk about the preschoolers that walk long distances barefoot to get to school, or the man I saw lying in a hospital bed whose legs were as thin as my wrists, or the child we had to rush to the clinic because his entire body was swollen due to malnutrition. I don’t want to talk about those things, because you already know about them.
There are so many things about Africa that make it different besides those issues you are used to hearing about. I have been introduced the cruelness of this world and am becoming more and more familiar with it as the days pass. My prayer list for this people is getting so long that each night it takes me more and more time to finish. When I look around me I see many issues that need to be addressed and taken care of. In fact, they are so numerous that I often feel overwhelmed at the fact that they most likely won’t ever be changed. Not all of them.
One major obstacle for people and a cause for many deaths is the lack of medical care facilities. The nearest clinic to our center is over 70 km away. We have often found when people make it there, they are then referred to a place where there needs can be met because that clinic lacks the know-how, the equipment and many other things necessary for proper care-giving. The places they are referred to are very far away. Many people in the villages die in childbirth, of snakebites, malaria--things that are easily treated once in the right care. Sometimes they die on the way to the hospital and sometimes they are so deep in the bush, they don’t even get that far.
A large part of this problem is due to lack of education. We have a certified nurse onboard with us and she is constantly in disbelief with some of the problems presented to her. We want to inform people of ways that they can be healthier and avoid so much sickness, but they are so far behind that it often seems like an uphill battle. Some people get it and some are not as fast to catch on. The issue is that in their worldview, they become fatalists, which means they believe that whatever is happening to them can’t be stopped because it’s fate. Here is an example to help you understand: There was a village of people that were all getting sick and many were dying. A missionary doctor came to their village and found that there was a dead goat in the bottom of their well. He said, “You have a dead goat in your well!!” They all said, “Yeah. . . ?” They knew the goat was down there, yet they continued using the water for bathing, cooking, drinking and cleaning. They made absolutely no connection to the fact that there was a decaying corpse of an animal in their water. They believed it was fate. Whether it be witchcraft, punishment, or the devil himself, there was nothing they could do to stop it.
This, obviously, is a large obstacle to overcome. We have many classes on healthy living and give out books on eating balanced meals and keeping your drinking water clean and so on. Germs don’t exist to them. They don’t have the cognitive domain to understand that. Disease is caused by germs and bacteria and can be cured and often prevented. Why are so many people dying of AIDS? It’s fate.
I don’t know how any of that makes you feel, but it really disturbs me. I sometimes think, “Oh, wouldn’t that be great to come and build a big hospital right here?” But then, who would come? Who would understand that they can go there with their sickness and get help? Who would rather go to a witch doctor. Who thinks that their baby girl has been bewitched so they have nothing to do but watch her die? It’s so hard to know where to start. It’s hard to see our progress from day to day. These people, that I have come to love very deeply, need more health education. It seems simple, and is compared to what some people think is needed over here.
It starts with the children. In preschool we talk about brushing teeth, keeping hair clean, bathing every day, eating vegetables, etc. They were all given tooth brushes and when they were asked where their tooth brushes were after a month, half of them had either, broken them, lost them, or had parents take them for themselves. Every day the teacher I work with checks them to see if they have bathed and cleaned their fingernails. It’s so important to learn these things and we want to start young so they can develop these habits over time. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like I am doing much until I look at the bigger picture. You gotta start somewhere!
We need your prayers for our efforts here. There is so much work to be done and not enough people to do it. It will take years for any changes to be really noticed to the outside and that’s too long. So many people will die in that time. I wasn’t originally trying to recruit anyone, but if you thought there was nothing you could do if you came to Africa, you were wrong. If you know how to take a bath and take care of your health needs then you are a prime candidate. Come on down! J Thank you everyone for your continuous prayers and support. I am so thankful for everything that is happening here and I am thankful to God and other who have made it possible for me to be a small part. Praise be to God.

I will try to update more often—sorry about that!