What a ministry! I didn't hear the whole orientation because I was sitting a little too far away, but I was surrounded by children and didn't want to disrupt or disappoint them by moving away. They are so eager to be with us, they crowd up on each side. The shy ones leave an inch or two between us. The bolder ones climb into our laps and play with our hair.
This is a multi-faceted ministry. They were able to arrange to get a water pipe into the village, with two faucets. The women still have to collect their water in buckets, but they don't have to spend hours carrying it. There is also education help, and food supplementation, and medical care. When they started working there, the child mortality (death rate under the age of 5) was 50%. Now it is 15%, and the children's bellies are no longer distended with parasites, and their skin is no longer alligator-cracked with chronic dehydration.
I find my way to the medical clinic and join the prayer team. This is great -- prayer is considered a legitimate and essential part of the medical team. The visiting American doctor did an initial evaluation, the nurse (trained in African diseases) confirmed and dispensed medicine, and then sent the patients to us for prayer.
We prayed for a man who had headaches but tested negative for Malaria, so the nurse thought it was eyestrain because he needed glasses. After we prayed, the translator told us that his headache was improving, and that his eyesight was improving too.
Then an old lady came who had aches and pains in her bones. The nurse explained that this was due to her old age and her hard life, and that there was no medicine to fix it. We prayed for her old age symptoms and her pain, and she hobbled off, a bit less stiffly than before. One of the prayer team asked the translator to ask if she was feeling better.
"Her arms and legs are only a little bit better, but by the way, she can see now".
The doctor heard this and chimed in: "I noticed her cataract as soon as she came in. There is no way she was seeing out of that eye."
We were dumbfounded! We weren't even praying for her eyes! I was so excited that I wanted to go running out on the streets looking for blind people to pray for.
Video of the medical clinic.
1 comment:
This is such an amazing ministry in which you were involved! Thanks for the postings, and especially the videos, which make it so much more real to your readers.
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