Relay race with the kids
Lauren and Pastor Domingo helping serve a North American meal
Janeen and Erin Helping serve the meal
Saturday, January 19, 2008
A day for the children . . .
Our workplace
'leaning tower of pisa' boxes
the hospital pharmacy - needs a bit of tlc
. . . and this was only 1/3 of the boxes!
. . . and this was only 1/3 of the expired drugs!
Dispensing out of the very, very hot matchbox pharmacy
So what have we being doing . . .
We can’t believe we have already been in Namibia for over 2 months! At the beginning of November we quite unexpectedly found ourselves working as full time pharmacists in the Rundu State Hospital. This was quite a surprise as we had initially hoped to be in the community educating about basic health issues, nutrition, HIV/AIDS, TB treatment and much more. But it was apparent the hospital was in desperate need of a pharmacist so this is where we have spent the past few months. Currently they are understaffed with only four pharmacy assistants and no hospital pharmacist. For the past year the HIV clinic pharmacist, Chaka, has tried to fill in the gap. He is rather stretched, with an increased patient load in the HIV clinic and the demands in the hospital pharmacy. (The number of patients receiving HIV treatment has doubled in the past year to almost 2000!). Chaka was contemplating looking for a new job, but held out when he heard some pharmacists were coming to help support him. Upon our arrival he told us he knew there was a God because we actually came! ;)
So where to begin. . . we really had to start with the basics in the pharmacy. This included taking inventory, organizing the stock room and receiving the drug order. Receiving the drug order was an experience in itself . . . can you imagine unloading the stock with prisoners supplied from the local jail? Picture the chaos, as the prisoners randomly chucked the boxes off the truck as we tried to count them. And then there was the ‘leaning tower of Pisa’ and the crumpling shelves under the weight of the boxes piled high to the roof in our stockroom. We have spent the majority of our time counting pills with the cleaning staff, counseling in our rough Rukwangali (always good for a smile), cleaning and organizing, filling orders for the ward and providing information for some of the doctors. After two months we are starting to understand how the hospital and pharmacy run, where we fit; and we are beginning to feel more settled.
Beyond filling these basic needs, we have also been trying to build relationships and work alongside the staff. Our hope is to empower and equip people and to be involved in sustainable projects; therefore our focus has to be working with people! To be honest working with the pharmacy staff has been one of our biggest struggles so far. Some challenges we have been faced with are apathy, lack of communication and accountability (you may be thinking that this doesn’t sound very far off to your workplace, but it seems to be on a larger scale here). Please pray for wisdom as we try to understand how to best work with our colleagues. We long to inspire, motivate, encourage and challenge the staff to work together as a team to provide better patient care. So how do we keep the big picture in mind – to live with Christ in our lives so that his love can outpour to those around us at work?
Dr. Rob Gredanius (also with AIM), his wife Alisa and their family have set a wonderful example of how to live generously. Shortly after we arrived Rob invited us to go with him to deliver food to a very needy family. The grandmother of this family recently lost four out of her five children, which has left her as the primary caregiver for 10 of her grandchildren. Not only has Rob helped provide food for this family; he has also ensured all the children are able to attend school. Alisa even took all of them on a shopping spree to get an outfit for school! We are recognizing education is one of the best gifts a child can be given. This is affirmed by one Namibian survey, which showed children rate education as their number one priority. We hope to support other children in pursuing education.
One project we are becoming more involved with is the Orphans and Vulnerable Children Project (OVC). This is a project initiated by a local church, and over the past year AIM has also helped support it. They feed the children at least once a week, share stories about Jesus, sing and play games. Rob has shared about the OVC project with many people in his church back home and they decided to send Christmas gifts for these children (similar to Samaritan’s Purse Shoeboxes). It was obvious how much love and attention went into preparing each gift. A special day was planned by the OVC committee to give out these gifts. The day also consisted of quite a formal program with songs from the choir, a sermon, a presentation of the Christmas story by the Gredanius family and the debut of the Sharumbo choir (Yes that means white person choir, and that means us!). To top-off the day the majority of the people gathered enjoyed a meal; upon its conclusion and as the sun was setting the gifts were finally given out!!
Two weeks later we were grateful to be involved in the planning of another Christmas party, this one was for the children of our home church in Africa. We arrived to a large group of children singing in their own language. It was quite powerful and beautiful and brought us much joy to see their anticipation for the day – they were ready for a party! We helped lead some songs – Peace Like a River, Praise ye the Lord and the Animal song (thanks Carrie for sending songs). We then had a grand ‘ole time playing games including “how low can you go” limbo, fox in the hole, and a very simple relay which consisted of a few benches in the sand and much running and laughter. We served a classic North American meal consisting of hot dogs, cheezies, and rice krispie squares. Imagine children sitting in the sand covered in ketchup and mustard, not quite sure how to eat a hot dog, and to top it all off most had orange moustaches from their pop. As you can imagine this event drew a lot of attention from the community and we actually ended up serving around 300 people (Our supplies seemed to multiply as we cut hotdogs in half and reused the paper plates!).
It seems many children are undervalued in this culture and therefore it was important to us to spend a full day honoring them. We were very determined to ensure the day was about the kids – that’s why we had lots of games instead of long speeches and hot dogs instead of an adult type meal. We served the children before the adults (very unusual in this culture), and we were told this would be talked about for many years. This was intentional in order to show we honored and valued them.
We all know how much children like to receive gifts and this does not happen very often here, so you can imagine the children were very excited during the gift giving time! More children showed up than expected so we didn’t have enough gifts BUT we were still able to include all the children in the excitement of the day. We hope this was a memorable Christmas for them. During the Christmas season we are reminded of the greatest gift of all, JESUS. (Or Yesu, here) We hope these children recognize that the joy they felt during this day was only a glimpse of the joy we experience daily with Jesus in our lives. All the preparation that went into this day was well worth it, and it delighted us to see the children well fed and joyful.
One question that we continually ask ourselves is – whom do you help? There are so many overwhelming needs and it is difficult to know where to begin. One approach that we are learning is to start by meeting the needs of the people you are somehow connected to; for example the needy family, OVC’s and children of our church. Often children are the most neglected and we have found this is a good place to start. As we get more involved with OVCs we hope to share more stories.
So where to begin. . . we really had to start with the basics in the pharmacy. This included taking inventory, organizing the stock room and receiving the drug order. Receiving the drug order was an experience in itself . . . can you imagine unloading the stock with prisoners supplied from the local jail? Picture the chaos, as the prisoners randomly chucked the boxes off the truck as we tried to count them. And then there was the ‘leaning tower of Pisa’ and the crumpling shelves under the weight of the boxes piled high to the roof in our stockroom. We have spent the majority of our time counting pills with the cleaning staff, counseling in our rough Rukwangali (always good for a smile), cleaning and organizing, filling orders for the ward and providing information for some of the doctors. After two months we are starting to understand how the hospital and pharmacy run, where we fit; and we are beginning to feel more settled.
Beyond filling these basic needs, we have also been trying to build relationships and work alongside the staff. Our hope is to empower and equip people and to be involved in sustainable projects; therefore our focus has to be working with people! To be honest working with the pharmacy staff has been one of our biggest struggles so far. Some challenges we have been faced with are apathy, lack of communication and accountability (you may be thinking that this doesn’t sound very far off to your workplace, but it seems to be on a larger scale here). Please pray for wisdom as we try to understand how to best work with our colleagues. We long to inspire, motivate, encourage and challenge the staff to work together as a team to provide better patient care. So how do we keep the big picture in mind – to live with Christ in our lives so that his love can outpour to those around us at work?
Dr. Rob Gredanius (also with AIM), his wife Alisa and their family have set a wonderful example of how to live generously. Shortly after we arrived Rob invited us to go with him to deliver food to a very needy family. The grandmother of this family recently lost four out of her five children, which has left her as the primary caregiver for 10 of her grandchildren. Not only has Rob helped provide food for this family; he has also ensured all the children are able to attend school. Alisa even took all of them on a shopping spree to get an outfit for school! We are recognizing education is one of the best gifts a child can be given. This is affirmed by one Namibian survey, which showed children rate education as their number one priority. We hope to support other children in pursuing education.
One project we are becoming more involved with is the Orphans and Vulnerable Children Project (OVC). This is a project initiated by a local church, and over the past year AIM has also helped support it. They feed the children at least once a week, share stories about Jesus, sing and play games. Rob has shared about the OVC project with many people in his church back home and they decided to send Christmas gifts for these children (similar to Samaritan’s Purse Shoeboxes). It was obvious how much love and attention went into preparing each gift. A special day was planned by the OVC committee to give out these gifts. The day also consisted of quite a formal program with songs from the choir, a sermon, a presentation of the Christmas story by the Gredanius family and the debut of the Sharumbo choir (Yes that means white person choir, and that means us!). To top-off the day the majority of the people gathered enjoyed a meal; upon its conclusion and as the sun was setting the gifts were finally given out!!
Two weeks later we were grateful to be involved in the planning of another Christmas party, this one was for the children of our home church in Africa. We arrived to a large group of children singing in their own language. It was quite powerful and beautiful and brought us much joy to see their anticipation for the day – they were ready for a party! We helped lead some songs – Peace Like a River, Praise ye the Lord and the Animal song (thanks Carrie for sending songs). We then had a grand ‘ole time playing games including “how low can you go” limbo, fox in the hole, and a very simple relay which consisted of a few benches in the sand and much running and laughter. We served a classic North American meal consisting of hot dogs, cheezies, and rice krispie squares. Imagine children sitting in the sand covered in ketchup and mustard, not quite sure how to eat a hot dog, and to top it all off most had orange moustaches from their pop. As you can imagine this event drew a lot of attention from the community and we actually ended up serving around 300 people (Our supplies seemed to multiply as we cut hotdogs in half and reused the paper plates!).
It seems many children are undervalued in this culture and therefore it was important to us to spend a full day honoring them. We were very determined to ensure the day was about the kids – that’s why we had lots of games instead of long speeches and hot dogs instead of an adult type meal. We served the children before the adults (very unusual in this culture), and we were told this would be talked about for many years. This was intentional in order to show we honored and valued them.
We all know how much children like to receive gifts and this does not happen very often here, so you can imagine the children were very excited during the gift giving time! More children showed up than expected so we didn’t have enough gifts BUT we were still able to include all the children in the excitement of the day. We hope this was a memorable Christmas for them. During the Christmas season we are reminded of the greatest gift of all, JESUS. (Or Yesu, here) We hope these children recognize that the joy they felt during this day was only a glimpse of the joy we experience daily with Jesus in our lives. All the preparation that went into this day was well worth it, and it delighted us to see the children well fed and joyful.
One question that we continually ask ourselves is – whom do you help? There are so many overwhelming needs and it is difficult to know where to begin. One approach that we are learning is to start by meeting the needs of the people you are somehow connected to; for example the needy family, OVC’s and children of our church. Often children are the most neglected and we have found this is a good place to start. As we get more involved with OVCs we hope to share more stories.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
