Today Matthew and I had the pleasure of volunteering at the LCMS World Missions free medical clinic held at Kibera. Had the old facilities still been standing it would've occurred at a very nice clinic, instead we made use of what we had, and we still did great work. The clinic is a free clinic, no charges at all, to the entire area. If you can make it there, they will treat you. Many came without anything wrong, but there were also many that had numerous things wrong with them. What was also so great was that the team brought all sorts of medical supplies with them, so they had a full working pharmacy too, which was also free.
The first part of the day, I spent doing crowd control/playing with the children. I taught many a man, woman, and child how to throw footballs and Frisbees. It was a great time. After doing this for a while, there was much need inside the pharmacy filling orders, so that is what I did the rest of the day. It was one of my most rewarding days here. I truly loved doing work with my hands, to directly benefit these people that very moment. It was great.
A little more about the team, they do medical clinics in Africa all of the time. They are part of the LCMS officially and are organized and planned by a special office inside of it. They told me that they try to make around 5 or 6 trips to Africa per year to put on these clinics. This also means that there is a great opportunity for anyone with any sort of medical experience to help out one or more times. That means you. They are really doing great work. By the time I had met up with them, they had been in Africa for a while and already been to several countries. Also, due to non-regulation, they were not tied down to certain rules, such as nurses not being able to fill out prescriptions. If we could help them, we did, and the more we could help, the better. We got in over 200 people into the clinic on this day. It's a great feeling to have, and I don't even have a medical background….
A few more notes from the day:
-Many of my notes today were once again a result of conversation with Pastor Winterle. I am learning and soaking in a lot. Consequently, there isn't a need to write a lot of that down. One of the things that I started to think from listening to him, and this is my own words (not his, so don't hold him at fault). We simply cannot just give to these people. Either we are not going to give enough, and they will continue to struggle. Or, we will give too much and they will become reliant and then fall into the state of permanent charity. There is no middle amount. The sole source of our efforts in working with the massively poor areas of this country should be to equip. The old adage "give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime" rings true. Things like our medical clinic are great because it keeps them alive, but I think things like giving them much needed Bibles and Catechisms is even better. It equips them to learn, and then in turn... teach, using the tools that we've given them. Other work, such as teaching the HIV positive single mothers to make their own bookmarks for sale, is teaching them a trade, so that they can provide for their families (this is one of the tasks the Heart to Heart organization is involved in). I think a lot of my thoughts on this come from my experiences here, common logical reasoning, and listening to Pastor Winterle. I know that the book "When Charity Destroys Dignity" had a large impact on him, and from the excerpts I have read, it is a very interesting concept. I am going to see if I can find it once I get back to the US.
-I've got a great parable on Matatus I am planning for when I get back. I think I should turn it into a Bible study. My goodness they are not my chosen means of transportation. Craziness. Speaking of Matatus, my record for number of people on one in which I was on is now 23. They are 15-seat vehicles, one of which is taken up by the driver. We had one guy standing on the back bumper and hanging on. Two guys were standing hanging out the side of the van with the door open, leaving 19 people to sit in 14 seats. I must also make as much of a point of this as I can to truly clarify the situation, these seats are themselves very small, not designed for tall people (I'm only 6 feet tall and it kills me) and not designed for fat people (I'm skinny as can be and I struggle to get down the "aisle." That being said, it left 19 people trying to get into 14 very very small seats. Somehow we did it, still not sure how… its like one of those clown cars…. You see the Matatus unload on the side of the road and you wonder where all the people coming out of them are coming from…
Well, I suppose that is it for the day. Love you all, just a few days left!
Joseph
That's a great point about either not giving enough or turning them into the guy who comes back every day for a fish because he doesn't know how. Either way, the African continent is made better by your presence =] those cars sound like fun ;)
ReplyDeleteLove - Jason