We have just arrived back in Choma concluding our time at Macha Mission Hospital in rural Zambia. It was an incredible experience full of heart break and joy. During our time at Macha we stayed in a guest house and we were able to walk to the hospital every morning and work in the various units. It was so great! The hospital itself was started by a missionary and since then Johns Hopkins University has developed a Research Institute and is performing some incredible work that has almost eradicated malaria in this region. Before the institute began its research the hospital had a rate of 1,449 deaths due to malaria in 2000 in the CHILDREN'S WARD ALONE. In less than 10 years the institute has managed a 97% reduction and in 2009 there were only 46 deaths due to malaria in the same ward! This hospital works closely with medical schools and churches from the Netherlands so during our time we were able to get to know some of them and learn about the projects they have been doing. One incredible project is called the "Care House." Until recently the concept of palliative care (care for those dying of terminal illness) had not been prevalent in Zambia. The Care House was started by a few nurses from the Netherlands and in the past few years they have built a beautiful center where children with HIV can come and receive counseling, group therapy and play therapy can learn about effective HIV treatment and how to live positively with HIV. They also provide support groups, club sports, music lessons (as therapy), sewing classes and health education for children and families. This was one of the most encouraging things to see! The Care House plans on launching a full time children's ward once they get the funding for kids with special needs and those dying of AIDS and other terminal illness. This idea is revolutionary in Zambia and it was exciting to see this project take place! Out of all the places we have gone so far, Macha has touched me the deepest and I hope we can go back there before leaving Zambia. For two weeks our team had been commuting there for clinical and then we stayed there last Sunday through yesterday. Over the course of those few weeks God opened up doors for me to build friendships with the nursing students, staff and patients. I was able to share the gospel and pray over patients - I am learning that prayer has the ability to transcend language barriers. Even though we could not understand each other – I found both myself and the patient were encourage and blessed through prayer. During the week I would go visit some of the patients when I was not working. I saw new life as we witnessed several births in the maternity ward (many of our students were able to deliver babies! This experience, though amazing, confirmed what I already believed to be true: I have no desire to be a labor and delivery nurse...ever. haha). I saw life-saving surgeries. I was able to do multiple night shifts and assist with surgeries, do IV's, give medications, put down NG tubes, run malaria and HIV blood draws, participate in rural health clinics and clean many wounds. The staff was welcoming and we were given a lot of freedom to perform skills. I have seen culture where families are dedicated to caring for their sick and elderly. I also witnessed and experienced some of the most horrific, heart-breaking, and severe human suffering I have ever encountered. I feel as though I saw glimpses of heaven and hell during my time in the hospital and I am forever changed as a person, a believer and a nurse because of what I experienced. One day I had the opportunity to be with an 18-year old girl as she went through labor and eventually surgery as she had to have a c-section. This baby would have been healthy but due to the negligence of a few nurses, lack of resources and poor surgery outcomes it took 10 minutes to resuscitate the baby girl in the OR and the child now has permanent brain damage and a seizure disorder. Several of the students on our team sat with the baby through the night shifts that followed and monitored her as she seized over and over again. No one else would do the assessments and it seemed as though they were just waiting to see if she would die. I saw a 2-year old who was poorly sedated cry and drool as he was strapped to the table all the way through surgery because no one bothered to check and see if his IV was working when they gave him medication. Despite the meds they gave him halfway through surgery, he did not stop crying until he was sutured closed and sent back to the children's ward. I saw multiple burn victims be denied any pain medication before being debriding (scraping the burns to remove dead skin and infection). I had to clean and pack a gaping amputated leg stump on an elderly woman had been given a small dose of tylenol a few minutes before. I cared for many children and adults wasting away from TB, AIDS and malnutrition and I was entirely helpless to do anything to relieve their suffering and that was the most awful feeling. Can you imagine what it is like to look into the sunken eyes of a child who looks like a skeleton corpse or a child with a bloated tummy whose skin is peeling off because of malnutrition when you are full from a good lunch? I watched a three year old have his broken femur set without pain medication. Many times there would be deaths in the male/female wards and the women would go and wail and roll around in the dirt to show their pain and loss. I saw multiple children and adults with serious burns covering most of their bodies – for some they will make it and others will not. My savior complex is being broken apart and it’s the most painful, yet holy thing to experience. It sounds strange but I do not know how else to explain. My heart breaks for the suffering and I have nothing to give them other than a compassionate touch, my prayers and my hope that this is not how we were meant to live and that Christ is coming again to make things right! No more starvation, grief, pain, tears, infection...wrongs will be righted and all because Christ had mercy on us and endured the ultimate affliction.I am still figuring it out...if you could pray for each of us on the team as we process things during these last four weeks. It is a strange phenomenon to have your heart so fulfilled and so crushed at the same time; to witness those suffering physical pain who are still praising God. Sometimes I am not sure yet what I am going to do with all I am learning but I know that God has called me to be here and to be experiencing these things and I am so glad He did. Please pray for physical health and protection for us. We are on the frontlines and our bodies are encountering a lot as we are caring for those with tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, Meningitis, sepsis and a host of other things. One of our girls got a dirty needle stick but thank God the patient was HIV negative. Yesterday as I was finishing up a difficult night shift, I had an active Tuberculosis patient cough and vomit on me as I tried to help her take her medications (TB is a highly contagious disease spread by coughing). In that moment, God just gave me such a peace: “Love like my son Jesus did and do not run away from the contagious and those who need my loving touch.” As I walked back after my shift the sun was coming up and it was a beautiful, clear morning. When I reached the house I found I was locked out of my room so I sat outside and opened my Bible to where I had been reading in Isaiah..nothing could have been more perfect: “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness…no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days” Isaiah 65:17-20. What a comfort and a joy. Thank you for being such a present encouragement and prayer support to me as I continue on in this experience. It means more than you will ever know.I hope and pray that God blesses you and encourages you today!
Leza Amuleleke/God Bless you!Kathryn
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