(the reference is from Isaiah 5:7)
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This blog is a loose record of my experiences learning to know God more through time spent with Him; as well as through trying to: do justice (through advocacy and the defence of the hurting and broken), love kindness (through trying to be obedient to the leading of God to serve those placed in my path and on my heart), and walk humbly in His companionship (Micah 6:8) (all of which is an ongoing challenge!)
This past week seemed to just fly by for some reason and I
guess its that speed with which things seem to be going that makes it really
hard to believe that this is the beginning of my 13th week here in
the field! So much to do, so (apparently) little time…
I spent the vast majority of last week battling with the
video footage we took of Dr. Imani in order to get it ready to upload for the
International Day of the Young Doctor (June 20th). It was a
nightmare because the translation took forever and my computer chose this week
to express its personal vendetta against me by crashing every single time I
tried to open the movie editing software. Talk about “Rise of the
Machines”…Thankfully, our good friend Sarah Fluck came to my rescue at just the
right moment. On Wednesday she spent her evening with me editing the video
footage on her Mac and we were able to upload after two further days of
attempts on the internet! You can see the finished product here:
This week Dr. Mukwege came back from London where he had
been attending Angelina Jolie’s Conference to end sexual violence. The hospital
is definitely a different place when he's not around! But when he came back he
convened a meeting of all staff out in the nursing building behind the
hospital. So this is us heading out there on Wednesday morning:
It was a really interesting meeting as Dr. Mukwege took time
to really get all the staff thinking about their respective roles in the
overall vision and mission of the hospital. He wanted them to think of
themselves as indispensible and as a vital part of what is going on around them
at the hospital, no matter what their individual tasks were. And he just has a
way of putting things that really draws one into his way of thinking about
things. It was very interesting to be there for the meeting.
This week we are focussed on grant proposals and I am also
trying to solidify donations of medical supplies that I hope to take back with
me from Canada to Congo when I return next week. It'll be a whirlwind trip
7-day roundtrip so I'm hoping to make the most of it.
This week marked a huge landmark for us ere at Channel – the
IRS’s 501(c)3 form is finally ready to be submitted! I know that might not seem
like a big deal… but after spending the last 7 months slogging through the IRS’s
special brand of legalese, we are finally ready to submit our form in order to
try and get a charitable tax status for Channel (i.e. Channel will be able to
issue tax receipts for its donations). Very exciting stuff, and something I can’t
wait to see accomplished down the road. The biggest hurdle is now out of the way
– i.e. the filling out of the form. Now all we have to do is get it all printed
out, somehow find enough money to pay the application fee to the IRS, and then
wait while the men in the dark suits decide whether we’re worthy or whether
they will, instead, send someone over to break our kneecaps or something… one
never knows with the government.
Other than that, the other interesting thing we did this
week was scout out a possible spot for the coffee shop that Dominique is hoping
to open up in Bukavu in order to bring in reliable cash for Channel Initiative projects.
There’s really no decent place to find a cup of coffee around here and there
seems to be a good amount of demand for it, so the prospects are good, its just
a matter of finding the best strategic location. Could this be it perhaps??? We’re
still thinking and praying about it, but it was fun to go out with our friend
Wendy to see this place she had in mind for it.
Other than that I’ve been doing a lot of work editing a
video interview that we did with Dr. Imani and other work relating to the
medical supplies and possible partnerships.
This week has been an exciting one. In addition to the
regular things that we do every week (i.e. advocating for funding and support
for our programs, etc.), we used the fine weather and Dr. Imani’s availability in
order to do a video interview of him explaining his vision of bringing free
medical help to the most vulnerable groups in Kavumu and his vision for the DRC
in general. He did really well during the interview, even though all the tiny cameras in his face must have been nerve-wracking.
Dr. Imani also explained to us about how he was behind the
start of the V-Men group – he had wanted to start an organization of men who
were concerned about sexual violence in the DRC and actively involved in advocating
for the dignity and safety of women, so he started a group, which is now called
V-Men.
Yesterday we had our first active field visit since I've been here. Dominique and I spent the night before packing up donated clean birth
kits, re-usable sanitary pads, Neosporin, elastic bandages, and baby clothes to
distribute to the patients to be seen by MSD’s mobile clinic.
Our destination -- Kabamba which is a ways past Kavumu. Its
about a 2 hour drive from our house. We were there with Dr. Imani, three other
doctors from his team, his administrator, and the staff at Kabamba.
When we got there we were greeted with singing -- Dr. Imani
eventually got himself a shaker and joined right in with the ladies.
We were taken into the Church in order to have introductory
speeches about who we were and what we were going to be doing in the area.
We were then brought to this little clinic where the consultations
would take place. Each doctor had a room where they were either consulting or
else dispensing medications. Dominique and I also had a room with our supplies.
When one of the doctors saw a patient who might need one of the things that we
brought, he would refer him or her to us. We did several dramatic
demonstrations of how to use the sanitary pads and clean birth kits (I got to
demonstrate giving birth at home several times on the floor…;).
During a lull in the program we also had a chance to play a
video in Swahili about breast feeding techniques. Unfortunately we did not have
a projector available this time, but it was a popular feature anyways, even the
kids enjoyed it.
The clinic lasted all day, after which the community
expressed its gratitude by adding these passengers to our trip home for Dr.
Imani and his team.
The chickens were a little less impressed about the gift though,
and complained about it from time to time verbally on the way home.
We had a little hitch in the plan when we got back to the
van at the end of the clinic day when we found out that the battery in the van
had died… but Dominique had fun entertaining the kids with some back and forth
basic English conversations while we waited for them to find someone in the community
to give us a boost.
After we got the van running again we headed back home. Dr.
Imani had seen some of tragic cases during the clinic which affected him
deeply, but all in all he seemed encouraged by the turnout and results of the
day.
P.S.
The above post was written on Thursday June 6 but the week had a damper end to it. On Friday I got myself a bad bout of food poisoning which put me out for the rest of the weekend, but more importantly the worst part of the week was on our way home from work on Friday afternoon when we passed a small girl (between 4 and 6 years old) who had just been hit in the road by a van. The scene was awful and it was impossible to tell whether she had survived the impact. She was gathered up unceremoniously by a man in the street, slung over his shoulder and removed from the scene -- hopefully to the nearby medical clinic. Please pray for her and her family, as well as the woman who hit her with the van.
P.P.S.
Just had to share this. As you know, I live in the town of Bukavu in Eastern DRC on the Rwandan border. Right on this huge lake. If you go up the lake quite a ways, one gets to the next large town which is called Goma. I have not had a chance to get up there myself, but I'm told its a good place to visit. Like Bukavu, it seems a lot of expats are based out of Goma. They've got an active volcano up there and I hear the violence-situation is a little tenser up there than here. All that to say, Dominique shared this video with me this morning and I had to add it to this post. Hands-down the most inspirational thing I've seen in a long time -- not because its *yet another* remake of this fantastic but fad song, but because its a video made by people from Goma, in the town of Goma, starring the spirit of the Eastern DRC, i.e. showcasing the spirit of joy, recreation, resilience and artistic expression that exudes constantly from the pores of this community. The picture painted by the violent goings on in the DRC are grim and gloomy at best (Goma even more so than Bukavu), but as the old saying goes, you clearly can't keep a good man (or woman!) down. I hope you enjoy it as I did:
Hello again! This past week was full of more "hands-on" service to
MSD and Dr. Imani...
I spent a good part of the week working on the price list
for the medical supplies and equipment that we are thinking of sourcing from
Europe to get to MSD and CH Mulamba.
On Saturday Dominique and I headed to Panzi to help MSD pack
up their clinic to move to Kavumu.
It started with a visit to Dr. Imani’s house to see the new
sign that he’s had painted for the Kavumu clinic. We then attended the small
meeting where Dr. Imani reiterated to his nurses that yes, they were in fact
going to have to close down the Bukavu clinic in order to open the new clinic
in Kavumu. The staff members were very stressed about the change because they
live in Kavumu and it costs 3 thousand francs (about $3.20) per direction to
get transportation from where they live in this area to the clinic location in
Kavumu – they also have their families in Bukavu to think about; the whole
thing made for a stressful bittersweet meeting.
After the meeting we got to work with packing up all the
materials and getting ready for the move.
Once we got everything packed up, it was time to move it up
to the road. The way to the clinic is too narrow to drive to so we had to
transport all the materials from the clinic up the hill to the road by
head/hand…
After it was all (miraculously) on the truck, they headed
off to Kavumu to set up shop. We’re looking forward to visiting them there
soon!
Oh, and here's the (unfortunately low-quality) video that Dominique took of me explaining the process...:
