In 2010, 2 pastors who lived half a world apart, stood together on a hillside in the heart of Africa. Pastor Sylver Turinawye pointed to the nearby village of Kacungwa, Uganda and said “one day we will have a medical clinic there – there is a great need”. Pastor Ken Harvey listened closely to this pastor from Uganda and stood side by side with him looking at the future.
In 2012, a CCC mission team joined a medical team from Oklahoma at a 2-day medical clinic in Kacungwa where a young girl died of malaria. That seminal moment set in stone the direction God was calling Canby Christian Church to in partnership with Kacungwa Community Church.
In 2013, a short-term medical team from Renewal Health Network and the Gulu Uganda based non-profit organization Love for Health joined together for a short term medical mission to Kacungwa. They saw there that there was an abnormally high rate of malaria and respiratory illness – severe cases that had been left untreated for a long time because there is no medical care here.
During the years since 2010, God has used a number of circumstances and faithful people have provided Canby Christian Church with the money to construct a permanent medical clinic in the village of Kacungwa and, with the current funds, pay for operating expenses for at least the first 2 years. As you saw in an earlier post, the purchase of the land is within weeks of being completed and then construction can begin. If you have any lingering doubts as to why this is so critically urgent, just read on…
658 + 19 + $7.60 + (8 + 8)
These are the final numbers from the clinic held the past 2 days. Let’s examine each one in a little more detail.
On the first day of the clinic, there were 315 patients treated (see earlier blog post titled 315). Today, there were an additional 343 patients seen bringing the total to 658 treated over 2 days. The majority of the patients had malaria and/or AIDS. Their symptoms were very severe because they had gone untreated for over a year in most cases because there is no medical care available to them.
People coming to this clinic were not just from Kacungwa either. Many travelled from distant villages just to receive treatment. Those not able to be seen the first day had to return home and come back the next day, though many slept o the cement floor of the church because it was too far for them to travel or they were too sick. The doctors, at the end of the clinic, told our team that this area of Uganda has the most sickness – and more severe too – than they ever see other places. The reason, they explained, is that there is just no medical care available here and there is no way for people to receive treatment.
We were told that severe malaria symptoms include pain in the stomach/abdomen, pain in the chest, back, neck and head, and even more severe cases report pain over the entire body. We recognized these symptoms in most of the requests for prayer we received. It was overwhelming when we realized exactly what we were seeing. Also, we learned from the medical team that they had to return to purchase more medicine 2 separate times because they ran out. [NOTE: What we thought was extra money raised during the Christmas offering for this clinic turned out to be just enough to purchase the extra medicine – fortunately God knew we would need that extra money and you provided it in response!]
You saw in yesterday’s post titled 315, several examples of the more severe cases that were seen. Today, I had the privilege of praying for a beautiful young girl who has some type of growth on her arm that was causing her great pain and continued to grow. I don’t know what became of her, but I pray that God will heal her and relieve the pain she is suffering.
Gary Dunfee told us of a time today when he was conducting an AIDS test on a blood sample that returned a positive result The doctor wanted to use a more expensive test to confirm the results. The same – positive. The patient turned out to be a 16 year-old girl. This was one of the hardest moments of the clinic reported by the doctors – tears flowed as they told the young girl of her fate.
There were many women, like the one below, who came to the clinic with severe malaria and their babies had it also. One particular baby I was asked to pray for couldn’t have been more than a few months old – and has malaria. THIS IS JUST NOT RIGHT!!!!!
19 is the number of people that the CCC team prayed with to receive Jesus as their Savior! Renee prayed with an entire family that came to Christ as she lead them through the gospel. It started with the father who first prayed to be saved, then each family member in turn followed.
There are many people from the Catholic Church here who do not understand God’s plan of salvation through Jesus Christ, but when they learned of it readily accepted the free gift offered them by God. In addition to the teams praying for people exiting the clinic, there were many local pastors who had come to Kacungwa to share the gospel with people as they gathered waiting for treatment. This was not JUST a medical clinic, this was a spiritual outreach as well.
The man in the picture above is just one of those who entered the Kingdom of God yesterday. He wanted to be saved, but was afraid (for reasons he would not explain). We talked for a long time and ultimately he overcame his fears and accepted God’s calling to become a new creation in Jesus Christ. Another woman I prayed with told me that she was always being tormented by demons as were her children. She wanted God’s protection and believed that becoming saved would be her only hope of escaping the torment.
$7.60 is how much it cost to treat each patient during the course of this clinic. This includes all of the medicines and supplies, travel for the medical team – all of the costs. It is going to be hard to determine how many lives were saved because of the treatment they received these past 2 days, but if it is even just one, the price is well worth it. The total cost of this clinic treating 658 patients is about the same as the total cost of an emergency room visit for a broken leg in the USA. Talking with Joseph, the head of the medical clinic in Muletee, he told me that it cost about $6 US to provide malaria medication to each person. Such a small price to save a life.
Thinking back to the young girl who died in 2012, if she would have had access to medical treatment even a few weeks earlier, she would likely still be alive today. I still do not understand why God allows these things to go on – why He allows the suffering of little children, adults and newborn babies. I know intellectually that He is in control, but it is so hard, when I have my hand on the face of a newborn baby praying for her to be cured of Malaria, to not be in tears. We have all seen in our time here, that God has put us in this place for a purpose – to bear fruit by doing the good work of establishing a medical clinic to provide treatment for the people in this part of Uganda who have no other medical care available.
The final number, (8 + 8) represents the 8 people on the medical team from Renewal Health Network and 8 people sent by Canby Christian Church to serve the people of Kacungwa and the surrounding area by providing medical care during this 2 day clinic. While this is only the second time people from Canby Christian Church have been fortunate enough to participate in these types of clinic, the amazing people from Renewal Health Network provide this type of service all of the time. God has blessed them with the skills, commitment and loving hearts to provide medical care to people all across Uganda. For clinics such as this, they leave their normal work, often travel long distances, and work such long hours. For the 3 doctors in the team for this clinic, they saw 220 patients each during this clinic (they tell us that they normally expect about 25 each per day)
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For the Canby team, we found ourselves pulling teeth, counting medicines, performing lab tests and praying for the people in such great need. We were so happy to be able to help, even in a small way, to be part of the team providing such important care to the people here who need it so desperately.
I hope that I have been able to begin to describe not only the great work God has done through our combined efforts these past few days, but also the great need that exists as shared by Pastor Sylver to Pastor Ken almost 5 years ago.
Please continue to pray that the clinic comes quickly and that God will bless this part of the world with medical care.
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