Category: Participating Church Stories

A cornerstone of healthy communities: the clinic

Posted on | by Abundant Health

In Liberia, a United Methodist primary health-care clinic provides a life-saving diagnosis and medication that other health facilities missed.

By Tatenda Mujeni

February 16, 2021 | ATLANTA

All hope was lost for Douboma Wieh and her husband as they returned to their Planpa Town village in Liberia. The 46-year-old mother and grandmother had visited four clinics before traveling to the city as a last resort, seeking treatment for a mysterious month-long illness.

Douboma recounts: “At the hospital, the staff said I had coronavirus and no medicine was available. I was getting worse every day, so my husband carried me back to our village to die, since we were out of money.”

Douboma was stigmatized because of her suspected coronavirus diagnosis while she and her family waited for her imminent death. After Douboma lost consciousness, her family and some young men from the village carried her in a hammock on a four-hour journey to the United Methodist clinic in John Dean Town. The health-care workers there did not turn her away.

Douboma Wieh was carried in a hammock to the John Dean Town Clinic in Bassa County, Liberia, by her family and volunteers.
PHOTO: ISHMEAL N. GUEH

Following proper infection prevention protocol, they assessed and retested her. It turns out, Douboma did not have COVID-19; she had malaria. They started her on antimalaria medicine intravenously.

The health-care workers at John Dean Town met Douboma at her point of need. This facility in Liberia is one of more than 100 United Methodist primary health care (PHC) facilities serving communities throughout Africa. Primary health-care centers are the cornerstone of health service delivery globally, with PHCs serving as the first point of health care for an estimated 80% of the population. Often located in rural communities, PHCs provide essential services, such as prevention from infectious diseases, prenatal care, immunizations for mothers and their newborn babies, as well as ongoing disease diagnosis and treatment for the entire community.

Steady, consistent work equips clinics for better health care

Ensuring that United Methodist facilities throughout Africa can provide essential services, such as the lifesaving malaria diagnosis and treatment that Douboma received, is one of the goals of the Health Systems Strengthening program of Global Ministries. Over the last decade, through the United Methodist Committee on Relief and, in the last quadrennium, through Global Health, Global Ministries has invested the gifts of United Methodist donors to build better health services, better-equipped facilities and networks of dedicated health workers who care about raising health standards in their communities.

Two days after receiving treatment at John Dean Town Clinic, Douboma was sitting up and feeling much more like herself.
PHOTO: ISHMEAL N. GUEH

These goals are reached through partnership with the regional United Methodist health boards that coordinate health care on behalf of the United Methodist conferences they serve.

A major goal of the Health Systems Strengthening program is to provide facilities with trained health-care workers who are equipped to work safely and effectively. In the era of COVID-19, this means training in infection prevention and control as well as providing personal protective equipment for patients and health facility staff.

Another goal is to outfit facilities with essential medications and other medical supplies. Stocking facilities makes lifesaving treatment and prophylaxis from diseases readily available at United Methodist health facilities at little or no cost to the patients.

When asked about the effect medications and supplies have on the community surrounding the 16 HSS-supported facilities in Nigeria, the Health Board Coordinator, Dr. Ogbu, stated: “Availability of essential drugs at the rural health facilities helps to change people’s attitudes toward their health behavior. Once they are aware that there are drugs at the facility, they present earlier, before complication sets in.”

Working on adequate infrastructure

Adequate health infrastructure is vital to successful health service delivery. The HSS program rehabilitates United Methodist facilities like John Dean Town Clinic so they meet the minimum standards for care as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO). These core standards include a safe and stable building, a reliable power supply, a clean water source and access to functional toilets and latrines.

With ongoing support to primary health-care facilities throughout Africa, Global Ministries’ Health Systems Strengthening program provides hope for patients like Douboma who nearly lost her life.

“Thank God for the Methodist people,” Douboma responded. After just two days of treatment, she was feeling more like herself. “Thanks for the good, good medicine they can bring every time. Thank God for all the people who send this good medicine and for the good doctors for poor people. Yes!”

Tatenda Mujeni coordinates Imagine No Malaria and shares oversight of the Health Systems Strengthening program as a program manager with the Global Health unit, General Board of Global Ministries.

Health access and coverage: an issue of justice

Posted on | by Kathy Griffith

The United Methodist Church’s Abundant Health Initiative is committed to reaching a million and more children with life-saving interventions, a goal set for the 2016-2020 quadrennium. This commitment is only possible through increasing health access and coverage for many thousands of community members within the reach of United Methodist congregations, health facilities and services. Reaching the most marginalized with healthcare is an issue of justice.

Access to health services is not always simple1

In Nepal, a woman has access to a prenatal exam conducted with care and respect early in her pregnancy. PHOTO: UNITED MISSION TO NEPAL 

In Liberia, Mardea was carried for two hours in a hammock, during labor, to deliver her baby at Camphor clinic. In Central Congo, the construction crew at Dingele Maternity Center rushed a woman in labor with complications to the hospital in their truck. In Jalingo, Nigeria, the taxi union has been contracted to transport women with obstetric emergencies to UMC health facilities. In Nicaragua’s autonomous regions, a horse or motorboat are on standby.

But there are so many other places around the world where physical access to health care simply isn’t possible. Tragically, women and children die for lack of transport – a bus, a bicycle, a motorbike, a truck – or the money to pay for the service, the confidence or permission to take it, or, finally, the limitations of staff and services available on arrival at a health clinic.

Affordability is at the heart of the matter for many families. Payment for consultation fees or medicines brings about hardship. They must use rent money, miss meals, walk instead of ride, go into debt or lose a day’s income.

For Bhawana, affordability meant a walk of several hours with her husband and mother-in-law in the hills of Western Nepal. She had gone into labor and needed to reach her clinic as quickly as possible. On arrival, the examining nurse found complications that she was not equipped to help with and immediately referred the family to the district hospital. How would they pay for the transport and hospital fees?

It seemed an impossible and life-threatening situation until they realized they qualified, on the spot, for an interest-free loan from a fund created for such emergencies. This fund was initiated through a Global Health grant and, after discussion and agreement, received equal and ongoing contributions from the community and local government.

Health coverage and health access go hand in hand

Health coverage is the actual delivery and receipt of services, but many people are unwilling to seek services near their home because of the attitudes of health workers. True health coverage is access to health care providers themsleves and to quality care offered with dignity in clean facilities. Many women from lower social classes or those simply lacking resources have given birth in poorly equipped and staffed facilities without basic infrastrature, like water or a decent delivery bed, because of years of neglect.

Justice for these women has been realized through the UMC-supported revitalization of their health facilities to provide maternal, newborn and child health care, among other essential serives. Delivery rooms are equipped and medications are available. Health care workers in UMC health facilities are trainied to provide care with dignity, regardless of the indivudal’s background. In Ghana, pregnant women and patients prefer to travel for miles to access the Methodist Health Facilities: “We prefer to come to the Methodist clinic” they say “because God is there.” God is there through the compassion, love and the quality care they receive.

In the United States, there has been great fear linked to the COVID-19 pandemic – fear of infection and fear of passing infection to one’s unborn child. COVID-19 has had a devastating effect on the African American community, in particular.2 According to The National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation, Black people are dying from COVID-19 at a rate 2.4 times higher than white people. This is due to higher rates of pre-existing health conditions, over-representation in frontline and essential worker jobs, unequal access to quality health care and insurance coverage and the greater likelihood of living in hyper-segregated neighborhoods. Systemic injustices impact minority communities in many detrimental ways, including the compromised heath of women and children.

A call for education

Residents of the communities surrounding the Dingele Health Center celebrate fresh, safe and potable water from their new well. PHOTO: CENTRAL CONGO HEALTH BOARD

Sometimes, even when quality services exist and people have access to them, they still might not be utilized. People may not be aware that they have treatable conditions because their illnesses have become “normal” or have a spiritual or contextual diagnosis. Annual bouts of malaria can just be part of life and HIV may be pronounced a spiritual malady or punishment. People may not realize how their avoidance of health care impacts others, like untreated tuberculosis and sexually transmitted infections, undiagnosed Ebola or COVID-19, hidden depression, alcoholism or anxiety. This calls for strengthening health education and the accompaniment of those with such conditions.

Some years ago, in Zambia, a young woman attending HIV awareness meetings conducted by a Global Ministries partner suddenly stood up and called for the group’s attention. She started by saying “I now know the witches who took my two daughters. Their names are HIV and AIDS!” She had never wanted to learn about the virus before because she had believed it was bewitchment. At the meeting, her mind and direction completely changed, and she went for testing and treatment. She now gives other women the testimony of her life – how she lost two daughters who were born HIV-positive because of her lack of knowledge, but that she now has a beautiful HIV-negative son.

Everyone deserves the best health care

Advocacy and funding for other foundational parts of our lives are also essential to personal, family and community health. For example, safe housing, clean drinking water, affordable fresh food, equal education and employment opportunities, affordable childcare and physical security improve the overall health of families and communities. Global Ministries has funded wells and latrines, small and large nutrition and agricultural projects, scholarships and livelihoods – all to address these underlying needs.

At the heart of The United Methodist Church’s Abundant Health Initiative is the desire to bring the best possible health services with the best possible outcomes to communities, and especially to women and children. Although beneficiaries are counted, the goal is not primarily reaching higher numbers. What’s important is offering quality health care with dignity and compassion, mostly to people who have been marginalized. Reaching them is an issue of Christian care and justice. We long for you to join us through your prayers, giving and by care for your community and the world.

Kathy Griffith is the Global Health team lead and program manager for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health.

1https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/91/8/13-125450/en/
2https://www.nihcm.org/categories/systemic-racism-is-a-public-health-crisis

Partnering for abundant health across Nigeria

Posted on | by Abundant Health

By Christie R. House

Patience Zakari, a young mother in rural Nigeria, was afraid to take her children to a clinic when they were sick with fever. She feared the cost of treatment, given her limited budget, which made it difficult to pay for essentials like food and school fees. She preferred, instead, to go to a local chemist to buy cheaper malaria drugs, but they didn’t always work. 

When her twins, who were still babies, became ill, she feared they would not survive. She found a clinic operated by the Nigerian United Methodist Church, which was screening for and treating malaria at no cost to the patients. “I, my twins, and my other children all received treatment and are well again. Now that we are receiving free malaria treatment, I no longer fear going to the clinic,” Zakari said. 

Patience Zakari received medication for herself, her twins, and her other children from the Imagine No Malaria project in Nigeria. She had been afraid to go to clinic for a proper diagnosis because of the cost, but the UMC Nigeria health clinic provided health assessments, proper medications and education about preventive methods and use of bed nets for free. Photo: UMC Health Board, Nigeria

A strong, integrated health system that families and individuals can trust to give the best care possible is not a given in many parts of the world. In Nigeria, United Methodist health facilities in rural areas are working to improve their outreach into the communities they serve. 

The Nigeria Rural Health Program, operated by the Nigeria United Methodist Health Board, oversees 16 rural health clinics in four annual conferences within the Nigeria Episcopal Area. It also supports the newly established Jalingo Hospital, constructed in 2017, thanks to an Imagine No Malaria (INM) Hospital Revitalization Grant. 

A Health System Strengthening operational grant from Global Ministries’ Global Health unit supports the operations required to manage the health board’s country office. The grant provides salaries for key program staff, like the health board coordinator, Dr. Godfrey Ogbu. It makes possible supervisory visits and on-the-job training of facility staff at the supported health facilities. This integrated and comprehensive approach to the health needs in Nigeria increases access and improves the quality of services delivered. 

A year-long Imagine No Malaria program that began in June 2019 provides long-lasting insecticide bed nets, prophylaxis to prevent malaria, and medications and supplies for diagnosis and treatment. Education encouraging behavioral changes to prevent malaria are included in this outreach to community members. 

Reaching patients with services and treatments they need 

The Nigeria Health Board team travels to United Methodist primary health-care facilities to equip and empower clinic staff with technical information to increase their response. Moses Alikali, who serves as the INM officer in Nigeria, reports that he and Ogbu visited the 16 facilities to monitor malaria programs four times between June and December last year, despite the difficult terrain. Alikali outlines the details involved in one of these visits: “We are making sure that the beneficiaries are receiving free malaria treatment, that health facility staff are adhering to World Health Organization malaria treatment protocol, and that proper documentation of patients and accountability of malaria commodities are recorded.” 

Moses Alikali conducts a clinical review meeting in the Northeast Conference of the UMC, looking at malaria statistics, and data gathering and reporting. Photo: UMC Nigeria Health Board

Through collaboration with their Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) and INM teams, the Nigeria Health Board works toward quality care for all patients who visit the UMC facilities, particularly pregnant women and children under five, who are the most vulnerable to disease. Women who come for prenatal visits can receive medication that will protect them and their babies from contracting malaria. They can also be tested for HIV and if they test positive, start antiretroviral medications. With proper treatment, HIV-positive mothers have a good chance of delivering HIV-free newborns. 

This work is vital because Nigeria accounts for 10% of the world’s maternal deaths and ranks 6th in the world for mortality of children under age five. Malaria infection during pregnancy raises risks for both mother and fetus. Maternal anemia, fetal loss, premature delivery and low birth-weight are a few of the dangers. 

But the first step is gaining the trust of families so that mothers are aware of their need for the services and come for prenatal visits. 

Marta Sunday, who lives near the United Methodist Taka Wurkum facility, found the treatment she needed after she’d tried others: “I was sick for weeks. Even though I was receiving treatment from another health facility, I didn’t recover. At Taka Wurkum, the doctor checked me and explained the reasons why I was still sick. He said either the malaria drugs I bought from the market had expired or I wasn’t taking the right dose. Within two days, the medication he gave me changed everything, and I am feeling good. My baby is calm and healthy since she was treated in this facility. I thank the mission clinic and the doctor in charge who has taken the time to see that these services reach us.” 

The Nigeria Health Board also received essential medications and equipment from a HSS Primary Healthcare grant to support gaps in medications and supplies in the targeted health-care clinics. In addition, funds will support the rehabilitation of seven health facilities in Nigeria. 

Along with facility revitalization and provision of essential supplies, the HSS program invests in staff development to improve the quality of care. Through a Global Ministries-funded obstetric training event held in the Philippines, a doctor and nurse team received hands-on Caesarian-section training that they brought back to Jalingo Hospital and are sharing with their colleagues. 

Working with communities for health improvement 

Alikali says community involvement is key for the successful implementation and sustainability of malaria control intervention. “Already in the communities are infrastructures, like community leaders and church leaders, who provide avenues for entry,” he noted. 

In its first six months, the INM project directly impacted the lives of 21,075 people, including children, pregnant women, and others. More than 2,038 people who might have died of malaria were saved. The project made quality malaria medications available in hard-to-reach communities. And, the number of patients that visited the health facilities where the INM project has been implemented tripled to 23,991. 

The success of this project has boosted the confidence and enthusiasm of the staff in the facilities and the level of community trust as well. This abundant trust has gone a long way to increase health and well-being in remote areas. Receiving correct diagnoses and effective treatments at little or no cost has increased the number of families seeking treatment. The Nigerian Health Board therefore anticipates a general reduction in morbidity in the communities they serve, especially for women and their babies. 

Christie R. House is a consulting editor and writer with Global Ministries.

No longer a generation of anguish but a generation of hope

Posted on | by Kathy Griffith

Ending the AIDS pandemic is a collective responsibility. It is a life-saving ministry and movement in which the church plays a vital part. There are eight projects under the Abundant Health banner that have leading roles in reaching young people who are least aware, most at risk, and perhaps most afraid of stigma. 

United Methodist Health Board section marches in the parade, World AIDS Day 2019, Kitwe, Zambia. Photo: Courtesy Zambia UM Health Board

The United Methodist Church’s Health Board in Zambia joined local partners in Kitwe, and the rest of the world, to organize and commemorate World AIDS Day 2019 in December. It was themed “Communities making a difference, pressing toward ending AIDS.” 

The celebration began with a candlelight service, helping participants remember people lost to AIDS and to have renewed hope for life. The district commissioner, Binwell Mpundu, gave an inspiring message. He said, “We are no longer a generation of anguish but a generation of hope. A hope that by 2030, Zambia will have zero new HIV infections.” He declared the goal attainable with collective action from all stakeholders. 

United Methodists taking part in World AIDS Day activities in Kitwe, Zambia, started off their participation with a candlelight service of remembrance for those who lost their lives to AIDS. Photo: Courtesy Zambia UM Health Board

The day was filled with activity for the people of Kitwe – aerobics, a march, a fun run and tug-of-war, but also with HIV education, counseling and testing, and condom distribution. Everyone was called upon to participate in the fight against AIDS; everyone can offer a hand to stop it. The general public was encouraged to go for testing, refer others for testing, take preventive measures and take antiretroviral medication consistently. 

The church is part of the wider community. It can make a significant difference in this life-saving campaign. The health board actively works with the Zambian Ministry of Health and other organizations in the mining city of Kitwe to spread information to prevent HIV, improve access to testing and treatment, and to work against stigma. It recently trained 74 young people as Peer Educators. They are starting to reach out to their friends at school, college and university, establishing clubs and communicating through drama, song and radio, urging everyone to know their status and to treat each other with dignity. The health board is the only organization there reaching out to adolescents. 

Project manager, Mrs. Phiri, describes Zambia Health Board HIV and AIDS projects to the district commissioner and other delegates at the World AIDS Day 2019 commemoration in Kitwe. Photo: Courtesy Zambia UM Health Board

The Zambia UMC Health Board is part of a national campaign to pursue UNAIDS’ 90–90–90 target. The objective for this campaign is: 90% of people living with HIV know their HIV status, 90% of people who know their HIV-positive status access treatment and 90% of people on treatment have suppressed viral loads. In 2019, the health board launched the U=U campaign: The Undetectable virus is Untransmittable. 

As the Zambia Health Board, we are proud of being part of this noble cause and making contributions to Zambia’s vision of ending new AIDS infections by 2030. 

Betty Tshala, Health Office/Board Coordinator 

Kathy Griffith is the program manager for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, Global Ministries. This article was adapted from a report by Betty Tshala, who serves as the Health Office/Board Coordinator, Zambia UMC Health Board, and as a UMC missionary with the Mujila Falls Project in Zambia.

Inviting Deaf and Hard of Hearing People to Church – Deaf Awareness Week

Posted on | by Abundant Health

By Rev. Leo Yates, Jr.

Deaf Awareness Week is soon approaching, and United Methodist churches should extend their hand of welcome to Deaf, hard-of-hearing, late-deafened, and Deafblind persons in their community. This week is observed during the last week of September (in 2019, the 23-29th), beginning on Monday and ending on Sunday. Deaf Awareness Week originated in Rome, Italy in 1958 through the efforts of The World Federation of the Deaf. Deaf communities around the world began adopting this international observance as a way to honor the history and heritage of Deaf and hard of hearing people, affirm diversity, to educate society about deafness, and celebrate Deaf culture.

 Historically, Deaf ministries have been an extension of their Deaf community, in part, due to their support of Deaf education and mission. For instance, during the mid-nineteenth century, The Episcopal Church ordained its first Deaf deacon in the U.S. The Methodist Church was the fourth denomination to have a Deaf pastor to serve a Deaf congregation in Chicago, which was close to the turn of the 20th century. Click here for a brief outline of Deaf Christian history and click here for a more comprehensive account. 

Photo courtesy of The UMC Committee on Deaf and Hard of Hearing Ministries

Communication barriers and cultural differences often exclude Deaf and hard of hearing persons from the life of the church. For example, when this writer’s Deaf parents moved from Maryland to Virginia, the fourth church that was contacted agreed to provide a sign language interpreter. Recently, a Deaf couple in the Southeastern Jurisdiction shared they are only able to worship twice a month because their church is unable to afford a sign language interpreter on a weekly basis. In most cases, there is a cost for sign language interpreters. While it’s the church’s responsibility to hire and pay for interpreters, most Deaf and hard-of-hearing people donate to their congregation, and thus support the cost indirectly (click here for a brief guide about interpreters). One Deaf ministry holds an annual fundraiser to support their interpreting ministry. Certainly, budgeting and prioritizing the Deaf ministry is vital to sustaining it. So is awareness; a cultural difference can be seen during a Christmas Eve service when lights are dimmed and candles used. This makes it challenging to see a sign language interpreter.

The Apostle Paul emphasized to the church in Corinth (and us) that the body of Christ needs all of its members (1 Cor 12:12-31). Like other denominations, The United Methodist Church recognizes the need for Deaf, hard-of-hearing, late-deafened, and Deafblind individuals to be better represented in the life of the church. General Conference continues to support funding for Deaf ministries. This funding is overseen by Global Ministries, which includes small grants to support new Deaf ministries. 

Deaf Awareness Week is a strong reminder for churches to be accessible and inviting for Deaf and hard of hearing people. For example, offer captioning (display it on a TV screen or project it with PowerPoint), have all-encompassing bulletins (Scriptures, prayers, announcements, music), use multimedia (Deaf people can’t hold hymnals while signing), ensure adequate lighting, and consistently use a sound system during worship: all of these are inexpensive ways to improve accessibility. Click here for more ideas. After all, 1 in 3 persons over 65 have some degree of hearing loss and improving communication access in worship and in the life of the church can support hard-of-hearing and late-deafened people to remain active, some of whom are the bigger givers.

So, how can your church observe Deaf Awareness Week?

As a part of its Disability Ministries, Emmanuel UMC in Laurel, MD, is observing Deaf awareness by offering a month-long sign language class, has a sign language interpreter on most Sundays, uses multimedia, and will include Deaf awareness in its announcements. For activities and ideas, check out the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Ministries Committee’s Deaf Awareness Weekweb page. For general information about Deaf Awareness Week, click here. For a series of brief guides and congregational resources, click here. 

Rev. Leo Yates, Jr. is the consultant for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Ministries Committee.

Improved mobility, a gift that transforms lives

Posted on | by Abundant Health

Global Health grants reach people with physical disabilities in remote places

By Christie R. House

August 28, 2019 | ATLANTA

Mobility is key to a person’s independence. The ability to go to market, get to the doctor, take the kids to school or travel to work can be daunting for people with physical challenges. While technical advances have helped people in Western countries gain independence, people in countless remote and rural areas across the world would find a wheelchair of little use on the rocky, unpaved terrain they might travel.

Animato Kargbo is a recipient of a prosthetic limb from the Bo center. Photo: Lappia Amara

Addressing physical disabilities may mean providing new ways to travel or new prosthetic limbs for those who need them. Global Ministries meets the challenge of immobility in a variety of ways through Global Health initiatives. Support for United Methodist health clinics and hospitals in rural areas may provide early diagnoses and treatments that ultimately prevent physical disability. But often these clinics operate in areas where the population has experienced trauma from violent conflict. Landmines, irreversible injuries, poor nutrition and poverty contribute to the permanent loss of mobility.

A prosthetic solution in Sierra Leone

Global Health has partnered with the United Methodist Health Board in Sierra Leone and the United Methodist Prosthesis Center in Bo District to support a prosthesis initiative for amputees. In 2002, an overwhelming need for prosthetic devices in Sierra Leone caused the United Methodist Committee on Relief to create a project to manufacture and fit a simple, lower-limb prosthesis developed in India, called the Jaipur foot. The materials and technique produced a strong and reliable prothesis. Lappia Amara, director of the center since its founding, helps amputees regain mobility and reintegrate into their communities. The center supports those who have become amputees for a variety of reasons, including accidents, war and sickness.

Lappia Amara, director of the Artificial Limb Clinic in Bo, Sierra Leone, fits a limb for Animato Kargbo. Photo: Courtesy Lappia Amara

Amara says the center served 79 patients in the first quarter of 2019: “Working with both lower and upper limb patients, our most recent group included 51 men and 28 women. Of those, 53 received below the knee protheses and 26 above the knee. We repaired 50 old limbs (requested by returning patients) and 22 wheelchairs and treated 30 stroke patients. We conducted several visits to amputee camps. Counseling and preparation of artificial limbs are our major activities. Provision of wheelchairs is a new opportunity made possible by a partnership with the government and other agencies.”

“While losing a limb is a challenging experience, it doesn’t have to define your life in a negative manner,” Amara continued. “All of these people have taken circumstances outside their control and used them to be a positive influence on those around them.”

Aminata Kargbo, from Shenge, lost her leg because of an accident traveling to Bo. Kargbo’s first thought was: “How can I live without my foot? I am a pupil and an athlete.”

While she still bears emotional and physical trauma symptoms, the center in Bo has given her hope. “I would like to continue my schooling and my athletics, but the pain was too much using a crutch. I try and put on a brave face among my friends, but soon, thanks to this project, I will have a prosthetic to help me. I have really been encouraged by this support and I am so grateful to donorsbecause I can use this limb to go to school and do other things for myself.”

Personal transportation in Zambia

A second ministry receiving a Global Health grant this year is PET Zambia (www.petzambia.com), part of the New Life Center ministries of the UMC Zambia in Kitwe. Zambia is one of the more stable countries in Africa, but because of that, it has received refugees from neighboring countries. The PET (Personal Energy Transportation) ministry started in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) in 1994 and then moved to Zambia during the political upheavals in the DRC in the late 1990s.

This recipient of a new PET in Lufwanyama, Zambia, in June 2019, was recommended to PET Zambia by a government partner that coordinates services for people with disabilities across the country. Photo: Emily Padilla, PET Zambia

Josephine Mbilishi, a United Methodist deaconess, is the director of the New Life Center, which provides training for spiritual development, community leadership and community health, including the PET ministry. Delbert and Sandy Groves serve as missionaries with the center. They began missionary service in 1991 in the DRC, and they have worked in Zambia since 2000. One of Delbert Groves’ responsibilities is the PET workshop.

A PET is a three-wheeled chair with wide, durable wheels, a cart and hand pedals to propel the device. The PET project was started after the Rev. Larry Hills, a UMC missionary in the Congo, accidentally stepped on someone crawling through the fields. Hills pulled back the weeds to find a young woman with a baby on her back going about her daily chores. Hills worked with Mel West in Iowa and other friends in the U.S. to develop a PET prototype. The U.S. ministry, which is now called Mobility Worldwide, has expanded to 22 workshops in the U.S., making carts and then shipping them internationally to areas where they are needed.

Kennedy, one of four workshop employees, works with PET as a welder at the New Life Center, Kitwe, Zambia. Photo: Emily Padilla, PET Zambia

PET Zambia is currently the only African workshop making the carts. Careful monitoring of materials, ordering in bulk and delivering within Zambia brings the cost down to about a third of the U.S. PETS. All PETs are provided free of charge to the people who need them.

Groves says building a PET is the easy part. “The hard part is identifying people in need of a PET,” he explains. “Over 25 years, we have developed a wonderful resource of partners in Central Africa, which includes other missionaries and churches, government disability departments and individuals that help us find people who need a PET.”

PET Zambia builds and distributes at least 500 PETs each year. In Zambia alone, they estimate 150,000 people still need them.

“Because the need is so great, we have bought land in south Zambia in a town called Livingstone, near the border to four other African countries,” Groves continues. “We’re hoping to break ground early in 2020 to build a new PET Zambia facility. It will also be used to help build the UMC in the southern provinces of Zambia. That’s our main reason for being missionaries in Zambia, evangelism and church development.”

Reaching isolated people

Helping people to overcome the barriers that keep them from joining in daily activities of life can go a long way to restoring their independence and self-esteem. While finding people tucked away in their villages and even in larger cities may be difficult, Methodists connect in amazing ways to reach them.

Methodists across the connection can join in this life-restoring ministry through theAbundant Health Initiative, Advance #3021770.

Christie R. House is the senior writer/editor for Global Ministries.

Beyond The End Of The Road: Providing Health Services To Marginalized Rural Populations

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When Jean Shailunga of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) contracted cholera, he was more fortunate than many of his neighbors in the rural community of the North Katanga Province. The change-maker for Shailunga was the 16-day cholera treatment he received at a Kizanga United Methodist health center. Health facilities in North Katanga are few and far between and often not equipped with medicines and supplies.

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Hulapalooza and the New York Annual Conference

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In April almost 200 people from more than 30 churches participated in the New York Annual Conference Hulapalooza at Mt. Vernon First UMC!

The event boasted “joy-filled” worship, resource tables, several workshops and many activities for people of all ages. Healthy and delicious snacks kept them moving and concluded the Hulapalooza event that was both fun and spirit-filled.

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Hulapalooza celebrates Abundant Health around the world

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“Focusing on our health benefits us in many different ways,” says Marie C. King, of St. John’s United Methodist Church, Nashville, Tennessee. “If we’re not healthy enough to get out and walk, we’re not healthy enough to come to worship … or to be involved in the community and socialize with each other.”

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