Dwayne & Heidi

This summer Heidi and I had the privilege of spending five weeks in Zambia. After 26 hours of flying and a 10 hour bus ride we were thrilled to reach Mwami Adventist Hospital. One of the first things we noticed about Zambia was the beauty of its culture. We were especially surprised to see how friendly the people were toward us as they smiled and waved at us as we rode by. The kindness of the people continued as we reached Mwami hospital as many workers from the hospital invited us into their homes to taste traditional Zambian dishes. Nshima, the main dish of Zambia, was very popular because it sustains people for many hours at a time. We were even told that it expands in your stomach and sometimes it really felt like it.

ZAMBIA: Dwayne Gordon and Heidi Shelton

This summer Hiedi and I had the privilege of spending five weeks in Zambia. After 26 hours of flying and a 10 hour bus ride we were thrilled to reach Mwami Adventist Hospital. One of the first things we noticed about Zambia was the beauty of its culture. We were especially surprised to see how friendly the people were toward us as they smiled and waved at us as we rode by. The kindness of the people continued as we reached Mwami hospital as many workers from the hospital invited us into their homes to taste traditional Zambian dishes. Nshima, the main dish of Zambia, was very popular because it sustains people for many hours at a time. We were even told that it expands in your stomach and sometimes it really felt like it.

As soon as we saw the hospital, we quickly realized that every minute of the trip had been worth it. Mwami is a 200 bed institution that opened nearly 80 years ago. There are two full time missionary doctors from the Philippians that are working there: Dr. Ang who has been at the hospital for 12 years, and Dr. Peduche who has been there for less than a year. Mwami is a Christian institution that is focused on reaching out and caring for the needs of the people in Zambia.

One Saturday at midnight we were called to the hospital to help with a delivery of a baby. By the time we got to the hospital the baby had already been delivered. We were a little disappointed of course, because we wanted to help out with the delivery. But what struck us as we entered the room was that the baby was in a corner under a broken heating lamp shivering so hard he could barely cry. As we went over to help keep the baby warm the nurse in the room told us “you better put on some gloves.” We asked why, and he told us that the mother was HIV + and so the baby could possibly have the dreaded disease. As we got to talking more about the baby and his chances of actually having the disease, we found out that he would be breast feeding, obviously increasing the probability that he would get HIV. There was no where open at that time of night where we could purchase formula, so we sat there helpless, and completely torn up inside. What hit us even harder was the fact that this was not just limited to this one boy, but to hundreds and thousands of children born into this world. That realization is quite an eye opener.

Another day later on that week Heidi and I visited the women’s shelter right outside of Mwami. This is a spot where near-term pregnant mothers from surrounding villages would come to stay right before giving birth to their children. It’s actually quite a good idea, making it a little easier on the mothers who had to travel quite a distance to get to the hospital. Again, when we got there it was a little bit of a shocker. These very pregnant women had nothing more then a thin mat on the hard floor to sleep on. The hospital just didn’t have any money to do anything about this. Anyhow, as the nurse and Dr. Peduche were speaking with the ladies it became apparent that they had not been using the mosquito nets at night. This is a problem because it puts not only the mother at risk for malaria, but also there unborn children. The reason why they weren’t using the nets was they were very dirty. Heidi and I got to talking and figured out that we could easily go to town and buy a bunch of soap for these ladies to wash the nets with. When we passed out the soap to the ladies it was like we had just handed them gold. They were grinning from ear to ear. It was such a blessing to do this simple act of kindness.

One thing that really impressed me about the hospital was number of programs they had started to help out the local villages. One program the hospital had started was giving out micro loans of about $50 US dollars to a specific village and teach the people a skill to use and work in. One of these villages was taught how to form and shape sheets of metal into useful objects that they could sell in the local town of Chipata. Dwayne and I went out to visit this village and they brought out all of their new metal watering cans and stood behind their work with a great deal of pride in what they had accomplished. I was also impressed that this project had been mostly given to the women, especially since the role of women in Zambia is not very highly respected at all. The villagers were all very excited to show us the progress they had all made. I was impressed that the hospital was not just feeding people, but it was reaching out to these people in a way that gave them an education, and in so doing gave them a self sustaining resource for the future.

Dwayne and Heidi