Dear Friends,

In our last newsletter, we detailed a week here at the Christian Medical Institute of the Kasai (IMCK). We would now like to talk about the village and the community from which we have just come, having shared dinner with Chief Kamenga Emmanuel and his wife, Mamu Babi Cecil. The chief is the eighteenth chief in the lineage of his family, which has led the village where Nancy does most of her work. Today is the day before Easter, and chief Kamenga told us that his father always ate dinner with Dr. Bill Rule on the eve of the holidays and that we continue this tradition together.

The IMCK, which includes Good Shepherd Hospital, is located 14 kilometers southeast of Kananga and is referred to as the village of Tshikaji. The community is made up of villages that follow the network of dirt roads and paths that crisscross the countryside. The village adjacent to the hospital complex is named Nkonko after the grand chief, Nkonko. There are many villages, each with a chief, and they are made up of collections of homes constructed of mud brick or bamboo. The interior of these small "huts" consists of a sleeping room, which (rarely) has a wooden frame sitting on the floor or a woven mat on which the villagers sleep, and a living space with an open fire pit for cooking. The roofs are thatched or metal sheets if they are more "well-to-do." Families consist typically of the parents, an average of seven children, and other extended family members. There are no food storage facilities, and bathroom facilities consist of a community latrine. Some villages have a means of making water drinkable. We have yet to visit these sources to see just what "drinkable" means. Here in Tshikaki, the Lubi River is the water source, and is not potable unless it is boiled. Most of the villagers simply drink it without boiling it.

Theirs is a life of day-to-day survival. The women work in the fields, which are some distance from the village to protect their crops from being eaten by village goats. The women walk there each day, and they cultivate as well as collect food to eat, which they carry in large metal or plastic bowls on their heads. Most eat only one meal a day, and the main food is manioc, a root vegetable the leaves of which are also edible. The leaves are eaten as a green and the root is first peeled and soaked for several days to remove the cyanide. It is then beaten to a powder, mixed with cornflower and cooked as a big ball. It is called bidia. To give it added flavor, it is eaten with greens, beans, or a sauce. Today we ate "village style," where everyone eats from a common bowl. You break off a hunk of bidia and scoop some sweat potato greens onto the surface and eat it all with your hands. This certainly makes washing dishes easier. There aren’t any!

On to life in the village! The men work at transporting large sacks of manioc, cornflower, beans, or other agricultural products, which the women sell at market on market days. Transportation is by bicycle. Huge sacks are loaded on the bike, which the men push over the rugged paths. This is a hard life. People are frequently ill with malaria, and other tropical diseases such as intestinal worms infect the majority of the population. Both malaria and worms cause anemia, which results in chronic fatigue. The days are hot with the sun, except when it rains. When it rains, it pours for a short period , making the paths thick with a sand/mud and impassable. It rains every day. We hope this description give some mental image of the life here but cannot really do justice to the injustice, as the case may be.

In her work, Nancy is developing a loving relationship with the village of Nkonko. She is training two groups of women in traditional midwifery, teaches a health class that is available to all villagers and, three weeks ago, she started providing prenatal care in a tiny consultation hut next to chief Kamenga’s house. The chief and his wife are very helpful and desirous of helping their people. At this time, 40 to 60 pregnant ladies come to the clinic each Friday. Some women walk for hours from a village very distant from ours. Nancy offers basic prenatal consultations and health education, screens for disease and pregnancy complications, and advises the patients of conditions for which they should go to the hospital next door to the village. Most deliveries occur in the home. The few who go to the hospital, do so because of life-threatening complications. It simply is too expensive to go to the hospital.

We will speak to the expenses in future newsletters as well as the health center and maternity center that Dr. Akulai, the "medcin chief de zone" (medical director of our health zone) has confirmed will be built for the village of Nkonko following Nancy’s help in demonstrating the numbers and needs. IMCK would love to be able to provide free care to the poor and does provide a lot of it. Many people arrive here extremely ill and with no money to pay for care. The hospital must purchase the medicines and other supplies and also pay its employees. IMCK is virtually a one-of-a-kind facility with specialists and high-quality care as well as schools. It represents a possible future of health care for this region. It struggles daily to survive, as do the people. Its doctors, nurses, clerks, maintenance workers, and drivers all work to give their people a chance not just for a better life, but for a life at all. The generosity of the churches and the people of the United States have made and can continue to help make that difference. Congo has just come out of a civil war, which devastated what had been a shaky economy before the war. Now there is hope. We feel personally blessed to walk with our brothers and sisters down their paths, visit their homes, and share a meal with them. Those who have so little teach us what it means to be generous.

We offer you the wish of the people of the village: that your lives are joyful.

Mike and Nancy

The 2002 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 29