Some Tears But Understanding The Need

“And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings” Acts 17:30 

Hello beloved! 

This is the scripture, among others, which Pastor Zulu, our Zambian friend of many years shared in our church on Sunday when he participated in the service where we informed our children, the caregivers and other staff that we will be soon transitioning into Kenya to expand our ministry of rescuing more children and introducing them to the Lord Jesus Christ.  Kamau shared how he experienced daily struggle to survive in the grinding poverty of the slums of Nairobi and how trapped and hopeless he felt without any hope of ever coming out.  This all changed when at 17 years old, somebody cared enough to introduce him to the Lord Jesus Christ. Though he continued living in the slums for another eight years, he now had a hope that God the Father, who created him, loved him and had a plan and purpose for his life. 

It truly has been an adventure in the Lord. Kamau can truly testify of the truth of God’s word as found in  Hannah’s prayer of praise “ He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the beggar from the ash heap, to set them among princes and make them inherit the throne of Glory” 1 Samuel 2:8

There were some tears and of course questions from the children, but considering the difficult announcement, we were really encouraged by the responses of the children and staff.  Thank you for your prayers on our behalf and those of Villages of Hope. 

As our time in Zambia draws to an end, our family is so grateful to God and to you, our dear friends, for partnering with us in this journey of faith. 

Kamau in Mukuru Kayaba Slum, Nairobi, Kenya

 From Kamau:  Two weeks ago, I returned from Kenya where I spent a month;

the objective of this trip was to:

1. Register the Hope Anew Ministries with the registrar of society as well as obtain other relevant documents needed.  I was able to do this and receive a provisional document.
2.Assess the cost of land and building materials for the children center.  We are still working on determining what the cost will be, hopefully on the next trip in March, there will be more information.
3.  House search as my family begins the process of transitioning from Zambia to Kenya.  I was encouraged to learn that apartments are available near the area where we will be ministering within our price range. 

Of course while I was Nairobi, I visited the slum where I lived. I was surprised to find people who still remembered me 22 years later but it was very distressing to see that it has gotten much bigger, worse and even more congested. But the hand of the Lord is not short that it cannot save, I recall that he literally lifted me out of the gutter and sent me to the world as a messenger of hope.  For this reason, I know that behind that runny nose and dirt soiled face, playing near the open smelly sewage is a boy or girl who just needs to hear about the hope in Christ and the forgiveness He provides which literary, may transform his/her life for eternity.

 

My country is presently at war in Somalia, this is after Al-shabaab, a terrorist offshoot of Al-Qaida who have being in control of Somalia for many years, made several incursions into Kenya.  Things came to a head in October 2011 after a group of Al-shabaab crossed into Kenya from Somalia, killed and kidnapped some tourists who they then took into Somalia from where they would then demand colossal amount of money before their release. This has been an ongoing thing and the Kenyan government decided they have had enough and pursued the terrorists inside Somalia in an attempt to stamp out this menace once and for all. It was hoped that this military campaign would end quickly but our soldiers are still mired in the rigors of war and there is no telling when it will be over.   Another reason which gravely concerned the Kenyan government was that the Al-shabaab agents operating from a mosque in the city of Nairobi were recruiting young unemployed and dissatisfied youths from the slums with promises of instant wealth from ill-gotten gains from ransom money paid for the release of hijacked merchant ships on the Indian Ocean off the coast of Somalia.  Here is a link to a BBC news article that mentions some of what I have been sharing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/news/world-africa-17152158 

While the war is going on, Kenya is also preparing to hold presidential elections this year. Normally, this should be a routine thing which happens every 5 years, but five years ago when elections were held, what followed the announcement of the winning candidate was anything but routine; chaos, mayhem and violence erupted in different parts of the country pitting different tribes against each other, about 1,300 people died in the melee that ensued.  Among those who died was a group of children, women and men who had sought refuge in a church which was burnt down.  Part of me has been wondering if it is prudent to move my family during this election season, but then, I remember that safety is being at the center of God’s will.

As we prepare to transition to Kenya to begin the work of reaching the children through the gospel, Please pray for us, pray for the children in Kayaba Mukuru slum, pray for peace to prevail in the country and that we will see the salvation of the Lord at work. We know there will be challenges but our hope is in the knowledge that the Lord is and will be with us.

Here is how you can be praying for some immediate needs:

• For travel mercies as Kimberly and I and a friend of ours travel into Zimbabwe in order to attend a Foundations for Farming Conference for training.  Pray that the Lord would allow us to retain the information that we will learn in order to implement these principles into our ministry.
• Pray that we will find a way to transport our belongings from Zambia to Dar es Salaam.  Kamau has already made arrangements from Dar es Salaam to Nairobi.
• Pray that the Villages of Hope will continue to thrive and God will send the right people that are needed for this time.
• Pray that God will provide the appropriate housing for our needs in Nairobi.

Shalom!!!

New Year, New Direction for the Kamau Family

The Mandate

1 The Spirit of the Lord Yahweh is on me; because Yahweh has anointed me to preach good news to the humble.  He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to those who are bound;

   2 to proclaim the year of Yahweh’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; 3 to appoint to those who mourn in Zion, to give to them a garland for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of Yahweh, that he may be glorified.  4 They shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations

   Isaiah 61:1-4 (World English Bible)

Greetings to you dear ones,

The Lord has commanded us to go and proclaim the good news throughout the world.   In obedience to this call, our church released us to go to Zambia five years ago to be involved in orphan rescue. 

There was not much when we first arrived, but right now at All Kids Can Learn, Villages of Hope in Zambia, 42 boys and girls are receiving loving care through godly care-givers, hearing the message of God’s love and salvation regularly, discipleship, a school, productive farm and businesses (takeaway, bookstore, and boutique) have been established to help generate income for financial sustainability of the orphanage.    In May 2009, a church was planted which is even now growing (approximately 75 children and adults). The membership is drawn from the children, caregivers, including people in the surrounding villages who attend the church. 

  

New Direction 2012 -- Transition to Nairobi, Kenya / Ministering in Mukuru Kayaba Slum

Kimberly is pointing to the shack where Kamau and his family once lived for ten years.

Why is this necessary?

When our church sent us out as missionaries five years ago at the invitation of All Kids Can Learn International, in part, it was in answer to the question that our mission’s committee had asked.  “How does a small church go into another country and begin children’s home for orphaned children?”  This time at the Villages of Hope has been an invaluable time of learning about establishing a home for children from the ground up and seeing God at work in amazing ways.  This has given us the courage to step out and trust Him in a new venture.

Since the work in Zambia is now established and growing, our hearts are burdened to reach out and rescue more children.  These are the children who live in the hovels and the shacks of mukuru Kayaba slums in Nairobi, Kenya.  My wife and I have been seeking the Lord through prayer and counsel from our church leadership regarding the way forward. They have also given us their approval to proceed with the transition to Kenya. 

    We discussed at length what the transition to Kenya would entail and how this may impact the children at AKCLI.  Our church leadership was encouraged to learn that the Zambian and International Board including the Executive Director of All Kids Can Learn International and his family will continue to provide leadership during this time of transition and our subsequent departure. 

Children looking for food to eat or something they can sell to get food.

The Need

“He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted…” There are thousands of children who live in the hovels and the shacks of Mukuru slums.  This is the place where I lived for 10 years as a teenager.   These children live in hopelessness, spiritual darkness as well as physical deprivation due to hunger and neglect. 

Very often families in slums eat just one meal a day, a supper, and maybe have something small for breakfast.  Sometimes they go without food. The average income is about 150Ksh or $1.50cts a day if a mother is able to wash clothes for her clients; however this is not always reliable.  The coping strategies are to skip meals or have a late breakfast instead of breakfast/lunch etc.

Inside one of the shacks in the slums

What is our plan to address these needs?

  “To proclaim liberty to the captives…”; This will entail proclaiming the truth of word of God, with the goal being to bring light into the darkness so as to address the spiritual, mental and emotional hopelessness and despair. 

The first stage will involve creating a safe haven for children to come for Bible clubs, study, tutoring, and recreational activities.    Towards this end, a building will be identified in the Mukuru slum, the plans are to renovate or rebuild it for this purpose. As the Lord provides, a meal will be provided on a regular basis to the children in need. The name of the ministry in the slum will be Hope Anew Children’s Center.

Mukuru Kayaba in Nairobi.  One of the many, many alleyways to manuever within the slum.

The second stage will involve acquiring 20 acres of land on the outskirts of Nairobi.  The purpose for the land will be to build Hope Anew Children’s Home and also grow farm produce to sustain the children and provide food security.  The children home will cater for the very needy such as double orphans including abandoned and neglected children who will need to be removed from the slum.

What will be the result?

The Scripture below describes the ministry focus that we believe God has given to us:

“For he issued his laws to Jacob; he gave his instructions to Israel.  He commanded our ancestors to teach them to their children, so the next generation might know them---- even the children not yet born and they in turn will teach their own children.  So each generation should set its hope anew on God, not forgetting his glorious miracles and obeying his commands.  Then they will not be like their ancestors—stubborn, rebellious, and unfaithful, refusing to give their hearts to God. 

( Psalm 78:5-8 New Living Translation)

Our prayer is to reach children such as these with the Good News of Jesus Christ!

Our prayer and hope is that as the children are exposed to the truth of the word of God, they will know that He loves them and wants them to come to him, that though they live in abject and grinding poverty, that Jesus cares for them and has a divine purpose for their lives. 

This is what happened to me when someone cared enough to point me to Jesus in my moment of despair when I lived in the same slum, knowing that God created me and purposed for me to be here, knowing he understood my sorrow and inner pain and that he was able do something about it, liberated me. Jesus lifted me from the dunghill of quiet desperation and hopelessness; He made me clean on the inside and gave me an abiding hope for living. My wife and I believe that He has now sent us out to this area of the world to proclaim this message of hope; that He has come to set the oppressed free and to break every yoke, spiritual and otherwise; to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke.

We believe as the children are instructed in the truth of the word of God, they will come to know Jesus in a personal way and this in turn will transform their lives to grow up to become the men and women God created them to be.

When will this move take place?

 At this time we do not have an exact date when will be relocating to Kenya but we will continue to keep you updated on new developments.  Meanwhile, we are continuing our work at the Villages of Hope while Kamau travels back and forth between Zambia and Kenya to make arrangements for work permits, housing, transport of our household items, etc.

Where should I send my donation to your ministry?

Many of you have currently been sending in your financial support for our family to Partners Worldwide through a partnership with All Kids Can Learn International that had been in effect for several years.  This partnership ended in June of 2011; however, they graciously permitted donations for our family to continue to be handled by their office until we could locate another sending agency.  We have accomplished this undertaking and so it is no longer necessary to send your gifts to Partners Worldwide.

  As of November of 2011, we are now missionaries with Go Ye Fellowship, which is an interdenominational, international, evangelical mission sending agency formed in 1932, whose offices are located in Pasadena, California.   We are delighted to join this special group of people in fulfilling Christ’s command to make disciples in other nations.

There are several ways that you can make a donation.  Whichever method you choose please indicate that your donation is for “Francis & Kimberly Kamau – acct# 190001 if it is for our personal family support.  If you would like to make a donation to Hope Anew Ministry specifically as a special project please indicate “Hope Anew Ministry” with your donation.

1.  By Mail

To begin supporting us you may make your check payable to “Go Ye Fellowship” and send it to:

Go Ye Fellowship

PO Box 40039

Pasadena, CA 91114-7039

2.  Online—by credit card or electronic check

Go to the Go Ye Fellowship website – www.goyefellowship.org

Click on “Support GYF.”  Under “Secure Donations,” Click on “click here” and follow instructions.  You will find our name listed under “missionaries”

3.  Direct Deposit Program

This is a means whereby your authorize Go Ye Fellowship to process debit entries to your bank account once a month, on or around the 10^th of each month.  Contact the office for a form if you would like to make an automatic donation once a month.

4.  Online through your bank’s website.  Once you have signed in to your account on your bank’s website you can make your contribution through Bill Pay.

5.  By calling the Go Ye Fellowship office (626)398-2305

They can accept either credit card or electronic check donations over the phone.

We are very appreciative of your support and encouragement over the years and we are extending our hands in welcome for you to continue to partner with us in what the Lord has invited us to do:  “…caring for orphans and widows in their distress.”  James 1:27

May God’s grace & peace rest upon you,

Francis, Kimberly, Kimani & Malaika Kamau

The Chicken At Our Window and Other Discoveries

“Be still and know that I am God.”  Psalm 46:10

Even though we've become friends, I still can't get my hand too close because she may bite me

!

  

The  curious sight of a chicken nestled on the ledge of our bedroom window laying an egg, will certainly cause one to take a few moments to be still and contemplate the fact that God is most assuredly;

“Beautiful beyond description, too marvelous for words, too wonderful for comprehension; like nothing ever seen or heard.  Who can grasp his infinite wisdom who can fathom the depths of his love?”  Truly, it causes my soul to be in awe of Him.  Isn’t amazing how God can use a plain ordinary chicken to stir our hearts to worship?

The chicken arrived at The Villages of Hope last month as a gift for me by the grandmother of one of the children that live at the village.  As it was presented to me, I saw that it was tied up neatly in a basket quietly awaiting its fate.  We untied it and let it walk around as we considered whether we should eat it that day or wait a few days.  While I was certainly appreciative of the sacrificial gift, I really wasn’t feeling up to the task of beheading, defeathering, disemboweling, and dismembering the creature.  So, we let the chicken walk around and become familiar with its surroundings.  I tried to resist the temptation to give her a name because then we may become attached and it would be difficult to make a meal out of her, but I gave in and named her Maizy.  After some days, I noticed that Maizy had developed a very regular routine of rising at 5:50am, foraging for food until around 10a, climbing onto our bedroom window to rest for about an hour and lay an egg, forage for food until 6pm and then climb into the tree outside of our window to sleep.

Whenever Maisy appeared at the window to rest, it was inevitably during the time that I was having my Bible study time at my desk.  I was able to look at her very closely and marvel at God's handiwork.  I even discovered that when a chicken blinks, its eyelid goes up and covers the eye instead of coming down like mine does. Wow God!

See what kind of discoveries can be made when time is taken to be still?  Here are some other delightful discoveries that I made while taking a moment to sit and talk with some of the children from the village as they were preparing to visit relatives over the school holiday.  The conversation began in this way:

Sharpie:  ""Auntie Kimberly do you know how to kill a hyena in the bush?

Me:  No Sharpie, I can't say that I do.....do you?

Sharpie:  Yes, I do!  You have to make a gun out of branches and shoot it with monkey oranges!

Me: Oh my! Really!  Where should I try to aim for, its head?

Sharpie:  Anywhere, just shoot the monkey oranges and if it hits the hyena it will really hurt it!

And so began a very intriguing discussion on various hunting methods of creatures found in the African bush.  I learned from several of the children the following helpful information:

• Baboons are very, very bad.  They can snatch the slingshot out of your hand and use it on you!  They also throw rocks.  The best way to deal with them is to trap them in a tree and then set fire to the tree so that they can't get away.
• When hunting for mice to eat,  I will need a bucket, maize and some water and string (I think).  Anyway, I was advised that I could catch a lot of mice using this method as long as I set it up correctly.  Also, I have to be aware of a certain type of mouse that makes it difficult to catch a lot of mice because this mouse won't let the other ones inside of the bucket trap, because it wants to eat the maize for itself.
• There is a type of squirrel that I need to watch out for.  It is a chicken eating squirrel that can eat quite a few chickens over a period of a few days.  I will need to catch it quickly otherwise it can completely steal all of my chickens and I won't have any left.  (This is important for me to know I realize, because I wouldn't want Maizy to be in danger.  I feel grateful for this tip.).  When the squirrel is caught, it can be eaten.  It tastes a lot like chicken.

Well, I feel a little more confident about my survival skills should I find myself stranded in some of the remote areas surrounding our village!

On a different note, We are looking forward to the visit of my sister and brother-in-law in two days.  They will stay for two weeks and  we will be returning with them on the 29th of this month.  It has been three years since our last visit to the US and we are excited about seeing many of you, especially in the Delaware, Maryland, and Washington D.C. area.  We will be visiting for the months of October and November, so please keep a look out for us if you are able!

We would like to invite you to pray with us about the following:

• Safe travel to and from the US
• Many opportunities for fellowship and sharing what God has been doing in your lives and ours.
• That God would provide a vehicle for our temporary use.
• Pray for Dick Mumba as he will be assuming many of Kamau's responsibilities while we are away.
• Pray for Ben & Kathleen as this will be a busy time for them as well.
• Praise God for touching the hearts of His people in providing the funds necessary to replace more than double the amount of chickens that were lost in the fire!

Thank You, thank you!! 

May God's peace and grace rest on you as you take time to be still and let Him delight you heart with fresh new discoveries!

The Kamaus

The Good,The Burned, and The Roasted!!!

Dear Ones,

 

August started beautifully!  The cold season making way for the warm, but windy and dusty season!   At the Village of Hope, the children have been out for the school break! We were also hosting visitors from a church in Wisconsin. 

For some time now, the missionary families have been praying about reaching out to the neighboring villages and also introducing our children on how to share the message of Christ to others. We decided August was a good time to begin this effort. Our outreach focus was going to be the neighboring Aralussa Farm village, with plenty of time on our hands, we all decided to prepare and rehearse for the outreach!  

Rehearsing for the outreach

These involved skits, games, choreographed praise and worship dance music, setting up and tearing down of the various activity stations for the big day!!! It was such fun and we were all excited because this was the first time that we were taking our children to another village for outreach.

David and Sharpie came to watch the rehearsals, but they were deeply involved in their knitting!

Finally the big day arrived! We loaded up the tractor with all of us wearing bright yellow shirts and made the short drive to the Aralussa Farm! It was such a delight to watch our kids witness as they shared the message of the sower and the seed through the skit and narrative!  There were about 80 children who attended from two villages.  Many had never seen anything like this and especially done by their fellow kids!   They were very orderly and heartily participated in the various activities.

Annette and Tereshina enjoying themselves!

Please pray that God’s word which was sowed in their hearts will take root and awaken a desire to know him more!  We would also like to follow up and disciple the children on a regular basis and we hope as the invitation is extended, that this will become a reality. This is was the good part!

Dick Mumba leading a praise and worship time

Shadrach Paul and Nelson with balloons!

Children attending the event playing one of the games

Now for the challenging part! 

Wednesday August 24^th began just like any other beautiful Zambian day! Little did we know that before the day was over, we would be stretched and confounded in more ways than one!    A little after 1:00 pm; someone noticed smoke rising from the neighboring farm close to the highway, before we had sufficient time to organize ourselves, a gust of August wind kicked in and the little flame very quickly became a gigantic inferno that furiously ate up everything in its path and spread into our farm. It reached the chicken coop where we have our layers and those of us who were at the village fighting the fire did not know until after the fire what had really happened.

 The fire then headed towards the school; we quickly drove there and to our relief found that although the fire was very close, the little fire guard in place would protect it. Because of the tall elephant grass, the fire was several feet high and propelled by the wind, it very quickly got into the village!  We fought it using branches as no water was readily available!   We prayed and asked the Lord to please bring the fire down and cause the wind to cease!   After a while the fire burned itself out and we now could pause and assess the carnage! 

Mr. Bwanga removing chickens from the scorching debris

We soon found out that of the 265 layers, 247 had completely burned up! The 18 which had survived were scattered near other buildings.  We salvaged what we could and were appalled by our loss but grateful that no people were hurt and that apart from the chicken coop, no other buildings had been damaged.  I realize for those of you who have never been to Zambia, you may perhaps be wondering, why did you not call the fire brigade? I wish it were that easy!  But we live in a rural setting and for many of us a fire truck is something of a novelty.

We were all standing around stunned by swiftness of the fire and the damage it caused.

Some of the surviving chickens, no doubt traumatized by their harrowing experience!

We decided to give away the burnt chickens to the staff and sell the rest to a neighboring village.

Where there are chickens there are rats!!!  They were weak and disoriented from the smoke and fire, which made them easy to exterminate!

It goes without saying that roasted chicken was on the menu for all of the Villages of Hope and the neighboring Nyrienda Village.  Actually, we believe that those who had acquired the chickens that we sold were so busy eating them that we didn't even hear blaring music from the taverns that night!  Hey! that is a good thing!

Grateful to our Lord,

The Kamaus 

(Nelson & Paul)

Greetings to Everyone!

As we approach the end of this month the weather is still cold, but our hearts were certainly warmed by the visit of a team of four from Colorado. It was a small group but they certainly provided a great deal of much needed assistance in various areas, for which we are very grateful.

One of the goals that we have at the Village of Hope is to raise children who will be able to boldly share their faith in Jesus Christ with their generation. Recently, Kimberly began to hold a training class for Nelson and Paul to instruct them in how to share the Gospel, teach Bible lessons, and participate in other teaching activities within Hope Club. Her background with Child Evangelism Fellowship has once again proved to be very useful in helping to prepare young people to become involved in missions.

All of us were delighted with the colorful teaching of Mark, one of the team members. He used balloon sculpture and Gospel illusion to captivate the attention of children and adults alike!

In these pictures, Mark is giving us instruction in how to make balloon sculptures and teaching ideas as we prepare for ministry in surrounding villages.
We were also able to have sewing instruction for some of the girls and caregivers at the Village of Hope and also the Chimwemwe Ladies Club. Verla showed them how to operate the machines and to make bags, shorts, and skirts. All of the students were very enthusiastic and it was truly a joy to see!

(Verla with Malaika, Namakau and Mary S.)

(Malaika making a bag)

(Matilda working on a sewing project)

Towards the beginning of the year, guitar instruction began at the village with three students! Here is Brighton hard at work on a musical piece he is learning.
The chicken pox and mumps are still making their rounds at the village. Here are some of the sufferers of chicken pox, Maggie and Joyce with anti-itch calamine lotion decorating their faces, arms and legs.
Using what we learned from attending the Foundations For Farming conference in farming God's way, we have been busy collecting natural materials just laying around the property so that we could make our own compost. In these pictures the children are engaged in picking up cow manure. As you can see, it was an unpleasant task but they willingly went about it without complaining!

(Standing by the pile of manure for our compost)

When all the materials were gathered, we began to make our compost. We made repeated layers of grasses and leaves that had been cut when they were green, sticks, dry grasses and leaves, and manure and then added water to the cube of materials. It will take about eight weeks for it to be ready. We are really excited about the idea of using this compost to enrich our soil for maize and other vegetables. This will teach our children that it is not necessary to depend on the store-bought, high cost chemical fertilizers, (which damage the soil over time) and hybrid seed to grow crops.

(Working together to make the compost pile)

Here is the completed pile! We will turn it about once a week so that it can decompose properly.

So, as you can see, these few weeks have been a delightful time of teaching others new skills and learning many helpful and fun things!

May the grace of God and His peace rest on you!


The Kamaus

(Esther and John at at a special Hope Club party)

(The excitement of tasting ice cream for the first time for most of the children, thanks to our visitors Kayla and Sarah who treated us to the cold confection at Hope Club)

(On June 16th we were viewing a lunar eclipse with the children.)

Of Witches, Mumps and Pox, Oh my!

...From Kamau

Greetings friends! I trust this finds you all doing well! From what we’ve heard, you have been experiencing a sizzling hot summer season especially in the East Coast! Here in Zambia, the months of June and July are usually our winter season and yes it has been getting cold late in the evening and especially early mornings’ but it has none the less been a rather warm winter which is unusual.

You in the Northern Hemisphere may find it hard to believe, but it really does get cold in Zambia to a point where I have been forced to wear several layers of clothes to stay warm. The house we live in has a tin roof and no ceiling such that when its get cold, the only solution is to dress up and go to bed early. Now during the hot months, the opposite is true! The same tin roof gets so hot you feel like you are broiling slowly.

Now about those pesky witches! This is one of those things which as an African I really find aggravating! Especially when I witness the strong spiritual, emotional and mental bondage many are subjected to including some believers! It especially get me riled up when I see the adamant rejection of the care of a medical doctor because the person or the family of the patient believes that the illness has nothing to do with normal sickness which any person born of flesh may suffer, but a belief that someone has cast a spell or that out of jealously, the patient has been bewitched and therefore medical science has nothing to offer.

This was our experience recently when one of our workers became seriously ill and we decided to take him to hospital. He was admitted into the local district hospital but a few days later, his wife and his brother came to see me and told me that the patient was being transferred to the national hospital for more specialized care and they therefore need money to help facilitate this transfer. They were given the funds but several days later, they came back and said they needed yet more money! I was confused and thought perhaps we were having a communication barrier, because as far as I knew the transfer to the national hospital and already been effected! I don’t speak their particular language and so I asked one of the staff to translate. It finally came out that they needed the funds to pay a witch doctor who I was told was treating the patient! I got so angry and told and them there was no way we were going to take money God’s people have provided to pay for the services of a witchdoctor!

The whole story eventually surfaced and I found out that lies had been told; the district hospital had not really transferred the patient but the family had decided to remove the patient from the district hospital and taken him to a witchdoctor in the village because they had decided that what he was suffering from was not a “normal illness” but that he had been bewitched and therefore the only way he could be cured was through “traditional means.” They were heard to say that they had seen a witchdoctor and that the witch had actually shown them on a “screen” the persons who had bewitched their loved one. According to the family the people responsible for the “bewitchment” were the patient’s two co-workers who out of jealousy had done this terrible deed.

Now, being accused of practicing witchcraft is a very serious charge in Zambia! People accused of bewitching others have been killed and sometimes burned alive in their grass huts! Killings of people suspected of witchcraft occurred recently in a place called Mansa. You can therefore appreciate the deep hurt and pain our two workers were experiencing not to mention the danger inherent at such an accusation. The two threatened to report this matter to the police in order to be accorded protection and help guard their reputation. When we as management found out that the family had removed the patient from the hospital, we decided to step in and do whatever was necessary to help him access medical care. We paid a visit to the home of the worker’s parents in the village to plead with them to allow us to take him to a good hospital. We found the worker lying on a mattress on the ground very weak and emaciated; he could barely see or talk. We were informed he had not eaten for days nor used the bathroom. After some discussion, the family agreed to let us take him to the hospital, we took him to a private hospital where we were sure he would get proper care and attention. The doctors at the well equipped Egyptian Orthodox Hospital very quickly diagnosed him with TB which is a treatable disease. He was there for almost a week and was beginning to eat and get stronger when he suddenly took a turn for the worse and died. He was only 27 yrs. He left behind his wife and two children, one a very young baby. The cause of death was listed as respiratory failure and TB. NOT witchcraft! But a treatable illness! I can’t help but wonder if he would be alive today had he been able to access thorough medical attention much earlier instead of a dalliance with primitive and hollow remedies.

Here at the children’s home, we have faced our own challenges with chicken pox among some of the children and an outbreak of mumps. Four of our children in the same house tested positive for mumps and just last week, two other children from a different house also tested positive! We hope it doesn’t get out of control; we are trying not to panic! (Did I hear witchcraft!!!) Just joking! I am reliably informed that this illness is particularly bad for boys and especially older men! Boy, am I glad I have 44 children!

May God's peace and grace rest upon you!

The Kamaus