Michele in Africa

Internet

2009-05-29T07:33:00.001-07:00

We've been having internet problems for 8 days now and there's no end in sight. I leave Sunday for a 6 day outreach in Free State and then a day in Pretoria for a OneHope celebration. I don't know if I will have internet access then so I may not be able to post much in the next week or so. I leave to come home on Tuesday, June 9 and arrive mid-day June 10.

So don't worry if you don't hear from me!

Animals

2009-05-27T04:45:00.000-07:00

I’ve been on quite a few game drives both here on the farm where I’m staying plus on another farm in the area called Entabeni. I didn’t bring a good camera with me so I’m depending on other team members for safari photos which I haven’t received yet. In the meantime, I’m posting some that I’ve taken.

On the last safari, you’ll be glad to know we saw the baby rhino alive and well so the lions we saw on the previous safari stalking the baby were not successful. We saw the baby rhino and his mother up close next to the game drive vehicle. We also saw giraffe, a hippo (although mostly just the top of his head in the water), zebras, wildebeests, lions, warthogs, black-backed jackals and lots of antelope-ish animals (kudu, eland, nyala).

Yesterday on a walk up the mountain, I saw gemsbock (very odd looking animals), warthogs, an albino antelope of some sort and wildebeestes. The previous day on my walk I saw sables and a black impala (normally they’re brown) and lots of monkeys (vervets) plus a lone ostrich.

Going on a game drive

Sables in the back yard

Black-backed jackal tracks

The sables are always watching me

Zebras

Impalas (including the black one)

Wildebeeste

Nyala in the front yard

Eyes

2009-05-27T04:35:00.000-07:00

The majority of the work I’ve done here is in relation to the eye clinics. We are just getting ready for another team to come and we’ll spend next week in the province of Free State. Usually we work in the schools but this next outreach, we will be working in the community and not the schools. I’m expecting that we will mostly be seeing adults but we’re not really sure what to expect.

I’ve had the chance to work in all areas of the clinic. I can do registration, counseling and evangelism, AIDS teaching, run the Retinomax, dispense glasses and make custom glasses. All of this will come in handy since the last two days of the outreach, I will be ‘in charge’ (very loosely stated) since all of our experienced people will be disbursing to various parts of the world. A pretty funny twist of events!

Here are more photos of the work we’re doing in the clinics (thanks to Lauren and Kim for some of these photos):

Getting ready for the next outreach. We have to inventory and take hundreds and hundreds of glasses.

Beauty

2009-05-27T04:24:00.000-07:00

I’ve had the opportunity to travel to about 30 countries and South Africa is in the top two beautiful places I have been to in the world, ranking right up there with Switzerland. While driving through various parts of the province of Mpumulanga (a province is like our state), we saw orange groves, cornfields, olive trees, soybeans (I think), and lots of other types of produce being grown side by side. Driving through Northwest province, there are fields and fields of sunflowers. Driving through Limpopo province, there are mountains and plains, trees we call the Lion King trees (we don’t know what kind they are but they are very predominant in the Lion King movie-they look like umbrellas), and beautiful sunsets. I’m told the Cape area is really the most beautiful part of South Africa but I won’t be seeing that part since it’s a really long drive from the northern part of the country where I’m staying.

And speaking of beautiful, I cannot even come close to describing the stars at night. I have never, ever seen so many stars…it’s like being at the planetarium. There is no comparison that I’ve ever seen in the U.S. I am in complete awe here of how vast our universe is and how powerful God is to be able to create it.

Here are some photos that don’t come close to capturing the beauty:

Feeding program

2009-05-21T02:59:00.000-07:00

On weekends, BMI is involved in a feeding program for children at a local church in the town of Naboom. Children in school receive one meal at school and this feeding program ensures they also get at least one meal on Saturday as well.

We went and hung out with the kids at the church. First, there is a worship service for the children...singing, teachings, even our own Pastor Terry got up to preach. Then there is food.

The food comes from an organization called Kids Against Hunger. This organization packages healthy, balanced meals and ships them all over the world to places where children are starving. If you aren't familiar with this great organization or the huge meal packaging event that went on last September at Wells Fargo Arena in DSM, check out this link for the next big event put on by Meals from the Heartland.

It was so great to actually see the direct result of all the meals packaged by volunteers. These kids loved the rice mixture and the local ladies added additional protein and potatoes to it.

Here are some pics:

In line for food

She loved the food and went back for seconds as did most of the kids! They get as much as they want.

Little boys who loved the camera

Just hanging out with the kids while they ate

2009-05-17T12:08:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't posted anything lately but I've spent the last week in the middle of nowhere without internet access, literally. We did another outreach in Mpumulanga province and stayed in an old bunkhouse on a farm. We were pretty much in the middle of cornfields - actually the area was very similar to Iowa.

I don't know the exact number but we saw hundreds more kids and gave out as many glasses. We had a team that consisted of a husband and wife from Vancouver, one from New Mexico, one from Florida, 8 South Africans and the three of us from Blessman Ministries. Jennie, from Vancouver, is an optometrist which was really helpful considering some of the diseased eyes we saw. For one little one, she diagnosed cancer of the iris.

Here are some of the woman on the team

Kim
Lauren
Lisa
Jennie
Me
Sebenzile (front)

Some of the men on the team

Elmond

Min

December

Lucky

Kids lining up at one of the schools

New glasses

Tondo (r) talking to a girl about HIV/AIDS

Prescreening the kids. The schools are supposed to prescreen the kids and only send us those with problems seeing but they almost never do this. So before we dilate their eyes, we prescreen them using the Snellen chart. If they pass the prescreen, they get sent back to class since they don't need glasses.

Waiting to see Dr. Jennie

Dr. Jennie with a 12 year old boy with HIV. This is the saddest thing I've seen so far. This little boy looked like the walking dead. He was the size of maybe a 7 year old and he had no affect at all...you couldn't get him to smile, talk, respond in anyway. Both of his parents have died from AIDS.

Me using the Retinomax. I pretty much did this all week except the last day. It's a machine that scans the eyes and gives a preliminary prescription for the glasses. I didn't get to interact much with the kids this week since I was doing this particular job but it was still a great week. As the kids lined up for me to scan their eyes, you could see the fear! I'd spend a minute explaining to them that it's just a light and I wasn't going to touch their eye with it. I said the same thing hundreds of times this week.

Looking cute! I sometimes tried to tell the kids this is what their glasses would look like but they usually didn't believe me.

Jennie doing her thing

The Big Storm and Construction

2009-05-08T07:07:00.000-07:00

We had an incredible hailstorm here today and per the locals, this is quite unusual. It's been raining a lot over the last 3 days with thunderstorms but today the hail started. It hailed for maybe 25 minutes. Unfortunately the heavy rain caused flooding at the farm office and in some of the homes of the staff who live on the farm. We spent the afternoon cleaning up the flood waters and then played outside, kids and adults alike, just as if it had been snowing!

Photos at the Blessman house:

Snowball fights

The kids were definitely in on the action

One of the gates to Shikwaru (Shikwaru is the name of the game farm)

New topic: there is some new construction going on here at the farm. Blessman Ministries is building missionary housing to house both short-term and long-term missionaries. Currently BMI has two long-term missionaries working here full-time, Lisa and Terry. The new buildings consist of 3 houses and one community house. They are traditional African-style houses called rondavels.

Here's a picture of the community house with a partial view of two of the other rondavels:

The other building going on is a huge house being built by OneHope, one of the partnering ministries of BMI. This organization is committed to bringing God's Word to every child on the planet (how's that for a goal?:) In 2009, they will distribute 70 million books called Book of Hope to children throughout the world. We get to partner with them during our eye clinic outreaches where we distribute the Book of Hope while ministering to the children.

Here's a photo of the house they are building. It will hold, I think, about 25 - 30 missionaries at a time.

Last update for the day: We've spent this week preparing for another outreach (ok, well mostly Lisa has been preparing for it but I helped with grocery shopping and inventory:) We leave Sunday for another outreach in a province called Free State. We'll be staying at a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere but supposedly we will have internet access. It should be exciting but you may not hear from me next week if we don't really have internet.

Scorpions

2009-05-05T06:44:00.000-07:00

I was organizing the garage at the Blessman house the other day (it's where they keep all their eyeglass inventory) and I uncovered a scorpion. He wasn't that big but still...not something you run across in Iowa. My two roommates tell me they are endangered and you can't kill them. I had a hard time just getting close enough to take a picture, let alone kill it. It was brown and gray rather than the big black ones I've seen in exhibits.

This was only one of many creatures I found while cleaning (including big hairy spiders and a dead mouse).

A clean and organized garage!

Orphanage

2009-05-05T06:03:00.001-07:00

One of the reasons for the work we are doing here is the large number of orphans due to AIDS. The HIV/AIDS 2007 statistics for South Africa are staggering:

South Africa has the large number of AIDS orphans in the world, approx. 1.4 million children
1 in 5 adults is infected with HIV
1000 people die of AIDS every day
71% of deaths for people 15 - 49 s from AIDS
Over half of 15 year olds will not live to age 60
280,000 children are HIV+

For more info on this problem in South Africa, click here.

We spent a couple of hours one morning at an orphanage in Rustenburg and was definitely a highlight of the trip. I was surprised by how nice the orphanage was - the orphanages I was used to in Liberia were nothing like this one here. I'm not sure if this one is typical of orphanages in South Africa but I'm guessing these childrens' living conditions were better than if they were living with family.

According to one of the caretakers, they have lots of volunteers that frequently come to play with the kids so they were getting plenty of loving interaction. Of course, we had no problems interacting with the kids!

Some orphanage photos:

Kelsey

A cute one! Of course, they were all adorable

Feeding time

Abby

Angela

The backyard

I pretty much held Ottilia the entire time I was there! She had only been at the orphanage for 6 days.

Yoliswa

2009-05-03T09:03:00.000-07:00

I am currently working with a ministry called Blessman Ministries which is based in Urbandale, IA. Dr. Jim and Beth Blessman founded this medical ministry in 2001 and they have recently built a house on a game farm in South Africa which is where I'm currently living.

This trip we are doing eye clinics in the schools, providing eyeglasses to children in need. In addition we are doing AIDS/HIV teaching as well as teaching about Jesus. BMI is also currently working on a project to build housing for orphans using low-cost prefab housing units called an Abod. A team is coming this July to build the first set of these houses. If you're interested in this trip, check out this link for more information. You will be staying on the farm where I am currently living (although not in the Blessman's home) and traveling to the worksite each day.

BMI is starting to expand into other southern African countries by providing food to starving children. Currently they are working to get food to Madagascar and are looking to expand into other countries as well. God is definitely on the move with BMI!

One of the reasons I like this ministry and the work we are doing is that we are here to connect with children. Many times in medical ministries, we work long days to treat as many people as possible for their medical ailments (and there's nothing wrong with that) but you don't get to connect with people much. BMI's philosophy is that you spend as much time with a child as you can and just pour love and encouragement into them. And as an aside, they get glasses if they need them.

So during our first day of eye clinics I met a 17 year old girl named Yoliswa. I knew after talking with her that she may have been the very reason I came on the trip (a divine appointment as one of my teammates called it). I started off getting to know her a little, talking about eye glasses and miscellaneous things about school, etc. And as I built trust I started asking her more personal things about her home life and I found out that she is an amazingly gifted young woman living in circumstances we would never have back home.

Her mother was murdered in 2006 and her father died of AIDS last year. She has no siblings and none of her family would take her in. She has been living by herself (I'm not sure where) with no means of support. She gets one meal a day at school thankfully but on days where there is no school, she doesn't eat. Sometimes she says a friend will bring her some food but many days she has none.

When I asked her what the hardest thing was about her life, she said it was being alone at night. She was scared in the dark and often didn't sleep. I think about her every night as I go to sleep wondering if she's scared.

The amazing thing about this girl is her determination. God has given her many creative gifts - she sings, she writes poetry, she draws and she wants to be an accountant (hmmm, not sure how all those go together but she thinks they do:). When I asked her what she does in the night when she's scared, she pulled out a notebook full of writings. And she read to me some of her poetry. I couldn't believe it...I thought she had copied it out of a book, it was that good. I told her I thought she would be a famous writer someday and that I would tell people I knew her when she was a young girl!

The other thing amazing about her is that she is disciplined in her studies. She described her day to me and she goes home every day after school and studies and does her homework because she wants to go to college. What 17 year old would do that if they didn't have supervision?? She has no money and no one supporting her but she still believes she will go to college. She also volunteers 3 days a week at her church working in the children's ministry.

I spent an hour with Yoliswa, just pouring encouragement and love into her. Affirming her dreams and her gifts and assuring her God really had a plan for her life. I think it's probably the best, most amazing conversation I've ever had and I'll never forget it. I've been praying for her everyday and ask that you would also pray for her.

Here's a picture of Yoliswa and me:

On a completely different note, here is a photo taken by Kelsey Blessman of a little boy looking at a picture of Jesus (little cards we handed out at one of the schools). No reason for showing it other than I think it's a great photo!

Last thoughts for this post. I know I keep saying how great it is to live on a game farm but I have to say it again. Yesterday when I was out for a walk, I ran across a herd of Sables. I knew I would find them because I was walking to where they are fed (the farm has a breeding program for them) and they all lined up to look at me. But today, they were in the front yard of the neighbor's house, just grazing. Pretty cool.

And also yesterday I was sitting on the deck studying for a physiology exam and heard rustling in the trees. I looked up and the house was surrounded by monkeys! They were in the trees and running down the road. Eventually they ended up in the backyard by the hottub.

Life is rough here in South Africa!

Game drives

2009-04-30T01:10:00.000-07:00

One of the exciting parts of this trip is the game drives (safaris) we've gone on. I'm currently living on a game farm in Limpopo province just south of Mokepane called Shikwaru Game Lodge. The game lodge profits support a ministry called Reaching A Generation which is dedicated to changing the lives of children in Southern Africa (http://rag.org.za/home.asp).

One of the advantages of living on a game farm is that I can go out anytime on a game drive or a walk to see the animals. It's pretty cool to be out walking and see a giraffe or a baboon. This farm doesn't have lions or rhinos so I don't have to worry about being attacked. However, there is a leopard that isn't supposed to be here but everyone assures me that it won't attack me!

One night last week, the team went on a game drive at Entabeni which has the predator type animals. It was really, really cool to see elephants, lions, rhinos, zebras, etc. up close and kinda scary.

Here are some photos of the drive at Entabeni:

Abby, Caleb, Bob and me in the drive vehicle.

The beautiful landscape of South Africa on the game drive. I was surprised at the mountains. I've always pictured flat terrain but the area I am in is surrounded by mountains.

View from the front seat. We had two guides - Godfrey who sat out front as a spotter and Simon the driver. Note the rifle...just in case...

The rest of our team in the other vehicle. You can tell it was pretty cold since it is the Fall season here.

Zebras

We watched a herd of 10 elephants for about 30 minutes as they made their way through the bush right by our vehicle. It was pretty exciting...I have it on video.

More elephants

We watched as a lion/baby rhino drama unfolded right in front of our car. First we saw the mother, father and baby rhino. Then we saw 2 lionesses stalking the baby. At one point the dad rhino was holding the two lionesses at bay but then one of them snuck around the side of him. Eventually a third lioness showed up and two male lions. The dad rhino and one of the lionesses got into a little tussle as he protected the baby. Eventually the rhinos ran into the bush and the lions followed. Not sure if the little one survived but it was amazing to watch just a couple feet from our vehicle.

Dad rhino is holding off one lioness as the other one snuck around him. The momma and baby rhino are off to the left but not in the photo.

Dad goes after the other lioness who is trying to get the baby

Two more lions show up

Shows how close we were to the action (this is another team).

My camera died during the lion episode so most of these photos are courtesy of Kelsey Blessman.

Eye clinics

2009-04-29T08:37:00.000-07:00

I finally have some time to sit down and write about what we have been doing here in South Africa. A lot has happened in the last week so this will either be a really long post or I'll have to write part of it later. On April 19, a group of 10 of us from Lutheran Church of Hope and 1 from Gloria Dei Lutheran Church left Des Moines for Johannesburg, South Africa. After a 2 hour flight to Atlanta, an 8 hour layover, a 19 hour flight (with a 2 1/2 hour stop in Dakar, Senegal), we made it safely to Joburg. We were met by a team from Blessman Ministries (BMI), the organization we are partnering with (more on them later but check out their website at http://www.blessmanministries.org/).

We stayed at a beautiful bed/breakfast just 15 minutes from the airport. We were surprised at the accommodations since we were prepared to sleep on church floors. We had a great evening of pizza and connecting with our new BMI friends. Sunday we drove about 3 hours north to Rustenburg where we would be staying for the week. Again we were surprised by the beautiful hotel we were staying in. We each had our own room and mine was like an apartment with 3 separate rooms. Each night we returned to the hotel with an amazing dinner prepared by the hotel chef.

Note to anyone considering coming on this trip in the future. Our accommodations were very unusual. The school district with which we are working is responsible for accommodations and generally the teams stay in hostel-type dorms and move to a different one each night. So to say the least, we were extremely lucky.

On Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday (Wednesday was election day and thus a holiday so no school) we went to a different school each day and set up eye clinics. Because I'm going to be doing 2 additional outreaches, I was able to learn most of the jobs in the clinics over the four days.

Here's how a typical day unfolded: we met in the dining room for devotionals at 6:45, had breakfast, then packed up our stuff for the day and drove about an hour - two hours to a school. We set up a registration table, a counseling area, an area where the kids eyes were scanned by a retinomax, and a glasses distribution area.

First, kids were lined up and pre-screened by looking at the E chart. Anyone with 20/30 vision or better was given a book called the Book of Hope and sent on their way (check out this great ministry called OneHope at http://www.bookofhope.net/). The book has lots of teachings about Jesus aimed at the appropriate grade level.

For those children who had worse than 20/30 vision, their eyes were dilated and then 30 minutes later one of the team viewed their eyes with a retinomax (some kind of machine that tells us what eyeglass prescription they need - it's more complicated than that but I'm not exactly sure yet how it works). A script was printed and the child waited for a counselor.

As a counselor, we did three things: determined which eyeglasses worked best for the child, did a teaching on HIV/AIDS and talked to the kids about how much God loves them. The eyeglass part was pretty easy...we had the child hold up one pair of glasses and then another pair...then they choose which is better.

The AIDS teaching was a little harder in the beginning but we eventually were comfortable with it. Talking about sex, condoms, God's plan for marriage, etc. isn't something most of us do with regularity so it was uncomfortable at first. Many of the kids have been directly affected by AIDS and some of had one or both of their parents die from it. South Africa has one of the highest incidence of AIDS in the entire world.

Talking about Jesus was the easy part...I could probably do that all day! We ended with prayer and sent them to the eyeglass distribution area where they would pick up their eyeglasses. At the distribution center, we would verify the prescription was correct and then adjust the glasses to fit their face. Off they would go with their new glasses!

Eye clinic photos:

Tamara teaching about HIV/AIDS

Susan with a new friend

Teaching children VBS songs while they are waiting to be screened

Beautiful with new glasses

Singing

Rob praying

Terry using the retinomax

Abby praying

Me with my new friends

Kelsey

Caleb checking the eyeglass prescription

Brad working hard at drinking his tea!

I have a lot more to write about but will save that for tomorrow. I have a test in my advanced physiology class so I'll be studying tomorrow rather than working. My Hope team left yesterday and the Blessman team left today. So there are three of us left here living in the Blessman's beautiful home.

More stories to come about safaris, orphanages, and living on a game farm!

Photos

2009-04-26T00:56:00.000-07:00

I've finished my first week here in South Africa. We've conducted four days of eye clinics where we've seen hundreds of kids and given out hundreds of pairs of glasses, played with kids at an orphanage, been on a couple game drives (safaris) and spent a lot of time in the car driving from place to place. While I compose a long post with everything that we've done, I'm posting some photos for you.

New eyeglasses!

The orphanage.

Greg playing with the kids at the orphanage.

Baby in her crib at the orphanage. But not for long!

Cute little girl waiting to be seen at the eye clinic.

Entertaining the kids who were waiting to be seen at the eye clinic. Some of our team led them in VBS songs.

One of the schools where we setup the eye clinic.

Baby Ottilia at the orphanage.