2008 Updates |
The Chapel Exterior Is Now Complete!
Final Touches On The Interior In Progress
by Pastor Gary Blumanthal
In late July 2008, African music filled the new Chapel at Iambi Hospital in celebration of its near completion. The African Smile team would leave the next day, and they gathered for morning devotions in the Chapel with the hospital staff, the hired workers, visitors, and many others from the community. All marveled at the awesome work, and they expressed their gratitude to the Lord for His providence.
As the final touches are completed during 2009, we can be confident that this Chapel will be a continued blessing for those who gather there. For sure, God will continue to add many “final touches” of His grace to the hearts of faith and lives of His people in that place.
Gary has traveled to Iambi Lutheran Hospital six times as an African SMILE volunteer. Gary is responsible for hiring thirty Nationals who have carpentry and masonry skills. Their hard work this past year allowed the Chapel exterior to be completed. This same crew also worked on constructing the Infectious Ward Building and a variety of other projects around the hospital grounds. When asked why he has returned to Nkungi Village six times, Gary said "I've enjoyed the friendships I have made with the men". He continued that the sincerity of their faith in their worship and daily life has been a powerful witness and blessing to him.
 Back To Top
|
African SMILE Fall 2008 Newsletter |
IN THIS ISSUE:
Nurse Restores Health to Village
Through Well Water .......................... PAGE 1
A Short History of Iambi Hospital ... PAGE 2
African SMILE Connects with Southern
California Congregations ................ PAGE 3
Spanning Cultures............................. PAGE 4
(Articles are posted below or select the PDF version to the right for printing.)
|
 Download and View Newsletter
as a PDF (654KB) |
Nurse Restores Health to Village Through Well Water
by Sally Moe
Dr. Naomi invited me to join her on rounds in Outreach, Inc.’s “ Port-a-Doc” clinic located in a traveling truck. We would drive 1-2 hours from Iambi and hold clinics in empty buildings, many of them made out of dirt bricks without electricity or running water. The women would leave the fields with their babies on their backs to come for well-baby checks and immunizations. At the clinic we gave DPT shots, oral polio vaccinations, and malariamedication. We treated many patients for GI distress, dysentery, and typhoid. It was amazing how many of the treatments Dr. Naomi gave related to illness stemming from contaminated drinking water.
(Raymond, Dr. Naomi, and Village Officers examine the broken well.)
|
(Child collecting contaminated drinking water.) |
Dr. Naomi showed me the source of the villagers’ contaminated drinking water which essentially came from big puddles as the area wells were broken.Because there were so many animals in the area (there were no cars, just oxen for transportation, cows, goats and chickens to eat, etc.), you can imagine how contaminated those puddles or drinking water reservoirs were. Based on our pictures, Don Etzel, Director of African SMILE, was able to locate the broken well parts and replace them.He also set up a program where the wells will be checked by Raymond, Dr. Naomi’s driver (as she makes her clinic visits), who will have the knowledge and resources necessary to fix future well failures. I never imagined that, as a nurse, I would be helping to get fresh well water restored to this area. Hopefully, the well maintenance program will be a lasting solution to these health issues.
Sally Moe, from Portland, Oregon, works as an RN in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Portland Providence Medical Center and visited Iambi in February 2008.
Back To Top
A Short History of the present Iambi Hospital
by Pastor Robert Ward
In the past, the treatment of leprosy was one of the ways the Augustana Lutheran Mission worked in its outreach of love and evangelism. The British government had established a leprosarium at Mkalama some distance (35 miles) from Iambi. Under the labors of Dr. Stanley Moris, the Mkalama site, which was a pretty desolate place, was to be replaced by a new site, Nkungi, on 5000 acres of land granted by the Government. It was located about 15 miles from the very small Iambi Hospital, which still exists. The leprosarium’s 40 to 50 bed facility, now turned into a general hospital, has taken the name of Iambi as well. Leprosy now can be treated in people suffering from the disease by using sulphone drugs which the folks can take as out-patients and therefore no longer need to be hospitalized. This made the former leprosarium obsolete.
(Dr. Stanley Moris and Juliet Moris.) |
Originally, about 1956, under Dr. Stanley Moris and several international Leprosy treatment organizations (British (BELRA), and American Leprosy Mission(ALM) together with the Augustana Lutheran Mission, funded a very complete leper colony, designed to be self-sufficient in food production and in other ways as well. Mr. John Holloway, the Government Hydrologist created a dam to make water available throughout the year and which also provided the site for a tilapia fish farm. Mr. Roland Renner, the agriculturist, raised food for the patients. He also raised commercial flower seeds for a cash crop. In addition to the inpatient facility, the hospital housed about 450 people afflicted in various stages of the disease who didn’t require hospital beds. The area on which this development took place was a land reserve held by a fierce cattle herding tribe called the Barabaig. They weren’t happy about this incursion on their reserve, but submitted to it under Colonial Government pressure, as they later did when the National government took their other reserves to establish a very large wheat scheme.
With the advent of out-patient treatment by sulphone drugs, it was possible to close the Leprosarium around 1981. The larger group of lepers were told to return to their home communities, but provision was made for keeping a few at Nkungi who were totally incapacitated. It now appears that many in the former group did not return home, but remained in the area.
It was at this time that the former leprosarium became a general hospital. However the hospital lost its funding with its change of status. Bishop Gideon Maghina, of the Central Synod in which the hospital was located, began actively searching for some way to re-establish funding and utilize the facilities there. He enlisted Dr. Denny Lofstrom and his wife Paula in 2001 to survey this need. Mr. Floyd Hammer and his group called Outreach Inc also became involved in this project.
In 2003, the Lofstroms invited Pastor Bob Ward to bring out a group of people from the Pacific Northwest to spend a month working on hospital needs. This small beginning led to the establishment of the group now called: African Smile in 2006, a registered non-profit NGO (non-governmental organization) in Tanzania in 2008, and a non-profit organization with the IRS. whose director is Mr. Don Etzel. Dr. & Mrs. Lofstrom now are working in the Lake Region of Tanzania establishing another hospital.
Since 2007, each year there have been a number of groups going out to Iambi under African Smile for the purpose of renovating and also of building up the hospital with new structures.
Finding a group of over 250 former lepers living in abject poverty in the area, African Smile has been involved in providing them with some buildings to live in and projects to upgrade their lives.
Bishop Eliuphoo Sima the present Bishop of the Central Synod, has very strongly endorsed African Smile and its work at Iambi. Currently a large infectious ward building and a beautiful chapel are close to completion and will be dedicated by the Church in 2009.
Back To Top
African SMILE Connects with Southern California Congregations
 |
Dean Buchanan is Director of Finance of the Central Coast Chapter of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans (San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties, CA). The chapter has roughly $30,000 each year to use as matching funds for Lutheran congregation projects (“Care for Communities”). He seeks out invitations to speak about Iambi Lutheran Hospital at adult Bible classes, women’s missionary society meetings, and other sponsoring group events. As a former missionary, he tells the history of over 80years of Lutheran activity in Tanzania. In so doing he weaves in the story of Iambi Hospital, its inactivity, revitalization, and the current needs. Dean has found that direct contact with a congregation is the only way to drum up enthusiasm and support for overseas missions. He ends his presentation with the African SMILE DVD showing first hand the sights and sounds of Nkungi Village. Dean encourages both Missouri Synod and ELCA congregations to sponsor an event and generate funds that can be matched by Thrivent. He has successfully raised funding for the recently completed Chapel at Iambi Hospital. The funds will purchase stackable pews, Bibles, hymnals, sound system, furnishings for the chaplain’s office, and a cross for the top of the chapel.
(Final touches on the Chapel.) |
African SMILE has speakers currently available in Southern California, Oregon, and Western Washington to make presentations for your church or business group. Contact African SMILE at (503) 694-1001
or www.africansmile.org to arrange for a presentation.
Dean Buchanan is retired and lives in Santa Maria, CA. He serves on the African SMILE Board. From 1958-1962, he was Vice President for Finance and Business at Pacific Lutheran University and California Lutheran University. Dean’s interest in Iambi Hospital stems from serving as a missionary from 1957-1962 as the General Treasurer of the former Augustana field in Central Tanzania. He was present during the founding of Iambi Hospital and Leprosarium.
Back To Top
Spanning Cultures
by Roger Bighouse
After a long, dirty day of installing electrical wiring in the newly constructed nursing classroom, I was looking for a little recreation. A short walk to the “guesthouse” for a change of clothes and my soccer ball, and I was ready to head out to Nkungi Village in search of a game. Along the way, word spread about a game. By the time I reached the dirt and grass field at the primary school, there were 15 kids tagging along ready to play. Like a scene from any playground, we used a pair of shoes and a couple of rocks as goal posts. Without a word of Swahili, I created two teams by “slicing” the crowd with my arm and motioning each team to their respective sides – they all understood perfectly.
 |
The boys ran me into the red Tanzanian dirt! Among them were a couple of unforgettable boys. Kennedy, playing in old soccer shoes with the cleats nearly worn smooth, literally ran circles around me. I nicknamed another adorable boy “Little Drogba” after the African soccer star. He was one of the smallest boys on the field, but he had a knack for being in the right place at the right time. Another boy played with bare feet.
On the field that day, there was neither Swahili nor English–only soccer. One of the beautiful things about soccer is the simple, universally understood rules. On that evening, two vastly different cultures were brought together by a simple game of soccer.
Roger Bighouse (nicknamed “Nyumba Kubwa” which means “big house” in Swahili). Roger lives in Canby, Oregon and earned his soccer stripes when he visited Nkungi Village in February 2008.
Back To Top
|
