Medical ministry team adds compassion to their repertoire

Uganda (MNN) ― Uganda's health sector has felt the ravages of a slowed economy. Government health facilities have fallen into disrepair, supplies for government clinics are in shortage, and staffing is far below what are considered optimum levels.

For those who get medical training, jobs are plentiful elsewhere, leading to "brain drain" of Uganda's brightest health care workers.

A typical stay at a hospital can take place in a room with little more than a bed. Unless friends or relatives come by with food, the patient doesn't eat. These conditions prompted a team from Every Child Ministries to inject the situation with a little help, hope, and love.

ECM's Lorella Rouster explains, "There have been times when our staff has paid to have somebody come and stay with a person because they didn't have anybody to stay with them and to provide for their basic needs."

More recently, they've taken to visiting the women and children in a public hospital in Gulu. "Many people in northern Uganda are virtually alone. They're alone in the sense that they're not with their original family", explains Rouster. "They're not with people, always, who really deeply care for them. That's just part of the devastation that's been left by this long 20-year war with the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army)."

A visit, prayer and practical help go a long way to physical and spiritual health. "These visits help people to know that they've not  been forgotten and to feel that they're significant, that they're loved, and that they're valued."

As a result, relationships built up, which led to more. "In the last month, we've seen six people come to Christ through this ministry. We're looking forward to many more as they [the team] share the message of salvation in the hospital ward."

Rouster says more and more of their staff are keeping their eyes open for opportunities to share the message of salvation in every aspect of their work. Because of the compassion, doors open more readily.

For the team that's doing the hospital visitation, for as many times as there is celebration and new life, the work can be draining and disappointing. "Pray that our staff would not get discouraged by seeing death close up, and by seeing the difficulties and the problems that people face. They might focus on the hope that they can bring in Christ."

Click here for more details on ECM's work.

Fighting affects ECM; ministry responds with growth

Mission Network News: Congo-Kinshasa (MNN) ―The most recent headlines concerning the Democratic Republic of Congo include possible Congolese ties to 36 deaths in a bar shooting in Burundi. Similar updates on the nation are fairly typical. Ongoing fighting in portions of the country continue to create challenges for the entire nation. Read more...

The plight of the Karimojong

Uganda (MNN) ― Uganda's climate changes have led to the ostracizing of a people group that's been in the region for ages.

The Karimojong have been cattle herders for centuries, most recently taking care of their livestock in northwest Uganda. The Karimojong use cattle for every need, from diet to dowry.

In the past several years, however, the Karimojong have been forced to explore a new way of life in the face of devastating weather.

"Thousands of them in recent years have left their homeland--the pastures in Northwest Uganda--because first there was a prolonged drought, which made it really impossible for the land to support the people and their cattle," explains Lorella Rouster of Every Child Ministries.

Ironically, for the last two weeks, the issue hasn't been drought, but torrential rainfal, which has washed out roads and bridges, making it impossible for people to get into the Karimojong's region.

Slowly, the Karimojong are being forced to leave their physical homes as well as their way of life.

"They've been fiercely proud of their traditional way of life in recent years, but they have faced this choice of heading for the city or facing starvation in their homeland area in the north," adds Rouster.

But the Karimojong have only experienced strife for sacrificing their traditions. City life has been difficult in Kampala, where the group is highly ostracized.

The Karimojong aren't lazy, but they're uneducated, keeping them from acquiring good work. To make money, many Karimojong scavenge for scrap metals and plastics to create small items like rat traps and meat roasters.

Despite their hard work, the profit margin is abysmal. Many Karimojong are forced to beg on the streets. Even this desperate and already humiliating state of begging is only met with disgust by others in the city though, and the government has warned people not to give to them.

The incredible poverty that the Karimojong face makes housing difficult to afford. Many live on the streets, and for those who don't, prospects aren't much better. "The living conditions are really deplorable, and I would describe them as inhuman," says Rouster. "People are crowded together so that 10 or more families are forced to share one small room."

Many of those who are fortunate to have a roof--regardless of how many crowd beneath it--are being pushed out of their homes due to increasing building projects throughout Kampala.

It would seem that this people group is completely alone, despised and forgotten. But ECM is doing all they can to reach out to this hurting people.

Over the past year, ECM has begun to sponsor children from one large Karimojong group in two major slum areas, allowing the kids to go to boarding schools to get an education. The kids are doing well, but when they return to their parents for the holidays, they find many of them without homes.

As the ministry works with local Karimojong to help them with basic needs, they are able to share the Gospel as well. Although many are stuck to their traditional religion, several others, understanding well the idea of sacrifice, have come to Christ with open arms.

ECM would like to help in greater ways, including through a ministry center that would offer vocational training, spiritual nourishment, and possibly a place for kids to stay during the holidays. To build such a center would cost $55,000.
If you would like to help ECM give the Karimojong back their dignity and provide them with new hope in a risen King, visitwww.ecmafrica.org/663537.ihtml.

Independence: The Beginning of A New Life

[Story photo courtesy Every Child
 Ministries] [Cover photo courtesy of
 Words of Hope]

Sudan (MNN) ― South Sudan marked independence Saturday with the jubilation of a people group freed from oppression. Seventy-two hours later, the big question is: Now what?

South Sudan has big expectations to fill as its birth is the culmination of a six-year peace process ending a brutal civil war. However, the new nation is wrestling with extreme poverty, inadequate infrastructure, conflict and other economic woes.

On Monday, lawmakers formed a caretaker government and announced a new currency. Lorella Rouster with Every Child Ministries (ECM) says these are all great steps forward, but there's an absence that's too glaring to ignore. "I don't see the attention of the world to help them."

South Sudan's struggles are similar to those of Northern Uganda. When Northern Uganda came to the world's consciousness, they got help. But aid groups offering to help this newest fledgling nation get on its feet have not been overloud. Despite the veneer of new, it's still a rural Third World country that lacks basic health, education, and roads, not to mention hotels, airports and internet access.

  

Rouster says this is where they can be helpful. They're an agency dedicated to showing the love of Jesus through mercy ministries to homeless street children, through seeking to release and retrain slave children, and through medical and rehabilitation ministries to the sick and handicapped.

Foresight and planning allowed ECM to be strategically placed. "I was there just a few days before Independence, training church and orphanage workers in Southern Sudan in more effective ways of children's ministry,"says Rouster.

Government reports show that those who fled North from the South are now returning home in droves. Agencies and ministries in the South are bracing for an influx of people who need their services and compassion. Rouster says, "The churches really need to reach out to the new generation that is coming up if there is to be any hope of the future. To do that, they need to make the training fun and exciting and not just sitting there listening to another sermon. So we believe that it can have a very positive impact."

Sudan ranks 154 out of 169 on the United Nation's Human Development Index. South Sudan's challenges will be converting its vast natural resources into support that keeps its people alive.

Rouster explains that while the oil is in the South, there is little else right now. "Prices are very high in Southern Sudan. Living is very hard, and rain is needed too for the crops. If the rain does not come, the prices will be way too high for the average person."

South Sudan, or "New Sudan" as it's sometimes referenced, teeters on the edge of being the next failed state if the new government can't keep social, economic and political pressures under control. As if to acknowledge the formidability of its task, the ministers of the Southern Sudanese government--with hands on Bibles--were sworn in to their caretaker role for the new Republic of South Sudan.

Rouster commented, "I think it's a question of whether they can continue to develop the integrity in their new government in such a way that God can bless their country. That's what we're praying for, and that's what Christians are praying for in Sudan: not only that there'll be peace, but  [also] that their new government will really seek the Lord."

ECM is celebrating South Sudan's "new beginning" by sharing the Gospel with the next generation. Says Rouster, "We would like people to pray that people would use the teaching that we have given them and be effective in reaching the new generation. The techniques that we've given are good for large groups, so I think that's good for the influx of new children."

"Pray that the leaders will remain strong," says Rouster. The days ahead will be taxing, but exhilarating.  As ECM's Sudan presence grows, keep praying "that they'll be up to the challenge, that they will have great vision. The churches in Southern Sudan have been growing at a tremendous rate, but that also leaves a big leadership gap, so pray that strong leaders will rise up."