Serge (formerly known as World Harvest Mission) began its ministry in Bundibugyo, Uganda in 1986. Bundibugyo is in western Uganda along the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. The district has about 265,000 people and is situated at the base of the Rwenzori Mountains. The people "on the other side of the mountain" were quite separated from the rest of the country and have been considered lesser to many in Uganda. Being an unreached area made it an ideal location for Serge to start ministry. The initial emphasis was on church planting and evangelism and with time, projects in education, medicine, community health, and safe drinking water were incorporated in. Marc and I were first drawn to this location because of how multi-faceted the team is. We find it encouraging and rejuvenating to see ministries outside of medicine at work in missions. It provides a much needed balance to the heaviness and weight that can come with missionary medicine in Africa. We were thankful that during our stay we were able to see many of these ministries up close, hear the history of how they began, and ask questions along the way. Thank you to all the Serge ladies who helped watch our kids sporadically during our first week allowing us the opportunity to see so much!
Our first trip was to the BundiNutrition program. Children eligible for this program are moderately malnourished. Some have recently been discharged from the hospital for severe malnutrition but have improved enough to continue care in an outpatient setting. The children come with their mom or caregiver once a week for a weight check. The caregivers then listen to an educational lesson on nutrition with Bible teachings woven in. At the end they receive a free supplement which is highly valued by these families struggling to provide the very basics for their children. The supplement is a high calorie, protein paste made from ground nuts and is locally grown and processed.
On the day we visited we even ran into a Chicago Bears fan! :)
Our second site to visit was Christ School. This boarding school was established by Serge in 1999. The school currently educates around 350 children in the primary and secondary grade levels. Bundibugyo district is one of the poorest districts in Uganda. They consistently rank in the bottom 10% for nearly every statistic, including education. Serge saw a need to raise up educated leaders for tomorrow to improve the overall health of the region. We were so impressed by the quality of the kids we met at the school. They were polite, very smart, and are being rooted in the Christian faith at an early age. We were very encouraged.
The views really are panoramic in Bundibugyo. This picture was taken from the soccer field at Christ School.
Below, Michael is showing us some of the improvements that have been made to the school's kitchen to improve ventilation for the cooks who work at Christ School. Africans cook over wood fires and lung disease is a common problem due to years of smoke inhalation. When you cook for nearly 400 people each day, having a safe place to prepare food is important.
Some beans were cooking over the fire while we were there.
Christ School is striving to become more self-sustainable. They have a farm where they grow some of their own food and they also have a bio gas system that is providing a "green" gas through a pipe into their kitchen for use with cooking. This system uses human waste and other organic matter waste to produce the gas. Crazy, I know. But it really is ingenious once you get past the uncomfortable part of it all. You can read more about it HERE. Behind the outhouses are large tanks that collect the gas that is formed from the digestion of the waste. Then, the pipe just needs to run in a direction above the tank to provide a flow of gas to cook with. Impressed??? We were amazed.
Here is the bio gas pipe in the kitchen
We enjoyed worshiping with the students for one of our Sunday mornings in Bundibugyo. As in most African settings, boys and girls sit on opposite sides in church. As visitors, we were allowed to sit together near the front. Our kids did very well for a long church service.
There are two health care operations serving the Bundibugyo area that Marc visited. Nyahuka Health Center and Bundibugyo District Hospital are both government run facilities where Serge missionaries have served for the past 20 years. In the past few years, there were two missionary physicians working in the health center who needed to leave the field early (one for illness and one to get married). There is a physician's assistant (and his family) and a physical therapist (and his family) who are currently the only medical providers on the team. There is a need for a physician (or several!) to come back on board with this team and help serve in a medical capacity.
This was Marc's first experience working in a government run clinic/hospital in Africa. The other hospitals he has worked in were built by missionary agencies and were funded through private donations and fees from the patients receiving care. The dynamics are quite different between the two. Many had cautioned us before our trip about the current state of the hospital and the intensity of the medical needs of the district. However, I think seeing it up close was far more challenging than what Marc could have imagined. The biggest challenges that Marc found in this setting were the lack of medications and supplies (including no water or electricity) and the lack of hospital staff to take care of patients and give medications. It is quite hard to help people get well even from common diseases like malaria and pneumonia without having those two things in place. As a medical provider trained in a Western context, you must surrender so much to an environment defined by a "lack of" when practicing medicine in Africa. It is really defeating to not be able to treat even the most basic things to save lives. Marc is continuing to process this opportunity and whether he could see himself being functional and useful. No one person is adequate to take on this task that lies ahead. The needs are far too great and the infrastructure needs much improvement. Yet God is more than able to sustain, equip, and provide for whoever He does call to this task. We know that fully well, yet it takes a great step of faith to actually believe it.
Marc and Derek (the PA serving in Bundibugyo with Serge)
Along with the inpatient and outpatient medical work at Nyahuka Health Center, a sickle cell club was started a few years ago. At one point it was thought that Bundibugyo had the highest rate of sickle cell trait in the world. The rate of death from the disease is the highest in the first five years of life so a program was established to help those with sickle cell disease receive prophylactic antibiotics, folic acid, and education on the disease to hopefully reduce its morbidity and mortality. The program meets once a month and the families pay to be enrolled in the program for a full year. This allows the children to receive daily doses of penicillin and folic acid. Derek has been doing a great job with the program.
One last thing I want to highlight (especially because Holly took some beautiful pictures and told me I could swipe her blog photos!) is a new program that one of the teachers (Eli and Hailey's teacher while we were there) from the Rwenzori Mission School was working on during our stay. The idea behind this children's reading room was to provide local children an opportunity to read and enjoy books in a safe and quiet environment. I LOVE these pictures. :)
If any of these projects interest you, you can follow this link to Serge's old website and click on the "related projects" tabs on the side. These are very easy and practical ways that you can become involved in some very cool things going on in Bundibugyo, Uganda. Stay tuned for more trip updates!
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