Building a Better Lesotho

Well it has been a while since I have posted to the blog. For the past few weeks Laura has been sharing her experiences with orphan care here in Maseru. If you have been reading her posts you know it is an emotional battle -- seeing so many children in need. Laura has a very big heart for children and I am glad she is finding opportunities to share her love at the Beautiful Gate and other facilities here.

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But this week it is my turn again, and I want to share some positive thoughts on progress here in Lesotho. Yes, in the midst of the poverty and illness and other depressing things there is hope for this country. I personally see it in the medical work being done here.

You probably know that the primary reason we are serving here is so that I can install a network of satellite dishes at remote mountain clinics throughout Lesotho. The satellite dishes and related technology were purchase by Partners In Health (PIH) using donated money. PIH is based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. I highly suggest you visit their website at www.pih.org. Click on the "Who We Are" menu and read their vision statement.

Prodelin dish in Tlhanyaku

Recently I have installed dishes at two very special places. First was the mountain village of Tlhanyaku (pronounced "kline ya koo"). If you are regular visitor to the blog you read that Hannah traveled to this site with me. I flew to Tlhanyaku three times and each time I was amazed at the construction happening on new clinic buildings. A whole series of new structures is close to compete, which will more than double the size (and capacity) of the existing clinic. And the craftsmanship is amazing considering how remote this site is. The end result will be a first-class rural health center.

During my last visit to the site Richard greeted me at the plane. Richard is an educated Mosotho hired by PIH to manage the clinic operation at Tlhanyaku.

Tlhanyaku Clinic

As we walked downhill toward the clinic I commented about the progress on the buildings and how nice the site looked. Richard agreed. "Yes, it is taking a long time but they (the builders) are doing a very nice job. When I hear the people talking they say now they don't have to go to Mokhotlong or Maseru to get to the hospital -- we have a hospital here in Tlhanyaku now!"

The expanded clinic will have room for weighing babies *inside*

I replied, "well it's pretty close, but I guess you don't have any beds for patients to stay overnight..."

"No, we do!" said Richard. "We can have up to 10 patients overnight now!"

He was just beaming as he spoke. -- a Mosotho man very proud of his clinic and the service they are able to provide to the mountain people. The Tlhanyaku clinic has a permanent educated physician (Dr. Simba from Zimbabwe), dependable solar power, high speed Internet, and soon will even have an x-ray lab! They see up to 70 patients a day.

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Patriot dish in Lebakeng

I have also been working at the remote clinic in Lebakeng, which also sees up to 70 patients a day. As I mentioned on this blog a few weeks ago the clinic in Lebakeng is also undergoing heavy construction. All of the work is being done by hand with a beautiful cut stone / block combination. It is a great example of Basotho taking pride in their work!

Basotho Craftsmanship

The doctors working in Lebakeng exhibit the same pride as the builders – going the extra mile to provide the best healthcare possible in this remote place. Dr. Nico (a Mosotho educated in South Africa) is the primary doctor for this clinic. He is a highly intelligent individual and being Mosotho he has the advantage of speaking the language of the people he is serving.

PIH Doctors Dr. Leeroy Moyo (Zimbabwe) Dr. Nico Lesia (Lesotho)

It is not uncommon for Dr. Nico to walk for hours to make house calls in the neighboring villages. Recently he took a motorcycle training course here in Maseru to learn to ride a dirt bike that we will fly to his clinic this month. (Over 100 motorcycles were donated by Sir Elton John to Lesotho for use in the rural health program, Lebakeng will receive one of them.) Dr. Nico is a fantastic role model for his fellow Basotho – an example of compassion, love, and dedication to improving his country.

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And there are many more stories of Basotho people striving to build a better Lesotho. PIH has several Basotho doctors now, working in Lebakeng, Bobete, Nkau, and Methalaneng. They have Basotho staff at the office in Maseru, and of course talented Basotho contractors and builders. Basotho men and women are testing the blood samples coming back from the remote clinics, and tracking patient data and treatment results.

MAF Staff: Oliphant, Joe

MAF has a terrific group of Basotho “national staff” at the hangar involved in all of our operations including aircraft maintenance. Our airstrips are maintained daily by mountain Basotho people. And at all of my VSAT installations I have employed Basotho with construction of the dish or at least setting the pole in cement.

Living here it is so easy to focus on the negative things. Climbing HIV/AIDS rates… a growing orphan population… poverty… hunger… litter… crummy roads… contaminated water… electricity coming and going… corrupt politicians… and on and on and we start to ask “Do these people care? Do they even want to make life better?? Where is God in all this???….”

And we risk missing the signs of hope.

Please pray for the nation of Lesotho. Pray that it would continue to seek God’s guidance and that the Basotho people would have the opportunity to use their skills and abilities here in their own country.

And as always thank you for your prayers for our family and our time here. We have less than 6 weeks left and there is still plenty of work to be done! We look forward to seeing many of you very soon.

Blessings,

Traig

Hello Again

Sorry for the delay in posts, Traig has been trying to finish a post about what has been going on in the mountains but he remains as busy here as he was in the States so I am just going to go ahead and post another update. First, thank you all so much for the tremendous outpouring of prayer and financial support for the Beautiful Gate these last couple weeks. I want you to know how much it has meant to the people there. I have with great joy delivered bags of papa, apples, potatoes, eggs, diapers, and money on the behalf of those who have given. Benno, the acting director, told me that I must have great family and friends to so quickly respond to their needs. Please know that a good work is being done there.

It is with a heavy heart that I share with you that the little boy who was so badly burned is now in the hospital. Today he underwent surgery to scrape the burned flesh. I understand that it will be extremely painful for him the next few days. He celebrated his 1^st birthday yesterday. Last week I went to visit him in the hospital and it was the closest place to hell on earth that I have ever seen. I had always heard that it was a horrible place but I could not even begin to know just how horrible until I was there.

M’e Augustina’s cousin had been shot in a robbery and she wanted to bring him lunch and I knew that would be beneficial to have a Sesotho speaking person with me as I tried to navigate through the hospital to the children’s ward-so off we went first to the “Casualty Ward”. It was a huge room lined with beds only a few feet apart. It became clear that there was a theme among the patients. None over 35, all with cracked skulls, arms in slings, bandages around their heads-M’e told me it was all gun wounds and stabbings. Queen 2 does not provide food or beverages to patients so it is possible for people to starve to death in the hospital. No one changes the sheets on the beds or the bandages on the wounds either -if you want a blanket, you must bring your own-hence, why M’e was bringing lunch for her cousin. While we were in the room, I noticed others being fed, having their bandages changed, being helped to the restroom—by what I can only assume where their “gang” friends. These men looked like they had just finished up a drug deal and were now spoon feeding mashed carrots to someone who had not made it so well though whatever happened the night before. M’e told me that one night when she was there, the man in the bed next to her cousin died and it was over two hours before they could get anyone to come and remove the body. It was not an easy place to be.

With great fear for what was next, we walked to the children’s ward and just thinking about it now brings a wave of nausea and tears. There were no colorful pictures on the walls, no toys, books or soft blankets. Just rows of sick children, many dying of AIDS, mixed in with children with broken bones, burns, bruises and cuts. We made our way through the people and found my little one. A Beautiful Gate staffer stays with him at all times and she was holding him while he slept. We talked about how his nights were and how he was eating while I tried not to think about what was going on all around me. The place was heavy with death and I could not find the small ray of hope that I cling to everyday I am here. A kiss on the forehead for him and a hug for the M’e who is spending her days and nights in a place where I could hardly be for more than a few minutes and we left.

Please pray for safety for him while he is there, and for his little body to heal. Also, it is common for patients who are not HIV positive (the baby is not) to contract the virus while in the hospital because of the unsanitary conditions-needles are reused and there are just no precautions taken. Queen 2, currently has a 40% infection rate among patients.

In 2007, the Lesotho government spent almost 28 dollars per person on health care, in the U.S., same year; the government spent 7,439 dollars per person.

Please be ever so grateful for the many undeserved gifts God has bestowed upon us.

Grace and Peace, Laura

Praise and Prayer

We are entering our last two months here in Lesotho! I can’t believe that we are starting to think about wrapping things up here. The installs are going well and everything remains on track for Traig to be finished by the end of July. Please continue to pray for safety and efficiency for Traig while he works.

Praise and pray for Beautiful Gate. The staff was paid for April! They had thought that they would be able to get caught up with payroll in the next month, but that no longer seems to be a possibility. N'tate Beno is sending requests to several large charities hoping that one of them will be able to provide financial relief soon. When I went on Friday, my housekeeper suggested that I bring what was left of her bag of mealie meal (what they use to make papa) for the staff. Later, one of the workers to me that they cooked their last bit of papa on Thursday and had I not brought that, the staff would not have eaten that day. God is so good! M’e Augustina has a heart the ladies working there. Today she is baking bread for me to take to them tomorrow.

We also had a very sad event last week. One of the staff accidentally spilled a cup of hot tea on one of the babies. It resulted in 2^nd degree burns on his hands, arms, legs and feet. They rushed him to the hospital and thankfully, a nurse from Australia who volunteers at Beautiful Gate was able to accompany him. The hospital offered very little, not surprisingly, but they were able to get the bandages needed. No pain medication was offered and the hospital sent them away shortly after they arrived. Sara, the nurse told me that in Australia (or the U.S.), an infant with those types of burns would have been hospitalized for a couple days to monitor dehydration, and offer pain control. Please pray for this little one that his body would heal completely and that infection will not occur.

Beautiful Gate also took four more newborns from Queen 2 (the hospital) last week. That brings their total to 38 little ones. Social Services are talking at least two more months before they begin to process adoptions again. Of course every month we have been here, it has been a couple more months till the ban lifts so who knows when it will actually be.

Thank you for your continued prayer support.

Laura

The Beautiful Gate

Hello all. I have been spending time over the past four months at the Beautiful Gate. It is a wonderful center that is funded almost entirely by American churches. Different missions teams have come over and built new buildings and done grounds work to make this the best orphanage in Lesotho. The children are cared for by volunteers and a paid staff of Basotho women. Basotho men keep up the grounds.

After the New Year, the donations that come from churches and individuals have for various reasons declined. The support that keeps the children fed and the local staff paid has dropped to dangerously low levels. It has been over two months since they were able to make payroll. You must understand, Leostho is not a place where people have savings to fall back on. There is also no government assistance such as unemployment pay or food stamps to get the families affected by this through this time. A few of the staff have left, but most stay because with an unemployment rate of 50%, they know that the chances of finding another job are slim. It is better for them to just keep waiting and hoping that the money comes. The drop in staff has affected the care ratios for the children. They had cut out morning and afternoon snacks until an Australian couple began donating the money to cover the cost of the crackers. They have also cut milk out of the meal schedule almost entirely. Remember, these are all children under the age of three. They are going from formula to water at one year of age. They are not starving by any means, but their little tummies are not getting the proper nourishment.

I write this for two reasons. I ask first and foremost for prayer for this facility. Pray that the staff would not lose heart and that the funds would come in soon so they can be paid. I also ask that you be faithful in your giving to your church as we are now seeing first hand what happens when church budgets are not met. It is easy to forget that at the other end of our monthly giving are people all around the world that are relying on our support. We have been convicted of so many things in our time here, and hope we do not easily forget the lessons we are learning.

Did you know…

If Americans who attend a Christian church increased their giving to an average of 10% of income, there could be an additional $86 billion dollars available for overseas missions each year. One source estimates that $70-$80 billion would impact the worst of world poverty and $5 billion could end most of the 11 million under-5, global, annual child deaths. Also, $7 billion would be sufficient for global primary education for all children. There could also be $30.9 billion more a year for domestic outreach. Source: www.emptytomb.org

Americans spend, as a group, $2. 5 billion per year for world missions, $2. 5 billion per year for chewing gum,$ 8 billion per year for movies, $22 billion per year for hunting, $34 million per year for state lotteries. Source: John and Sylvia Ronsvalle, Behind the Stained Glass Window.

In 1916, Protestants were giving 2.9% of their incomes to their churches. In 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, it was 3.2%. In 1955 just after affluence began spreading through our culture, it was still 3.2%. By 2002, when Americans were over 480% richer, after taxes and inflation, than in the Great Depression, Protestants were giving 2.6% of their incomes to their churches. Source: www.emptytomb.org.

4,151,243
This is the number of children under 5
who have died since the beginning of 2008.

-----If historically Christian church adherents in Union County, South Dakota, chose to increase giving to a congregation-wide average of ten percent, there could have been $17,660,000 additional given in 2002 for international outreach and $5,886,667 additional for local outreach to people in need. If church adherents in Union County would choose to contribute their portion of the estimated $5 billion needed to help, in Jesus’ name, prevent global child deaths each year, $81,828 could be applied to prevent 393 child deaths.

-----If historically Christian church adherents in Lawrence County, South Dakota, chose to increase giving to a congregation-wide average of ten percent, there could have been $17,014,000 additional given in 2002 for international outreach and $5,671,333 additional for local outreach to people in need. If church adherents in Lawrence County would choose to contribute their portion of the estimated $5 billion needed to help, in Jesus’ name, prevent global child deaths each year, $78,837 could be applied to prevent 378 child deaths.

The county information is from the website www.emptytomb.org.