Yesterday it rained. Rather, last evening. What was great about that, was this morning. It was like November, 65 degrees at 9am. GREAT! Everyone else was cold, but Usha and I were in heaven. (Don’t worry, it was back up to 105 degrees, by 1pm). It was great to have to re-open all of the outside windows and turn the large exhaust fans on to try to capture the cold air inside for the day.
Today I had a semblance of normalcy. After devotions and family prayer time (9-10am), I placed about 4 drums full of books for Kathryn and Robert to glance through. Since I did not have anything to do with those (until the end) I was able to begin figuring out my schedule here for the remaining 20 days at the Hospital. We know for sure that we will be leaving on the 27th of May to spend the last 5 days of our trip in Chennai. So, seeing that today is the 5th… That is just around 3 weeks from today to put in 120-150 hours of work, research, dreaming, conversations, etc. to help the mission anyway we can.
After lunch I sat in on a “Directors Weekly Administration Meeting” (or something along those lines). It was scheduled for 75 minutes. Of course, it started 15 minutes late and ran for 105 minutes. So, 1 hour and 10 minutes on the schedule in India is actually a 2 hour block. And no tea! It gave me a chance to observe the 10 different “heads of departments” that oversee the staff here of 30-40, and the 30-40 off campus staff for various HIV and Public Health Projects that we are in partnership with (Clinton Foundation, Indian Gov’t, National TBAlert campaign, etc). At least I have had a taste of Hospital Administration, and … its not me.
I spend yesterday continuing to research more about this “Micro-lending” stuff. I have been very interested in this since 2006 when I saw the creator of KIVA.org advertised on the next Oprah. So I had to watch the show (one of those ‘ordinary people saving the world’ shows). And So this trip I purchased the originator of micro-lending’s (Muhammad Yunus) book “Banker to the Poor” when our library had a sale of old books in March.
Specifically I am wondering how we can either work with existing micro-lenders, or somebody out there who would like to raise their own funds and come to India and work with the most vulnerable of society. And from my observations – that is a woman, of low-caste origin or “scheduled caste” (tribal), one who has no husband (usually died of accident or HIV related causes), has 1-3 children, and is HIV positive—but taking the medicine to prolong life 10-20 years. It is also those AFFECTED by HIV, the same mother and family but they are NOT infected, they are now ‘outcasts” (modern day biblical lepers) from there general village society. How do we empower them? Help them to improve themselves!
So, if we run into anyone who would be interested in full time work getting villagers to trust them with micro-lending…and specifically looking to put some power into the hands of HIV infected/affected individuals – boy do we get a steady supply. I think we are averaging 20 new infected cases each week now.. and that is only what we are finding. I suspect that actually means 200 known cases, and probably another 200 that are not known. I could be wrong, I hope I am overstating it. But I fear that I am understating the fact that this would be only 420 cases for over 3 Million (or 30 Lakhs, one lakh – 100,000). So I wish it was only 400 cases a week for a population that size. That would be .05% infection rate, and we know that Chittoor has a 3% infected population, probably more like 6-8% (many with TB don’t realize they are dying very fast cause that are also HIV positive). So .05% over 50 weeks is not quite right.
Anyway, back from that rant. You see my interest is groups of 5-10 women forming teams that can encourage and keep each other accountable. Also that this would be a mixed bag of poor, of AFFECTED and a few INFECTED so that sickness/death will not destroy the teams. And in a village with an average of 200-500 people in this district (most of our work, 80% is rural)—support, opportunity and the growing infrastructure here to get goods into the major cities (Chittoor City, Sri Kalahasti, and Tirupathi, among a few others), provides more than an opportunity to see self improvement, better drinking water, better nutrition, better sanitation, literacy, children being educated beyond 9 years of age, and improved clothing make its way into the villages. And the fact that a person/organization would assist these teams, but they would actually do it (and to be trusted with the money) would be revolutionary. Simply, it is unfair that they have no opportunity to pull themselves out as a person, or as a small group of persons, but are tribal/scheduled castes and are near prisoners of the social welfare system in India.
My father n law has a friend that has been doing this kind of work in Northern Andhra Pradesh (we are the southernmost district) for several years. So I am looking forward to meeting him and discussing some of these issues, as this could even mean the hospital would no longer fear loosing gov’t or Int’l aid for medicines if our TB, Leprosy and HIV patients were able to improve their $500-$1,000 a year lifestyle to being self-employed and producing $2,000-3,000 or more. Basically they could afford even better food and all of their medications for the year (and for their children) if ever the funding from gov’t, Int’l projects, or even the US failed. That sense of sustainable health (not sustainable funding, but the effects of it) is HUGE. Not only saving thousands of dollars over a lifetime of heath and medicine costs, but also producing products, services and taxes for Chittoor and Andhra Pradesh. It is a HUGE benefit for all people involved, investors, supporters, bureaucracies, foundations, etc.
Okay. So that was my afternoon. I began having 1-2hour conversations with staff of the hospital getting a better clue on what they do, what they wish they could do, near term problems and any solutions they can see to fixing these. My hope is that we will have a good 6 month plan by the 25th of may and 75% of an additional 2 year plan for the major transition of leadership here, a new era for U.S. volunteers and board members, and possibly a mini-capital campaign for maintenance emergencies (before an official handoff to the next directors) and a sustainability campaign for BASE funding. Sounds like a mouthful, and important stuff. YES!
Did I mention you should pray for us! God is a large character in this equation, and he has sustained this mission through much already. So I am not worried about that part. We need only to do our part. And to not step ahead of His intentions. Yet I know that he is pleased when his children allow his Spirit to form in them the heart of Christ – and they begin to understand that God’s will is truly all that matters, and to accomplish that in a fallen world will demand sacrifice, pain, tears but you will also experience joy, friendship, satisfaction that you have never known when you are helping those who have no-one to help them.
Truly Christ’s words were prophetic about himself when he said, “unless a grain of wheat falls and dies, it cannot produce a harvest.” Jesus’ death had cosmic consequences of sin, death, our self control and satanic oppression. However, is it not obvious that those who want to be like Jesus will also be WILLING to “lose their lives to find them”? And not only that, won’t his followers who are being formed to have his same heart be LOOKING for opportunities for this kind of sacrificial living? If you are one of those, or know someone who may be looking and searching for long days, hot summers, spicy food, pain of empathy for the innocent, compassion also for those irresponsible with their lives (sexuality) and now reaping the consequences, advocating for those who have no advocate… helping the fatherless, the widow, the poor, the alien. I know a place that would love to meet you, in a lonely forgotten area of Andhra Pradesh – sort of like a lonely forgotten areas like Nazareth!
Prayers – for Kathryn. I think we have turned the curb. We have a wedding to attend Thursday morning from 9am-1pm. I am praying that her condition would improve tomorrow. Also prayers to stay focused, but also enjoy time as a family and not as missionaries, so to speak!
Praises – I think we will be done with the store room for sure tomorrow after the kids finish their barrels, and we sell all the used barrels to staff and local recyclers. So praise for this “project” that has been hanging around the house for 15 years… that it is 80% done, and 100% organized. Now it is a matter of the in-laws sifting through some more barrels of fabrics and books in June and July when there is more calm and time.
Okay, long post. I will resume exercising tomorrow so posts will probably be less wordy. Maybe. It is me after all! Thanks for your love and prayers. And your friendship.
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