Trying to find a balance in using our limited time and energy here in Mwinikaland, will always be a challenge. A friend reminded us this week about how Jesus fed thousands with only a few fishes and bread… We do feel stretched most of the time and thank the Lord that He is using us, despite the little we have to give! We appreciate your prayers for us and the Mwinika people.
This week, for example, I (Nadia) was confronted multiple times with people coming to ask for help with wounds that have deteriorated to the point where I literally had to go into another room to take a breath and pray… before returning to start the slow job of cleaning and treating these wounds.
The photo shows a baby with scabies that has been left too long. Heidi, our daughter, has been my great little helper in treating wounds and she usually does not find the blood and gore too gruesome. However, this baby’s wounds were so severe, that she asked to be excused, only to return later with red eyes from crying. Please pray for this baby and her mother? The baby was so thirsty and hungry that she eagerly drank the bitter medicine I gave her… I found several small back seeds in the wounds (of which you can see only part of in this photo) from traditional medicine that was tried before finally coming here for help.
Most of the health problems we see in Mwinikaland is simply the result of ignorance and the deception satan. I am currently working on a booklet about nutrition and we hope that through literacy classes and more books being made available here, our friends will become better educated and equipped to deal with health, nutritional and spiritual issues . Of course we need more resources to be able to continue to print these booklets… and need more time and energy to develop them! Pray too that we will keep perspective among the many needs of our friends and neighbours.
“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.” (2 Co 4:18)