Walking in the Footsteps of the Saints

Did they tell you stories 
'bout the saints of old? 
Stories about their faith? 
They say stories like that make a boy grow bold 
Stories like that make a man walk straight


(Rich Mullins - Boy like Me, Man Like You)

Having recently been wandering around in some great churches in England, I have been thinking about the saints of old and the crypts that many of those churches have.  The beautiful thing of wandering around crypts is that you are walking around on graves of those who went before ... those who have passed on.  They are part of the foundations and the path upon which you walk ... Stop, pause for a moment and think on that.  The saints of old ... stories about their faith ... Stop, and think and be encouraged.  


Hebrews 12
 ¹Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. ²Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. ³Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.


The Message puts it beautifully ...
^1-3Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we'd better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we're in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. 


Be encouraged that although you stumble and fall ... you have a great cloud of witnesses cheering you on ... cheering for you to run your race and to finish strong ... walking in the crypts and seeing the graves in the churches reminded me of the saints who have gone before.  Much of what we have is because of the legacy they laid down.  Those who have gone before us are not just the saints of old ... think of the legacies of faith in the people God brought into your life.  Friends ... family ... those who have been running their race and running it strong ... be encouraged by their walks.  You will find that they have the same thing in common as the great cloud of witnesses ... you will find it in Hebrews 12 vs 2 ... Let us fix our eyes on Jesus ...


Another beautiful thing about the old cathedrals is the architecture is designed to lift the eyes ... 

The Psalmist had a bit to say about that in the opening of Psalm 121 when he said, "I will lift my eyes to the hills - where does my help come from?".  The point is not the hills ... the point is "I will LIFT MY EYES ..."  or as Hebrews clearly lays out for us ... fix our eyes on Jesus.


Dwell on the rest of that Psalm (a Psalm of ascents) for a moment ...

Psalm 121

A song of ascents.

 ¹ I lift up my eyes to the hills—

 where does my help come from?

² My help comes from the LORD, 

 the Maker of heaven and earth.

 ³ He will not let your foot slip— 

 he who watches over you will not slumber;

⁴ indeed, he who watches over Israel 

       will neither slumber nor sleep.


 ⁵ The LORD watches over you— 

 the LORD is your shade at your right hand;

 ⁶ the sun will not harm you by day, 

    nor the moon by night.

 ⁷ The LORD will keep you from all harm— 

       he will watch over your life;
 ⁸ the LORD will watch over your coming and going 

       both now and forevermore.

We all stumble and fall and get muddy ... but when you do ... know two things from the cathedrals ... you have those who went before you ... also people who got muddy ... who fell ... who failed ... but pick yourself up!  Lift your eyes ... take courage from the journeys of those who have gone before ... and finish strong.

Be. Still.

"Be still and know that I am God"

Ps 46:10

The Message puts this scripture another way.  "Step out of the traffic!  Take a long, loving look at me, your High God, above politics, above everything".

Most of us are familiar with this scripture.  But sometimes, we skim over without taking time to dig down deep and really know what it is talking about.  Lets break it down and have a look.  

Still  - comes from the Hebrew word Raphah.  This word means:-

to sink, relax, sink down, let drop; sink, relax, abate; relax, withdraw;  to let drop, abandon, relax, refrain, forsake, let go; to be quiet.

Wow.  There is so much in this one word.  When I read the word "sink", I think of a load off, just sinking down and breathing out a long sigh, "aahhh" - the weight is off and I can stop.  

The idea of abate and withdraw is also a strong one.  This coming school year, I am on Sabbatical.  This means I have a year away from work, (I will be continuing with my Masters study).  So right now, I resonate strongly with those words abate and withdraw.  I know for sure that this is a big part of what Sabbatical is about for me personally.  I can't even describe how insane my life has been.  This past year particularly so.  Between working, studying and chairing our Dongdaewon campaign, I have reached the end of myself. I have nothing in me to give right now and I am running on empty.  My tanks have not been this low for about 12 and a half years - when I finished my ministry internship.  To have a year out of the madness is a gift, and not one I intend to squander.  It is almost a detoxifying process for me.  

I have been caught up of the mad roundabout of life ... spinning faster and faster.  The roundabout has been a blur, the music is frenzied, there is a whine in the engine and smoke is billowing.   And I, am empty.  Completely empty.  Right now, I don't even know how to draw close to God.  He has never left,   but I have never stopped and that busy-ness is seriously damaging to relationships, including our one with God.  

This year is a time to be still ... a time to recharge and meet with my God.  When I reach the end of my Sabbatical and look back, above all else, I want to be able to say that I was still and that I KNOW my God.  I have a lot of thoughts sparking this morning on all of this, and I will be posting them here as i pick them apart over the days to come.

For now ... I am just going to sink and go "aaaahhhh".

Add One to the Faith Hall of Fame

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. 

These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. ⁴⁰God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

(Hebrews 11)

The heroes in Hebrews 11 weren't heroes because of their achievements.  They were heroes because of their faith.  Today there is a new hero in the faith hall of fame.  Last night my beloved friend Claire went home to be with the one who loves us so much more than we ever could know.  I have introduced Claire to you before on the blog.  She was diagnosed several years ago with terminal liver cancer and God worked a miracle.  Her story is here.  

Not too long ago, I had an email to say her markers were up and they were concerned the cancer was back.  Her liver was fine but they discovered she had adrenal cancer.  Things weren't going too well.  Several weeks ago, I awoke with an overwhelming sense that I needed to go home and see Claire, that she would not be around at Christmas (when I would next be home), so I took some personal leave and flew home.  We had a great visit - several visits.  I did not tell my friend I came home for her, as she was clinging to life and believing for healing.  I had a strong sense that her time was short. 

Claire to me, is one of the heroes of faith that Hebrews talks about.  She saw the promise, she believed for healing.  She knew God could heal, she chose to believe he would heal and she clung to him ... as the storms raged, she turned her face towards his ... as the waves shook, the ground trembled and more bad reports came ... she clung to her loved family, and she clung to Jesus.  Claire saw the promise from afar, and died without having attained it.

Our last conversation was full of God ... full of love and full of grace.  I could see that she wanted so desperately to live but my sense was God was calling her home.  This past week as I would think of her and pray for her, I had a picture of two trapezes - the point where they come together and the trapeze artist moves from one trapeze to the next.  However in my minds eye, I could see Claire with a hand on each trapeze ... clinging to life, her loved family ... and the other trapeze calling her away from them, to let go and go with God.  I cannot imagine her journey.  I cannot imagine what it is to be 39 years old with a husband you love, boys you love, a life that you love, and have to let that go.  It seems premature, but maybe a month ago, I was comforted with the scripture in Phil 1:6 "being confident of this,  that he who began a good work in you will see it through to completion in Christ Jesus".  I felt that God was saying that when Claire's race was finished, his work would be complete.  It is not premature.  Her journey was complete.  God's work in her was complete.  

The thing with death is that it is a lonely journey.  In Claire's case, she had huge support from her church and family ... but still in the end ... this transition is one that only each of us can walk.  Our friends and family cannot make that walk with us until it is their time.  As I meditated on that, I was thinking how it is not a journey we make alone.  We have a saviour who walked that road.  I thought of Gesthemane and how Jesus faced that journey ... he didn't want to go there either.  He knew the difficulty of making that transition and has walked it. I thought of my friend and prayed that God would show her the way, walk beside her, ease her pain and help her to make the transition.  I prayed that if God would not heal her, that he would ease her suffering and take her home.  And God has.  And I am sad.

That is the difficulty for those who are left behind.  We grieve and we mourn and we have a huge hole.  Please pray for Richard and James, Tom and Sam, along with their extended family and friends as they are left grieving the loss of their dear one.

I want to close with Claire's own words:

As I lay sick in my bed for months I simply reached out to God himself and He touched me. I sought the healer rather than the healing. I learnt to live in His presence and He comforted me. I knew joy in the midst of turmoil, peace that passes understanding and His love being poured out over my life ... God walked with me hand in hand. I communed with Him and entered into the ‘holy of holies’. When God walks with you, you have no fear. Even though I looked death in the face it had no sting, as the bible says. I had no fear of dying because I knew where I was going and who I was going to be with, if I was to die. Whether God healed me or not I would win. 

Claire ... You won.  You ran an amazing race.  I thank you for the good times, for the love, for the joy of being with you on the mountaintops and the privilege of walking a tiny part of the way with you in the valleys.  Run free my friend and enjoy being able to sit at his feet and gaze upon his face.  He has you.  We will miss you.

I See You

There is a line in Avatar that gripped me when I heard it and has stayed with me since.

"I see you".

Selah.  Pause and think about that for a moment in terms of us and God.  Imagine him looking at you.  Speaking your name.  LOOKING at you.  When he sees you, he sees you.  Think about it like this:

I ... SEE you ...

I ... see you ...

I see ... YOU!

I bet you on the last one, if you paused to think, you also squirmed and immediately thought of all your short comings and failures.  When God looks at you and I, he SEES us.  All of us.  That is all that he created us to be.  The "what is now", and the "what is to come".  That which we are, and that which we are yet to attain.  He does not look at us and see what we have achieved and haven't achieved.  He does look at us and identify us by our "doings".  He looks at us and sees our "being" - that which he created us to be - in all it's fulness.


Currently we are reading John for bible study and as i was reading through Chapter 1, this concept gripped me.  It's an overarching theme all through Chapter 1.  In brief, lets see it in action ...


Start with Jesus ... John Ch 1:1-5 (very old Carman song runs in my head each time I say John 1 ... bad 80s thing ... you had to be there ... ).  So we SEE Jesus.  Who is he?

• the Word
• with God
• was in the beginning
• God
• Creator
• Life
• Light
• Overcomer

We are introduced to John the Baptist.  He SEES Jesus. 

• witness to the light (and was so from in the womb when he recognised Jesus)
• the revealer ... in vs 11 he saw Jesus ..."this is he ..."
• sees Jesus as the lamb of God
• sees God see Jesus ...  picture that as the voice from heaven speaks ... "this is my son in whom I am pleased ..."  God is speaking to Jesus.  Hello ... I SEE you ...

In vs 40 we see Andrew running off to Peter saying he has found the Messiah.  In other words, Andrew met Jesus and SAW him.

In vs 42, Jesus meets Simon and sees him.  All of him ... in the rough!  He looks at Simon and gives him a new name - Peter.  Names in Jewish culture were very important.  Your name said who you were.  Simon Bar Jona means "He who hears with a heart to obey as a son

of the Spirit".  Simon means "to hear".  The place they believe Jesus taught this message is in a location of huge Bedrock which has a lot of little rocks around.  It is a place where the locals used to worship the god 'Pan' (god of the shepherds) & the god Baal (god of fertility).  Simon had to have spiritual hearing to have caught what Christ was saying.  Are you hearing it?

Christ (the Rock) is the huge bedrock and Cephas or Peter (rock) is the portion of rock which comes from the bedrock. Jesus sees Peter ... the rock.  Was he that yet?  No ... but as Jesus looked at him, he saw all of him - that he was then and that which he would become - the rock hewn out of the bedrock.  "Hello Peter. I see YOU".

In vs 47, Jesus meets Nathanael.  His response to Nathanael is, "Ah.  Here is an Israelite in whom there is nothing false."  Nathanael is transparent to Jesus.  "Hello Nathanel. I SEE you."

It's not just John 1 either.  It's all through the Bible.  Abraham and God talk.  Abraham sees his barrenness.  God sees him - the father of many.  God meets Gideon.  "Hello mighty warrior".  Gideon is looking around saying, "er not me.  Nope.  I am from a weak family ... and I am the least of them".  But God is saying, "I see you".  Keep reading ... its everywhere!

So where does that leave us this morning?  God sees us.  He sees you.  He sees me.  He SEES us.  In full 3-d living color.  All of us ... width, breadth and depth.  He sees that which we are and that which we have not yet attained.  It is no different to him.  It is us.  The us he created us to be.  We however, look in the mirror and see a hazy, blemished, cracked image.  The we that we are not.  Listen to that!  The image is false.  The cracks and blemishes are in the mirror not us.  People, we need to change the mirror.  We need to hold him before us and look at reflection in the mirror of Christ.  I think you will find it a vastly different image to the one you are looking at right now.  

Some of you are squirming.  It's uncomfortable to be looking at a clear reflection when we don't like ourselves isn't it.  Look at yourself.  Stand and look.  God says of you and I,  "we are fearfully and wonderfully made - in his image no less".  (Ps 139).  Can you stand and look at yourself , see yourself as God does ... one of his art-pieces and then declare, "your work is wonderful?".  You may have some difficulty.  2 years ago, I felt God speak to me and tell me that I had been looking in a cracked mirror for too long and my self perception was skewed.  I felt led to ask some Godly friends who I trust, to act as mirrors for me.  I asked them to take time with God to pray for me and see me, then to write down who they saw me to be ... good and bad!  They had to describe me. My friends looked at me with godly eyes, and said, "I see you".  I sat and journalled before reading these, and asked God to tell me how he saw me.  I wrote down what i felt he said, whether I agreed or not and then sat back to look at it in the context of all the mirrors I had.   I  looked for the common threads.  It wasn't comfortable, but it was a very healing thing to do.  

Today, as you contemplate yourself and God, know he looks at you and sees you.  Allow that to transform your heart.  Allow yourself to see as He sees.  Allow yourself to BE.

All You Need is Love (- and a little creativity to raise some $$$)

In my previous post, I wrote about my visit to NK with the Eugene Bell Foundation. In this post I will be focusing on Dongdaewon, which is the TB care centre in NK that our SFS community have supported for the past 6 years. I thought it would be interesting if we take a tour around the care centre and see the very real difference that our fundraising has made in the lives of the staff and patients at this centre. Come along and check it out! It is pretty inspiring what our faculty, students and school community have achieved.



Welcome to Dongdaewon. When I visited, there were about 163 patients being treated at the centre. As you can see it is out in the countryside.


This is the director, Mr Cha. He is a new director because the previous director died.



I first met the Dongdaewon patients at Sadong. Many patients had come by truck to do testing for MDR TB. It was very cold and the patients had to stand and wait for a long time for their testing, as there were patients from many care centres there for testing. Someone pointed out the patients waiting to me and told me that this particular group had come from Dongdaewon. I was very excited to see them, as I have been involved in fundraising for them for a long time and finally, I could meet the patients in real life. Someone told the patients that I was a teacher from SFS. A buzz moved through the line and their faces lit up with warmth and smiles. There were many thank yous and a lot of bowing. The patients are so incredibly appreciative of our help. It was a very humbling thing to be on the receiving end of that.



As I mentioned in my previous post, there is an escalating problem with MDR TB in North Korea. At present, 56 of the 163 patients at Dongdaewon are receiving MDR meds. This time around, we sputum tested another 30 or so patients. Any patients that were sputum tested have been through several rounds of DOTs medications and are not responding. So potentially, we could have half of our patients having MDR meds. This is a big problem. Financially the drugs cost a lot more (about $100.00 USD a patient per month, whereas DOTs costs about $50.00 USD for an entire treatment cycle). In addition, they take a lot longer to act, and the response rate isn't as good. Testing is very detailed. In the picture above, you can see that patients are weighed and measured.



They then talk with the medical staff and provide a sputum sample. To do this, they cough up mucus from deep within their lungs. This is collected in bottles and sent to South Korea to be cultured. The culture takes about 5 months to grow, and from that, doctors get a detailed picture of which drugs the each MDR patient is resistant to, and which drugs can be used in their treatment.



Each patient is photographed and their photograph is used to identify them with their medication when they receive it in 6 months time. They will receive a box of medicine particularly tailored to their needs. As I mentioned above, this medication is a lot more expensive than DOTs meds, but without it the patients will die. The drugs make the patients feel very sick. Their bodies fight the drugs, but they need the drugs to fight their TB. At present we provide all the DOTs meds for all DOTs patients at Dongdaewon and also for three of the MDR patients.



Eugene Bell run a great scheme where they match individual donors with individual MDR patients to help. They send each donor a comprehensive update from the visits in. If you are interested in helping a NK patient this way, please contact Eugene Bell here. I can vouch that the patients WILL get their drugs and the help you provide.New patients have to wait 6 months for their drugs to arrive, and as mentioned in my previous post, not all patients will live to see the drugs that give them the hope of a new day and a life of health. It was wonderful to see some of our patients who have now gone through several cycles of their drugs and are looking so much better than when I first saw them in photos.



So ... many people wonder, where does the money go that we give? SFS commits to raising the money for a 6 month resupply kit. For the past few years, we have been able to provide the resupply kit for a whole year at Dongdaewon. We will talk more about the resupply kit in a moment, but lets see where else the money has gone. In the picture above, you can see the resupply kit we sent in boxes. Inside the boxes are supplies for the xray and microscope, drugs, medical records, plastic for the greenhouses and numerous other bits and pieces the centre needs to care for the patients. You can see a small chinese tractor that we have provided the centre with. This is used in the fields to help with nutrition. Many people in NK have poor nutrition and this makes them more susceptible to TB. An important part of treatment, is good nutrition. The centre grows it's own food. You can also see the a truck in the picture above. Our money was used to provide the centre with truck. They are able to use it to transport patients around the countryside. When the patients came to Sadong for testing, they came in the truck.



One of the important things that we have provided Dongdaewon with, is an x-ray machine. This is used to assist the doctors in diagosing patients and the progress of their TB. Eugene Bell have trained an x-ray technician - Mr Huh (you can see him holding onto the green thing in the picture above). Mr Huh is from NK and travels around the countryside with Eugene Bell, fixing the machines as we visit each centre. In between EB visits, he cannot travel around, as people are not able to move freely between provinces. You need the appropriate papers to move around the country, and these must be checked at various check points along the way. Part of our resupply kit provides parts for the machine, along with the films and solutions needed. At a couple of centres we visited, Eugene Bell provided a mobile x-ray truck, which can travel to different locations.



One of the reasons why the x-ray machine is so important, is that without it, doctors resort to fluroscopy. You can see a fluroscope in the picture above. Dr Linton is standing in as a patient. The room is normally in total darkness. On the right hand side of the picture you can see something that looks like a canister. That emits a stream of radiation which passes through the patient and lights up an image on the screen in front. A doctor has to stay in the room with the patient to read the screen. When the machine is turned off, the picture is gone. The problem is that doctors see many patients and are exposed to large amounts of radiation. Many have become sick and died from radiation poisoning. The x-ray machine is much better, because the doctor does not have to stay in the room with the patient. They can read the resulting picture without being exposed to all the radiation. Sadly, if the machine breaks down, they will resort to the fluroscope while waiting for more parts.



In this picture you can see one of the Dongdaewon doctors checking out patient samples in a microscope. Notice how the room has big windows and is very light. It is because there is no power except by generator. Doctors rely on natural light to read x-rays and look at samples. The reason they have a microscope to use at Dongdaewon is because of our fundraising. We also provide all the stains, slides etc that they need as part of the resupply kit.



I was able to look through a prepared slide. The TB bacteria shows up as thin red rods. They are so tiny and harmless looking, and yet these are the very bacteria that cause suffering for multitudes of people world wide. (Picture borrowed from South Carolina School of Medicine).



Other people also contribute towards Dongdaewon. Although we provide supplies for nutrition, Caritas provides soya beans. These are highly nutritious and cheap, and Caritas provides them to many care centres.



One company also provided a winter warmer kit, which included new winter coats for the patients!



This year, at SFS we sent several thousand paper cranes up to NK. Students were unable to write letters to wish patients good health, so we took paper cranes. Students from all over the school made hundreds of cranes - each one representative of wishes for good health and peace to the patients. Some of our JK students sprinkled glitter on their cranes as a sample of their wishes. When I presented the cranes with the wishes of our students, nurses and staff faces lit with pleasure and joy. There was lots of smiling and laughing. It was a very very COLD day when we were at Dongdaewon so not many patients were outside. Some were and received strings to take back to their rooms. The staff took the cranes around the various patient rooms and there were a lot of smiles and pleasure at the thoughts, wishes and personal touch from our students.



In my next post, I will introduce you to some of the patients and their stories. We are a few weeks out from kicking off our fundraising for 2010. Look at the difference you have made already and start dreaming of what we could do this year. Maybe you have some creative ideas that you would like to try for fundraising. Talk to your teachers ... or if you are staff, let me know what you are doing and go for it. This year, when we kick off, I am going to put up weekly reports so we can inspire and celebrate each other's creativity. If you are not from SFS and reading this, maybe you are inspired to do something to help. Eugene Bell would love to talk with you. They have a sound history and great working relationship with the people in North Korea. They are a trustworthy organisation to support. You can contact them here.

Thanks for reading ... see you soon!

North ... South ... Here I am!

Hi all

Please accept my apologies for the lateness of this post. I got back from my trip to the neighbour north of me and dropped straight into Christmas madness. Not sure if anyone is reading this anymore ... have been a terrible poster this past year. This year I am really seeking to have my life more in balance ... so I have time to think and blog ...

So ... the trip North. The most common question I heard upon my return home from the kids was, "did you have a fun time?" Well ... not exactly the place one goes for FUN! The other question I heard was, what was it like? It's so hard to answer that question. In a sentence I would say, fascinating, beautiful, heartbreaking and amazing, all rolled up in one big messy ball. I thought I would put pen to paper and try and describe some of it ... using pics to help.



First of all, if you are wondering what this is all about, read Heading North. It will explain everything, as well as provide a great link to the Eugene Bell site for more information. I went to North Korea as our school representative and also as the official photographer for Eugene Bell. The picture above is our team that travelled for two weeks. 6 of us went in and we had NKs travelling with us the entire time as well. All your prayers were answered and Dr Linton said it was one of the smoothest trips he has had ... no one got sick and everything went relatively smoothly which is not at all normal for up there.

Okay ... grab a cuppa and sit with me a while ... here we go!

Sarah's Trip to NK - Nov/Dec 2009



Welcome to NK. In this post I will discuss several aspects of my impressions - the land, transportation, housing, the people and the work of the Eugene Bell Foundation. In my next post, I will talk specifically about the care centre our school supports at Dongdaewon.

The Land



Going to NK was like stepping back in time 50 years. It is by and large an agrarian society. The first thing that hit me about the landscape was that it was beautiful and unpolluted. I was not expecting it to be beautiful. It was the beginning of winter when everything is barren and brown and bare, and I just didn't think it would be. North Korea has great mountains, rolling hills and valleys. Much of the countryside is terraced for rice and I imagine in the spring, when the rice paddies are green, it must be a beautiful sight. There are not too many trees in the countryside, as most have been taken for firewood but I did see evidence of some replanting, along with many trees along the sides of the roads. There were more trees than I thought there would be. Outside of the major cities and towns, many of the roads are unsealed ... and the ones that are sealed do not guarantee a smooth ride :)

Transport



We primarily travelled around in a convoy of two vans, and a Eugene Bell truck for the medical supplies. The truck you see in the picture above is typical of the trucks that Eugene Bell provide care centres with. They are often used to transport patients.



This picture is one of my favorite from the trip. I think our minders thought I was a little loopy as I went into raptures about bullocks (mainly because I wanted a pic and I was trying to win them over and let me take a picture which took some persuading!) There are very few cars on the roads. Most vehicles we saw were military vehicles. The most common form of transport was bullock cart. Most people people were walking and some have bikes. Very rarely did I see one person on a bike. It was common to see a mother with two children - one on the back and one in the basket on the front, or, someone pushing the bike and using it to move heavy loads.

Housing


The capital city has many apartment houses for people to live in, but people are not free to just move around the countryside and live where they want. To live in the capital, you would probably have to have "connections". The house above is very typical of houses in the countryside ... no electricity and if any heating, it will be ondol heating (under the floor) using coal. The care centres we visited heated with coal, but had to use it selectively to heat specific areas.

The People





In a word, the people are beautiful. They have such an amazing spirit. Life is full of hardship for them, and they endure. They work. They love. They laugh. They smile. They weep. They mourn. They even dare to hope. In many ways, I think that it is good they do not really know what life is like outside of the country, because I don't know how you could endure the hardships they do if you knew that it didn't have to be that way.



Children


Children are children where ever you go in the world. Children in NK work very hard. They have two sessions of school and go to either the morning session or the afternoon one. I saw them working the fields in working parties on various days. From a young age, they are trained to work. We visited a school one day which was really interesting for me. The picture above is part of our welcoming committee - the wee one in the background looked absolutely thrilled to see us. We could not get her to make eye contact or crack a smile. Think our white faces were a little scary! :)



Eugene Bell do not get to do many programs with the children. They would really like to and are constantly asking officials to allow them to help. The school we visited is part of a wellness check they are able to do through a hospital they work with. This hospital has about 20 schools in its care and visits each one for a week every year. They take in a mobile xray truck, doctors, nurses, a dentist and an optometrist. If children need glasses, they are made then and there.



Often, while fundraising, people say that they would be happy to support programs if they were for the children. I met a mother who said she was not afraid to die of her TB as she knew the party would care for her child. Think about that for a minute. Will the party soothe her child at night when she is sad? Will the party love the child the way a mother can? If you want to help children, help their parents so that their children do not catch TB from them, or even worse, become orphans.



This beautiful wee one turned up with her father one day when we were taking sputum samples to send off for MDR testing (Multiple Drug resistant TB). She was a splash of color in the midst of beige, brown and black. She had on her best pants, high heeled sneakers and her warm coat (it was about -10C that day). As we weren't working with children, I noticed her immediately and was curious. I smiled at her and said hi in Korean. Her face lit up and she gave me a beautiful smile back and bowed to me. I kept an eye on her throughout the morning. She waited patiently with her father and I continued to stew in my curiousity. Why was she here? Why was she not in school? Was she caring for her father? Over several hours, she watched and waited as patients lined up to take height, weights and sputum samples. Her eyes were bright and curious and not once did I see her complain of the cold or the time spent waiting. I think I fell in love with her - a beautiful beautiful wee girl. My heart broke when I saw her step onto the scales to be weighed for her medical records. A child that age should have a life full of promise ahead, not a fight for her life with such a horrible illness as TB. Pray for her.



One other child I want to introduce you to is this wee one. She also came with her father, wrapped up warm and waiting patiently. Her parents are both medical doctors. When she was three years old, she contracted TB in her larynx. To save her life they had to operate and she has had a trach tube in ever since. She breathes unfiltered air through that tube and is unable to talk. She came because they think she has TB again. Pray for this little one.

Eugene Bell Foundation



Eugene Bell was founded by Dr Stephen Linton (seen here with a patient receiving her MDR meds). Dr Linton grew up in South Korea as the son of missionaries. For more information on the work of Eugene Bell, click here. I am really impressed with what they do. Most of the funds they use are raised through grass roots fundraising and donors through church. Stephen runs a very transparent ministry and this extends to finances. They are responsible with what they are given and are working hard to make a difference in the lives of the people in NK.



The primary focus of Eugene Bell is on treating TB. There is a very serious problem with TB in North Korea and there are three types of TB they are dealing with. The first type is standard TB. They use DOTs meds for this and it is quite cheap to treat patients. If they do not respond to DOTs, they could have MDR (Multiple Drug Resistant) TB. This is much harder to treat. Patients donate sputum samples, these are taken back to South Korea and cultivated for 5 months. They then work out an individualised drug treatment program for each patient. This is about 50 times more expensive than DOTs treatment. It is also much harder to treat. If patients do not respond to that, they may have XDR TB. Without medicine, the patients will die. As TB is airborne, it is easily passed on, so patients under treatment need to go to care centres and stay there for treatment. Often this can take a couple of years.




TB is a horrible disease and both the disease and the drugs are harsh on the patients. There is not a lot of money spent on research for this, so treatments are old and a little brutal. It tends to crop up in poorer countries with poor nutrition. Some people have asked why Eugene Bell focus on treatments instead of immunizing. The immunizations for TB are not very effective. You can be immunized and still catch it. The lady on the right in the above picture, is 42. She is being supported by her mother and is a doctor who caught TB (probably MDR). She came a long way because she heard they might be xraying and knew she needed to get one. When she found out that we were delivering a new xray truck to the centre and not xraying, she broke down and could not stop crying for several hours. Her tears were the tears of someone who was at her end ... and the last straw was that she had come all that way feeling so horrible, to no avail. We did xray her ... and still she cried. I just can not imagine her suffering and that of many of the patients. Her face to me is the face of despair.

The saddest part of the trip for me, was the boxes left at the end of patient presentations. The patients they were for had died before they could receive their meds. I stood one day looking at the patient pictures and stats on each box. Very few of the patients were over 40 ... ages 28, 32, 29, 44. Who were these people? Mothers, sons, daughters, fathers. Each one a life cut off early due to lack of drugs and treatment. TB is treatable and we can help.



In contrast, the best part of the trip for me was delivering meds to patients (especially ours at our care centre). The joy on their faces when they received their meds was a humbling thing. I love the look on this lady's face as she receives her MDR drugs. To me, her face is the face of hope.

I am going to finish this post here. In my next post I will take you on a guided tour of our care centre and walk you through the very practical differences that are made due to the fundraising from our students and faculty.