Wise Words for 2013

As we find ourselves making New Year's promises to ourselves and to our loved ones, let's resolve to focus on the most important things of this life. I love the quote below and have it hanging in our home as a reminder about the practices that bring fullness and joy into a life well-lived.

"Remember when you go into the world to keep your eyes and ears wide open. And be kind. Love one another. Take care of each other. Tell the truth. Always do your best. Listen to the big people and the little people. Explore new paths and have fun. Know that you are loved like crazy. Give thanks for all your blessings. Above all else, love and you will do wonderful things in this world." - Unknown

Grace & Peace

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the Nardellas!

So much to be grateful for this season: Jena's sabbatical, our 5th anniversary escape to Costa Rica, healthy parents, a thriving little niece, Eric & Becky expecting (brother and sister-in-law), 400 healthy babies born in Lwala, and 50,000 more people with access to clean water. Most surprisingly, a Christmas Party at the White House!

We celebrate the day Love broke into the world and are so grateful for you, our family & friends.

Grace and Peace to you in 2013!

The Birth of a New Vision

This is post 8 of 10 in the Broken:Beautiful series. Guest post by James Nardella.

As we talk about the vision of Isaiah and how we see it revealed in our work in Africa, I am reminded of the Lwala, Kenya, where my work is based. In Lwala, we talk about building the capacity of people to advance their own well-being. And pole pole, slowly by slowly, I have seen what it means for the community to address its own challenges. Here is just one example:

For generations women have labored and birthed at home, without care from a skilled provider. (Jena has also touched on this topic.) If complications arose, the trip to a hospital required putting the mother in a wheel barrel and rolling her down a mud road for hours. Many moms died on that road. In fact the rates of maternal and infant death in the region are the highest in all of Kenya. A baby in Lwala is 10 times more likely to die than a baby in the U.S. The community longed for new options. In response, we rallied our supporters, to transform our small clinic in Lwala to become a Community Hospital, with a dedicated maternity wing. At the same time, the Lwala Community Alliance began training and employing locals as maternal health outreach workers. In Kenya we call the program Umama Salama, which is Swahili for Safe Mothers. These maternal health workers recruit and support pregnant women to ensure they receive prenatal care and deliver with a skilled attendant, which is especially important in a place where 1 in 4 women have HIV. In the past less than 35% of women delivered with a skilled attendant, but now, as a result of Umama Salama and the new maternity, more than 80% deliver at a hospital. This year, more than 400 healthy babies will be born, many of them to HIV positive mothers. One baby at a time, we see the birth of a new vision.

Have You Smiled Today?

Everybody smiles in the same language. For that, I am thankful.

Sometimes, when I look at myself in photos, my smile seems faked and forced. It seems to forget that I have countless things to find joy in. Not so, with my friends in Africa. I look at these photos and am reminded of true joy in the midst of the realities of a broken world. I look at the smiles of my friends and am amazed by how they light up the lens and make all the other stresses of life seem out of focus. A true smile can do that. The world becomes a bit brighter and full of hope. And friends, hope is a very good thing. Hope is a necessary thing.

Cheers to your Monday!

Stories of What Will Be

This is post 7 of 10 in the Broken:Beautiful series.                             

The words of Isaiah in chapter 67 are words of reality. They are words that recognize and acknowledge that the current state of the world is not as it should be. Not as God intended it to be. But they are also words of promise. They are words that speak to a time when the world will live as it ought to. When the vision of our Creator will be fully realized through the coming redemption and ultimate restoration through his Son.

In our (myself and James') work in Africa, we are given a peephole into the vision of Isaiah. Everyday, we are able to see individuals and communities break out of how the world is and begin to see and practice how it can be - how it will be one day.

Here is the story of two individuals:

Milton and Fred Ochieng’ are two brothers from Lwala, Kenya. Because of their academic promise and their parents’ support, Milton and Fred won scholarships to Dartmouth College and then Vanderbilt Medical School. Sadly, while the brothers were in college they lost both their mom, Margaret, and their dad, Erastus, to AIDS. Milton and Fred took this as a call to action to provide access to primary care in their home village of Lwala and in April 2007, after years of fundraising and an initial gift from Blood:Water Mission, they opened a small clinic. Five years later, that clinic has become a hospital. In a place where Milton and Fred’s parents died without HIV care, we now have more than 1,300 of their friends and neighbors enrolled in care and treatment. Forty more patients are added each month. The Ochiengs are now young doctors, living proof that the future of Africa is to be shaped by Africans. In them we see a vision for a new continent.

And here is the story of a community:

There's a large peri-urban community in Zambia of about 60,000 people. Because the location was known for its filth, crime and disease, the community's name was Chapulu Kusu, which literally means cursed. Every year, they were stricken with the water-borne disease of cholera because they lacked clean water - which perpetuated the sense that they were truly cursed. Our local partner in Zambia began working in Chapulu Kusu and community members began to make changes in and around their homes: latrines were constructed, broken hand pump wells were repaired, new wells were drilled and biosand filters were installed in their homes. The community began removing large piles of trash and cleaned the area. These physical changes led to dramatic health transformations. After these events, the community, for the first time in its history, had no case of cholera during the rainy season. Slowly by slowly, brick by brick, the cycle of disease was broken and people were filled with hope. Newly transformed, the people of Chapulu Kusu legally changed the name of their community. They are now known as Mapalo, which means blessed. In Mapalo, we see the hints of a new earth.

The Gift of Rain

Hurricane Sandy is hitting our friends in the east with a vengeance. There is massive flooding, wide-spread power outage, and according to some photos roaming the internet, sea-monsters are emerging from the crashing waves onto Manhattan Island. In some of the biggest, most prosperous, most powerful cities in the world, all we have been able to do is prepare for the inevitable and wait out the storm. Offices and schools are closed - even the New York Stock Exchange. Public transportation has shut down. The President has signed "major disaster" declarations for New York and New Jersey. This is an unprecedented national emergency and all we can do is wait for the worst to pass and for life to return to normal.

My mind is filled with thoughts and prayers for our country. And yet, I think of him, and his words stop me dead in my tracks.

"For us, this ear of corn is a gift from God. This evening's rain is a shower of mercy upon us. This healthy breath is life-giving. And maybe tomorrow we will not have such things, but our hearts are so full of God's provision."

Rain is a funny thing in its ability to destroy and restore. Like almost everything, too much is just as dangerous as too little. While we're hunkered down in our homes praying for the storm to pass and the rain to stop. He is going about his everyday life, praying for the rain to start.

So I pray for America. For safety and provision and hope for our friends waiting out the storm. And I pray for Africa. For safety and provision and hope for our friends waiting for the rain.

The Friday Five: Issues that Complicate HIV/AIDS in Western Kenya

HIV/AIDS is complex. A horrific disease that affects all parts of life, it is also specific in that in attacks a community in a multitude of ways. No region is exactly the same in how it is affected by HIV, and so our approaches to combating it require us to apply contextual approaches to each individual community.

No where is HIV/AIDS so prolific and total as in rural Africa. In the Lwala region of western Kenya, 24% of the population is HIV positive. Here is a peek into one of the places where HIV is rampant - and five issues that complicate the problem.

1. Polygamy It is still common for some tribes to observe the Old Testament practice of polygamy. If one member of the marriage is HIV positive, it passes to everyone else. Concurrent sexual relationships give flame to a fire that becomes difficult to stop.

2. Circumcision Most baby boys in western Kenya are not circumcised. However, studies show that HIV transmission is reduced up to 70% for men who are circumcised. There are significant efforts being made in the region to encourage voluntary adult male circumcision.

3. Maternal/Child Health In the region where we work in Lwala, Kenya, only 35% of women deliver their children with a skilled attendant or qualified nurse. Sufficient medical care is essential during labor and delivery in order to prevent transmission from mother to child, and unfortunately, it often comes too late or not at all.

4. Gender Inequality Women in Africa are not valued as highly as men. They are not given equal access to education and employment. They are seen more as property than as valuable citizens. Because of this vast gender inequality, most women lack the ability to say no to a man, even if he is her husband. The population at greatest risk for HIV is married African women. In Lwala, 67% of our HIV patients are women.

5. Stigma HIV/AIDS is our modern-day leprosy. It drips with shame and fear, making it extremely difficult for people to be open about their status. The fear associated with HIV/AIDS breeds ostracizing and hateful acts and so people continue to live in fear, full of guilt and shame and hiding their disease. Even more, when HIV/AIDS is kept secret by individuals, it prevents a community's ability to address the issue together - to speak about prevention and provide treatment in a safe and caring environment.

This list could go on and on. But the good news is that Lwala and other communities in Africa are not alone in their fight against HIV/AIDS. To learn more about how Blood:Water Mission partners with communities in Africa to address the HIV/AIDS crisis, click here. To learn more about our partner in Lwala, Kenya, Lwala Community Alliance, visit their website here.

*Photo Credit: Chris Pereira for Lwala Community Alliance.