Ethembeni - Place of Hope

On Thursday, 10/23, I went with Bobby to Mpophomeni for our rotation in hospice care. Mpophomeni is a rural community of 43,000 people about 30 minutes away from AE. More than 80% are unemployed and more than 1/3 have HIV. In 2000, Howick Community Church began a ministry to this community, specifically aimed at caring for those who are dying alone, hungry, and without hope. The ministry is called Ethembeni, which means “Place of Hope” in Zulu. Its mission statement is “to provide spiritual, emotional, and practical assistance to families affected by HIV/AIDS in the Mpophomeni area through provision of home based care, family support, and residential care for terminally ill people.” Ethembeni has 3 programs: 1) residential care unit, 2) family support program, and 3) family center. The residential care center can accommodate and care for 4 people at one time; it’s basically a very small hospice run by lay people in the community. The family support program provides a holistic intervention incorporating not only home based care for the sick but also food security, income generation, and psychosocial support. On average, they visit 45-50 families a month (200+ adults and kids). The family center cares for 40 orphans and vulnerable children a day by providing meals, psychosocial support, and structured play activities. The core values of these 3 programs are very simple: God’s love and hope. Since the beginning of these ministries, they’ve worked with over 500 HIV infected families, directly benefiting more than 2,000 people. After that lengthy intro, let me tell you about my day.

When we arrived at the residential care center (which I’ll just call hospice from now on), there were already workers taking care of the patients and our help wasn’t needed. Kathryn, the head nurse who pretty much runs the place, decided that we would go and do home visits with the church volunteers. They were supposed to arrive at 9AM, but this is Africa (TIA!) and they didn’t get there until 10:30AM. Once they arrived, things finally started to pick up. There were about 20 volunteers gathering in a circle outside, so Bobby and I joined. We sang a song in Zulu (with hand motions and dancing), prayed in Zulu and English, and then were off in our cars to do the home visits. I went with a really sweet older white woman named Susan* and an equally sweet older black woman named Nobeni* (she was the translator). The first patient we visited was a 40 year old woman named Katiwe*. She had 4 kids under the age of 18. Her eldest, an 18 year old girl, recently had a baby but wanted to stay in school, so Katiwe takes care of the baby during the day. Katiwe looked pretty healthy, just very tired. The only medical problem she was having was diarrhea, so we gave her a recipe for a simple and cheap oral rehydration solution (1 tsp salt, 8 tsp sugar, and 1 liter water) and told her to drink until she could go to clinic. Anne flipped through her Bible and decided to read Psalm 9:7-10. Katiwe followed along in her own Zulu Bible while Nobeni read out loud in Zulu. Can I just say how incredible it is to hear the Bible being read in a different language? It really just reminded me that God is a God of ALL nations. Anyway, my favorite verse out of that passage was verse 9, “The Lord is a shelter for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble.” Susan explained to Katiwe that no matter how poor or diseased she was, God loved her and would never abandon her. We talked for a little while longer about Jesus, Susan reprimanded Katiwe for not attending a knitting class at Ethembeni (part of their program to get people jobs), and then we prayed for her. After loading Katiwe up with a ton of food (sandwiches, yogurt, soup, eggs, avocados, baby food, etc.), we got back in the car and headed down the road to a new patient. Her name was Maureen* and she lived in an even smaller 2 room house without electricity. We found out that she was 39 years old and had 2 kids (ages 3 and 5) and a boyfriend (who wasn’t the father of either of her children) who had HIV. She was unaware of her CD4 count, which is an important indicator of where people are at in their illness. A count below 200 and an opportunistic infection of some kind (like TB or pneumonia) is diagnostic of AIDS. She gave me a bunch of medical records, but they were all dirty and worn away so I couldn’t really read them. She has been to church before, but doesn’t go on a regular basis and doesn’t own a Bible, so Susan said that was something we were going to change. We prayed for her and told her that someone would be back to visit her in 2 weeks. This woman looked a lot sicker than the first, which was hard to see. After that visit, Susan dropped me off at the Mpophomeni Family Center, which is right down the road from the hospice. It was created after the hospice a few years ago and is actually pretty nice (for the location it was in). They take care of kids during the day who are either AIDS orphans and live with random relatives who work and can’t take care of them during the day, or they live in child-headed households and have older brothers/sisters who are in school during the day and can’t take care of them. So basically what Bobby and I did all day was play with them, and I couldn’t have been happier. I love kids because no matter what language they speak, you can still have fun with them and love on them (they all were black, Zulu speaking). We did races with them and taught them how to play “duck duck goose” and musical chairs, both of which they loved once they got the hang of it. As more kids got out of school, the family center got more and more crowded and our games got bigger and bigger. It was awesome. They love cameras, so I took a bunch of pictures of them until my camera ran out of batteries. When we finally left at 4, I was covered in little kid snot and dirt, but was smiling ear to ear. There was one little girl who was probably 1 ½ who was attached to me the entire day, and any time I put her down she would reach her arms out for me to hold her. I just wanted to take her home with me. OK I wanted to take them all home with me. I’m having serious thoughts about adopting a kid from here someday. There are 1.5 million AIDS orphans in South Africa alone. I can’t save them all, but if I can make a difference in at least one, I would be so happy. It was a great day and I couldn’t wait to go back!

On Friday, 10/24, I returned to the Ethembeni for my final hospice day. Since I had already done home visits and been to the Family Center, the nurse in charge decided that I would stay at the hospice and help out there. There were two older black women working that day: Busisiwe* and Nelisiwe*. They were both really sweet and willing to let me help. Our job for the morning was to bathe and clothe the patients and change their bed linens. We walked all four of them to the shower (where a shower chair was waiting) because none of them were strong enough to walk by themselves. There was a man who appeared to be in his 30s, a 21 year-old girl, and two other women who looked like they were in their 20s or 30s. It was sad enough to see these people in their clothing, but to see them naked was a completely different story; they were literally just skin and bones. These patients could barely lift their arms for me to wash under them. I cleaned one of the woman’s pressure sores and multiple ulcers covering her genitals with salt water; they were unlike anything I’d ever seen before. I felt so bad for the woman because it was obviously causing her a great deal of pain. All she kept saying was, “Thank you sissy” over and over. It made me really sad, but really blessed to be able to serve her. After I was done cleaning her, the nurse brought in a bunch of leaves from a plant, squeezed the sap out of them, and rubbed them on the woman’s sores. Apparently Ethembeni grows a few medicinal plants in their garden and this was one of them. It’s called a bulbine frutescnes (Ibhucu in Zulu) and its sap can be used to heal ulcers and cure itching. Pretty cool huh? Bathing the 21 year-old girl was really hard for me, too. I’m 21 myself, and I can’t imagine being so near to death at this point in my life. I feel like it’s just beginning! It really made me realize that I’m so blessed with my health and take it for granted way too often. We finally finished getting the patients bathed and ready for the day around noon (it was a long process because they couldn’t really do anything for themselves). Washing these people who are incredibly sick and ostracized from society was definitely one of the most humbling experiences in my life.

So that was my experience at Ethembeni. It was something I will never forget, that’s for sure. If you want to find out more about Ethembeni, you can contact Grant Edkins at grantedkins@telkomsa.net or visit the church’s website at http://www.howickcommunity.co.za/. This ministry is doing amazing things for the community of Mpophomeni, so please keep them in your prayers!

*Please note that names have been changed to protect privacy