Just as the summer fades away for you all in the Northern Hemisphere, it comes with a kick here for us in
We are eagerly awaiting and desperately needing the summer’s rains and grateful that the temperatures haven’t yet reached their summer scorching level yet. Unfortunately I don’t know if the new little man in our lives, Joshua, agrees. We are official foster parents to little Joshua Nkhanyiso now (we scratched the earlier name idea of Moses), and he has a birth certificate as well, both exciting achievements. The adoption process is also underway, as we have decided that he is much too precious for anyone else to raise up.
Joshua is now eight and a half months old and is a very contented, happy baby who has made leaps and bounds in his development since we took him over three months ago. We have really enjoyed watching him through the milestones he’s already made – lifting his head, smiling, laughing, sitting, rolling over, cutting through his first two teeth, with crawling still to come. With the suddenness of becoming parents without the standard nine months preparation, we’re both still getting used to the title of Mom and Dad – they both seem strange concepts still, but we certainly enjoy the new roles. The fun thing is that I now have a new name in addition to my other two Zulu names (Nomangwe and Thembalethu), it’s MakaNkhanyiso or MakaJoshua, depending on which name people call our little son by.
Ambulance-Driver
While balancing the addition of motherhood, I continue to get out in the community and support patients, orphaned and vulnerable children as well as doing lots of office work from home. Repeatedly over the past two years, I have played 'ambulance driver' to patients needing a step-down care centre.
The first patient I transported recently was during the public service strikes, which was a horribly traumatic time to be sick. This patient had been in the local hospital as it closed down, and discharged without her HIV or TB medications. The family put her on traditional medicines, which we thought sedated her heavily. Coordinating with Philanjalo’s step-down unit doctor, I brought her to Philanjalo for care as the hospital was closed at the time. Because of the severity of her condition, she was transferred to COSH (the hospital where we live) and died shortly thereafter of some kind of swelling in the brain. We'll never know what, as the referral hospitals were closed and she couldn't get a CAT scan or the correct treatment in time. We can just pray that public service strikes like this are not allowed to cause such suffering in future years and the definition of ‘emergency services’ includes hospital services.
The second patient I brought over was also a Thembalethu patient I visited, in this case one who had been discharged from the hospital and looking suspiciously like a MDR (multiple drug-resistant) TB case. She was very very very thin and very sick. Through a local doctor friend, she was admitted to COSH for investigations and treatment. Unfortunately, she passed away just three days after being admitted. This sweet lady was my age and has a baby girl Joshua's age, as well as a four year old abandoned child she'd taken in. Her mother has now lost both of her children, and widowed daughter-in-law is also one of our sicker patients. She has just started treatment for TB, but not yet ARVs and has four children of her own. My heart and prayers go out to her family in this difficult time, and we will continue to provided support and assistance to the children left behind, as well as the other sick widow. Aagh. I think I'll leave being an ambulance driver for a while now... While it offers tremendous opportunities for some patients to receive reliable, conscientious care, for some it’s just too late. I’ve nearly had to become a hearse driver on two different occasions now. I am very grateful other solutions came available for the families instead.
Thembalethu Expands! Our new building is nearly finished, with a generous donation from a South African organization! It is a beautiful addition to our new piece of land, and we are very blessed to have so much space and possibility. We are planning to utilize the old building (orange/grey) as the community resource centre which we’ve started doing already on a small scale. The physical, occupational and speech therapists are already coming once monthly as an outreach for the disabled. We are striving to bring all the disabled children ‘out of the woodwork’ from the midst of the rural area so that they can get the therapy, support, care and schooling they need to thrive. Next month the mobile clinic should also start using our premises, moving over from functioning from the back of their converted-pickup truck and under the awning of the local store. We hope the new space will improve the primary health care service provision to the community and that we can also provide them with support and even HIV/AIDS testing and counseling for interested community members.
Thembalethu is currently offering the following services to the Amangwe Community:
- Home-Based Care to the sick
- Nursing supervision to local home-based caregivers
- Food parcels and support for orphaned and vulnerable children
- Preventative education about HIV/AIDS and TB
- Community resource centre
o Special Needs Day once monthly
o Mobile Clinic starting in November.
Funding Update:
Great news came in this week –we have been approved for small bit of funding from the Global Fund to Fight HIV, TB and Malaria. This will be our first real funding coming in on this level, and I am both excited and a bit daunted by the prospect of moving to the next level. The funding will cover some stipends for our caregivers as well as other costs for running some of our home-based care as well as orphaned and vulnerable children care. We are very grateful for this new input of funds, thankful to God for His perfect timing in providing for funding for us to continue loving and serving the community. We have nearly come to the end of previous financial gifts, and the timing for additional funding is perfect!
Our caregivers have been solely volunteers up until now, and these stipends will be a great help to them, but can greatly change the dynamic of the work. Please pray for our wisdom as we move forward with this, and also for wisdom in our decision of which caregivers to offer stipends to. Please also ask God that the caregivers we select will be able to continue to serve their neighbors from hearts of love, care and compassion and not let the new financial dynamic ruin their beautiful gifts to others.
I continually give God thanks for the generous gifts that I have received to support my work and living expenses here over the past 6 ½ years! So far in 2010, these funds have been limited (just over $6,000, while my annual budget is $15,000) and while they cover my first priority – Thembalethu ministry expenses, they have not covered much beyond this. I would be very grateful for any additional funds to support this.
There are two primary ways that you can support this work:
Support Thembalethu Directly | Support Betsy’s Living Expenses | |
Direct Funds to: | University Presbyterian Church – | |
Online Giving | upc.org - following links to ‘give’ and ‘online giving’ or | |
Online Specifications | Fund: Missions - Global Sub Fund: Thembalethu | Fund: Missions – Global Sub Fund: – Meyer (Elfers), Betsy - |
Check Specifications | Make out to UPC “Thembalethu” in memo line | Make out to UPC “Betsy Meyer” in memo line |
It has been over six and a half years since I first came to South Africa South Africa , and the Seattle
Unkulunkhulu akubusiso,
Betsy (Eugene & Joshua) Meyer
