Getting Sick in Lusaka

Last week, I was quite sick, and for someone who does not often get sick, this was a very annoying thing. After all, part of my ministry here is holistic health; God wants us to be healthy, and whole, and full of life, right? Not just laying in bed, coughing and burning up with a fever? On Sunday, when the fever was at its worst, I couldn’t go to church, I had to cancel lunch with a friend, and we had to un-invite my very kind language partner and her husband, who we were planning on having over for dinner. I know this is par for the course anywhere in the world. We all get sick sometimes. But, getting sick here in Zambia has been very eye opening.

When we canceled on Mrs. Pamaso, explaining that I was sick, she immediately offered to come over and bring me any food or medicine I might need. When I said that I was just going to rest, she said she would check on me the next day. Sure enough, she checked the next day, and by the third day, she and her husband came to pray for me and offer help. On the fourth day, she came and brought me to the clinic, to be sure I knew exactly where to go for the right medicine. She happens to be a nurse, and I feel so confident knowing that she is caring for me.

Many, many people are sick right now. It is the rainy season, and germs are spreading like crazy. During rainy season, there are a lot more insects to transmit disease, and malaria, meningitis, and diarrheal diseases are all too common. I am blessed to have access to good medical care, but I worry about our gardener’s baby, who has diarrhea, and my other neighbor, who is pregnant, but also ill. At the same time, I watch people step up and take care of one another. They pick lemons from the abundant lemon trees, and squeeze the juice into tea, mixed with honey and ginger. They prepare food for one another’s children, and they loan a neighbor money to go and buy medicine.

For me, it is annoying and irritating to get sick. But for many people here, it is terrifying. One of our neighbors, Rachel, whose little nephew is a good friend of Johnny’s, got sick with the same illness I had. However, she also had latent malaria and asthma. Rachel became ill on Friday, and she died on Monday. She was 29 years old. When I went to the funeral home (the house of the bereaved), I sat with her sister-in-law and held her hand while she cried. I was no longer sick; I had taken antibiotics, and felt almost completely better. On the other hand, Rachel was gone.

When they took Rachel to the hospital, they also brought another one of our neighbors, a two year old girl named Grace. She, too, had the illness that is going around, the one that I had, the one that Rachel had. Grace’s parents sent her off, along with Rachel, hoping and praying that Grace would be okay. And she is. She is back home, having recovered. She is running around and playing again.

When Rachel died, her family was never left alone for a single minute. When I went and sat with them, and there were 8 other people there. At night, both my language partners slept in the home with Rachel's sister-in-law; the men sat with Rachel’s brother. When people are grieving, they are always supported and loved.

I did home visits again this past Tuesday. One of the visits was to an elderly woman who cannot walk and can barely communicate. She was just sitting in the dirt, smelling of her own urine, and when we came to her home, she had to crawl in like a baby. Seeing an elderly woman, skin and bones, crawling in the dirt was overwhelming. The church ladies come to clean her and care for her, but it is very hard to keep her in decent shape. At the same time, the women are willing to wash her, to feed her, to care for her, simply as a way to show the love of Christ.

Love is abundant here; faithfulness is all over the place; grace and kindness are overflowing. But so is pain, so is loss, so is injustice. It is wrong, simply wrong, that people here cannot get the care they need, the medicine they need, the resources they need, in order to survive. Please, please pray for all who are sick here in Zambia, and for all people who live in privilege, that our hearts might be moved to fight for justice, to fight for equality, so no one needs to die from a preventable, treatable illness, so that elders can have the care and support they need, so that children don’t perish because of a mosquito bite.

Thank you for praying with me, and for being a part of the healing of the world.