Dedication

Today marks a new day.

In a few hours we will be meeting to dedicate the new Bethany Hospital to God's service.

The gleaming new building is getting its final polish as we get ready for the many guests and supporters who will be with us for this time.

"Not to be served, but to serve" is the motto of the Bethany Trust - which runs the Bethany Hospital - and the Jeevan Sahara Kendra too. We have seen this lived out in the preparations for this day. Many hundreds of hours of behind the scenes work have taken place to get this hospital to where it is. And many more are needed to get the hospital moving forward.

When Dr. Stephen Alfred and his wife Claire returned from the UK to start work in Thane all he thought was that he would run a small 4 bedded nursing home. That changed with the Bethany Trust opening the Lok Hospital in 1996 - first as 2 floors and then expanded to 4 floors. Today we will be dedicating the next step, with the Lok Hospital work moving into the purpose-built 125-bedded facility at Bethany Hospital.

For us at Jeevan Sahara Kendra this means that we will start our work in a new phase at the current Lok Hospital building. We plan to start by using the first floor and offering a 10 bedded inpatient care facility for people with HIV who need hospitalisation.

We also want to scale up our work in providing and monitoring the life-long (and life-extending) AntiRetroviral Therapy (ART) treatments. We hope that our application to become a link-ART centre and be able to dispense govt. ART medications will soon come through. In addition, we intend to continue the integrated testing and counselling centre where people can come for confidential and voluntary HIV testing.

Jeevan Sahara Kendra also hopes to develop into a centre for excellence in HIV care and training. We know that the experience that we have gained over the past 8 years of service here in Thane is invaluable - and want to share it with others.

All this while continuing what we have tried to do from the beginning: caring for people with HIV in their homes - challenging local churches to reach out in love and welcome people with HIV and their families into a broader family of care - working with people who are living with HIV to make positive and life-enhancing decisions!

As the dedication of the new Bethany Hospital takes place today, we are so grateful to the Lord Jesus Christ for His grace in letting us see this new step forward.