Seema

We are in our swish new set up at Jeevan Sahara Kendra.

But the issues that our friends are dealing with have not evapourated since we moved up in the world.

We are still working with people who are at the margins, at the very edges of themselves.

A woman - we will call her Seema - has been in touch with us for the past few years.

We got to know her when her Aunt - a widow to AIDS. Seema's Aunt was HIV positive hersefl - and we looked after her son whom she lost to HIV and cancer in his leg.

A few months later came the devastating news that Seema herself had HIV - most probably from Manoj - the man she had eloped with.

Its been a long journey with this family.

Manoj lost his parents young and grew up in an almost feral atmosphere. He is a likeable person - but does not seem to be able to care for his children. He is a driver which means he has odd hours . They frequently shift homes. Seema returns periodically to her parents home. At times her parents have looked after their children. For a year her 5 year old son was sent to a hostel. He has been back for the past few months - but Seema and Manoj feel they cannot care for him - and are sending him away again.

For the past month Seema has been bleeding. We think she may have had an abortion - though she denies it when we have probed. Our team have been trying to help Seema get a family planning operation - but the couple have kept postponing.

Our staff went with Seema to the govt. hospital this morning to get an opinion on surgery for Seema. Being HIV positive is a specific cross to carry when you want health care - even where health care is available. They were back before 11 AM.

Seema and her two kids were in our gleaming halls. Her son was rolling on the ground crying. She looked at him with her small eyes.

Then she went in to talk to Sheba. Our nurse was with the children.

Gleaming walls don't touch hearts. The process of walking together with our HIV positive friends continues.

Our new home

Moving into a new home is always a joy.

And its always strange too.

You have been waiting for the day. Finally it collapses on you. What was hoped for is now a reality. An unfamiliar one - one that seems dream-like - and yet it slowly dawns on you that this is for real. This is where we are.

Welcome to our new home.


The Jeevan Sahara Community Care Centre is now operational out of the Lok Hospital building.

We are housed in the first floor of this impressive 4 story building - and surrounded by a veritable garden of Eden.

The insides of the building are still quite quiet.


Our main hall is currently silent compared to 3 weeks ago when the Lok Hospital was operating out of this venue.

But we know that it is only a matter of time.

We were blessed to have some of our old patients come on the very first day of our work in the new premises:
And we know that it is only a matter of a short time before we will be able to do justice to this amazing facility that we are now working out of.

Can we take you for a short visit to our new 'digs'?

As you come up the stairs you see the sign that we are here:

It has taken some time, but since the Lok Hospital moved to their operations to the new Bethany Hospital on June 1st, we were able to get moving ourselves - and had our last OPD at the old centre on the 9th of June - and our first one at the new on the 10th!

Mr. E.J. Stephen - who was with us to dedicate the new work - reminded us that when Jacob went to Egypt to meet his long-lost son Joseph he first worshipped the Lord. That's what we want to continue to do in our new place - put God first in all we do - and work hard to be a blessing to others.

As you turn the corner you are greeted at the reception by our smiling nurse Agnes!


The next door on the left opens into our Integrated Counselling and Testing Centre. People who need to know about their HIV status are counselled and tested for the disease - and given the reports with confidentiality, care and hope. It is a blessing to be able to help many in this way - and more so since our reports are govt. recognised and can be used at the govt. hospitals for further HIV care there.


The next room - this time on the right - is the main doctor's consulting room. We know that this room will be on the front-line of care as many who come will receive their first credible counselling for the confusing catastrophe that has befallen them. Though we have no simple buttons to press to make everything magically better - the loving application of truth - and the practical whole-person care that Sheba is able to start in this room is going to continue to change lives and mould destinies. We are grateful for Dr. Marise who comes joins Sheba on Tuesdays and Friday mornings to help out - and we are still praying for other medicos to join who want to serve in the name and love of Jesus.

The next door on, also on the right, is the current home-based care room:


We are blessed to have 3 mini-teams of two people each who are looking after about 150 active HIV cases in Thane city. Our home-based care managers go out every day and meet families who are living with HIV.

Coordinating this work is our dear Peter Chettiar - and we are thrilled that Daniel Kautikkar is with us on his final bit of his MSW and is just about to rejoined us.


Next in to corridor is the place where these keys are being typed:

It is a privilege to be working in this new environment - and I trust that this office will be a place where a lot of blessing will flow from. One of the many small evidences of grace was to find out that this room (previously used as an ultrasound room) had a computer cable snaking all the way to the reception - so that I was able to get onto the internet as soon as we were able to have our old number transferred here!

The final two rooms are testimony to the main reason we have shifted our work to the Lok Hospital building. They are our current in-patient care rooms.


Our desire is to be running at 10 bedded inpatient facility for people with HIV who need hospitalisation. We are not running an ashram for people with HIV to stay indefinitely - we want people to live at home - and to restore relationships and live productive and fulfilled lives in the places where their families are. But we know that for many - when they fall ill - they need a place for healing and restoration. That's what we believe we will be able to provide here at the Jeevan Sahara Kendra Community Care Centre.

Its a small beginning - and as we write the place seems large and empty - but we know that we will soon be humming.

Our plan is to renovate what has been used as the main operating theatre into wards where 10 beds can be accomodated. These rennovations will take some time - so we will be currently offering 4 beds in our 2 in-patient care rooms.

Other renovations planned are dividing the previous X-ray room into two - so that we can house a minor Operating Theatre and a small x-ray machine. In addition, we plan to have the 'stilt' area opened up so that we can hold trainings and HIV positive friends support group meetings there.

Home sweet home!

Its still strange in some ways - but we are growing into the new place - it is growing on us - and we are growing up and beyond where we have been!

moving in, moving up!

Take a rainy day. Take lots and lots of boxes. Take various heavy things like refridgerators and hospital beds and gas cylinders. And more boxes.

Now move them across from one place to the other - with ominous clouds over head. Clouds that start to show what they are made of as the afternoon wears on.

We did it.

We actually shifted all the stuff from our old Jeevan Sahara Kendra Centre to the amazing new digs we have at the Lok Hospital building.

It wasn't easy.

But is was fun.

Everyone pitched in.

Heavy stuff was loaded. Then unloaded. Then moved. Then moved again.

A patient trolley in our new JSK home was put to good use.

Many a back and other assorted muscles were sore the next day.

The shift saw our last 8 years of work boxed up.

And brought over.

A good amount of clearing up of the old Lok Hospital materials also took place.

And then our things were resorted and placed in their new homes.

Some of us had more fun doing this than others!


But at the end of the day - we had moved everything over to the new Jeevan Sahara Kendra Community Care Centre.

We were exhausted and happy and after a prayer of thanks dug into hot samosas and chai to finish off a memorable exercise.


Though the rain did come down - we had managed to put all the boxes in the truck for its first journey - and so were able to move everything over without any damage.

Though the next few days saw lots and lots of unpacking - we managed to do achieve our main goal - getting the clinic shifted in an afternoon - and being open for business on the next morning.


And so they came - our first patients being cared for at our new OPD in the Jeevan Sahara Kendra Community Care centre.

Moving in, and moving up!

Thanks for your prayers and best wishes - and thanks for the muscles provided by the JSK staffa and volunteers - and visiting med students (Ben, Erin and Prerana)!

Moving day

Yesterday we stripped my office. Bundled up all those dusty files. Carted out the desk and computer. Into a tempo and over to the Lok Hospital building.

This morning most of it remains in boxes. Shabby cardboard in the echoing halls of the new Jeevan Sahara Kendra.

Moving day is finally here.

This morning the clinic gets the treatment. Sheba will see patients till 1 PM. In the meantime everything else gets packed. And sent over to Lok. By this evening we want to be unpacked and ready for tomorrow.

At 9 AM tomorrow we will start operating out of the Lok Hospital building. As always we will start with prayer and a time of reflection from the Bible.

Then our teams will visit people with HIV in their homes, and our clinical staff will meet patients at the new premises. If they come that is. It will take some time for our people to reorient to the new JSK. I think we will have empty corridors for some days.

At the same time we will be doing renovations to accomodate a 10 bedded ward. We are still looking for medical and nursing staff to augment our team.

On Saturday we will have our first session of the Training in HIV Care for Church members in our new set-up. There will have to be many arrangements and changes - but we are determined to move forward.

Our feet are touching the waters of the river Jordan. Now to see the waters part... and move forward into the promise.

Moving day.

Bilal

Bilal (name changed) is 7.

Yesterday he found out that he is HIV positive.

His mother Indu collects garbage to eke out a living. She lives in a shanty. Her husband died of AIDS. She has HIV too.

Indu had asked us to put her children into an orphanage. We tried to help her to keep her children with herself. She went ahead and found places for two of her kids.

One of which was Bilal.

Last week our JSK staff met Indu and reported that Bilal was back from the orphanage and that he was having difficulty seeing.

We asked them to bring Indu and Bilal to the centre for a checkup. It was clear that something was very wrong with Bilal's eyes - he had what look like cataracts.

We set up an appointment for an opthalmologist. And asked about his HIV test. It seems he had never had one. After counselling his mother and him, we took Bilal's blood sample and tested it at our centre.

The next day he was to return for his appointment and his result.

We were shocked (why?) to find that he was HIV positive.

They didn't come the next day.

In the night the first torrential rains of the pre-monsoon arrived, wreaking havoc on their shack. The next morning, Indu climbed up on the roof to try and put a plastic sheet. She fell down and injured her leg on a nail.

Bilal asked our staff - "mera report mein kya nikala?" - how did my report turn up?

Our staff told him that he would find out when he got to the centre.

Yesterday he came. I saw him sitting outside the door as his mother was inside - getting the news about her son. A small boy. A very small boy. Sitting on a white plastic chair.

Later in the day the opthalmologist told us that he has a corneal infection and suggested getting a specialist referral. We sent him over immediately.

The corneal specialist offered a small ray of hope. He would start treatment with drugs immediately - and see if it improves. If not - then a corneal transplant is the only hope of saving Bilal's sight.

Now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face...

Flowers

Besides the majestic Deodars (Cedrus deodarus) and the stately gnarled oak (Quercus leucotricophora) that coat the verdant hill of Mussoorie - we also see another grand landscape unfold - but at a much smaller scale - that of flowers.


You look down - and almost everywhere you can frame beauty.


With summer come so many blooms. Around homes and out in the wild.


And where there are blooms - we have stately visitors who come in search of sweet nectar - and who take pollen from blossom to blossom.

Flowers and herbs are the towering giants of these small-scale landscapes. Each level almost vying with each other to be more beautiful.

How blind we can be to so much that gladdens the heart around us.

995 pieces

You start with 1000 pieces. All looking more or less the same – a wild hodge podge of splogy colour. A bewildering mess.

(note the author's foot in the corner)

Then the sorting begins. Turn them all over. Start putting the ones with edges on one side. Put the brightly-coloured red ones in another corner. Separate the browns and tans – from the whites – and the other darker shades. Nevermind about the fine nuances - that can be done later. Broad strokes.

Once the first sorting is over – the fun begins. The first pieces are brought together. Soon some start fitting. A line – one of the borders of the puzzle appears. Some of the reds fit together to form the riders. Another line. A corner melds the two together.

(you can click on the pictures for larger views)

What is it about jigsaw puzzles that feeds a small but real primal urge (in this 'umble fellow at least) ?

I think that part of it is the need to fit. The joy of knowing that this piece was made for this part – and the small and repeated thrill of seeing something fit together. A piece is held - you scan the others for possible fits. You try it out - no. Not here. Turn round. Still no. Move on. Ah - there it goes.

And then to the next little challenge. And the next.

As soon as a piece ‘fits’ it seems to lose its own identity. The awkwardness and solitude – it is now part of an image – it doesn’t just cling to other pieces as some kind of vagrant child – rather it forms a seamless whole…

And all along there is a drive - to complete - to make that elusive 'big picture'. The details are slow in coming. You have to be called 2-3 times for meals. In the morning your hands feel itchy, ready to get at the puzzle again. Time blurs.

At the end there were 995 pieces that fit together. Of the 1000 that were said to be there on the box - the last 5 have been lost somewhere in the making and remaking of this picture.

Life - at least in the current edition - is like that. For all its fearful symetry, there are still some some jagged edges. But we press on...