Skeleton staff

There are two very sick HIV Positive Friends being looked after at the Jeevan Sahara Kendra tonight.

And that too while running the JSK Care Centre with but the most skeleton of skeleton staff.


But first the Positive Friends.  Tapesh is a 40 year old man who has known he has had HIV since 1998.  He has taken various treatments over the years - mainly from what we would call quacks who promised cures.  Now he is sick.  Very sick.  Sheba has diagnosed leptospirosis.  We are really not equipped to deal with such a disease and have asked the family to shift him to a higher centre.  They have refused.  His mother is the only one looking after him.  His brother says that he himself has a fever and cannot take Tapesh.  This intelligent and articulate man has high spikes of fever.  We are trying our level best.  And praying.

Stars on the JSK ceiling remind us of our Positive Friends
 who have died - we don't want to add Tapesh and
Karuna's names to this memorial....

Karuna is a widow with two small children.  Yesterday she came to a gospel meeting that our church holds on Sunday night.  She was shivering badly yesterday evening. We admitted her today. She is very sick.  Her platelet counts are dropping.  Does she have dengue fever?  Who will help her with blood transfusions if she needs them?  She does not have anyone with her at the hospital. Only two young children.

And on top of this our main nurse Agnes is sick with fever.  So Sashmita did a 12 hour shift from 6 AM.  And now has had to come back to do IV lines in the night.  Tomorrow she faces another 12 hour shift.  Pray that Agnes will get better.  Pray for Sashmita - and for Sunita our nurse-aide who is on duty tonight.

We need to have new people come along side us.  We cannot continue like this.

Sheba says that we will have to really spend time in prayer tonight.  I totally agree.

A doctor's work is never done

Pity Sheba.

At Jeevan Sahara Kendra she meets people who have been sick for years.  Who are often wasted away - physically and emotionally.  Who - like the man currently admitted at the JSK centre - are full of fear and negativity.

'How are you doing?'

"Doctor, I keep vomitting and have had multiple diarhoeas"   "Doctor, my son has just been coughing and coughing all night." "Doctor, the patient has vomitted after taking the medicines.  What shall we do?"

Patient.  Mother.  Nurse.  All with the same negative statements.

But then again, they are true.  This is the real condition that this man is going through.  Its not that he is hale and hearty and making up things so that he can be admitted to hospital and avoid his problems.  This man is a 40+ batchelor who has known about his HIV condition since 1998!  For 14 years he has lived with the disease - getting treatment from ayurvedic frauds (plenty of them - always ready to give a 'cure' for money - never around when the patient wastes away and dies).  So here he is at our centre in a very poor condition with a high spiking fever.

But Sheba does not just treat our patients as sick machines who need a little greasing here and a bit of a spark plug cleaning there (or even a gasket change for that matter).  What Sheba does besides diagnosis and prescription and monitoring is to deal with the inner person.  To listen and pray.  To help the person understand and see who they are and how our amazing caring God is working to change and shape them to be like Him.

We pray each time Sheba goes over to JSK.  So many times we see big and small answers to these prayers.

And then Sheba comes home.

For the last 3 days Enoch has had a fever.  It comes and goes.  Enoch is pretty cheerful - most of the time.  But to see your own child sick breaks any parent's heart.

Then last night I was queasy too.  Sitting at the dinner table my face was a fine shade of pale - mirroring what my stomache felt.  Another patient to sleep next to Enoch.

This morning I am better - but Enoch is not yet.

Here is how Asha sumarised it on our white board (she is the 'board monitor' at her school - allowing her to draw the whiteboard everyday - something she really likes):

I am obviously better in Asha's understanding.  Asha takes the role of the nurse - which she does well.  This morning she was comforting Enoch and made a small paper list of the patient's symptoms.

Being a Sunday morning we had to make a decision about who should / should not go to worship at our Sunday morning gathering at Bro Jolly and Sis Suma's home.  After Sheba came back from doing a morning visit to the patient at the JSK Centre, we decided that Sheba and Asha would go - and I would remain with Enoch here.  We are just about to have our own worship time together.

Here is a shot of our happy patient.  Or as Asha put in her picture - the patient patient.

But pity our dear doctor.

Even for herself things don't go easy.  Sheba has been living with a fairly large stone in her gall bladder for over a year now.  We recently did a raft of tests to see whether we should go in for surgery (jury still out on that).  Some medication was given to her.  She took it for some time, but then stopped - why take things that  she knows won't help.  The knowledge that a doctor has can be a double-edged sword.

So as we go into our worship time, we will be praying especially for our dear doctor - our hero and wonderful mother and wife - Sheba!

Choices

We admitted a dear friend of ours yesterday morning to the JSK Community Care Centre.  We will call her Indu.

Indu is HIV positive - as is her husband - and one child.  She has grown in God and is a blessing to others.  Late last year she took in an HIV positive teen-aged mother and her infant child into her home for some months.

Yesterday Indu came with pneumonia in both lungs. Her fever was high - over 102 F.  She was very sick.  For a person with HIV any illness can be the final one.  You just have to go around the bend and its the end.

But it wasn't the end of Indu.  Yet.

Sheba went over last night after we came back from the Bible study.  She told me to pray when she returned, saying that Indu was still ill.

This morning the fever had gone.  Indu seems to be turning a corner.  We are so grateful to God.

It has not been easy for Indu - but she has taken courage and told her local church about her status.  We are proud of her courage.

In addition, Indu has brought others to JSK whom she met at the government ART centre.  She has been blessed and is a blessing to others.

-----------------

Mohan (name changed of course) is the brother of a local policeman.  Mohan lives in another city in Maharasthra and has had HIV for some years now.  He is also addicted to alcohol.  His brother brought him to us some months ago.  We counselled him and told Mohan to start his Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) from his local govt. hospital.

Mohan refused.  He did not want others to know.  He insisted that he would stay with his brother here in Thane and that we should start.  We do not force anyone.  The choice is with the person living with HIV and their family members.  Since Mohan and his brother insisted on starting the medication here, we did the basic teaching on ART and reluctantly started.

Sadly our fears were well founded.  Mohan did not leave the bottle.  He left his ART medicines and went back to the town he came from.

Last week his policeman brother came to meet us.  Mohan has been very sick.  What should he do?  We told him to get him treated at a local hospital and ART centre.  The brother refused.

So we agreed to have Mohan come here - provided his brother would take responsibility for his treatment.  Mohan came.  He is very sick.  We wanted to admit him at the JSK centre immediately.  His brother had agreed to this before - in fact had requested it.  We urged admission.

But Mohan says 'no.'  

He says that his brother lives just around the corner and that he will come for treatment, but does not want to be admitted.  He claims to have been sober for 2 months now.  We suspect that the bottle is still too dear for Mohan.

Its unlikely that Mohan will survive long.  

Its a tragedy when resources are available and people continue in self-destructive choices.   

Interns

I spent a wonderful hour reviewing the past month with our 4 interns from the Union Biblical Seminary.  We started at 5 PM and several rounds of meditative sharings and an obligatory cup of chai each, we found that we managed to squeeze the hour till 6.30 before we finally broke off our conversation.

This batch of interns is the first under the new 3 month internship - their predecessors had 7 months with us at a time.  So we are now staring into the last month of Shibin, Renny, Limchung and Dilu's time with us.

What struck me was how deep and wholeistic their learning has been this past month.  Not only have they picked up multiple skills, they each expressed having been formed and shaped as disciples of their loving Master.

We are so much the richer for our short-term co-workers.  They bring with them a breath of fresh air - with their smiles and good humour and willingness to work.  They also bring fresh eyes to appreciate the work that is being done day in and day out.  As well as fresh lips to express concern for areas which we tend to overlook because of the day-in-and-day-out nature of working at something for a long time.

What comes to me again is the value of learning by doing.  By actually plunging in and helping people - and allowing ourselves to be shaped in the process.  These four young men are the leaders of tomorrow.  They are going to be setting things right-side-up again - and will be doing it having had a formative experience working with families affected by HIV.  What a privilege for us to be a part of this journey.

Dilu, Shibin, Limchung and Renny

As our friends finish off their time with us this month we are already preparing for the bitter-sweet experience of saying fare-well!

Footy

The stage is set for the big game tonight.  Germany vs. Italy.  Amazingly Germany have never beaten Italy in a tournament game.  Will it change tonight?

On a far, far smaller scale - Enoch has been doing some footballing himself.  The following pictures come from a series that he set up and photographed for his cousin Ashish who just celebrated his 6th birthday this week.

Interestingly enough, the colours he chose could be used for tonight's match.  We will thus run this match with the Blues for Italy (Azurri) and the Blacks for Germany (die Mannschaft).

So lets meet the teams!  The blues come in first - Italy all ready for a great game tonight!

You can use your imagination to assign players to the mini-figures that Enoch chose for this team.

And now the blacks come on - Die Mannschaft all ready battle it out for football glory!

 It looks like the photographer was all caught up with the emotion of the moment and so the determined faces of the German players are in soft focus.

Enoch made sure that each goalie is a different colour from the rest of his team-mates - so here we would have Manfred Neuer surrounded by the other German players.

No game can be played without the match officials.

Enoch brought on a lines-man complete with flag and a referee who is already brandishing a red card.

Hopefully tonight's game will not be a throw-back to the vicious hacking that the Germans used to be known for in my youth.

In fact - they are the youngest team of Euro 2012 and have been playing some gloriously flowing footy!

A sell-out crowd has gathered for the historic match in Warsaw!

The fans have come from near and far - with lots of locals swelling the ranks.  The prize will be a spot in the finals to face the defending European Champions and World Cup holders Spain.  Will Italy break through?  Will Germany live up to the huge expectations that has been piled on them?  The atmosphere is crackling with excitement!  Onwards!

Here come the captains for the flipping of the coin and to hand over the ceremonial pendants to each other.

Gianluigi Buffon, the hero of the match against England, strides up confidently.

And his German counterpart, the diminutive but thunder-footed Philip Lahm comes forward.

Hands are shaken all-round.  The clock is ticking down.

The whistle blows and the game starts!

My word, what a tangle of bodies!

The magnitude of the game is cramping the natural flow of the players - its everyman after the ball!

The crowd roars with approval as the ball passes rapidly between players - each team trying their hardest to get the small round globe into their possession, down the field and into the opponent's net!

Ole! Ole! Ole!    Ole!  Ole!

And then it happens.

The teams converge on the ball - who will get it?  Will Mario Balotelli be able to wriggle it out?  Will Bastian Schweinsteiger boss it forward towards the Italian goal?

In the middle of a sea of black clad defenders the talented Italian mid-field maestro Andrea Pirlo conjures up a magic moment.  Pirlo manages to get his boot on the ball and somehow hammer it through a wall of Germans, fiercely slicing in the air, dipping down towards the German goal

Manfred Neuer, the German goalie stretches out to his full 6 feet plus frame- but the ball fizzes inside the far post!  That was only ever going to meet the back of the net!

Then a heart-stopping moment as the whistle blows - will the linesman call an offside on the blue tide?

The whole stadium goes quiet as the match officials confer.

No, the goal stands!

Italy lead Germany 1:0.

The Italian players make a leaning tower of Pisa on top of Andrea Pirlo!

Its Italy 1 and Germany 0!  Will this put Italy into the Euro Final against the Red Armada of Spain on Sunday night?   Or will Germany gather its many talented players and hit back with a brace or a trio of goals?   I personally think Germany can edge Italy out 3:1  but this is where we will leave Enoch's lego men and their footy game.

In less than 2 hours from now the real game will get underway in Warsaw.  Enoch chose his blue men because that was the most common colour he had in his lego mini-figures.  I think he had Chelsea in mind when he arranged them and took the photos we have enjoyed.

All the Eichers will be getting up at 1.40 AM this morning to catch the second half of the Germany - Italy semi-finals.  Everyone other than me is already asleep.  The alarm is set.  Lets see what happens in the footy game!

The sun also rises

Later today an election speech will be given.

By Enoch.  In the 11 sections that make up his 4th standard.

Each section has 50 students - so that's 550 kids just in 4th standard.  By that reckonning there are over 7000 students in the whole school.

Enoch is one of the two candidates for 'head boy' of the primary section.  Only the 4th graders get to vote.  Boys vote for the 'head boy' and girls for the 'head girl.'

Enoch has been assigned the 'Sun' symbol.

He has to give a 3 sentence speech in each section.

Here it is - in full:

Good afternoon dear Friends!  My name is Enoch Eicher and my symbol is the 'Sun'.


The sun rises every morning and gives us light and joy!


In the same way, I would like to serve you as Head boy and request that you vote for me and the 'Sun' symbol.


Thank you!

Short and sweet.

Lets see how he fares!

A widow's tale

We came into the small Bible study we run on Tuesday nights in the home of Shanti - one of our JSK staff.

There were two old ladies present.  Then the door opened and one of our long-term Positive Friends - who we will call Wendy came in with her son Shaan.

We read about Jesus and the two men in the temple.  And about the followers of Christ pushing away the parents who had brought babies to Jesus to be blessed.   Stories from so many years prior - that continue to teach us what God wants from us.  Humility. A child-like spirit.  A desire for Him alone and not all the trappings that we think make life what it is.

Jesus paints a stark picture.  On one hand a proud 'righteous man' who telegraphs his prayer around the temple.  On the other is a broken and corrupt man who stands beating his breast, crying out to God for mercy, acknowledging the terrible person he is.  Jesus tells us which of the two went home at peace with God (Luke 18.14).

After the study we talked with the ladies about what they needed prayer for.

Wendy said that it was hard with her three teen-aged children.  Tears came to her eyes as she told about how she was trying to be brave and trust God - but just does not know how she will afford the new school books the children need.  The school year has started, and she said that she will be trusting God as tears found their way down her cheeks.

Then Wendy switched gears.

She told about how she had gone to her village to sort out the matter of her husband's land.  His mother had told her that she would make sure that the land got transferred to her name and the names of her children.  When she got there, however, Wendy faced one problem after another.

Her late husband's brother assured her that the land would be put into her name - but said that she should wait till his mother died.  Wendy was able, however, to find out that this was not true - and was assured by her mother-in-law that she was ready to have the land transferred to her name.  And that too immediately.

But the problem was the legal process that this entails.  When they enquired, they were told that to get the land registrar to do this, it would take Rs. 15,000.  This was a sum far, far beyond Wendy's reach.  She prayed (as she had been praying already at every step of the way).

Then she remembered that a local politician had bought a bit of land from their family when he had installed a well in their village.  She contacted him and he remembered her.  In her presence, this man called up the person in charge of transferring the land deeds.  The man assured him that he would help.  The politician asked him how much it would cost.  The man was silent.  The politician pressed him.  Finally he said that he would do it all for Rs. 1000.  And that he would do it the next day.

Wendy and her children wen the next day, which was supposed to be their last day there.  They were supposed to get a Rs. 100 stamp paper for the document.  They looked all day.  No one was ready to give them.  Wendy feels it was her brother-in-law's doing.  But she also put a spiritual dimension to it - 'our enemy was trying to pull us down - I felt so bad, but just kept praying.'  Over and over again they went, trying to find someone who had such paper.  Wendy feels that people were purposely hiding their stock and lying - telling her that she did not have.  Finally she sent her young son Shaan to one place.  The man said that he was willing to give, but would charge more.  He gave it for Rs. 150.  By then it was already 6.30 PM and they were due to catch a 7 PM bus back towards Thane.

They had to stay another day.  The next day they went to the records office.  The person who was supposed to help them did not pick up the phone.  But they did finally meet him.  He told them to come back in 2 days.  Wendy works as a maid - and told the man that she had already spent 5 days in the village and had to get back to Thane - and that the children's school and college was starting too.  He then told her that she would have to wait for a couple hours - but that he would do it.  She gratefully agreed.

And so it was done.  On that day.  They got it all done.

And they missed the 7 PM bus again.

One of their distant relatives saw them at the bus stop standing forlorn.  He was actually a son of a mistress of her husband's father.  But he knew who they were.  And they knew who he was.

He came by 2 or 3 times and finally asked if he could help.  When they told him what happened he told them to get on his motorbike.  Wendy and her 3 teenagers clambered on.  And then the man drove like the wind.  A bike carrying 5 people careened over the roads - and They were delivered to a bus-stop where they got a bus going back to Thane.

Miracles after miracles.  All hidden, of course, to the world around us.

We serve a God who looks after the small people.  The forgotten.  Those on the margins.

No billboards announced what had gone on - but we got a glimpse of how God looks after His saints.


A father to the fatherless, 
a defender of widows, 
is God in his holy dwelling. 
- Psalm 68.5