Monday, September 28, 2009

We made it

After a day and a half on planes, we finally are in Zambia. We have a great God-given team - Kelly, an ER doc, her mom Mary Ann, a physical therapist, Patty, who does massage and yoga, and Paul, an ICU nurse. Today we will be visiting Cure International Hospital - an American hospital of surgeons who fix congenital defects of little ones out here - I am sure you have seen the Smile Train ads which help fund them. We just had a 2 yr old Samfyan treated for spina bifida 2 wks ago and I heard she is doing great - prayers for Bupe and her parents.
We are in store for a 9 hour van ride across country today to get to our final destination - Samfya. I heard most of the potholes were repaired - you thought Chicago potholes were tough, these can swallow up vans - my butt will let you know how they did repairing them.
Tomorrow we will start working - thanks for all your prayers and support. Keep my two little ones in your prayers as they try to keep an I on my mom.
Mike

Saturday, September 26, 2009


With God's help, we are going out here to help keep this clinic running which we set up last year, teaching, caring, treating, and praying with our neighbors on the other side of the world. This clinic we set up in the Bible College of the town of Samfya - a small fishing town on the shores of a beautiful lake and surrounded by swamp. Here there is 95% unemployment and the locals are used to going to 5 funerals a week. In the three years that I have been going out there we are making a huge difference. We are now running medical teams out there twice a year, and Willow Creek also sends water teams, teaching teams, and even high schoolers to raise up local education.
Because of poverty, malnutrition, malaria, TB, HIV, overall poor health care and poor water supply, the Zambians survival is at stake, with the average length of life only 38, and 1 out of 5 kids not making it to their sixth birthday.

Prepping for travel


I am prepping for my 4th trip out here. We fly 19hrs from DC to Johannesburg, S. Africa, then 3hrs up to the capital - Lusaka. The next day we take a 9-10 hr van ride down the only paved road to Samfya - that dot up Northwest by the lake. We will come home via Ndola - in the Northeast dumbbell, in the heart of the copperbelt mines. Just a little history of this adventure first. Willow has been in this country ever since Lynne Hybels visited with Bright Hopes, another Christian group with a mission to help the poor and sick around the world.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Zambia is the land-locked country stuck between the Congo and Zimbabwe - two hotbeds. Zambia though is extremely peaceful, so don't worry about us here! It is roughly the size of California and Nevada combined and has about 11 million people in it. Unfortunately, because of past colonialism, poor resources, political issues and other unfortunate events, it is around the 10th poorest country in the whole world, with 90% of its people living below the $2/d poverty line.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

MISSION SAMFYA

Blessings All,
Welcome to my blog site. Hopefully at this site you will get a feel for Zambia, a place that has captured my heart over the last three years. I hope to tell you a bit about the stories here - the stories of the children, of the mission workers, and of how God shows up big time in some of the most remote places in this World. As I am writing the start to this site, I am preparing for my fourth medical mission trip here, leading a group of 5 to work and teach in a few places in Zambia, but mostly in a small rural, swampy town called Samfya. This work is sponsored by Global Connections, an outreach mission ministry of Willow Creek Community Church, in association with another Christian group, Bright Hopes, both trying to help the poorest and sickest in this world.