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By Grace Nakajje*
1:00 P.M. EDT July 13, 2011 | KOCH COROMA, Uganda (UMNS)
Susan Flournoy, a registered nurse, attends to a child as part of the Uganda
Mission Project of Central United Methodist Church of Fayetteville, Ark.
A UMNS web-only photo courtesy of Central United Methodist Church.
Margaret Anena had lived with acute tooth pain since her teens, but nothing could be done to cure her.
Because health centers are hard to reach and the war in Gulu District was long, Anena could not get treatment.
Now the United Methodist has received the relief she needed thanks to a medical team from Central United Methodist Church in Fayetteville, Ark.
The mobile health clinic stopped in Gulu for two days in June. The
team treated a total of 436 patients – 64 of them dental and 372
medical. The diseases diagnosed included respiratory tract infections,
gastritis, malaria, ulcers, dental decay and wounds.
Jody Farrell, the team leader, was on his fifth trip to Uganda and his fourth to Anena’s village of Koch Coroma.
“We’ve kept going back to the same place so we really understand what
the needs are,” said Farrell, director of missions and lay mobilization
at Central United Methodist Church. “People remember us. We’ve built
relationships.”
During the trip, he said, his team of 19 Arkansans shared the gospel
and the message that God wants people to have a healthy body and a
healthy mind.
Help for hurt teeth
Dr. Ambrose Opio at Gulu Regional Referral Hospital said Anena’s case
was serious because she had tooth decay and sores on the gum, tongue
and the lips.
Margaret Anena is treated for a severe toothache. She is one of hundreds of people served by the medical mission.
A UMNS photo by Grace Nakaje.
View in Photo Gallery
Anena said she developed tooth sensitivity after drinking
contaminated water at a swamp in Koch Goma village, where she took
refuge during the civil war.
“I felt strange pain in my mouth immediately after I drank the
water,” she said. “So it forced me to go back where I fetched it. To my
shock, I saw two decomposing bodies floating, and since then, I have no
peace in my mouth.”
Opio said Anena should not have any more pain. “We have extracted the
most dangerous roots and given her treatment to cure the sores in her
mouth,” he said.
He encouraged the Arkansas medical team to provide demonstrations
about how to brush teeth, use toothpaste and maintain general hygiene.
Opio said tooth decay is the most common ailment among the people of northern Uganda.
“Since these people stayed in the camps for a long time, many fed on
sticky foods such as cassava and sweet potatoes, and they used to eat it
raw, which exposed them to tooth decay,” he said.
The United Methodist Church in the East Africa Annual (regional) Conference is in the final stage of forming health boards with a mandate to take health services closer to the communities.
In the interim, Opio urges all United Methodist medical teams to
teach healthy eating habits, “especially how to avoid eating sticky
foods.”
Help with evangelism
The Arkansas medical team offered healing not only for sore mouths and ailing bodies, but also weary souls.
In addition to the clinic, the team offered a pharmacy and a prayer
room. While people waited for their prescriptions to be filled, they
could pray and talk with team members and local United Methodist
pastors.
Traci McCuistion, mission lay chairperson, hands
out prescriptions in the village of Koch Coroma.
A UMNS web-only photo courtesy of Central
United Methodist Church, Fayetteville, Ark.
“We would talk with them about their needs, pray with them and also
visit with them about their faith and if they had a desire to become
Christian,” said the Rev. Tony Holifield, the senior pastor of Central
United Methodist Church. Some 600 people visited the prayer room, he
said.
Holifield said his congregation also plans to raise $150,000 to help
with other needs in northern Uganda, including an orphanage, church
structures and water wells.
“We have so far completed a church in Koch Coroma in the Gulu
District and the next plan is water,” he said. “I encourage the church
in Uganda to keep the focus on Jesus, build the kingdom and their lives
will be better as a result of being faithful to Christ.”
*Nakajje is the communicator for the East Africa Annual Conference.
Heather Hahn, a multimedia news reporter for United Methodist News
Service, contributed to this report.
News media contact: Heather Hahn, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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