Helps to Stay Healthy

by Cheri Roland

"Somebody’s going to die here!” A new student had leapt to his feet, shouting and stabbing his finger accusingly at me. The lecture hall air was electric. For a moment nobody breathed. Inwardly I sighed. I had hoped to get through my power point presentation during the seminary orientation without great confrontation. In hindsight, that was quite a naive expectation; I had just dropped a bomb shell. Per seminary policy, seminarians would not be able to see a doctor until they had been referred by me, the school nurse.

About 100 folks were packed into the lecture hall, 90 of them our seminarians in training to become "transforming leaders for church and nation". They were required to attend my lecture, "Helps to Stay Healthy". Many of our students come from rural settings where education is imparted orally. Books, paper, computers and libraries are scarce. There are no courses in health and science from first grade on up; maybe somewhere along the way they have been lucky enough to have heard a professional teach about HIV/AIDS. As a result, there is wide spread ignorance and misconceptions about how their bodies work, let alone causes or prevention of disease.

In jail vernacular, I had “dissed” my accuser and his fellow seminarians. What right did this white, old, American woman have to trash their health care traditions? Later – much later – I put myself in their shoes. How I would feel if suddenly informed that my wellbeing now rested in the hands of a witch doctor?

Traditional healers, or sangomas, mirror the wide range of practitioners we have in the states, providing reputable to disreputable to downright dangerous treatment. Here healers work with a wide broad variety of techniques, from using highly effective herbal remedies to using witch craft, with all of its far reaching ramifications. But that is another story.

Recently Western medicine has become available to outlying rural areas; for many, the manner in which a doctor is consulted has become wrapped up in its own set of customs. (Please understand I’m relaying a compilation of hearsay relayed to me after my presentation, and in no way meant to diminish the wonderful medical care provided for marginalized patients all over Africa and beyond.) These common cultural practices surrounding medical care put a new face on seeing the doctor.

One such practice revolves around visiting the clinic. Due to the scarcity of doctors, villages must rotate specific days for the medical team to treat patients. Because of 80%+ unemployment in townships and beyond, folks often have little to keep them occupied, so clinic visits become an anticipated social event. This has nothing to do with being ill. Bathed, wearing their church clothes and armed with food for the day, they gather together to kibitz for the 12 hours it may take before they are seen by the doctor. And they are rewarded for their patience; they always are given a tablet with the assurance of “curing” their common complaints of “a mouse running around inside my tummy” or “bugs eating me from the inside”. If they are actually feeling sick, their expectation, at the very least, is to be given an antibiotic; but an “injection” is even better…

No wonder many of my patients have been furious after their visit with the school nurse! In their experience, medical care = tablets promising a cure. But at SMMS they usually leave my office with patient education and (maybe) medicine to relieve their symptoms. The fact that antibiotics are ineffective against viruses is still too great a leap for them to swallow. Imagine their feelings of fear, frustration and loss of control over their health when I announce that a) they don’t need to see the doctor and b)there are no antibiotics that will fix their complaint! Hence my current reputation among the seminarians is, “All she does is tell you to exercise and drink more water.”

So where does this leave me as school nurse? Obviously my clever power point presentation did not do the trick. It seems I forgot the number one principal of Missionary Training 101: I must shed my “western medicine has all the answers” attitude and appreciate the positive healing practices of the seminarians’ cultures before I can hope to affect any real change in cultural attitudes. In other words, it is I who must be transformed in order to help transform and empower them. How will I tackle this challenge?

Early this morning God floated me His promise from 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will heal their land.” If I have been called by God, as I claim I have, I must humble myself, pray for forgiveness, and journey, not out ahead of, but along with these folks . He will do the rest. Guess I’d better get started.

OPENING DAY

by Doug Roland

2010 at the seminary did not end well, except for the collective relief that a difficult year was over. In the final 2-3 weeks there was an accumulation of matters from the complete failure of a some seminarians to clean their apartments to a coordinated effort to subvert a presentation on issues surrounding aging, simply because the seminarians were upset at its timing. The seminary closed with a worship service though many had already left. Yet, it was a year of learning, especially for the staff, and hopefully for seminarians. Some things would have to change.

After a long semester break, the staff trickled in to prepare for year 3 of the seminary's existence. The full time staff reported along two new members. One is a highly competent academic assistant who would shoulder the load of handling schedules of all sorts, attendance records, room assignments, keys to the new lecterns, and other things. Her Germanic background will serve her well in keeping it all straight. The other is a lecturer from Cape Town and is well-acquainted with many of the people here. He brings a highly developed sense of humor, dedication to the church, and deep sense of grace. It was quickly apparent that his presence would make a significant difference at all levels of the seminary. So, two were added to our number of 8 full time staff. It was inevitable that the character of the group would not be the same.

The seminarians came later, all 90 of them. That's up from 77 at the end of 2010. They included about 50 returnees, and a combination of 40 new faces made up of Methodist probationers, students from other denominations and private students. Like the full time staff, a drastic change was poised to launch. In a major way, the seminary had taken a sharp turn in a different direction before the first hymn was sung. How this would play out as we reconvened was unknown.

The seminary officially re-opened Sunday, Jan. 23 the way it closed, with a worship service. As the seminarians arrived, we received smiles, handshakes and hugs from many. My first clue that something was different could not have been predicted from the demographics described above. Last semester, there was a seminarian that never looked directly at me, much less said anything to me. A day or two before the opening, she was on campus and, as we were about to pass each other, she stopped, held out her hand and said "Hello, Doug." Now, three weeks into the year, she always speaks to me. But back to opening day.

In one of the large outdoor common areas, six to eight of the returning seminarians stood in a shady spot and began to sing a little. The informal chorus grew as as more arrived. This went on for nearly thirty minutes until they finally filled the open space, voices reverberating off the surrounding seminary buildings. Then, without a command, they sort of "lined up" into a loose formation and walked to the chapel in a slow, celebratory cadence, bringing with them the joy of their songs. It brought to mind the psalmist directing us to " . . . come into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. . ." It wasn't planned. It just happened.

The service itself was electric from the entry to the exit. It was a day of joyful anticipation.

Since that day, seminarians have come up to me to say that it's a different feeling from last year, a new spirit. And it is starting to show up in other ways. In Cheri's last blog she alluded to the workbook we developed, not as a constant assignment but to direct seminarians to take seriously their field experiences and reflect on how they affect their lives and ministries. The first week of field eduction is complete and the first reflections turned in. Let's describe the result this way: we suddenly had around 80 reflections/reports to read before Tuesday. So, we peeked at a few, then could not put them down until we had finished reading and marking all of them. They met, and in many cases, exceeded all our hopes and expectations.

It's early yet, but there is tangible hope that these experiences in the field will become a part of seminarian transformation as people and as ministers. Still there are no laurels to be worn. This, like many successes, is temporal. It only opens the door to more possibilities. Yet we continue to be confounded and surprised at the amazing grace that blesses each of our days. May it be so for all of you.

LIFE AS A STAFF MEMBER

by Cheri Roland

“Ach, shame!” is the Afrikaners' response when we relay the events of the past two weeks to our walking club pals. “Whew!” is probably the equivalent American exclamation. Who knew how complex and time consuming registering and orienting 99 students would be? After this adventure, our hats go off to teachers and administrators at all levels of the educational spectrum. It is just short of a real life miracle.

As I was emailing friends a thumbnail sketch of our activities the first six months as staff members of the Seth Mokitimi Methodist Seminary (SMMS), it occurred to me that we haven’t really explained what has kept us occupied from 7:30-4:30 Monday through Friday since August 2010. Since neither of us has ever been on staff (pronounced staaahf) of an institution of higher learning before, we had no clue what we would actually be doing when we bid goodbye to the familiar last July. Additionally, our son suggested that perhaps several of our blog readers might be puzzled by how we became staff members of a seminary in South Africa.
“Why are you here?” is the frequently asked question. Our pat answer is, “Because the Lord told us to come.” That sounds rather presumptuous or sanctimonious or preposterous, and perhaps all three. But the fact is for several years we had been focused on our desire to give back, to step out in faith, to be used for something bigger, all those warm and fuzzy phrases that make you want to retch. There was a lot of discernment during this process that didn’t make sense until His timing and plan came together, and BLAM - there we were, and our prayers to be used by Him actually caught up with us! As it came to pass, Doug’s background of 4 ½ years teaching plus 35 years in transactional law and mediation translated into a skills set perfect for our current task. My job nursing for 22 years with Tampa’s jail population provided me with great stories and a wide range of experiences teaching, assessing and managing diseases, people and processes. Through an amazing journey guided by other Christians’ encouragement and faith, we finally landed in this small university town charged with helping to birth an infant ministerial training center for all of southern Africa.

Before leaving,one of our biggest concerns in coming here was that we would be bored. Ach, shame! But not to worry! God heard that prayer, too. We, in typical American fashion, hit the ground running in August and haven’t looked back. Now we run out of hours in a day. You should see my desk, or not…

Seminarians are different animals than theology trained students at a university: seminarians are being prepared to be pastors with their hearts and hands engaged to serve others, not simply their intellect. And that is where “the Americans” fit into the plan. Our first priority was to assess the current “field work” program, experiences designed to introduce the seminarians to encounters with the widest range of vulnerable people possible. What parts of the existing program were or were not working? We found a structure that had potential but lacked oversight. Because of a three way breakdown in communication, the program had imploded before we arrived. Yet, because this is a required core course, we needed to be able to evaluate seminarians at semester’s end. Oddly enough, the country-wide strike of hourly paid workers came to our rescue.

One day in September the entire seminary volunteered en mass at a huge psychiatric hospital across town to help reduce the suffering of those patients and support the few committed nurses brave enough to cross the strikers’ picket lines. Several seminarians even continued to help out for weeks, whenever their schedule allowed. So, when SMMS needed an agency to accommodate all those registered in the field work class, the hospital kindly accepted 70 volunteers every Thursday afternoon for a month, with the nursing supervisors dutifully filling out evaluation forms for us. The processes, paperwork and organization involved in mobilizing 70 people for this task was eye opening. Besides stationing students in the wards to foster one-on-one relationships, we had painters who transformed the day care center and crews who weeded the huge on-site vegetable garden, using supplies and equipment provided by the Seminary.

So we were able to avert a potential red tape crisis. But after the Academic Board meeting earlier this week, we were welcomed into the real world of realities and responsibilities of having detailed course outlines and class notes submitted before the course even begins, of intricacies of evaluating students’ work, of moderators who continually check if your course and grading are consistent and with your projected outcomes. There is so much more behind the scenes happening that funnels into that final grade on a transcript. May I again offer a heartfelt “Ach Shame.”

Concurrently with rescuing the existing field work we were building creating a directory of humanitarian organizations already doing the Lord’s work in and around Pietermaritzburg. I’ve lost track of how many agencies we surprised with cold calls, and how many referrals we followed up. We think our strange accent was an asset; doors were opened out of sheer curiosity. Brits, Canadians or Americans too naïve to know better? Soon we were getting around town with the help of Garmin and our new car (another story). We invited prospective partners to visit us in our (impressive) facility, offering them a sense of the mission driving these partnerships. As we forged relationships and and set up training for the seminarians, we quickly concluded the program needed a fresh face. Even the name needed tweaking; seminarians equated “field work” with slave labor. How could their perception of punishment be transformed into an emulation of Jesus’ servanthood? Or in nursing language, how does one become infected with compassion?

While we lined up the agencies which mutually fit our requirements, we were still struggling with the details of the overhaul. How could we effect a critical attitude change, credibility, supervision, on-going evaluations, weekly attendance, topped off with ensuring communication between seminary staff and agency, agency and seminarian, and staff and seminarian? In November, shortly before the close of our first semester, one of the seminarians brought us her workbooks from a previous Bible college course. Voila! This was another answer to prayer, providing us with the idea for a framework upon which to hang our proposed program. As the seminarians left for the end of the 2010 year, Doug and I were frantically cranking out document upon document, culminating in a folder for each agency and a workbook for each seminarian, hopefully solving our multifaceted dilemmas. Ross, our president, worked for hours with me and my ignorance of the computer’s capabilities to turn out the finished products. What a wonderful Christmas present those prototypes were! We were able to leave for our time off without the nagging anxiety of unfinished business hanging over our heads.

In the meantime, I was the “school nurse”; another story. Sufficient to say, we continue to learn what it means to be a Seth Mokitimi Methodist Seminary staff member. Never a dull moment :)