Letters from Stephen & Lucy McIlhenny

  A New Project

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From: Lucy McIlhenny [mailto:lucy@bethesdaburundi.org]
Sent: 15 August 2011 11:54

"This project is an answer to my prayers"

It may sound like an oxymoron...but we recently had a very exciting committee meeting with 12 local people who have been chosen to help guide and shape the future of the Bethesda Project in Muyinga.

"This project is an answer to my prayers" were the words of Sister Goreth during our first meeting. Many of you will already know that Sister Goreth is the head of the Jean Bosco Centre for people with disabilities that we've been working with in Muyinga, but to understand her response I'll explain a little of what was said in the meeting.

Bishop Eraste started the meeting by giving a detailed explanation of the vision and the future of the project. The two main points which he outlined were:

1. The plans for Bethesda to start working in the villages of Muyinga province and use sport activities and basic bible studies to teach disability awareness and, following on from that, to teach families how to properly care for disabled people in their own home environment.

2. The aim of building a residential outdoor centre on the new land in order to provide an income and thus long term sustainability for the project.

Sister Goreth's work in the Jean Bosco Centre consists of taking people with disabilities from their villages for a period of medical treatment and then sending them home. They have recently conducted some follow up research on their work and Sister Goreth told us that: "...of the 10 children that have been sent home this year 5 have already died." She explained that the reason for this was the lack of ability and/or desire of their families to care properly for them when they returned home.

This is a shocking statistic, because of which, as you can imagine, many tears have been shed and it left us with a firm feeling of conviction that the Bethesda Project's village work would fill a vital need. And it gave rise, as I mentioned above, to Sister Goreth's belief that the Bethesda Project was to be the answer to her prayers.

There was overwhelming support from the rest of the committee as well - one member told us that he himself had had a family member with disabilities who had died because the family did not know how to care for him.

- the secretary of the Mother's Union in Muyinga, who is also on the committee, told us that she was particularly excited about the disability awareness training as she is so often in contact with mothers who have been ostracised from their families because of having a disabled child. She said that the project would not just help disabled people but would have a wider impact on their families and the whole of society.

The statistics and the stories we heard during the meeting were heartbreaking but it was encouraging to know that the project could and will change the reality of the situation. It's really exciting for us to see so clearly that God wants to work through the project in this way and that this project could be the answer to not only the prayers of Sister Goreth, but potentially to many others aswell.

Plans and prayers

We are currently doing some work in London following a wonderful two week holiday - (we are returning to Burundi on Thursday) - and while we have been away Bishop Eraste and the new committee have been looking for 4 local people to be trained up as "Disability Development Workers" who will run the work in the villages. We and Evariste will spend the next few months training them in the sport activities and at the end of the sports training we will choose 2 people to continue working for the project.

At the beginning of December Bridget Hathaway (mentioned in my last email update) will be coming out to join us in Muyinga for three months. She is experienced in "Community Based Rehabilitation" and will begin the process of training our 2 new staff in the disability awareness and basic care work that they will be doing in the villages.

Please pray for this process of choosing and training new staff. It is so important that we find the right people with a desire to help others.

Thank you so much for reading this email and sharing with us in the excitement of where the project is going. When we finished the local committee meeting, the lady who had been translating for us said that she felt it was very clear that the Bethesda Project was "about saving lives". We had the same sense of that during the meeting and felt that the need is huge for what the project can offer. Please keep praying for us and for the project.

Thank you so much and love from us both,

Steve and Lucy