A letter from Rachel Weller serving in Ethiopia
September 2014 - Community Health Evangelism
Dear Friends,
CHE TOT II training. All training is done in a circle to facilitate the principle of participation. Sitting in the same circle as the trainees, the facilitator draws out from the group the knowledge they already have.
The Gambella group: Rev. Matthew Doleak, Ms. Ariet Philip, Rachel, Rev. Stephen Tonngyik, Mr. John Okuch
Grace demonstrates hand pollenation at a neighbor's watermellon patch, a technique necessary for greenhouse gardening.
Grace learned how to raise hydroponically grown barley, which she uses to feed the pigs and cows.
Grace raises pigs that are the core of her income now days.
Back at the Internship house on Monday, we discussed bee-keeping. Henry taught us how to make and manage a Kenya Bar Top bee-hive. We discussed all the uses for the products of a beehive.
With six dogs to love and protect her, Grace will never be lonely.
I am writing you from Nairobi, Kenya, where I have been for the past couple of weeks. I came here with four colleagues from Gambella to participate in a five-week internship for Community Health Evangelism (CHE—pronounced 'chay'). World Mission and First Presbyterian Church, Spokane, Wash., provided the funds to get all five of us here and even at the halfway point, we all agree, the money was well spent. We come with various interests and experience with CHE but will leave here enthusiastic and ready for the challenge of putting our new ideas to work.
Rev. Matthew Doleak is the current head of the Department of Mission & Theology for the West Gambella Bethel Synod (WGBS). He is the CHE champion I had been waiting for, very enthusiastic and ready to go home and put into practice what we have learned and experienced. Ms. Ariet Phillip had started some CHE programs at the East Gambella Bethel Synod (EGBS) before she left to complete a degree in social work. She already practices CHE principles in her home community and is now collecting more ideas and confidence to rejuvenate the previous programs. Rev. Stephen Tongyik had started presenting the idea of CHE with the WGBS community in Gambella several years ago, so the internship is clarifying the process for him. John Okoch has a job in finance with the government and is an active member of the EGBS community in Gambella. His understanding of finances will be very beneficial as we organize to form businesses or cooperatives.
Community Health Evangelism is a set of principles that are taught in a participatory method to promote transformational community change based on Jesus' command to "go into all the world and preach my gospel to every nation" and to reach "Jerusalem, Judea, and the ends of the earth." In response to Jesus' command to heal the sick, the program emphasizes disease prevention and practices that promote general healthy living. While I may have gone to the "ends of the earth," my fellow interns from Ethiopia and Kenya are aiming at "Jerusalem and Judea." When we return to Gambella we will work on a strategy to teach the principles to as many church members as we can. As they learn the methods and principles they will in turn teach people in their own communities. In this way, those who already follow Jesus will be strengthened and those who don't know him will be introduced.
Our internship started with joining the second week of Training of Trainers (TOT II) in which we (as future CHE trainers) learned to use the participatory method to teach CHE lessons. Lessons, which are really more like discussions, include subjects like understanding the difference between relief and development, identifying solvable problems, identifying resources already available, and forming managerial committees. The CHE program has prepared hundreds of lessons regarding specific sicknesses, especially preventable ones like worms, malaria, HIV, etc. There are lessons to understand the Women's Cycle of Life, lessons for children's groups, lessons on disabilities, lessons to learn farming methods, and lessons about running microenterprises. Obviously we didn't cover all of them, but we got the gist and learned how to use the prepared lessons in the participatory way that CHE teaches.
After TOT II was finished we moved into the internship. First we spent time reviewing the teaching method by going through more of the different sections to get a better idea of what lessons are available and to understand how, even though we may not be experts in the given topic, we will be able to facilitate change-bringing discussions. A field trip took us to a couple of children's CHE programs in slum and very poor areas of Nairobi. A school was formed as a result of one, and at another the parents requested that a worship center be created.
In the second and third weeks we learned how to make a Kenya Top Bar beehive and talked about the benefits of bee-keeping. We visited a one-woman, one-acre farm from which Grace, the farmer, has been able to supply all her needs including school fees for her four children, putting them all through college after her husband died. We spent two days on her farm talking about pig-raising, keeping cows, rabbits, and quail. She showed us how she grows hydroponic barley for the pigs and cows. She demonstrated how she started her farm with a drip irrigation system using kitchen wastewater to grow vegetables even in the dry season! And she showed us her commercial farming in her greenhouses and in the large outside gardens nearby. Besides hearing some practical information from Grace, we were inspired by her strength and perseverance.
In the next two weeks our discussions and field trips will involve looking at microenterprises, developing savings and credit schemes, visiting rural CHE programs, and talking with missionaries involved in "creative access" CHE work (that is, working in areas where it may be dangerous to talk about Jesus directly).
I will leave you in suspense until we complete the program and then send you another report.
While you're suspended, though, consider partnering with a CHE community in a different place from where you are—they are all over the world. I believe CHE gives us a chance to develop strong partnerships that give us the freedom to focus on sharing what God is doing in different parts of the world. Because the whole idea of CHE is to encourage community development with minimal outside funding along with building strong Christian communities, we should be able to come together more freely and share more deeply what we experience of God in our own lives and communities.
You are reading this because you care. And we are grateful because your caring and support sustain us.
Rachel Weller
P.S.: I've posted some pictures on my Picasa Web Albums. You can see them by clicking on this link:
https://picasaweb.google.com/112636359413151385290/CHEInternshipKenya?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCKaL4uuX1-2zDg&feat=directlink
Feel free to share this letter, the pictures, and the link.
The 2014 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 133
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