Letters From Chris

Dr. Chris Hena is a missionary of the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church.  In that capacity she is serving as the Project Coordinator for GBGM's Health and Relief, and is seeking to establish Community Based Primary Health Care units in Eastern Kazahkstan.  These units train local helath workers to promote better health practices in their communities.  She also serves as a physician in a hospital in the area and provides medical services to several Kazahkstan villages.

 

This is her last letter. 

 

Dear Friends and Family  

 Greetings from Semipalatinks, Kazahkstan. It’s been a long time since I wrote. Hope you’ve not used all the adjectives in Webster’s dictionary to describe how terrible I am (smile). If you’ve done so, please forgave me. I wish it was possible to add more hours to my day, but as you know this is only a dream.

 My last general e-mail was in April before leaving the States. I am going to begin where I left off; our health project is still in the five villages I told you about. We had to leave the Abai region—Karaul, where we worked for almost a year. Karaul was almost 3 hrs drive from Semey—very bad roads. However, we traveled there weekly, and lived under very poor conditions. We invested most of our resources and time, but our local partners were not willing to work according to the terms in the contract. After long discussions with our local partners in Semey—the diagnostic center, we agreed it was time to leave. I must say it was hard to make that decision to leave, because we had gotten used to working with the population. Obviously, our move was very peaceful--we left the doors open to return whenever they were ready to work. Occasionally, we get calls from patients and their family living there. Looking back at the situation, I must say we made the right decision to leave

 at the time we did.

 Almost 14 months ago we started working in Beskaragai region and are enjoying working with the people very much. As I mentioned, our work quickly spread to five villages. We now have 13 community health workers in the field. They have greater responsibilities in caring for their population on a daily basis. With the exception of one, they are all non-medical health workers performing medical duties after receiving basic training in different health topics. Weekly, our Semey team shares with them new skills. Needless to say some of our health workers are more active than others, but on the whole they are wonderful people and workers—committed to serving their people. Their communities are now referring to them as doctors. I am very proud and excited for them--good self esteem and respect. What a blessing—taking health into their own hands. We are hoping to expand our community based primary health care project to other villages in the region. The concept of community based

 primary health care is very unique to this area, given their previous experience with the Soviets health style—doing everything for the community. It is good for me to see people gradually been responsible for their own health issues.

 On my first Home Assignment in Texas and Oklahoma with Dinara, donations were made to the Board of Global Ministries for us to buy some needed lab equipments for the hospital we were working at. Due to the situation at the hospital, we decided not to purchase the lab equipments, but wait and see. I am delighted we didn’t purchase the equipments, because it would have been impossible for us to take—a special law in Kazahkstan. Once equipments are given to a hospital it could not be taken back by the donors, even though, the partners couldn't follow the terms in the contract.

 Beskaragai, where we work now is desperately in need of basic lab equipments. However, since we are working in five villages, we need equipments that will be portable, low maintenance and a trained lab tech. Several months ago, we contacted a company here and we were placed on their list to get what we needed from Russia. Several weeks ago, they brought just the opposite of what we need. We are still looking and contacting other companies. By the way, we now have our own dental Unit with a portable dental chair. It took us almost a year to get this. Dr. Thomas purchased it in the States and a friend brought it back in Aug. We are desperately in need of dental care in all five of the villages. I will be interviewing a dentist this week to help us.

 To all the churches that made donations towards the lab equipments, I would like to say you can trust me that your contributions will be used wisely and every cent accounted for. The money is still at the Board in NY. My boss—Dr. Thomas was here in June and he assured us that the full amount is available when ever we can find what we need. As soon as we are able to find what we need, I will let you know.

  

 Also, on my second HA in Georgia and other places around the US, a church in Ga contributed funds for us to purchase a Van for our work. We are still in the process of locating what we need. Since our roads are horrible, we need something that will be suitable for our situation and spare parts easily available on our market. Again, I will let you know as soon as we find what we need. All funds are in NY with the Board of Global Ministries. They will only wire funds to us when we find what we need. Our little car was a problem when we had our visitors this summer, but we were able to work something out.

 Other exciting news;

 

 We had a very busy summer with different visitors; In May, we had two Swedish third year medical school students with us. They enjoyed working with us in our villages. My boss from NY was here in June. He met with all of our health workers in Semey for a health seminar, and later travel to our most active village. Shortly after he left, Dr. Mike Smith from Waco, TX and his wife Linda arrived. They were a real blessing to all the kids and their families in four of our five villages. Mike treated the kids and consulted with their parents. Both he and Linda got first hand experience of our roads, clinics, food and toilets. Linda can write a book about our toilets and walking in high heels on our train tracks (smile). Oh well! They were well received by all the people in the four villages. Our health workers learned new skills from Mike. I enjoyed hosting them in my apt and showing off my dacha with all of my wonderful vegies and fruits. Obviously, my toilet at the dacha is a

 model for what toilets should look like around here. Anyway, we can talk about this later.We also had our Sunday worship at the dacha--Mike and Dinara played the guitar. I truely enjoyed having them with us. Our fourth visitor was Tom Hoffman from Tulsa. He arrived two days after Mike and Linda left. He visited a village with us and met all of our health workers who took him to several homes to see our patients, and how we work with them.

 Our last visitor was Mariuse Green from Stillwater, OK who spend a month with us. She worked with our English Club students. She was also our oldest volunteer-75 yrs old, traveled all by herself to Semey, worked with our students and traveled to two of our villages. She was like a mother and grand mother to many of the people around here. She had more energy then most of our people her age. Before Mariuse left Semey, she had seen more of Semey than I have, even though I have been here for almost five yrs. Mariuse was a great help at our VBS that lasted for five days. I hope when I am her age, I will have the same amount of energy that she has.

 VBS was great. We had 50 kids for the five day and 8 volunteers working with them. The kids wanted the VBS to continue for five more days, but we could not. The Lord did some very special work amongst most of them. They shared their thoughts in written form on the last day. What a blessing to sow seeds into the lives of God's people. I was blessed by working with all of the volunteers and kids. We are already thinking about next year VBS. Most of the older kids would like to be volunteers next year. We had kids ages 10-15 yrs. Good age group for us to work with in this culture. Thanks to the Manchester Church in Ga for sponsporing the VBS. Also thanks to St. James in Atlanta for providing most of the crafts and to Waco for providing the funds for the meals --twice a day. Manchester, the T-shirts were great. Beautiful colors. I will send you copies of the video and CDs.

 The soup kitchen was closed for couple months this summer. The building needed some repairs. I have not met with the folks since I returned from India, but will by the end of the week.

 I guess this e-mail is getting too long, but I wanted to share all with you. I returned from India on Monday. I went with Dinara who is learning more about the concept of community based rural health care. I took this course in 1999 when I visited India for the first time. It has helped me in my work here greatly. Dinara will be there through the end of Oct. When she gets back she will be working with the health workers since we are looking at expending the program to other villages.

 On a more personal note; my plans for visiting my homeland is still on scheduled. I will be travelling there with my Swedish friends that I have known for almost 20 plus years. I am getting excited by the day. We will be there for a whole month working on different projects.

 I guess, I need to stop here and thanks to all of you again for all the support you gave to me here. You have all been a blessing to me in different ways. God richly bless you. Looking forward to working with teams wanting to come next year. You are always very welcome.

 In Him,

 Chris