Jeevan Sahara Kendra

I realise that we put a lot more on this blog about our dull and uninteresting lives than about our rather exciting work!

Here are a few pics to help you orientate your minds to patr of it!

The first piccy is of the sign above the door of the project. The name means "centre for life and hope". Thankfully the name is quite appropriate for most of our patients.

The next picture is of some of the team at jsk.
From Left to right- Ebeneezer, Soni, Seema, Shanti, Arun and me. The team was made smaller recently when all 3 of our nursing staff and one of our field workers left quite suddenly amidst difficult circumstances. However I was really encouraged by the fact that there were 13 people at our staff meeting last Friday, of which 3 people were patients who now work for us, and 4 were volunteers.

The third photo shows our in-patient area. Since the nurses left we had been unable to offer any in-patient services (only out-patient). By God's grace We do not think that anyone has died who would have lived if our in-patient service had continued for that time. However last Wednesday we had a new patient come to see us who was very sick, and had already been told by 2 government hospitals that she would die soon, and been discharged without treatment.
Amazingly.... A lady who had some nursing training, and we were expecting to come to help us at some stage once we had found her a place to live...... Just turned up that day, with her bags!! We therefore arranged to admit the sick lady, and Our new Nurse also stayed at the centre to care for her. We started treatment, and she responded really well, and was discharged after 1 1/2 weeks yesterday. She will continue treatment at home, and there is a Church volunteer who is linked to the case who will help with follow-up counselling and practical support (eg. food). This is a great example of our vision. We want to see God's people reaching out to bless and love people with HIV. Jesus would have done it!

The last picture is of part of our ceiling. Every time a patient dies we stick a star to the ceiling. There are about 70 stars there. It is very moving.