Blogging from Bolivia
Saturday, December 5, 2009
By: Michael Nyenhuis

Holistic Ministry to Combat NTDs

The Bolivian jungle teems with life. I had plenty of time to observe that this week. While stranded for four hours on a steep mountain road after a landslide blocked passage, I looked up into the jungle. The lush vegetation, the orchestra of sound from birds and insects, the streams - big and small - running down the steep hillside all gave testimony to the variety of life present.

It is a beautiful landscape. Part of it, however, is dangerous to the people who make their home in the jungle. Bugs - from insects to viruses - thrive in the warm and wet climate. Many of them carry diseases.  Around the world it is clear the disease burden among people living in the tropics is higher than those living in other environments.

In the Bolivian jungle, Denge fever and cholera - two of the "Neglected Tropical Diseases" - are part of that burden. The bad news is they are common. The good news is they are relatively easy to prevent and treat. What is needed are health champions working with families and communities to raise awareness about the diseases and how to avoid them. That is where the MAP health promoters come in.

Pastor Miguel Duran Calle seems a bit out of place as one of these health champions. He is a pastor at the Evangelical church in the small city of Shinahota. His congregation is in the slow process of building a large, two-story brick church. There are no windows and doors yet and the pews sit on a very rough unfinished floor, but they worship there nonetheless.

I spoke with pastor Miguel in his office and then the studio where he broadcasts radio programs about 18 hours a day (much of it automated - he has pretty good technology). Some of those programs are on health topics, sharing the things he and his wife learned during their training as MAP health promoters.

Why did a pastor and his wife take a total of 20 weeks out of their schedule to be trained in health promotion?

"The training at MAP deeply changed my life," he told me. "I learned to tie the Gospel to practical things in people's lives. ... We are working here with many people who have real health and family problems. We are now able to reach many more people."

Pastor Miguel has taken MAP manuels on healthy homes, families and lives (which are filled with scriptue references) and turned them into Bible studies he shares with his congregation.

This new holistic ministry - caring for people's physical and emotional lives as well as their spiritual lives - has expanded his ministry.

"This is the fruit of what I learned at Chilimarca (MAP's training base)," he said. "What I learned I have put in practice and I have seen the results."

Michael