November 2024

The Lutheran Mission Rural Health Centre (Mwembezhi) in Zambia has been
providing both physical and spiritual help to both the clients and patients in its 63
years of existence. It is the hand of God that has brought us this far. God established
this work through His missionaries and their wives who were serving this area at a
time when it was most difficult to live in Africa. Today the clinic stands tall with its
ever-increasing population which has grown significantly since the 1990’s. The area
has witnessed growth in both population and infrastructure since the area was
declared a district in 2011 by the President at that time. There would have been even
more growth in population and infrastructure had the President lived to see his vision
through.

The clinic serves eight separate areas within our catchment and was seeing about
eighteen thousand eight hundred people per year. In 2023 The Zambia government
built two new health posts within our catchment area. These health posts were
designed to provide people with a clinic closer to their homes rather than travel to
Mwembezhi. The Mutombe Health post is located about eight kilometres from our
clinic and the Shikatende health post is about twelve Kilometres from Mwembezhi.
Each health post was given a population of around five thousand people to serve
thereby lowering the population served at Mwambezhi by around 10,000. However, it
did not work out that way. People prefer coming to Mwembezhi over the health posts
for reasons such as “at the Mwembezhi clinic they pray to God” and “offer Bible
reading” (devotion), they have drugs and at the centre there are “Doctors” available
(Doctors in this case meaning medical staff in white coats). True to the peoples’
words, we are vessels of God sent for the sake of providing physical and spiritual
help to our brothers and sisters in that area. As a team, we believe that the clinic is a
Christ-centered facility. We treat, but Jesus Christ heals.

I am grateful to hear how people in the area praise God and mostly I hear them
saying “Leza alelekwe pakutupa chibadela cha Lutheran” meaning that “May the
name of God be glorified for giving us the Lutheran clinic”. Hearing of the nice
comments reminds me of the favour of God in our lives and how we ought to be
grateful to Him. We are grateful for everything that God allowed us to see and do this
year and remain grateful to all who pray for and support the Clinic. Let’s encourage
each other to live for God and be grateful to Him, especially around this time.

As children of God let’s remember what He has given us despite the many
challenges we face. There is an example of two people travelling in a public bus, one
passenger (a woman) accidently spilled something on a smartly dressed passenger
(a man) who was seated next to her and his clothes became dirty. It was expected
that this smartly dressed man would get angry at the woman. But to the surprise of
everyone the man smiled and said, “It’s okay my sister, I will be dropping at the next
station and home is near.” The point is, let's not stress too much on the issues
beyond our control, rather we hand over everything to God and be grateful for what
He has given us.

With prayer and believing in God's promises it was possible to establish the clinic
that does His work now as it did 60 years ago. The God our forefathers served is the
same God today. The clinic serves as a ready platform to extend God’s grace to His
people, showing the love of Jesus to all who come. Our hope is that more will praise
God for his salvation through Jesus as well as being grateful for the medical care
given at our clinic.

Thank you for your time.

Alisad Banda
Clinic administrator – Zambia