Storyteller

When I am not commuting on the train, worshiping at various local churches, or exploring Cape Town’s beautiful tourist attractions, I am working at HOPE Africa. HOPE Africa is a social development agency that works mainly with the Anglican Church in the Province of Southern Africa. The Province of Southern Africa includes dioceses throughout South Africa, Namibia, Angola, and Mozambique. HOPE Africa works with these dioceses and parishes in order to promote social development programs. It’s goal is to support the church and local communities in strengthening society’s holistic well being. To that end the organization raises funds, forms partnerships, and provides educational opportunities.


And my role within the organization? I have been asked to write HOPE Africa’s story, to be a "storyteller." (This is of particular interest to me because I understand storytelling to be one important aspect of being a missionary.) As someone new to HOPE Africa, I see the organization through fresh eyes and will see both its growing edges and its strengths. In order to write the story, I must first get the facts. This learning process includes becoming intimately familiar with organizational documents, interviewing HOPE Africa’s stakeholders, constituencies, partners, etc., and traveling with staff members in the field to gain firsthand experience.

My first “in the field” experience occurred this week when a co-worker and I made a trip to Somerset Hospital on Cape Town’s waterfront. Part of HOPE Africa’s social development mission is to promote health within communities. One way they do this is by giving grants to hospitals. Somerset Hospital approached HOPE Africa to request funds for new monitoring equipment. Therefore we made our way to the hospital at their invitation to view the facilities.

Somerset is directly across the street from the new soccer stadium used during South Africa’s recent hosting of the World Cup this past June-July. The hospital’s ER underwent a major face lift paid for largely by the government in order to be better equipped for the world cup. After showing us the ER’s state of the art equipment (the best in the city and probably the country) our guides then took us to the section of the hospital that still needs upgrading – the pediatrics department. This is the section the Hospital is seeking funds for.

Our hosts led us to a set of elevators, most of which were out of operation. Pediatrics, our destination, is on the fourth floor. One set of elevators was in working order. (Note, these are the only elevators for the entire hospital.) After waiting for about 7 minutes the elevator reached the ground floor, we crowed into the car with a host of doctors and staff only to stop at the second floor where a patient in a gurney needed to be transported to the first floor. We filed out of the elevator to allow the patient access and then we hiked the remaining two floors. Once we arrived on the fourth floor we walked down a long corridor to the oldest section of the hospital (which was built in 1856) where pediatrics is located.

The building is nice in an old fashioned sort of way. It reminded me of Ellis Island. The ceilings were high vaulted and the patient rooms held about twenty beds. There was no in door ventilation system for heating or cooling, only opened windows. We traipsed down the passageway, lined with wooden lockers filed with sheets, to pediatrics and entered the high vaulted room. Almost every bed was occupied. Babies slept or cried in their rainbow painted barred cribs. Some had their mothers sitting next to them, others were alone. They were there for various reasons but our hosts told us that the highest cause of hospitalization and death in infants in South Africa is diarrhea.

Three of the twenty plus beds had monitors… three. The hospital is seeking funding for more.


After viewing the general pediatrics rooms we went to the neonatal intensive care unit where again, every bed was occupied. Tiny infants curled in their cribs in the high vaulted room. Doctors and nurses rushed to and fro as monitors beeped frantically. Most beds in this wing had monitors, but our hosts informed us that these monitors were from the 1980’s and not all were working correctly.

From the broken down elevators, to the lack of modern technological equipment, this hospital was an eye-opening experience for me. I worked at the Methodist Hospital in Houston as a chaplain for a summer in 2009 and I couldn’t help comparing the two institutions. I hope that HOPE Africa will provide funds for Somerset so that they can advance their institution. It is a pleasure to work for an agency that supports projects for the betterment and well-being of the community. I look forward to learning more about the important work HOPE Africa is involved in. For now, my first in the field experience has left me with a lot to process and a lot to be grateful for.