BGR launches 2010 In-Home Care Kit project
NASHVILLE, Tenn. –– Relief from suffering. A firsthand experience of Christ’s compassion. Hope for a new life free of pain in the presence of God.
These were the gifts you gave dying patients in southern Africa last year if you participated in BGR’s In-Home Care Kit project.
And if you didn’t help last year, you have the opportunity to make a difference this year!
The 2010 In-Home Care Kit project plans to send 5,000 buckets of healthcare supplies to provide a touch of physical and spiritual healing to people in sub-Saharan Africa who are dying from terminal illnesses. Last year’s project ended successfully with 3,200 kits sent to South Africa, Zambia, Kenya, Lesotho, and Mozambique.
The BGR In-Home Care Kit is a five-gallon plastic bucket filled with medical and hygiene supplies. Items in this kit will make the caregivers’ tasks much easier, but more importantly, will ease the suffering of the ones affected by the illness. Our local partners in Africa distribute the buckets in a way that gives dignity and hope to each family receiving a kit.
Gerry Helton and Melissa Frady are Southern Baptist ministry partners in Zambia who helped distribute some of the IHCK buckets. They know firsthand what a difference the kits make for families suffering with a devastating illness such as AIDS.
“People who have AIDS are suffering so much,” Helton says. “When you open the bucket and get out the salve, when you get out the sheets, there’s a smile that comes to their faces.”
“They know they are dying, but when you give someone hope for tomorrow, that they can live on in heaven – where there is no more sickness, no more death, no more pain – that smile gets even bigger,” Frady adds. “We tell them our churches are sending the buckets with love and they have prayed for them and continue to pray for them – and they just want them to know they are not alone.”
They are a valuable tool for sharing the compassion of Christ with people suffering with terminal illness, says Mark Hatfield, who with his wife, Susan, directs BGR work in Sub-Saharan Africa.
“In our situation here, the buckets are used in many kinds of situations, but mainly in HIV/AIDS palliative care networks that are based in poverty stricken areas,” Hatfield says. “Many local churches in these areas have developed in-home hospice ministries. They have the volunteers to carry out these ministries via their church membership but they have few if any physical resources to use in the care of their patients.
“What the In-Home Care Kit does is provide physical resources to these volunteers so that those who are dying are made more comfortable, given dignity in the midst of a very painful and humiliating death, and are made aware that someone living far away from them has not forgotten about their situation.”
The In-Home Care Kits also give individuals, small groups, and churches in the United States a way to do hands-on missions work without leaving the country, Hatfield adds.
“Our hope, as a secondary benefit of packing the kits, is that those involved become more aware of the HIV/AIDS crisis and can pray more effectively for the situation,” he says. “We give them a seven-day prayer guide that is designed to raise awareness of the pandemic we are experiencing. We never want to forget the importance of praying for a cure for this terrible disease, as we pack kits to comfort those living with it.”
Christians who deliver the kits in remote areas see God at work helping them as they go out to minister, says a Southern Baptist worker in Lusaka, Zambia.
“The chaplain from Chongwe was telling me how people are responding as the home-based care teams minister to people with the buckets,” says Paula Kilpatrick. “Last week they found a village woman who needed lots of care. They came home and prepared food for her, as well as taking her the things in the bucket. As they were starting out, a vehicle just ‘appeared’ and offered to take them to where they were going. When they finished at the home, the vehicle ‘appeared’ again to take them back.”
If you, your small group or Sunday school class, or your congregation would like to know more about BGR’s 2010 In-Home Care Kit project, visit www.inhomecarekit.org, e-mail bgrbuckets@gobgr.org, or call toll-free (866) 974-5623.
