This has been an amazing week filled with lots of emotions as our team as traveled to a different African Vision of Hope (AVOH) school in Zambia each day. We have seen children excited about learning, singing about Jesus enthusiastically, and looking forward to a bright future. Our team has visited the homes of 2 children each day and seen how AVOH has given these very vulnerable children hope for the future by emphasizing the importance of them accepting Jesus Christ as their Savior, studying diligently to do well on periodic government tests, and learning to be productive members of society.

I have enjoyed working with Prudence and Beauty, nurses with AVOH who visit each campus periodically to treat the children with health issues. I was impressed with the love and compassion shown in their interactions with the children. They did a very good job treating the various ailments including common and non-life-threatening illnesses such as headaches, colds, abdominal pain, and sore throat. However, after asking questions about their physical exam, diagnostic skills, and treatment of more serious conditions, it was very clear that more education was needed. I cannot recall enjoying teaching more than my time yesterday and today with Beauty and Prudence. They told me today how much they learned and can apply immediately.

The primary purpose of this trip was to determine how to work with AVOH in the future. I work with Volunteers in Medical Missions (www.vimm.org) and normally bring 10+ physicians, nurses, other healthcare professionals, and non-medical team members to provide physical and spiritual healing to people in developing nations. Early in the week, I did not feel the great expense and long travel could be justified to treat common conditions in K-12 schools. Yesterday, God clearly showed me that we can make the greatest impact by teaching Zambian nurses and other healthcare professionals. I shared my idea of bringing a team to teach one healthcare worker (nurse or other interested AVOH staff member) for each school. They need to learn better physical examination skills, developing a differential diagnosis (various disease possibilities for common presenting complaints), and current treatment guidelines. Virtually any subject brought up was an opportunity to teach. Prudence, now a 4th year medical student at the University of Lusaka, told me that they need to learn good physical exam skills, how to develop a good differential diagnosis for common complaints, how to interpret ECG’s, how to perform procedures such as placing nasogastric and Foley catheters, applying casts for fractures. She indicated that they would be very appreciative if we could supply diagnostic instruments to include stethoscopes, otoscopes, BP cuffs, and pulse oximeters.

I hope to return to Zambia either before or after my Appalachian Trail thru-hike beginning in late June 2025 to conduct this training. Ideally, I hope we can bring one person from each campus to Lusaka for the training since travel is slow and long between the various AVOH campuses. I hope to recruit physicians and nurses interested in teaching. I also hope to bring needed diagnostic instruments to help the trained healthcare workers to examine, diagnose, and treat patients. I spoke with Bob Bertel, co-founder and VP of AVOH, about my idea, and he also thought this was a great idea.

If you have read this post and not heard about African Vision of Hope, please check out this amazing Christian organization at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/africanvisionofhope/

AVOH has a website visible in the US — https://africanvisionofhope.org/