Louisa Duke, Lauren Hickmon, and Elizabeth Woodroof are in Zambia at Namwianga Mission. Lauren and Elizabeth work with high school students as well as with the many babies being cared for at the mission. Louisa works at the medical clinic as a physicians assistant and helps to treat the babies, also.
Louisa says they care for about 30 babies at the Haven and at Roy Merritt’s house. Many of these babies are AIDS orphans, and some are HIV positive themselves. When medicines are available in the clinic they see 50 to 150 patients a day, about half children. Many of these people walk or bike long distances to come for help. Louisa recently treated a seven-year-old boy with a badly cut foot who had been brought to the clinic by a three-hour bicycle ride.
Louisa needs medicines to be able to do her work–antibiotics, worm medicine, malaria medicine, vitamins, tylenol, cough medicine, oral rehydration solution, and more. The Zambian government is supposed to supply a medicine kit each month to the clinic, but for the past six months or so this medicine has not been sent. It is not uncommon now for a sick person to walk 20 kilometers to the clinic only to find that no treatment is available. Louisa is trying to raise funds for medicines which can be purchased in Lusaka, about a five-hour trip from Namwianga. This will most likely be an ongoing need.
Any donations can be given to College Church in Searcy, Arkansas, marked for Louisa Duke’s Zambia Medicine fund.
College Church of Christ
712 East Race
Searcy, AR 72143
