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Lugulu is Beautiful in Love and Mercy

By Terri Johns, FUM Program Manager

On Monday, February 5, we took a bus to Lugulu Hospital. We walked around the compound for a couple hours looking at each building. Unlike our hospitals, each part of Lugulu is in a separate building. The maternity ward has its own building, HIV and TB have a separate clinic, surgery is in yet another place, the men’s and women’s wards and even the laundry and kitchen are separate buildings.

There is evidence of FUM within these walls. The adopta- bed plaques above a few beds and the large sign for the Edith Ratcliff Maternity Ward are most notable. Then there are the baby blankets crocheted by some of our USFW members. We saw these wrapped around a couple of happy babies, and others were used to decorate the tables for our meal.

In one area Brent McKinney and Sylvia Graves each planted a tree as a symbol of hope and our continued involvement with Lugulu Hospital. The symbolism of growth and unity was powerful.

Lugulu is clean and cheerful in one of the wards—the one with all the curtain partitions they have sewn (thanks to Northwest Yearly Meeting who brought the machines, fabric and good sewing instructors). In other places, however, it looks rather frightening to be a patient there.

I found it difficult to be inside the men’s ward for more than a minute. The smell of death and disease there was near nauseating. My chest was constricted, and I felt I couldn’t breathe. I don’t think it was all because of the smell, however. There was something else. Maybe I felt like I was invading a person’s privacy. Maybe I was embarrassed by 30 of us traipsing into a stranger’s sick room. Or maybe it was the hurt inside me for the person in the bed. Quite possibly it was a mixture of each of those. But I also wonder if I wasn’t just a bit embarrassed by the facilities we have to offer these sick folk.

We, in America, go to clean, white, “germ-free” hospitals with state-of-the-art equipment. We expect the best or we sue. We demand high-quality, professional service—“nothing but the best”—and we spend millions of dollars on optional surgeries.

Then there is Lugulu. It is none of those things, yet Lugulu has a staff known for its excellence in patient care. There are nurses, doctors and others who go out of their way to share Jesus with their patients. They arrange home visits and care for the whole person with a focus on bringing quality of life to even the most advanced cases of HIV or TB.

Is it a beautiful place? The grounds are muddy, the buildings are old and the equipment is outdated and rusty. But, is it beautiful? From a spiritual perspective, you bet! The staff members love the Lord, and they love their jobs. They care for the patient even when the patient cannot pay. They share their faith and their love for God with each patient.

Lugulu is beautiful, just not by American standards.