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Michelle and Andy anxiously check in patients at the H3 Medical Camp. “We have to hurry and register as many as we can,” says Michelle. Andy notes, “There are so many people standing outside the gate, there is no way we can do this.” Andy feels overwhelmed and wants to start earlier tomorrow. He has to make a difference. Michelle wasn’t sure she wanted to come on the trip because she’s a violin player in the local orchestra- not a health professional. At the wrap up meeting she says, “I feel so useless and emotionally wasted. I only had a smile to give these desperate folks.”
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Reading books on short term missions both helps and discourages. Talking to long term missionaries about the encouragement they get from short termers coming and “making a mess” is confusing. One can’t look at the numbers or really try to understand the scope of poverty without a sense of utter despair. Some organizations are narcissistic enough to believe they can do it all: “REACHING THE WORLD FOR CHRIST.”
After years of post-trip decompression meetings, we finally started to gain traction on the frustration and desperate feeling of never being enough. Jesus said it best when he spoke in parables about the widow’s mite and the lost lamb. The Kingdom of Heaven is made up of individuals.
So, we asked ourselves a different question. What if we could vertically integrate H3 and look at truly caring for just one person well? Enter our partners in Uganda: Pastor Rogers, the session and members of New City Church; African Bible University; Dr.’s Nick and Sam; Aunt Alice Biira with her ultrasound machine and amazing family of pharmacists, nurses, and volunteers; Dr Nicolette Barungi Nabukeera and her endless supply of quality medical interns; The Rotary Clubs of Kampala and Lubowa; Zana Church and School; Sports Outreach; Engineering Ministries International; The Alternative and Complementary Medicine practice of Kampala; Mulago and Mekere Referral Hospital; Dr. Ephraim Kinsella and Christian Medical Ministries of Uganda; Lindsay Pizzuto and her NP friends from Germany; SIM Mission House; and on and on.
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In business terms, vertical integration refers to the combination of stages of production normally operated by separate companies. For a missions organization like H3, vertical integration looks like care for the whole individual person, from head to heart to hands.
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Welcome to H3 Uganda. From our first chaotic, overwhelming, but beautiful camps we now have employees and critical partnerships in Uganda providing vertically integrated whole person health care with physical and spiritual support. We are able to provide food, transportation, and medications for patients deemed most critical. Monies to provide operations and home health care during the convalescent phase are made available through your generous giving and tracked with redundant accounting principles. Local pharmacists negotiate the best rates and critically evaluate the quality of medications we use and dispense in camps. Followup care and management are provided by Ugandan physicians. Wise contracting and pricing are negotiated with local hospitals and clinics for lab, imaging, ancillaries, advanced, and inpatient services.
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H3 Uganda is able to provide for the most vulnerable (Matt. 25:40) and draws them into the loving arms of the local church in Kampala.
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When you vertically integrate and focus on one person, Michelle’s smile becomes a critical part of the care Ms. Namuli received from the H3 Team for her critical lung disease. Andy gets to see he made a difference. Will you partner with us to be part of the next life we change?
~ Jeremy
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