Virginia Synod meets Initial Malaria Goal!!
As of today (19 August 2014), the Virginia Synod has given $232,152.17 to the ELCA Malaria Campaign!! We have achieved the goal set for us by the ELCA of giving $230,000 by the year 2015. THANK YOU for all of your hard work and for helping to make malaria history!
BUT WE ARE NOT DONE! While we have reached our ELCA goal, our internal synod goals were a bit higher — $250,000 by 2015 and a significant sustainment effort to run indefinitely into the future. We will not abandon our sisters and brothers in Africa nor in Papua New Guinea as they continue to work diligently to prevent and recover from this and other diseases.
Congregations — Resources are available for your use on the Team 2017and ELCA Malaria websites.
Pastors — please make a special emphasis on the plight of families suffering from malaria in your sermons, remind your congregations howour church is helping those families, and encourage continued giving to sustain the progress made so far. Add special prayer petitions during worship for those who suffer from malaria.
Parishioners — please give designated gifts to the ELCA Malaria Campaign. Please put a check in the offering plate for the least of these children that our Heavenly Father loves like we love our very own.
PLEASE DONATE NOW ON-LINE or give through your congregation.
“I want to thank the church malaria program who came to visit us here in the community,” says this grateful mother in Angola, pictured here at the local health center with her children.
The outreach strategy of the Lutheran malaria program in Angola is a community-based, grassroots effort. Activistas-community volunteers trained in malaria prevention and control through the Lutheran program-visit households in person to educate community members about malaria and to help identify health issues that may be affecting some members of the household. This door-to-door campaign has been the main form of community outreach for the Lutheran malaria program in Angola, and it is demonstrating success.
The Lutheran malaria program in Angola reports that in the first half of 2014, the door-to-door campaign reached 143 households in Angola. Through these visitations, a reported 1,287 household members learned how malaria is transmitted, how to recognize its symptoms and to seek medical treatment promptly. Activistas also identified five cases of suspected malaria, and were able to identify and educate about other health issues as well. Those with health issues were encouraged to visit the local health center for diagnosis and treatment.
Before she met the trained volunteers from the Lutheran malaria program, the woman pictured here was reluctant to take her child to the health center for treatment. “Two Activistas came to me telling me about the importance of visiting a health center,” she explained. She did so, and her child was successfully treated for malaria.
