After much anticipation, the medical portion of the Barefoot Doctors instruction began two days ago. Apart from Dr. Bjorn Nilson who will be directing the project for the remaining five weeks, the first two weeks will be filled with teaching from Dr. Susan Parker, public health nurse Lynda Audia, and Dr. Jove Graham. All three have taught at the Barefoot Doctors course in the past and are excited to get to know the new students.

From an instructors perspective, it is interesting to see how the students begin to come to terms with medical concepts. The student's educational backgrounds range across what would likely be considered secondary school in the West, and their home learning has taught them a different core knowledge from what we in the West have all grown up with. For instance, many could identify several species of poisonous snakes in their area, and will sometimes reveal cultural practices regarding various plant based remedies to common (and sometimes uncommon) ailments. Fortunately, we have two translators Tim and Sarep helping translate both the language and the culture!

As we began to teach about various disease processes, we realized that most students had stumbled over the concept of bacteria and viruses. Our culture benefits from constant exposure to this distinction, and even the ability to see microscopic organisms growing up via science classes and popular media. Consequently, we are working with group activities and lectures to build some conceptual basis of this idea, with the goal being it will reinforce the idea of antibiotic stewardship.

We've also begun progressing through our main "syllabus" Where There Is No Doctor, although we leave roughly half the day to explore unanticipated questions or knowledge gaps, come up with educational games to keep the student's attention, and take a few breaks for tea and snacks.  

Post by Dr. Jove Graham

CHE Training Finishes Up

The students' first week of CHE training is over.  The facilitators, David Crist and Eric and Shannon Wiederholt, are very pleased with the participation level all week long.

Morning and afternoon every day the students stayed engaged in the learning process.  They spent Monday through Wednesday learning how CHE works and what it's 12 Core Values are.  

Then on Thursday and Friday the students got to teach 10 lessons in groups of two.  They used the CHE method to teach one-hour lessons on Nutrition, Clean Water, Hygiene, Diarrhea and many other topics.

On Thursday afternoon Dr. Bjorn Nilson, our Medical Director, showed up.  He was introduced to everyone and then spent the next couple of hours observing the CHE training.  He was also given the answers to the questionnaires the students had filled out so that he could fine-tune the lesson plans for Monday and beyond.

On Friday afternoon, CHE finished up with a brief ceremony in which every student received a certificate for completing this part of their training. The CHE instructors will return again in years 2 and 3 for further community health and development training. We are grateful for the many things they taught our students last week.

Cameras for Their Medical Work

The second Sunday evening the students were at the KLC they were given new digital cameras for their medical work.  Some of them have never had a camera like this, so they were very excited to receive them. 

The cameras were a gift from New Hope Christian Church in Virginia. The congregation there was happy to have some tangible way to express their support of this ministry and to let the students know they are important to us all.

The idea behind the cameras is for the students to be able to keep a visual log of every medical case that they see when they get home.  Their photos will be used by the teachers in the 2nd and 3rd years of training as they discuss the symptoms observed as a class and then work through the diagnosis and treatment of each case together.

The cameras are very small but have a lot of capability to take sharp images for the whole class to see at one time.  There is an easy macro setting which allows high resolution photos to be taken from only a couple of inches away.  The SD cards are large enough to hold hundreds of photographs.

Hopefully, they will all return next year with SD cards full of pictures that will prove useful to their training.

Sad News to Share: One Student Returned Home

We have some sad news to share today. One of our students, Maung Ni Chay, is going home.

Three days ago Ni Chay received word from his family that his brother had been seriously injured in a fight with the Rohingya Muslims in their area. They live in Rhakine State where the news has been carrying stories for many weeks about clashes between the Burmese and the Rohingyas.

The stories vary as to who is responsible for what, but it is obviously a very deep crisis for Myanmar right now.  Hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas have gone back and forth between Myanmar and Bangladesh, and many foreigners are in both countries trying to relieve the suffering.

The local Burmese in Ni Chay's area are very angry, and these fights are breaking out frequently.  His brother may not survive his injuries, so Ni Chay was very upset when he left.  His brother's death would leave Ni Chay the one man in his family.  We provided him bus fare and airfare home so he could get there to take care of his brother who has not even been taken to a hospital. It is too far away.  Please pray that Ni Chay's brother will survive. Also pray with us that Ni Chay can be a peacemaker in that terrible situation.

Meanwhile, we have received reports that some of our Barefoot Doctors are carrying on an amazing ministry to both Rohingyas and Burmese, sometimes at the same time in the same place!  Please lift San San Win in prayer, in particular, because she is in a difficult spot.  God is using her in a powerful way.  We had hoped that Ni Chay would provide us another Barefoot Doctor in that strife-filled area, but now we are looking to God to provide other ways to do His work there.

Community Health Evangelism Training Continues

We have had a couple more days of good training by our CHE facilitators, Eric and Shannon.  David also got in on the action every once in a while.

On Wednesday we learned some interesting things about some of the villages and tribes our students come from.  They were telling us some of the odd beliefs they have grown up hearing in various places.  These were kind of like our superstitions, but some of them are taken very seriously.

For instance, in one tribe the number 9 is considered bad luck (well, worse than that!) They avoid the number 9 any time they can.  If they have a large taxi/truck and 9 people happen to get on, the driver will pick up a "stone boy" and put him in the taxi also. That way he has 10 riders, not 9!  (On the other hand, the number 9 is considered very lucky in Thailand, just the opposite!  This is because the new king of Thailand has 9 children, I am told.)

Another example of a false belief:  If a person wants to plant bamboo, they dare not do so until they have been married for 3 years or they have reached the age of 40.  A young single person would never think of planting bamboo because that may cause great injury or death.  Another belief:  if your palms are itching it can mean one of two things. If your right palm itches, you are going to get some money that day. If your left palm is itching, you are going to lose some money that day.

Some of these false beliefs can have a fairly serious impact. In one tribe it is believed that a new mother's first milk is actually bad for her baby.  We know, however, that just the opposite is true, so their babies miss out on the good God intends for them. Of course, in the CHE training the students are being taught how to address these false beliefs and ideas in a way that does not offend.

Thanks for continuing to pray for them as they continue learning many new things.

CHE = Community Health Evangelism

We are very blessed to have CHE trainers nearby the KLC who are happy to work with our Barefoot Doctor students each year.  CHE stands for Community Health Evangelism, and the facilitators help our students learn more effective ways to work with the villages to get a lot of good things done.

David Crist has been helping us for several years at the Barefoot Doctors school, but this year he is handing off the baton to a young couple named Eric and Shannon Wiederholt.  The Wiederholts are from Georgia (and before that, Tennessee) and have been working in Chiang Mai for a few years, the last two with CHE.

All three of these people are helping us all week, and they are doing an excellent job.  From the outset they involved the students in the learning process, and the students are eating it up!

Often they set up the next lesson with a role play, and the students really like taking turns at these role plays.  All of them get opportunities then to gather in small groups to explore answers and solutions, then various people get up to make reports on what their group discovered.

The participation is contagious and provides an excellent environment for learning.  Here you see the 12 Core Values of CHE. Most of them are self-explanatory but if you want to learn more go here:   https://www.chenetwork.org/what.php

Jung Dangshing took the opportunity to share a personal story of how using the CHE Core Values really makes a difference. Recently, FLC had a very successful water project in partnership with a village in Thailand.  Previous water projects were funded entirely from the outside and included hired workers or volunteers outside the village, but this most recent time the project included the villagers from start to finish.  The end result was much better, and the relationships built will carry on into future work together with that village. Jung says, "CHE really works!"

Tiger Kingdom!

After we went to the buffet on Saturday, we stopped at the Tiger Kingdom tourist stop.  This is the place where people pay for the opportunity to go into the tiger cages and have their pictures taken with huge Bengal tigers. No, these are not the ones from Cincinnati!

We took the students inside so they could see what is offered there, but we knew we did not have the money to buy admission for everyone.  It is very expensive for a person to go inside the cage to sit down next to a tiger and pet them for a photo opportunity.

We discovered, however, that for just a few dollars each they could go into the park and walk around to see the various tigers up close.  The pastors decided the students would enjoy this opportunity, so we bought tickets for everyone.


We all had fun walking through the park and actually got up close to a couple of the tigers.  We also learned a little about the various kinds of tigers there are in the world.

The president of this class, Pung Ram Sar, also took this opportunity to have some fun.

This was another first for all of our students from Burma and a welcome break from their studies.

Can you say "Buffet?"

On Saturday we all had the chance to travel to the north side of Chiang Mai to eat a tasty buffet lunch at one of the best buffets in the city.  It was a beautiful place with a very nice buffet area surrounded by two orchid gardens and a butterfly farm.

Many of the students have never been to a buffet like this, so it was quite a treat.  We tried to warn the students to go easy with the amount of food they took the first time through the line.  Some of them still filled their plates, so when they returned to the line a second time they could not eat much of the plate they filled.  After that, we went to the fruit bar and coffee bar to finish our meal.  

We thank the anonymous donor who made this trip possible.  The food was very good, and the students, teachers, and FLC staff had a great time.

When we finished the meal, it seemed to me that the girls' table had the highest stack of used plates.  What do you think?

After lunch we took time to tour the orchid gardens and butterfly farm.  It was nice to go inside the butterfly area and take pictures of the variety of flowers and butterflies there.

The orchids were also amazing!  They must have perfect conditions there for their growth.  At the end, we took a couple of group pictures.  You may notice that two of the women are missing from this picture because they had lagged behind in the butterfly area.  But all in all, it was a great day!