A Spoonful of Sugar

A spoonful of sugar? Props

Ingredients for the Sugar and salt solution: six teaspoons of sugar, half a teaspoon of salt, a litre of water Gathering

Leader: We gather together in Jesus' Name

All: Help us to explore, discover and learn together. Engaging

How many of you have had to visit the doctor this week? How many of you have ever been to hospital? How many of you watch Casualty, or Holby City or .? What sort of things do you expect to see at your doctors surgery? at hospital? Not many of you would expect to be given this - (show the sugar and salt) Perhaps one of the most difficult times in a visit to India is if you are taken to an hospital, or a doctor's surgery, to have a look around. You will see nurses and doctors, but surprisingly you will see very little equipment.

There are some private hospitals, for people who have lots of money, that have all kinds of modern equipment, but in the hospitals that most poor people use, there is very little. In the wards there will be beds for the patients, but not a lot else. Even meals are not provided - the patient's family and friend have to bring in the food for the patient - and sometimes they even sleep on the floor under the patient's bed! In the intensive care unit at Ranipet hospital, the only piece of equipment you might see would be an oxygen cylinder. If the patient needed very much more specialist equipment than this, they had to make the long journey to the next big city. If you had to visit an intensive care unit in the United Kingdom, it would be full of machines and tubes and wires, not like this!

Why do the hospitals have so little equipment? Well, many of the hospitals for the poor people are run by Christians. The Christian church in South India works among the very poorest of people and does not have a lot of money. The people give very generously to help the work of the hospitals, and some of the mission agencies help as well. But they cannot afford to have hospitals that look anything like those we are used to in the UK.

Sometimes you will find a piece of equipment that has been given by a group of people from this country - but it doesn't work any more. It is too expensive to buy the parts that it needs to repair it, or perhaps the delicate instruments don't work properly in the damp heat of India.

A visit to look at a hospital could be a sad, miserable and uncomfortable experience. However, sometimes you have to look beyond what you can just see! God's love and care is shown in the faces of the staff. You will probably find more nurses in a ward than you would in the United Kingdom, so patients get lots of nursing care! Their family often share in the care that they receive, so they will know what to do when the patient comes home.

Around the walls of waiting rooms are all sorts of posters. These tell people of very simple things to do to keep themselves healthy - and how to look out for signs of illness. The churches also support hospital healthcare work in the villages. In some places hospital staff go out to work in villages. Also, many ordinary people in villages are trained as local health workers, to help people to prevent illness, to tell them what to do to stop illness spreading, to make sure that if someone needs a doctor they go to one quickly.

Leprosy, which has been a major disease in India for a long time, is nearly eradicated, thanks both to medicines but also to people knowing what to look out for at an early stage. Even people training to be Christian ministers are trained to spot some of the early signs of leprosy, and to encourage the person with it to go to a doctor and get treatment before the disease ruins their body and their life.

And what about the sugar and salt? Well, there are all sorts of nasty bugs around in India. Some of these cause horrible tummy upsets. Lots are caused by using unclean water. Particularly in young children and old people, diarrhoea can be very dangerous, because you dehydrate very quickly, and your body also loses all sorts of important things it needs. Often, all that's needed to help people is a simple solution of salt, sugar and clean, boiled water given regularly. (make it at this point -six teaspoons of sugar, half a teaspoon of salt and a litre of water). Learning this has completely changed the lives of some of the poorest people, who thought that diarrhoea would always lead to death. This knowledge is more important to them than all the latest high tech equipment.

In the book of Kings, Naaman, an important captain in the Aramean army, found he had leprosy. He was horrified. No one would talk to him, he would lose his place, and eventually his body would start to suffer. His servant girl, who was a slave from Israel, told Namaan that he should go and find Elisha, a prophet in Israel. Eventually Namaan decided that he should go and find this prophet. However, Elisha didn't actually come out to meet Namaan. Instead, he sent a messenger to tell Namaan to wash seven times in the river Jordan.

Namaan was quite angry. Didn't this prophet know how important he was? Surely he should have come out personally, and prayed to God? And, to add insult to injury, he was told to wash in the river Jordan, which was like a dirty little puddle compared to the rivers in Damascus. Wouldn't it have been better to wash in them? In the end, Namaan was persuaded to do as the prophet told him. After all, if the prophet had told him to do something difficult, he would have done it. What would be lost if he did this simple thing. Namaan agreed, washed in the river Jordan and after the seventh time founds that the leprosy had left him.

Namaan found, as the poorer people in India find, that what was important for his health was to obey some simple rules. After he was cured, Namaan learned to praise the God of Israel. After they have received their care, or a village health worker has taught them how to keep well, many of the people learn to praise God.

(Check it out: 2 Kings chp 5) Responding

Thank God for our health. Pray for any who are sick. Pray for health workers, for doctors, nurses etc in this country and in other countries. Sending

Leader: Go in peace to discover God's world and your place in it.

All: We go in Jesus' name.