Habakkuk’s Complaint: Why do you make me look at injustice?  but you do not listen?  Why do you tolerate wrong?  Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife and conflict abounds…

The Lord’s answer:  Look at the nations and watch – and be utterly amazed.  For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe even if you were told.

~Habakkuk 1: 3, 5~

After graduating from University of Delaware in 2008, and re-evaluating my original plans for medical school, I pursued a Masters in Public Health from Boston University in International Health.  Upon completion of my coursework, I was given an incredible opportunity with Boston University’s Center for International Health and Development (CIHDZ) to go to Zambia to work closely with the Zambian ministry of health on prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV programs and early infant diagnosis in the Southern Province. 

Zambia has 72 tribes and languages.  The predominant tribe in Southern Province of Zambia is the Tonga, which is the only tribe still practicing polygamy.  Though the Zambian president declared Zambia a “Christian nation,” there is a great deal of corruption and infidelity.  Livingstone shares a border with Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia, becoming the transportation hub with a growing prostitution and HIV problem.     

I left for Zambia in January of this year and fell in love almost immediately, embracing the dusty roads, inconveniences, music, dancing, food, hospitality, and languages.  I traveled down the only road that bisects Southern Province from Lusaka, the political capital, to reach Livingstone, home of Victoria Falls (one of the Seven Wonders of the World).  There I shared a tiny tin-roofed house with several large spiders and more ants than I care to count, dealing with regular power outages and no water for sometimes weeks at a time.  I quickly found a Christian congregation that met in the Libala elementary school across the field from where I lived.  Through the hymns and the translation of sermons, I learned Tonga, formed a close relationship to the community and with nursing students studying at Livingstone General Hospital. 

I had the privilege of working alongside talented Zambian nurses as we visited clinics to support rural health center staff, retraining them in methods of preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV, including drug regimens, antenatal counseling, HIV counseling and testing, and infant testing and treatment.  I visited and counseled lab personnel and pharmacists on supply chain management and recordkeeping.   Recently, CIHDZ started holding meetings with the chiefs and their headmen to increase community involvement in these HIV programs.  One project I helped to launch used text messaging to return results of infant HIV tests from the lab in Lusaka to the rural health centers.  The expedited return of results mean that those babies testing positive could be started on therapy and have a much higher rate of survival.  The added benefits were the increased trust of the community and willingness to have their babies tested.  Before, results were being lost along the way, which led to accusations of witchcraft for taking blood and then returning no results. 

The internship work was challenging and rewarding as I thought through how to train facility staff to use this new results system and implement the system in the field at rural health centers, but some of the most meaningful times for me were off the clock.  I visited Lubasi Home, an orphanage in Livingstone.  I became good friends with one of the orphanage “mothers” there who eventually shared with me that she is HIV positive and had lost her son to HIV when he was two years old.  All my work in prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and infant diagnosis came alive in her story.  I was able to counsel her and tell her she could still have children if she wanted, also encouraging her to disclose her status to her surviving daughter and other family and friends.  As far as I know, I’m still her only confidant.  

The personal interactions with clinic staff, patients, and friends in the community helped me recommit to pursuing a medical degree.   A week after I arrived home from Zambia in July, I moved to Philadelphia to begin my first year of medical school at Jefferson Medical College.  I absolutely love it, but while I’m sitting in classrooms, labs and libraries studying, I get restless to get back out into the field and hopefully return to Zambia.  In the meantime, the field has become North Philadelphia homeless shelters and community health outreach events, which keep me inspired and grounded.  I get to see God’s creation in a new profound way in the anatomy lab, while trying to figure out how to love and serve my fellow students, and the larger community of Philadelphia.  I would appreciate prayer for my studies, and discernment about where and how to serve as a medical student, and of course future decision-making.  Questions or to hear more feel free to email me Jennifer.a.kincaid@gmail.com.