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Ladies Breakfasts
Members of the Ladies Breakfast at their February 2008 meeting with Drs Craig and Rae Oranmore-Brown in the background
These breakfasts are prepared by the men of the Church. There is a
choice of cooked or continental style breakfast. Coming Breakfast Dates 2008
Ladies Breakfasts 2008
June Jenny Smith spoke about her experiences teaching in a township in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Jenny showed a special DVD and explained how she spends months at a time helping in a very needy area. February
Norfolk-based doctors Craig and Rae Oranmore-Brown
(pictured above) spoke to Hethersett Methodist Church’s ladies breakfast
about their work setting up a flying doctor service in Zambia. Until last July Craig was a consultant anaesthetist
at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital. He has a particular
interest in intensive care, trauma and emergency medicines and along with
wife Rae, who is also a doctor, founded the non profit making charity
Mercy Flyers whose mission is to take specialist medical care to
geographically remote and poverty stricken areas of southern Africa. Their aim is to support and enhance healthcare
through improved relationships, education and shared experiences, helping
people irrespective of their religion or race. They explained at the meeting that the life
expectancy in countries like Zambia is only 39 and there is only one
doctor per 1,000 people compared with 23 per thousand in the United
Kingdom. In addition up to one baby in six dies before the age of five in
southern Africa compared to one in 167 in the UK. Mercy Flyers recruit surgical outreach teams from
African and European hospitals and use light aircraft to fly them to rural
hospitals around southern Africa to perform vital operations. Craig
himself is a qualified pilot. The Mercy Flyers charity is based in Long Stratton and has its own web site at www.mercyflyers.org How Mercy Flyers Works: Mercy Flyers has a five-tiered approach 1 Clinical care of patients brought to their visiting specialists 2 Support of rural hospital staff, encouraging them in their work and improving international network with colleagues 3 Education of rural hospital staff, updating knowledge and developing new skills. 4 Research into specialist health needs of the communities in order to aid future health service developments 5 Working with like minded partner organisations including Health Help International and Flying Mission in order to optimise use of scarce resources. The charity also partners with governments to develop sustainable specialist care for rural communities. Dr Craig Oranmore Brown can be e-mailed by clicking here Mercy Flyers has its own web site that can be accessed by clicking here. Report
by Anne Steward follows Craig and Rae Oranmore-Brown
were our guest speakers on Saturday morning.
We were inspired by their strong faith which had led these two Bawburgh
based doctors to leave the comfort of their jobs and home in Norfolk to set up
Mercy Flyers, a flying doctor service for Zambia.
Friends of Victoria Rushton, they had readily agreed, at very short
notice to come and share their faith and experiences with us while on a short
break back in Norfolk. Mercy Flyers is in its
infancy but they are already recruiting teams of surgeons from European and
African hospitals and using a light aircraft (which Craig also pilots!) to fly
them to rural hospitals in Zambia to undertake surgical procedures which
otherwise would not happen or at least not in time.
Craig and Rae had set out on this mission trusting completely in God to
provide what they needed and asked us to step out in faith too, to do whatever
God was calling us to do. If you want to know more,
look at their website on: www.mercyflyers.org
or ask for a leaflet. Our next breakfast in on June
7th, when we ho-e to hear from a retired Norfolk teacher currently
spending 2 months in a township school in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Anne Steward
Ladies Breakfast Reports for 2007 July Guest speaker was the Rev Canon Pat Atkinson MBE from Brundall who spoke about her work with the Vidiyal Trust in Southern India. Pat has been working in Southern India since 1990. During this time she has made over 30 visits and has spent well over 100 weeks working in the cities of Mandurai and Trivandrum. As Field Worker, Pat originally co-founded a charity and, with an Indian national, developed an internationally acclaimed project in the city of Madurai. The project works with street and slum children offering them care and an education. This project has attracted other funding and so the Vidiyal Trust was started to develop Pat's other projects in Southern India. Long before the Madurai work started a link was established with a boys home which was being run by an Indian organisation. Changes in the management of the home led to difficulties and eventually the boys in the home complained enough for the Indian organisation to expel them all! A senior manager who had been concerned about what was happening contacted Pat. She immediately went to India, and she and the manager, Jacob Joseph, who resigned to work with her and the children, "rounded up" all the expelled children and, in 1998, started a new home. To do this they established a registered charitable Trust in India. The home has gone from strength to strength and a girls' home was also started. The two projects have continued to give children a loving secure home, education and vocational training. One of the original expelled boys has just graduated from University. The homes are in rented buildings on the outskirts of the city of Trivandrum. Most of the children living with Jacob Joseph originate from a rural area around Mavelikara in a more northern part of the state. In this area, which was affected by the tsunami, are vast numbers of poor rural villages. In fact these people can be poorer than those in the slum areas of the bigger cities as the opportunities to scavenge and work are not available. Many live in huts in remote villages and some will not even have a home. Leprosy, malnutrition, respiratory illness, untreated cancers and increasingly Aids, are just some of the medical conditions that these families suffer. Pat has worked with city and rural hospitals, particularly being involved with staff training and making valuable contacts. The Vidiyal Trust is moving to Mavelikara where local churches are keen to support the work. The children who have been with the Trust will move to a new complex where there will be room for another 50 children as well as developing vocational training and a nursery school and day care facilities for destitute elderly folk. May Val Dodsworth was guest speaker at a special continental breakfast at Hethersett Methodist Church that attracted over 40 people. Val is co-ordinator of the Norwich Street Pastors. She explained that the pastors are currently working on the streets of Norwich on Friday nights between the hours of 10 p.m and 4 a.m. Street Pastors is an interdenominational church initiative that sees Christian volunteers out on the streets helping to care, listen and help people of all ages attending pubs and clubs or who just find themselves on the streets. An initial group of pastors in Norwich cover Friday night, but Val explained that further volunteers are needed to cover Saturdays. The pastors are volunteers and are fully supported in their work by the police and local organisations. They wear special jackets and baseball caps that have been funded by the local council. February
“Supporting the Gambia” was the title of a talk
by Linda Gibbons from Acle on Saturday 10th February when more than 20
ladies enjoyed breakfast cooked by Tom and his team. Linda and her sister Elaine Horner, from Penzance,
are regular visitors to the Gambia. Their interest in the country came
from tracing the steps of Penzance man Samuel Symons who visited the
African country as a missionary in 1842. He died two years later and Linda
and Elaine were able to find his grave. As a result, Methodist churches in both Acle and
Penzance began raising funds for the Gambia to support health and
education. Money has helped to build a home for a teacher, support the
education of local youngsters and provide much needed supplies such as
cotton wool and antiseptic cream. They have also provided items as diverse
as jigsaw puzzles and maths equipment. The Acle church sponsors a child and Linda explained that it costs as little as £17 to educate a young child for a year. Anybody from Hethersett wishing to sponsor a child from teh Gambia should contact church steward Anne Steward.
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