ELCA Global Mission Event in Baltimore 6/7/05

The Kristus Center will be presenting a workshop on August 27 at the ELCA National Global Mission Event which is being held in Baltimore’s inner harbor.

Through multi-media presentations, the audience will be visually introduced to the challenges and opportunities facing two Lutheran Health Centers that serve indigent tribal communities in the Philippines and Papua New Guinea.

The first presentation is a 25 minute documentary that is a visual journey through history exploring tribal health in the northern Philippines where Abatan Lutheran Hospital is located. This was once an area of headhunters and subsistence farmers who believed in animism and nature worship. Many of their traditional ways still persist and influence approaches to health care. The viewer will meet the Bishop of the Lutheran Church in the Philippines, experience the challenges facing the hospital staff, and meet some of the patients during the presentation of the documentary. The viewer will also journey to outlying areas beyond Abatan Hospital and experience the challenges of health care in remote villages. Despite these great challenges, hope remains and Abatan Hospital is responding to the needs of the people in new, creative ways.

The second presentation is a visual PowerPoint discussion about the challenges and needs of Yagaum Rural Health Center in Papua New Guinea. The viewer will learn about the challenges and opportunities that the staff encounter daily, and will journey to nearby villages and communities to meet with tribal people who receive health care from Yagaum. The viewer will discover how Yagaum is attempting to bridge the information gap to the 21st century and provide access to medical information and learning opportunities for its staff. The viewer will also be introduced to raw footage that will have just been taken by a returning documentary film crew working near Yagaum Hospital and the surrounding Gogol River valley that explores the interrelationships of health, bio-diversity and spirituality as experienced by the tribal people.