The Luke Commission comes home for Cedar Hills visit

The Luke Commission founders and executive directors, Dr. Harry and Echo VanderWal, will speak at Cedar Hills Church today, Aug. 17, and Sunday morning, Aug. 20.

The VanderWals and The Luke Commission are no strangers to Bonner County residents. Their work in Swaziland, southern Africa, is in the thirteenth year.

Although the VanderWal family has lived in Swaziland for the last decade, they always return briefly to their roots here. This year it will be a short one-week trip, so those who would like to know what’s happening with the Sagle-based non-profit compassionate medicine team are invited to a Cedar Hills service.

Times are 7:07 p.m. today and 8 a.m., 9:30 a.m., and 11 a.m. on Sunday at Cedar Hills, 227 McGhee Road.

When as a young couple, Harry and Echo followed a vague dream to reach rural Swazis with medical and spiritual help, no one imagined their passion would reach such heights and expansion.

But reached above and beyond…The Luke Commission has! In 2017, TLC will treat more than 60,000 rural patients in 100 mobile hospital outreaches. Every year, the depth and number of services increase.

In the last 12 years, TLC has offered 1.5 million medical services to those in Swaziland who have little or no health care, those out in the country, especially the young and old.

The AIDS and TB war is still very real, but so are the victories and the advancements in treatment.

“Words cannot describe what we have witnessed the last several years,” said Echo. “Statistical extinction was a reality a decade ago. The country was in a battle — a battle for existence. The average life span was 32 years of age. It was a catastrophe.”

Echo continued: “God led us to the epicenter of HIV pandemic. We knew nothing. We listened and we worked quietly...learning little by little as days passed. We held hands with Swazis who showed us how to deliver compassionate medicine in the most rural communities in the country with the highest HIV rate in the world.

“To see the latest statistics released in July 2017 is beyond miraculous,” she noted. “New HIV infections have been cut by 44 percent when compared to data five years ago.”

The Miracle Campus has miraculously become a center for health care in all Swaziland. TLC employs 160 Swazis, training and mentoring them to reach their own people. Many were orphaned during the HIV/AIDS pandemic, many are HIV-positive today, and most need guidance as adult orphans.

Harry said: “We still have a lot of work to do, but extinction is no longer discussed. We can focus on the future. Continuing to reach the most vulnerable in the most remote areas. Ensuring that they are on anti-retrovirals. And working to restore the brokenness of the adults who were orphaned during the worst of the HIV crisis. The adult orphans are the staff of TLC. They are now touching and part of healing a nation!

For videos and information on The Luke Commission, visit lukecommission.org.