When you enter this website, you are joining churches across the North Texas Conference in a battle we can win together – the life-or-death struggle with malaria, one of history’s worst killer diseases.
Few civilizations, in all of history, have escaped the disease of malaria. King Tut died from malaria. Alexander the Great likely died of it. Washington and Lincoln suffered from malaria, but by 1950, malaria was wiped out in the United States.
In the fall of 2009, the United Nations Foundation made a presentation on the elimination of malaria on the continent of Africa by 2015. Why the urgency? Every thirty (30) seconds, a child in Africa dies from malaria. Only one in five children will live to see their fifth birthday!
Malaria is treatable, and like polio in years past, malaria is preventable, if there are enough people in the world who care enough to put our discipleship into action.
One of our four focus areas in the United Methodist Church is to help eliminate killer diseases linked to poverty. We care! We are not alone. The Imagine No Malaria campaign links us with some powerful allies – the UN Foundation, the Gates Foundation, Sports Illustrated, the NBA, and others.
Imagine: Children resting peacefully at night under an insecticide-treated bed net. Imagine: a community health-care worker, able to help an entire community create a plan for eliminating malaria.
Imagine: doctors, surgeons, and nurses caring for the health of their communities through improved clinics, laboratories, equipment and training.
Imagine: parents educated about malaria prevention through a communication network that includes radio and training through the United Methodist university system.
Imagine No Malaria! Together we can!
If these visions sound overwhelming, remember Jana Stanfield’s lyrics, “I can’t do all the good the world needs, but the world needs all the good I can do!”
If these visions sound like something someone else should be doing, remember these words from the gospel of Matthew, “I was sick and you cared for me. When you did it to the least of these, you did it unto me.”
Welcome aboard!
