“I felt called to mission in my late teens,” said Sheila McKelvie, who trained as a nurse. “Bill spent a couple months as a medical student in the United Arab Emirates and met Pakistani patients there. After we were married we spent four months in Pakistan and felt that God was leading us to serve there.”
She and Bill, a medical doctor, have spent two decades working in Pakistan as missionaries of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. They moved back to Sheila’s native Newfoundland a year ago to help their two youngest children settle into Canadian universities, but plan to return in the near future.
In rural areas of the Sindh province in southern Pakistan, Bill said, health education often involves pictures and diagrams, since many of those who are infected or vulnerable to disease are illiterate. But those who have learned are able to teach others, spreading the word about common diseases like tuberculosis.
According to the World Health Organization, Pakistan ranks eighth on a list of 22 countries most burdened with tuberculosis or TB. The infectious disease usually attacks the lungs and, if left untreated, kills about 50 per cent of the time. The required regimens of antibiotics are long — usually running from six months to a year — and can be costly.
Rural residents often pay four or five months’ wages for treatment at hospitals, which require fees for services, Bill said. Although clinics he visited provide treatment free of charge — with the government footing the bill for the necessary drugs — he says they found that people were less likely to complete their regimen if they had to travel far to reach a clinic.
Although TB’s symptoms tend to alleviate quickly once treatment begins, failing to complete the drug regimen could have disastrous consequences. Patients could relapse or even develop a strain of the disease immune to antibiotics. But Bill described a new transfer system that allows people to complete treatment at government clinics closer to their homes.
“More people are coming earlier,” he said.
Sheila works to create healthy relationships between diverse people and over the past year has continued to run workshops and training sessions. During the two-week trip, she led workshops in the cities of Lahore and Karachi aimed at relating with others — including non-Christians — in Christian ways, and encouraging a view that transcends cultural differences.
The duo also described shifting gender dynamics in the rural communities. A school, which once housed almost exclusively male classes, now employs female teachers and has a more balanced student population. Groups of both men and women have formed citizen community boards composed of at least 25 people with identity cards. And the McKelvies attended a graduation ceremony for nine women trained as traditional birth attendants.
“What attracted us to Pakistan was the people,” Sheila told the Record. “They are very warm and hospitable people and there are great needs also … We feel that God has clearly shown us that there is still lots for us to do there. We have many friends in Pakistan and want to continue to contribute.”
