wfn.org | New Support of Traditional Medicine

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS" by SUSAN PEEK on Aug. 11, 1991 at 13:58 Eastern,
about FULL TEXT RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (3290 notes).

Note 3287 by UMNS on Nov. 14, 1996 at 15:59 Eastern (4227 characters).

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the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
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CONTACT:  Linda Bloom                      573(10-31-32-71B){3287}
          New York (212)870-3803                     Nov. 14, 1996

EDITORS NOTE: This article is the first of a three-part series on
church support of traditional medicine.

Churches called to support
use of traditional medicine

                        A UMNS News Feature
                         by Paul Jeffrey*

     CHICHICASTENANGO, Guatemala (UMNS) -- Western medicine and
traditional healing practices need to be brought together in a new
"harmony of healing" if hurting peoples in the Third World are
going to overcome the many obstacles that separate them from good
health.
     That's the view of Rolando Villena, a former bishop of the
Methodist Church in Bolivia and one of 65 people from 15 countries
who participated in a Nov. 4-9 seminar here on "Nature and
Cultures: Sources of a Comprehensive Community-based Primary
Health Care."
     The gathering was sponsored by the United Methodist Board of
Global Ministries and the Latin American Council of Evangelical
Methodist Churches (CIEMAL).
     Villena, now coordinator of Andean region ministries for the
Latin American Council of Churches, spoke during worship every
morning, examining the socio-political context in which the church
carries out health ministries.
     "Human life is under a continual death threat throughout our
continent," he said in an interview with UMNS. "Everything is
being reduced to economic relationships. The attention that
governments give to health is declining daily. Only about four
percent of government budgets in our region goes to health care."
     Churches need to expand their health ministries "as part of
the integral mission that God has given us," according to Villena.
If not, he added, "health care will simply be controlled by
economic forces and political structures, which have no interest
in the poor."
     He called for the "demedicalization" of health care and asked
the church to combat the tension that often exists between
traditional healing practice and what is usually referred to as
"western" or "modern" medicine.
     "The church can help open some creative spaces of mutual
support," Villena said, "where we can come to understand these two
medical traditions as convergent and complimentary.
     "But there are many obstacles to overcome. A lot of
physicians, for example, still refuse to see traditional healers
as their colleagues," he explained. "We've got to form a new
consciousness in them, help foster new relationships and new
attitudes.
     According to Charles Carnahan, a Board of Global Ministries
executive, the United Methodist Church currently supports 13
programs in Latin America and 3 in Africa that attempt to promote
and integrate the use of traditional healing practices in church-
sponsored health ministries.
     "Many of these practices predate the development of our
western practices and provide communities with health services at
a fraction of their cost," he said.
     Conference participants traveled to three indigenous
communities for a first-hand look at grass-roots projects. In
Chulumal, they toured a church-sponsored communal nursery
alongside the Xepela River, where indigenous families grow
vegetables and medicinal plants.
     In Chontola, the group visited the home of Sebastiana Pantoj,
one of 16 widows who have joined together to build decent housing,
with assistance from U.S. Volunteers-in-Mission teams.
     At the Methodist Church in Chichicastenango, they watched
local health promoters receive training manuals provided by the
board.
     Outside the sanctuary, Juanita Riquiac, coordinator of the
church's health program, showed participants a nursery of
medicinal plants, as well as a recently finished adobe building
where she is preparing to install a tuberculosis-monitoring
program.
                              #  #  #

     * Jeffrey is a journalist and United Methodist Missionary
based in Central America.

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