"ANESU Bids Farewell to Julie VanZevern"

What do you get when you have a highly qualified nurse with years of experience, living and responding to the issues of health and wellness in Africa with a desire to not contribute anything that cannot be indigenized, replicated and sustained ; who is intent of making use of whatever resources are appropriate, available, affordable, adaptable, achievable; whose single driving ambition is to make an eternally relevant difference in people’s spiritual and physical lives, and who is committed to being able to leave Africa one day in a way that everything she has accomplished will remain and succeed on its own, driven by and meeting the needs of Africans?

You get Julie VanZevern.

You get an extensive herbal garden, with people in place to tend it who understand what the herbs are and how they can be used for the good of weak, sick and malnourished people.

You get an herbal clinic with a proven track record of success under the direct management of Africans who have been equipped to run and maintain it for the good of the people who fill it on a daily basis.

You get individual orphan homes and remote villages who have something sustainable at their disposal that will contribute in an on-going way to their health and well-being.

You get an ethnic mix of people whose lives have been blessed spiritually, who know in their heart of hearts that they have been impacted by a person who came to serve God in any and every way appropriate.

You get Julie VanZevern It isn’t easy to turn a blind eye to quick fixes when dealing with hurting and helpless people. It’s hard not to reach for what the West has to offer, but is relatively unavailable in Africa when people look to you with pleading eyes.

It’s hard, but it’s necessary when driven by principles Julie has steadfastly embraced.

It’s hard, it’s right, and it’s worth it at the other end, when needs have been met and met well in a way that not only met those needs but left a way whereby the same needs could be met again and again whenever they arise by the people taught to avail themselves of the solutions they’ve learned to embrace.

Many people in Africa, and in Zimbabwe in particular, are better off for Julie’s having come to live and work among them.

Julie is not a stereo-typical ugly American. She’s a woman of outer and internal beauty who gave herself to the task presented to her for as long as it was entrusted to her, with genuine grace and compassion, and in a way that will register well both now and in eternity.

How will I remember Julie's time with ANESU? I'll remember her as a medical missionary who saw patients as people ... not the other way around ... and who genuinely and sincerely met their needs head on and left them with something they could use themselves,using what she could ... and what she could leave behind.

Bud Jackson
Project Director
ANESU, Zimbabwe