Year-round medical care through Nshima

Every week at Cairo Bridge, behind Lusaka's Main Post Office, Project Nshima brings people together for a meal, worship, prayer, and conversation. Spending time together also brings us into contact with people who are unwell, children with wounds that need attention, and neighbours who need hospital care but find it difficult to get there alone.

Sharing food and caring for someone who is hurting are part of the same relationship. As we become familiar with faces and listen to people's stories, we learn more about what they need. Returning each week gives us another opportunity to listen, notice a health concern, and help someone take the next step toward care.

Doctors serving with Nshima assess people's conditions and provide treatment that can be safely offered on site. That includes caring for burns and other wounds. These needs arise throughout the year, so medical care remains part of our regular encounters with neighbours on the street.

Medical professionals and volunteers work together to consider what each person needs next. They provide care within the team's on-site capacity and help arrange hospital care when more specialized treatment is needed. Clinical expertise and the relationships built by the local volunteer team both matter in this work.

Children with serious road-traffic injuries or fractures, and neighbours with illnesses that need care beyond what the team can provide on site, need hospital treatment. We help connect them with a hospital and bring them there so they can receive the care they need.

For someone living on the street, having another person alongside can help make that journey possible. We want to support that next step and continue developing ways to stay alongside people as their care progresses. Our hope is to connect what begins in a weekly encounter with the treatment available through local healthcare services, and to keep learning about what happens afterward.

Doctors, nurses, pharmacists, medical students, and volunteers prepare Project Rapha's organized medical outreaches together. Twice a year, we bring together the people, medicines, supplies, and practical arrangements needed to serve street communities or villages where care is needed. Our first outreach took place in Lusaka in July 2026. The second is planned for 4–8 January 2027 in Kapiri Mposhi.

Between these outreaches, Rapha's medical work continues through Nshima's weekly presence. The needs we encounter through Nshima help inform our preparations for Rapha. Preparing for the next outreach and providing weekly care are connected parts of the same commitment: getting to know our neighbours over time and helping them find the care they need.

We want supporters to understand what happens in this ministry, including the difficulties and the help we are still seeking. Through our journals, we will share preparation, encounters in the community, hospital connections, and confirmed follow-up news, one account at a time.

Photographs and videos can help tell these stories. We will share material with consent and care for the dignity and privacy of the people receiving treatment. We invite you to follow the work, pray with us, and take part as we face questions and consider the next step together.

Weekly meals, medical care, and hospital connections require people, time, medicines, supplies, and transport. Steady support helps us prepare for the next gathering and respond to the needs we meet. Medical expertise, volunteers' time, prayer, and financial gifts each have a part in sustaining this work.

We are seeking approximately US$1,000 per week in operating support for Project Nshima as a whole. Your support helps us keep returning, listening, and finding ways to care alongside our neighbours throughout the year.