An eye specialist in Lusaka has called on members of the public to utilize the free eye services offered by the Seventh Day Adventist church and other service organizations to remedy their eye problems.
University Teaching Hospital, UTH, Eye Specialist Dr Victor Mudala says members of the public should take advantage of free eye services offered by the SDA church to have their sight deficiencies addressed at an early stage.
He said this in an interview with ZANIS during an eye clinic Open Day organized by the Woodlands Seventh Day Adventist Church in Lusaka today.
Dr. Mudala noted that blindness mostly in children is caused by lack of vitamin A which is found in green vegetables and advised parents to observe the kind of food they give to their children.
And Woodlands Seventh Day Adventist Church Elder John Mulenga said the provision of free eye service to the community is in line with the divine call to serve the needy in society.
Elder Mulenga said it was the responsibility of the church to sensitise the people on the importance of taking care of their health.
Elder Mulenga described the response from the community as overwhelming saying the eye specialists had attended to over 85 people by noon.
He said the church also plans to start providing other health services such as hypertension which is a silent killer.
A beneficiary Elson Chinyama commended the SDA church for the gesture and called for the expansion of the eye service to the wider community.
What God says about your money
Once you’ve figured out what Christianity, Judaism or Islam preach about making and spending money, teach your kids early and often.
Faiths usually offer parents very clear direction on child-rearing. Premarital sex, for instance? That’s pretty much a no-no, no matter what deity you worship. Dietary rules can also be pretty straightforward — no pork for Muslims and Jews, no beef for Hindus.
But when it comes to money, the picture is cloudier. What does the Bible or the Koran actually say about money? Does God want us to own a fleet of yachts? Or does he (or she) think suffering and hardship is noble?
Does God want your kid to be rich?
Happily, the consensus among most religious leaders seems to be that the Almighty does not want you to live off food stamps and is quite happy for you to drive a Porsche. But Scriptures say that a portion of your earnings should be returned through gifts to charity and offerings to the church — what some denominations call tithing.
Cantor Erik L. Contzius, of Temple Israel in New Rochelle, N.Y., is trying to instill these lessons in his 6-year-old son. Whenever the boy goes to Hebrew school, Contzius hands him a dollar to put in the tzedakah box for charity. Thou shalt not hoard your money “If we teach it at a very young age to give, hopefully it will stick,” Contzius says.Carolyn Castleberry, a writer in Virginia Beach, Va., talks about this idea in her series of financial-empowerment books for women, based on Biblical principles.
“Proverbs 31 has been held up as a standard,” says Castleberry, a mother of two who also writes a newsletter called “The Proverbs 31 Investor.” The Old Testament passage — which describes a virtuous woman as having a price “above rubies” — is “about a woman who is a businessperson, a wife, she has a family, but she became an investor,” Castleberry explains. What the Bible teaches “She knew how to create passive income, she was a real-estate investor — so she was providing for her family and also for generations, so she’s a role model.”
According to Castleberry, the Bible addresses the topic of money more than any other issue — more than 2,000 passages discuss it. The No. 1 rule? “To tithe or give back,” she says, quoting Malachi 3:10: “Bring to me the first of your possessions and I’ll open up the skies of heaven.”The Bible also admonishes us to be good stewards of money (although here Christianity and Judaism differ from Islam, which forbids interest accrual).
A parable from Matthew discusses a boss who gave his three employees a certain amount of money.Two of them invested it, while the third took his portion and buried it. When the boss returned, he was dismayed by the third man’s actions.”It wasn’t enough,” says Castleberry. “It’s the whole ‘use it or lose it’ philosophy. So we need to learn to make money on our money.”make money on our money.”But even if we’ve figured out what our God wants from us, how do we teach our kids?
9-year-old’s money tips
“The Bible teaches us to train a child early, and when they are older they won’t forget,” Castleberry says. “I try to get kids focused on creating goals early, which comes from Proverbs 4:26: ‘Know where you’re headed and you’ll sit on solid ground.'”Steve Maxwell, 45, a commercial-real-estate investor, business owner and “financial fluency” teacher in Windsor, Colo., feels the same.
Maxwell’s 15-year-daughter, Natalie, recently asked her father, a self-made millionaire and devout Christian, to teach a course on business and financial fluency for her and her friends. The group meets weekly and Maxwell gives them assignments: to start working on their financial statements, say, or to read a book on money and then teach the rest of the class.He has encouraged each of his three kids to acquire a major asset, such as a business or property, while they are still in their teens. He, too, emphasizes the importance of giving back, mentioning a tenet from Proverbs 11:25: “A generous man will prosper, and he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.”
“My belief of that is that’s not just talking about money — you can be generous in lots of ways — but it also does apply to money,” Maxwell says.Islam offers a slightly different perspective on finances, says Sohaib Sultan, 27, the Muslim chaplain at both Wesleyan University and Trinity College in Connecticut.In addition to the prohibition on accumulating interest, he says, “the key teaching in Islam about money and finances is the idea of moderation — the idea of balance, of maintaining a good livelihood for yourself but at the same time not being exuberant.”
Sultan works with young children at the Muslim community center in Berlin, Conn., where he tries to teach them the importance of budgeting every month. “I want them to be very conscious of how they’re spending their wealth,” he says. “We try to instill the idea that we’ll be held accountable to God for how we spend every penny.”Judaism sees spending as a way to share with others, says Allan M. Gonsher, an ordained rabbi in Kansas City.
“If you simply talk about money as dollars and quarters, then you really limit what money means in Judaism,” says Gonsher, who devotes a chapter of his book — “Allowance is Not a Bribe (And Other Helpful Hints for Raising Responsible Jewish Children)” — to teaching children about money.He recalls his grandmother always setting an extra plate at the dinner table so that there was room for a guest. “Money for us means bringing people into the family, helping people who don’t have,” he says. “That’s a phenomenal concept that’s related to money: Add another chicken to the chicken soup. Set up another plate. Pick up your clothes and take them to the Salvation Army.”
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
I apologize for the space taken with this article.It is Easter sunday i felt the duty to share this piece for the fundamentals therein. Someone here could be a parent like me and with obligations to shape the children into responsible and prosperous citizens of tomorrow’s challenging world.Kindly take your time to pick one or two fundamentals shared.
Thanx and thumps up to the SDA.
The SDA and The Roman catholic has shown Zambia and the world that they are for the people.There are so many funds churches do raise in the name of offerings to the Lord but there is no money transfer service to herven.At least we can see this service provided by the SDA e,g Mwami hospital in Chipata,Schools by the Roman catholics though they do not demand much from their church members.They that demand millions and shout alot give less to the society.SHAME,,GOD FORBID
The Sventh-Day-Adventist gesture is highly appreciated. We do acknowledge that provision of free services to the community is not an easy venture, but we do hope this service will be extended to the poorer communities, rather than ending with woodlands-a low density area where most people can afford medical services.
WELL DONE S.D.A. THIS IS THE SPIRIT WE WANT.MAY GOD ADD THAT WHICH HAS BEEN REMOVED,MAY THE LORD’S NAME BE PRAISED FOR EVER.
Well done indeed.
Thank God, the real task of healing the afflicted, caring for the needy is taking place as the Holy Bible records.
#17, the University SDA Church, in Lusaka, conducted a similar exercise to the one the Woodlands SDA Church has just done sometime back. I personally was a beneficiary of it.
As for the many other activities that are needed to be done to uplift the lives of the needy, let us all work together to make sure they receive the much desired help. The good LORD GOD will help us in this cause as long we ask Him.
#17 sorry on “#17, the University SDA Church, in Lusaka …” in #18, it should read “#15 …”.
Please let other bloggers also post something. How do you write letters on a blog! You are lucky I would have told you that were foolish!
#15, The SDA Church also runs an Eye Hospital in Chawama. Its very cheap. I benefited from the highly professional service offered there.
God bless you all.
Christianity is practical. Therefore, Christian Organisations, Churches and individuals must be relevant to the societies they live in. Jesus healed people and attended to various physical needs people had in addition to preching and teaching.
Thumbs up to the SDA Church. Continue with your service to the community.