Jigger Plague
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Hot, moist weather–combined with primitive poverty and unavailable healthcare–incubates the killers of Malaria, Cholera, Dysentery, and Yellow Fever in East Africa.
But an unknown, more sinister and longer-lasting predator has disabled 2.4 million children in Kenya. The plague of Jigger parasites is real–as they hunt for their host with the soft thin skin of young children and the indigent elderly.
Their bite is unfelt–a tiny needle-like proboscis pierces through their host’s thin skin. Beyond, the nutrient-rich dermis is where they lay their eggs by the hundreds. When they hatch, they begin their feast.
“I lay awake haunted by the tear-stained face of an 8 year-old girl named Anna. She had called out to us from the edge of a primitive village near Mt. Elgon right after we had finished our first Jigger clinic. We had used all of our medicine and had to turn scores of children away. Seeing her there broke my heart.
Anna’s bent, crippled legs kept her helpless on the ground–her feet crusted over and perpetually itching with dozens of painful puss-filled sores–each one a Jigger larvae nest.
They prevented her from walking, providing self-hygiene, or attending school. This preventable tragedy–and the healing of her hands and feet could be cured with a mere $6 of medical and environmental intervention, but we had no more.”
–Pastor Barack Nyongesa, PBL Co-founder and Director of Holistic Helps
2.4 million Kenyan Children
As you read this, 2.4 million children* in Kenya alone are like Anna was then. Their bodies have been invaded by a carnivorous parasitic flea called a Jigger, and it bites into the soft, thin flesh of a child [or an elderly man or woman], to lay 100’s of eggs. Soon their larvae hatch and burrow into the fleshy parts of their feet and fingers. It is not uncommon to have 30-40 individual Jigger “nests” incubating in a child’s body at one time.
It hurts 24/7
They can’t go to school, feed themselves, or tend to their personal hygiene. Sleep is replaced with night sweats and whimpered cries. They live a primitive life without clean water, electricity, or sanitation. Most have never even seen a doctor.
Once the Jigger parasite invades it’s host child, or an ambulatory elderly, symptoms start, including severe inflammation, ulceration, and a fiery heat with itching. If untreated it could lead to tetanus, gangrene, and even the loss of limbs.
– ACE Africa**
The Genesis of Holistic Missions
Beginning in winter of 2017, our Kenyan PBL Pastor-coordinators decided to integrate “holistic helps” into their transformational minister training conferences.
Loaded up with razors, chemicals and salve, shoes for our Jigger Clinic, they follow the cured children and moms home with commercial spray cans and organic pesticides to spray each affected home and each school. They arrived at several rural villages to train pastors, their wives, and primary school teachers, by demonstration and coaching, how to prevent and cure this pestilence with their own villagers.
As far as we are aware, no government, outside NGO, or Christian relief organization has ever gone into the villages–“the Bush” where these ailing children and elderly lay about on the ground. Often considered cursed, after we arrive and cure these victims, their villagers call them “Blessed of God!” This is growing plague is due to a lack of knowledge, will, and funding, yet it is a curable and preventable disease. We can do it together! How wonderful would that be!” – Art Hobba, President, Core 300
A SPECIAL URGENT NEED: WE HAVE 70 PRIMARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS PLEADING WITH US TO COME AND HEAL THEIR STUDENTS. WE HAVE THE TRAINED VOLUNTEERS BUT WE DO NOT HAVE THE FUNDS TO BUY THE MEDICINES TO HELP.
Will you step into the gap for $6 per child to cure them with us??
Click to Download our 4-page Jiggers Clinic Process and Budget Detail
Very few know how to help the 2.4 million into the Bush country! Give or raise the funds at your church, club, or small group, and catalyze the healing of many more children at these clinics.
We will buy and bring the medicines . . . and we can train the pastors who do the work, Nuns, and primary school teachers alongside us to administer the cure.
We’ll be the hands-on healers–and you can bring the whole clinic to them that brings the cure! Over the past 36 months, over 8,400 of these West Kenyan children were sought, rescued, healed, and back in school or playing with friends in their village 3 weeks later. Their homes and schools were sprayed by PBL volunteers, and the Jiggers were destroyed.
Will you sacrifice $18/month to cure 36 children per year? How about $36/monthly to cure 72/year? $96 cures 16 kids. $600 heals 100. Join us as God’s hands of mercy today.
You get to send us out as healers and we bring your healing hands and feet in the spirit with us before God’s eyes–and the food, the medicine, and shoes . . .
Anna, left front, is joined by her sister Mary and little 2-year-old brother, Sam. The girls show off their new school dress and healed feet. Priceless! The cost? $18
Click to Download our 4-page Jiggers Clinic Process and Budget Detail