Leo Adam Biga's My Inside Stories

Good works come in many forms.  So do life transformations.  Former Omaha, Neb. resident Bob Kasworm has always tried doing the right thing.  This devoted family man has been a model employee and he’s also faithfully served his church and his community.  But he took things to a whole other level when after several mission and fact finding trips toTanzania he decided to live and work in that African nation.  He made a life-changing  commitment to Alegent Creighton Health and its onging initiatives in Tanzania in collaboration with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America to improve the health and medcal care, living conditions, and opportunties for residents there.  As the point person for the organizaton’s work in Tanzania, Kasworm will be featured in a documentary that former Omaha television reporter-anchor Mary Williams will be making with videographer Pete Soby.  The reporter-videographer team will be traveling to Tanzania in early 2014 to document the project’s efforts.  My Omaha Magazine story about the mission in Tanzania and the planned film follows.

To Tanzania with Love: Mary Williams to Make Documentary on Alegent Creighton Health Mission in Africa Led By Bob Kasworm 

©by Leo Adam Biga

Originally appeared in  Omaha Magazine

Bob Kasworm

Life-changing work by Alegent Creighton Health in Tanzania, Africa is the focus of a forthcoming documentary from a one-time Omaha television news personality. When former KMTV anchor-reporter Mary Williams and videographer Pete Soby travel to Tanzania in February their main point of contact will be ACH’s man on the job there, Bob Kasworm. whose life has been transformed by the calling he follows in that distant land.

Kasworm, a biomedical engineer and devout Christian, combines career and faith in Tanzania, his home the last 10 years.

“This was never in my plans. I really wasn’t thinking I would ever go to Africa or have a life of service,” he says.

He first visited in 2001 on a Nebraska Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America sponsored trip. He went to evaluate the potential of Alegent assisting hospitals. dispensaries and public health programs there.

The pull of Africa began then.

“From the very first trip there was never a day and rarely an hour when Africa was not on my mind. Yes, it was the poverty and the need, but it was more than that. Somehow Africa just got into my blood.”

He made a dozen or so additional visits in a three-year span as Alegent committed itself to working with the evangelical church and various health and civic partners in Machame, Tanzania. He cultivated and coordinated the growing relationship between the partners and implemented various initiatives.

The organization’s efforts there include training medical staff at Machame Hospital, developing Machame Nursing School, providing nursing scholarships and delivering medical equipment and supplies. Kasworm leads the Homes for Health program that uses local laborers to build new, cleaner, safer homes for residents.

A Homes for Health project

At the end of 2004 Kasworm decided to live in Tanzania full-time. He says it was then his wife “realized that what she thought was just a temporary ‘mid-life crisis’ was something I was powerless to resist.”

He’s since learned Swahili well enough to speak it fluently.

Machame Lutheran Hospital, founded some 110 years ago by German missionaries, is at the center of much of Alegent’s work there.

“We have the hospital with about 120 inpatients and many outpatients and clinics. We also have a Clinical Officer Training school and now the nursing school. There are about 20 homes for staff,” says Kasworm.

Neema, the first graduate of Machame Lutheran Hospital  Nursing School

The campus is on a rare paved road. There’s running water (“usually”), electricity (“much of the time”) and Internet access – though slow.

Progress is plodding but satisfying.

“The most satisfying thing is that in many cases if not for our efforts and involvement many would simply not get help. A child with a club foot would become an adult with a club foot. The nursing student would not have had a chance to study. It is not like you can just go down the street to an alternative. There is no safety net. We do it or it won’t happen. We can now point to a number of successes.

“There is such a shortage of trained healthcare workers that our efforts in education may well be our biggest legacy. If you educate one nurse they will care for thousands over their career.”

Machame Hospital

Williams, who interviewed Kasworm on one of his periodic visits to Omaha, describes him as a “strong, driven” man who “sees opportunities where others don’t.”

ACH mission integration consultant Lisa Kelly says. “He’s so embedded in that culture now it’s amazing. He’s definitely a problem solver, which is huge in that country. Everything from unloading containers of things we send to fixing machines to keeping a water source going or getting an Internet connection set up, you name it, Bob is the guy who figures out how to do it.

“He has to navigate what’s possible in the developed world with what’s possible there in that culture and that setting. So you have to think of medicine in a whole new way and what he has been able to do is to bridge that gap.”

Williams and Soby are eager to tell this story from a grassroots perspective.

“You can’t really tell the story without talking to the people on the ground who are being helped and that would start with the patients coming through the door,” says Williams. “You cannot tell the story without talking to all the players – the patients, the nurses, the young women who have a fighting chance now.

“We can’t tell the story unless we go past the borders and see how exactly the people live and the challenges they face every day. We’re going to experience that first hand. It doesn’t get any better than that.”

Mary Williams

Pete Soby

When Williams left KM3 in 2009 and launched her own marketing and media production company she set her sights on telling stories that engage people’s hearts and minds. From reporting medical news she knew Alegent had compelling stories to be told and she wanted to be the storyteller that shared them.

There wouldn’t be a Tanzania story without Kasworm, whose year-round presence in that county makes the Alegent Creighton mission model unique. Much emphasis is placed on building relationships and making connections through ministry and medical mission trips organized by ACH and the Nebraska Synod of the ELCA.

For Williams, who’s only previous overseas assignment was covering local airmen serving in Desert Storm, this is an opportunity she couldn’t pass up.

“I’m sure it’s going to be a life changing experience.”

She and Soby expect to complete the 30-minute documentary in the spring.

Kasworm sees the project as another vehicle to foster awareness between Tanzanians and Americans.

“Our experience lets us serve as a bridge between the cultures and reduce misunderstandings. It seems much of our important work has not come from analysis or needs assessment – the work has just found us. I am sure more will present itself.

“As long as the doors keep opening and my health stays good, I hope to continue.”