DME to tour over spring break

Northwestern College’s 10-member Drama Ministries Ensemble will perform a new worship drama, “Zambia Home,” in Iowa, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania and New York March 1–11, during the college’s spring break. Visit www.nwciowa.edu/theatre-tour for performance times and details.

“Zambia Home” is the third of a trilogy of plays that follow the career and dramatize the spiritual insights of Iowan Arlene Schuiteman, a nurse missionary to the Sudan, Ethiopia and Zambia.

While in Zambia during the 1970s and ’80s, Schuiteman witnessed the devastating consequences of malaria and AIDS in Africa. She describes the wailing from grief over the many deaths—especially among children—as a constant sound in the background.

Over the course of a decade, Schuiteman worked with renowned physicians Dr. Phil Thuma—who established the Macha Malaria Research Institute, which has helped to nearly eradicate malaria in that region—and Dr. John Spurrier, who has devoted his medical career to fighting AIDS in Zambia. Schuiteman became one of the leading nurse educators for the nation before retiring to Sioux Center in 1988.

Northwestern’s touring theatre company has performed in Ethiopia and Japan and across the United States, including off-Broadway in New York and at the Crystal Cathedral.