June 2005

Visitors from Seattle: On January 23 Cindy Artico-Carson and Earl Thomas both Nurses from Harbor View Medical Center in Seattle, WA arrived to help us out at the hospital. They had hear of our work through Lori Batten, a nurse they work with who is a Chidamoyo alumnus and a recruit for fulltime work at Chidamoyo.

Earl and Cindy were here for a month and they helped us with many things around the hospital, including helping me finish off our Annual Report! They helped by going to several Immunization clinics and being extra hands in surgery! They even got to use their trauma skills one day when we had 4 kids come in unconscious from a school track meet due to sunstroke!

At the end of their time we enjoyed a few days at The Hide safari camp seeing animals! I never get tired of that so I enjoy when I "have" to take visitors to see the animals! Ha! They spent several days in Victoria Falls so they could raft and bungee jump while I came back to the hospital. They left on February 22 to return to home.

We are thankful to Cindy's church that raised money for her to bring needed medical supplies with her. She is already talking about bringing her family back next year with her!

Ministers Retreat: Every year in February for the past several years one of our ministers in Zimbabwe, Zebedee Togarepi, puts on a retreat for all the ministers in Zimbabwe. He brings in special ministers from the US and all who attend receive books and resources to help them in their preaching. Five of our ministers attended from February 15-18 in Harare. We were able to sponsor those who are not working and to pay for their fees to attend. We sent them in a hospital vehicle to Harare for this meeting. They always come back very "charged up" and working harder on their sermons for each week.

New Nurses: We have been praying for more staff for a long time and in January we hired a new graduated nurse, Mr. Last Nyamaharo. Mr. Nyamaharo is a special nurse because he graduated from Bible College before he began his nurses' training. So we get a nurse and a minister! We are so happy he has joined our staff.

In March Miss Faith Makumbe joined us as a new graduate of the Primary Care Nurse program.

We are happy to have these 2 nurses join us!

Big Sunday: Every quarter the churches in the area join together to worship together to encourage one another. Our churches are divided into groups of 5 churches (we have 52 churches) and they take turns hosting "The Big Sunday." The first Sunday in March it was Chidamoyo's turn and we had a packed house. They killed 2 goats and fed everyone that came. It was a great worship service with over 600 in attendance.

Visitors from the UK: We were very happy to have visitors from London that arrived on 21st of March, James and Hester. They have a group called Zimbabwe Rural Development Program that helps to develop schools in the rural areas. Their group is building a classroom block on to a school in our area and they also gave money for our library at the hospital. They came out for a week to see first-hand the work they are supporting and to look for new projects. They also helped us around the hospital with some computer problems and teaching our Health Information Officer (Edwell Mereki) how to use his computer more effectively. We enjoyed getting to meet them and we hope to continue our good working relationship with them.

Easter Sunday: Easter is always a 4 day holiday here (Friday-Monday) and I was on call for the whole holiday. I was kept very busy with deliveries and C/Sections and other problems. Easter Sunday service was at the top of our mountain behind the hospital at 6 a.m.! For lunch I invited over Dr. Mbangani and family and Ms. Makumbe, our new nurse, and our two visiting medical students from University of Zimbabwe, Patience and Tatenda. We enjoyed a delicious meal and all the kids went on an Easter Egg hunt after lunch! It was a warm day and it was a challenge to find the eggs before they melted or the ants got to them!

AIDS Education and Learning Centre: March was a busy month as the builders worked flat-out including working on Saturdays and holidays to finish our building in time for our planned dedication on April 3rd! We made several trips to Karoi, Chinhoyi and Harare to get all the last minute supplies needed!

The Centre includes an auditorium that seats 800 people, a resource library for our ministers, bathrooms, and 3 offices and a storeroom and dining room.

On March 27th Gillian Withers, chairperson of our Chidamoyo UK Trust arrived to spend the week with us before the dedication. We put her to work putting the books up in the library, doing end of month statistics and doing "go-for jobs." We always enjoy her when she comes out!

On April 2, Ziden and Helen Nutt from Joplin, MO arrived with Dale and Linda Marshall, our nearest missionaries in Chinhoyi (3 hours away). Ziden and Helen were the first missionaries at Chidamoyo and started the mission. It is always an inspiration for us when they come to see how they started it from nothing to where it is today! It is because of them and others that followed after them that we are continuing the work today.

The Administration of the hospital decided to name the library the David Harrison- Lynda Nutt library after David Harrison who died in February. As a former missionary kid of Chidamoyo he came back in 2004 to build all of the shelves and desks in the library. Lynda Nutt, the youngest daughter of Ziden and Helen and died in January 2005. She was also a missionary kid of Chidamoyo. We wanted to remember these two special people with this library that will be a resource center for our ministers in our area.

Elections: In all the busyness of getting ready for the Dedication of the new center we had elections on March 31st for Parliamentary seats. We were so thankful for all the prayers offered up. We had no violence in our area at all and the elections were very peaceful. There has been some after violence as people contest the results, but it has not been visible at all. We continue to pray for the country and the people.

Dedication Service: Our dedication service was held on April 3, 2005 in the new auditorium of the center. We had seating for 800 people and the building was packed to over flowing. People sat on the floor, in the windows, on the outside veranda and around the building! We counted over 1,000 people! The service lasted from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.! It was a hot summer day and with the building packed it felt like a sauna at times! It was a wonderful service! Ziden Nutt brought the sermon and Zebedee Togarepi, one of our hospital board members and minister in Chiredzi, brought the dedication. We prayed for each of the rooms to be used to bring Glory to God and to help prevent people from getting HIV/AIDS and help those living with it.

There were representatives for the community including Chief Dandawa, 37 headmen, our counselor, and leaders of all denominations of churches in the area, some of our churches, Ministry of Health officials and police. The Ministry of Health official spoke about Chidamoyo Hospital being a leader in the field of HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe. No other hospital has such a center and no other hospital is involved in an ARV (antiretroviral) program either.

After the 4-hour program we were able to feed all who came-even with seconds as we had killed a cow and cooked rice for all! People went away be filled with Spirit and their stomachs filled too!

New mortuary: When we put the roof of the new building on in 2003 we had 7 extra braces for roofing. We decided we needed to expand our small mortuary and build a new one away from the wards on the hospital. In January 2004 World Vision had given us a 3-body refrigerator. So we used the braces and built a new mortuary, which includes an office, post mortem, area and room for the fridge. We also dedicated the mortuary on April 3rd.

Thank You: Thank you to all of you who continually pray for me and for the work! We can feel your prayers. Many visitors come over the next few months, so pray for them and their time here. Thank you to our faithful supporter who give to us financially each month. Things seemed to be well stocked before elections and already a week later there is a sugar and cooking oil shortage! Prices have increased and wages have gone up 400%! It is hard to keep up-but God keeps providing. We hope they will devalue the dollar soon to help our buying power!