March - April 2007

Australia: I left Zimbabwe on March 1st and flew off to Johannesburg, South Africa and 16 hours later landed on March 2nd in Sydney, Australia. I was met at the airport by my Zimbabwean sister, Sylvia Majoni-Brown who had flown in 8 hours earlier from California to meet me and travel with me. I flew over with my friend, Gladys Jongling and we parted at Sydney as she went on to Brisbane.

We spent 4 days in Sydney seeing the sights and visiting with friends. We went to church with Alfred Nyamutora and family. They had moved to Sydney 8 months ago. Alfred�s home is near our airstrip at Chidamoyo and his wife was a nurse at our hospital in the early 90's before they were married. They have 3 children, Ryan, Rachel and Alfred, Jr. We enjoyed spending Sunday with them and cooking sadza and chicken at their house after church.

We also visited with Chidamoyo alumni, Dr. Michelle Withers. Michelle has been to Chidamoyo several times to help, starting as a medical student. Her parents, Mike and Gillian Withers run our UK Trust that raises a lot of money for Chidamoyo Christian Hospital. We enjoyed seeing Michelle at work as a surf rescuer at Bondi Beach and spent time with her while in Sydney. She arranged one of our highlights in Sydney- tickets to the Sydney Symphony at the Opera House. It was wonderful!

We spent one day seeing the sights and left on the March 6th and flew to Brisbane. Here we visited with 2 of Sylvia�s nieces who are in University, training to be nurses. We enjoyed the big shopping malls and getting from our B&B by ferry to go to town. We spent time with girls each day. We also connected up with Sharon and Gary Lock, Chidamoyo alumni from 1996. They now live in Murgon, 4 hours from Brisbane. They met us at a small game park where we got to hold Koala's and feed Kangaroos. We then went down to the waterfront area and met up with their children, Jody who is now married and Jason who is in University. We had tea at a restaurant on the water front before parting.

On March 10 we flew from Brisbane to Cairns and were met at the airport by Eva Mbangani and children Mtho and Ntokozo. Eva and her husband Dr. Jono Mbangani worked at Chidamoyo from 2002-2005. They moved to Katherine, Australia in October 2005. Eva is in a course to train as a teacher and is living in Cairns for one year with the kids to finish her degree at the University. They had just moved there in January so we enjoyed seeing some of the sights with them. We enjoyed a butterfly farm and bird farm up in the rain forest in the hills behind their apartment. We spent one day on a boat going out to the Great Barrier Reef and snorkeling! What fun that was and the water was so warm and clear! It really seemed like a tropical paradise. We had a wonderful time and hated to go on.

On March 13 we left the East coast and flew up to Darwin, in the Northern Territory. Here we were met by Dr. Batsirai Chiureki and family. Batsi was our doctor at Makonde Hospital from 2001-2004. He visited me in the US in October 2003 with Major, during my last furlough. We spent 2 days with them and then flew off on March 15 on a wonderful trip to Alice Springs were we spent 2 days and then went on a 2 day trip to Uluru Rock and Kings Canyon. Dr. Mbangani arranged the trip and gave it to us as a big surprise! We really enjoyed seeing the Outback and seeing the beautiful sights that God has made for us to enjoy.

We flew back to Darwin on March 19 and spent the rest of our time there with Batsi, his wife Charity and their 3 ½ year old daughter Tafadzwa (Taffy). We visited a croc farm, did a cruise on their bay, fed fish in the ocean and did a lot of shopping! We finally got a bit used to the hot and humid temperature-but enjoyed the air conditioning to sleep with!

While in Darwin we had a BBQ near the ocean and met up with other doctors from Zimbabwe that I have worked with: Dr. Ranga Mashamhanda and Dr. David Mutasa. It was great fun to visit with them and see them after some years.

We drove to see Dr. Jono Mbangani about a 1 ½ drive south of Darwin. We couldn�t get to his town of Katherine because of flood warnings there�so we met half way and enjoyed spending a morning talking with him. I also saw him the night I left Australia as he was on his way to Cairns to see his family and drove to Darwin to fly from there.

I especially enjoyed eating prawns and shrimp every chance I could! The whole time away I ate fish almost every meal�a real treat after being here in Zimbabwe, a land-locked country.

Sylvia left on March 25th and I left on March 28th. It was a wonderful time to together and encouraging to our Zimbabwean friends who don't get visitors from home. God protected us through all the travels and gave us good health and great happiness while we took a break from our work.

Women of the Harvest, Cape Town: I flew from Darwin to Sydney to Johannesburg to Cape Town in 1 day and arrived very tired in Cape Town 26 hours later. I met up with Lindale Adams, a missionary woman from Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe, in Johannesburg and we traveled together to Cape Town to attend a special conference.

We were privilege to attend a conference put on by Women of the Harvest, a Colorado based group whose purpose is to support and uplift missionary women. This conference was to pamper and encouraging us as missionary women. Forty-two women attended this conference with over 15 staff members from US. We represented 10 countries in Africa. We were pampered with massages, pedicures, color analysis, make-up put on us, and lots of goodies and gifts. We also enjoyed staying in a wonderful hotel with wonderful food for 3 days. We had afternoons free and besides going to the mall twice I managed to go up Table Mountain on a clear and beautiful day!

What a wonderful way this was for us to be refreshed and renewed in our work before returning to Zimbabwe.

Our last night in Cape Town we met up with Dr. Michelle Withers who arrived from Australia to visit family and Alice Maher, my intern for the past 4 months. I left Alice heading for Namibia on March 2 when I went to Australia and we met up in Cape Town before she left for Australia to visit her daughter. Michelle, Alice, Lindale and I all went to a fantastic place on the water north of Cape Town and enjoyed the sun setting on the ocean with Table Mountain in the background and ate our last big fish meal!

The 2nd of April we headed for Zimbabwe and arrived at 12:15 p.m. and Major was there to meet me.

Terry and Randall Dale: When I arrived back in Zimbabwe my new guests had arrived 2 days before. Terry and Randall Dale came from Eugene, Oregon to help us for 3 weeks. They spent the two days waiting for me with Marshall's in Chinhoyi. Dale's are from Marshall's main supporting church in Eugene and their daughter is married to Dale Marshall's nephew.

I picked them up on the way home on the 2nd and took them in late at night into Chidamoyo. Immediately the next morning we were all put to work. Randall is a wonderful maintenance man and has been busy getting our internal phone system up and running, fixing up many things like water heaters, toilets, cooking pots, stoves, etc. He never ran out of work. Terry is a nurse and worked with us in the hospital.

We sent them one weekend to help drive our youth to their annual youth conference in Chinhoyi. They heard lots of singing and talking all the way in. Randall went off for a one day shopping trip with Major in Harare to find supplies he needed to fix things. This was really an adventure for him. Then he spent 2 days helping Dale Marshall fix things at his house in Chinhoyi while they waited to bring the youth back home. They arrived home on Sunday afternoon with a much quieter youth�they were very tired after 4 days of meetings and staying up all night the night before.

We are so thankful for all the supplies that Dale brought to us. When they arrived we were down to 1 box (100 gloves) of exam gloves. We sterilize these to deliver babies. They brought gloves and more that they had sent by post arrived before they left. God has perfect timing!

Stephanie Woodman: On April 3rd our two Rotary girls from Chinhoyi, Morgan and Lindsay, joined us again (they have been with me on and off since end of the year 2006) and brought with them a new person who had joined them in Chinhoyi, a nurse from Maine, Stephanie Woodman. Stephanie is a theater nurse and so we put her to work right away. They also came in time to help me with the end of the month reports, lucky people!

Stephanie took time to work with 2 nurses and train them in working in our theater (OR) and cleaning with the help of Lindsay, Morgan, Kim and Terry the whole OR. What a help that was to me!

Easter 2007: Easter is always a 4 day holiday here from Good Friday through Easter Monday. That means we only have to make rounds on the inpatients and most of the time finish up work by lunchtime. Even though I was on call it wasn�t too busy, except Saturday morning at 1:30 a.m. when we had a C/Section which Stephanie, Lindsay and Morgan were awaken to help with!

On Saturday afternoon we drove to Jinga with all the visitors and joined a church meeting that had started the night before. We got there in time for supper and then a sermon and lots of singing and dancing. We pitched our tents and all of the "white people" went to try and sleep while the others stayed up for the Jesus film, more preaching and singing and dancing. We finally were up at 5:00 a.m. for sunrise and the start of morning service. Afterwards we enjoyed a breakfast of peanuts, sweet potatoes and tea before heading home.

We had a wonderful Easter lunch with Ham and all the trimmings. Sunday night we showed "The Passion" at the hospital.

Another visitor: We were happy to have Lindsay's mom, Kim Tozier arrive on April 12th and spend 8 days with us. We put her to work. She especially enjoyed going out on Well Baby Clinics. She was able to visit the work her daughter Lindsay has been doing for several months. We are thankful for all the candy and gifts she brought for the kids at the hospital, and sugar free candy for me-yum! All the visitors left on April 20th for a driving trip to Bulawayo, Safari at Hwange, and Victoria Falls before they left for home.

Awards Given: In February this year I was given the Skip Gehrett Humanitarian of the Year award by the Chamber of Commerce in Sebastopol, CA. This was awarded to me for my years of work in Zimbabwe and helping people with AIDS. Rick Hahn, the minister of my home church, Sebastopol Christian Church, accepted the award on my behalf and was able to share with them about my work and my purpose for being here with the audience.

In April I was also selected as one of the distinguished 100 graduates and faculty of University of California San Francisco, School of Nursing. My name, picture and a brief bio was placed on the Centennial Wall of Fame at the school during Alumni Day on April 28, 2007. Thank you to Carole Heath who has been busy nominating me for awards.

Mr. Towsand Kadungure: For two weeks in April, Mr. Kandungure, the new Administrator at Makonde Christian Hospital came to work with Mr. Mereki and learn the ins and outs of being an Administrator. Mr. Kudungure was the chaplain at the hospital and just recently completed a one year course in Hospital Administration. We are happy to have a Bible College trained minister as the new Administrator there.

Zimbabwe Problems: Many people have written concerned about our safety during recent political and economic problems in the country. We can say that we are number one in the world, now that our inflation rate has reached near 3000%. This means that prices are changing everyday�sometimes doubling. Recently a friend of mine went to have dinner. He ordered a coke before dinner and one during dinner. The price of coke went up from the first one to the second one. When he questioned the price, they assured him prices had changed! We now say we have to take the offering first when we get to church or the 10% you may bring will only be 1% by the end of the service!

This makes it very difficult to buy supplies for the hospital. We depend on our supporters who have helped us so much to keep up. I was really shocked when I went to buy onions recently and they were the equivalent of $1US a pound! The cheapest meat is about $3US a pound and it is mostly fat and bones! We do not know how local people can keep going. On top of this they increased government salaries in January and then decreased them for the past 2 months! People are discouraged and more are leaving the country each day, if they can.

Elections have now been called for early next year. This is always a tense time for us and so we pray for peace and fair elections.

Thank You: We thank you for faithful support of us through prayers and financial gifts. We could not do this without all of you who help us so much. Continue to pray. We can feel you praying for us.

Please note new address: I now have my own post office box for my personal use which is: P.O. Box 390 Karoi, Zimbabwe. You can still use Box 330 which is for the hospital or change to my box.