July 2010

January was a busy month and we welcomed an Australian Medical student from Brisbane, Australia who was Tuan Twan. He is a final year student and was very good and we enjoyed being with him for 2 months. He even cooked us a Vietnamese dinner and we made everyone use chop sticks-some for their first time.


Reunion with friends: The end of January Major and I were able to fly to Victoria Falls and meet up with a former Chidamoyo alumni (from 2004) Cindy Kaess and her mom and sister. They were on a tour of South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana. We enjoyed 2 fun days with them and they paid for Major and me to take the helicopter over Victoria Falls which was spectacular. Cindy is a nurse and works at Sutter Memorial Hospital in Sacramento, CA where I worked for 4 years before coming to Zimbabwe.

February 2010: The end of February I had to attend a Pharmacy workshop in Harare where they put us up at a 5 star hotel and provided meals-not bad! The annual preacher's conference was during that same week and I was able to share my room with a lady who came from IN to cook for the conference. We had a good time getting to know each other and having laughs.

Karen's Birthday: In March we had a surprise birthday party for fellow missionary Karen Pennington who serves in Masvingo with her husband Ben. Eight of us were able to celebrate together for 3 nights - Ben and Karen, Ivan and JoAnn Martin (missionaries from Bulawayo) and Lori, Major, Gladys and myself. We had a wonderful time and saw lots of animals and for our last night they took our group out for a special birthday dinner in the bush! When we left we noticed fresh lion prints by the trucks - so I guess they tried to join us!

On the way home we drove the famous Binga road to "save time" and got stuck in mud and water- but got pulled out by a passing lorry and made it home in 13 hours - most of that on a bad dirt road in 4 wheel drive! It was an adventure and we vowed to never be crazy enough to try that again in the rainy season!

Andre Mushungawasha wedding: On 27 March several of us travelled to Mhangura for the wedding of our hospital chaplain at Makonde Christian Hospital. He is a former minister in our area and so we went to support him during his special day. Weddings here take hours and it was very warm and crowded in the church! We enjoyed a nice lunch and then travelled the 3 hours back home.

UK Trust joins us for a visit: The end of March Mike and Gilly Withers who run our UK Chidamoyo Trust and their niece Janine Loedolff from Cape town, South Africa joined us for 2 weeks. Gilly taught some of our staff English and Mike kept busy repairing our guest house and Janine kept busy counting and cutting pills for our ART clinics. We thank them for their continued support and raising funds for us in the UK. What a help they are to us!

Rachal Sullivan arrives: On April 3 we were joined by a final year medical student from Ohio State University, Rachal Sullivan. She stayed with us for a month and was kept busy at the hospital. We wish her well in her surgery resident which she started in July in Ohio.

Conferences: April is always a busy month with the annual youth conference over Easter weekend. We sent 20 youth by bus to Mutare for the conference. They had a great time and came in second in the whole country behind Harare in the music conference.

The women's conference was 2 weekends after Easter and we sent over 30 women by bus to Bulawayo. We were blessed this year with a donation of special T-shirts for the women to wear to the conference sent by Island Family Fellowship in Honolulu, Hawaii. The women were so happy and proud to wear these shirts!

Dr. Robert Chin arrives: On April 7, Dr. Robert Chin, a cancer radiology resident from Stanford University in CA arrived to spend a short 2 weeks with us. He shares a house with former Chidamoyo alumni, Stacy Jaquith and so he hooked up with us and came to help us in the work.

Kariba get away: Lori, Major, and I took a 4 day get away to Kariba for some R&R in early May. A friend works for a company that has a beautiful 3 bedroom house there right on the lake, so we were able to rent it for a good price and we really relaxed and enjoyed it. We had hippos day and night on our lawn mowing the lawn. We also saw elephants, visited a banana plantation and saw the floodgates open on a very full dam. We had a great time.

Drs. Dale and Sue Alice Erickson: Dale Erickson was our first doctor at Chidamoyo from 1968-1969. He and his wife Sue Alice come every few years to teach at the medical school in Harare. They stay in my flat in Harare while they are here. We were happy to have them come and visit us for a weekend in May and see their old home.

New mattresses: We were so happy to have many people donate to our mattresses fund over Christmas. We bought new mattresses for all the beds in the hospital and they finally arrived in April. How nice it is to have new mattresses and even enough for floor beds which happen quite often. Thank you to all who gave special donations!

Zimbabwe Christian College students: In April we had 2 groups of seniors from Zimbabwe Christian College who joined us for 4 days each to learn about HIV/AIDs and how to minister to people suffering from this disease. They spent time in lectures, discussions and then working with the patients, preparing them for their future congregations.
Harvest 2009-2010: I was able to harvest 14 bags (50 kg or 110 pounds) of maize from field this year. We will be using this in the hospital this year. We are thankful this was a good year throughout our area this year.

Nhari Outreach: We started a new ART (drugs to treat AIDS) at a place called Nhari, in April. We are using our local church in that area to hold the clinic in. We started with about 40 people and are already up to over 70. We want to get the drugs closer to the people so they do not default their medicine. We are happy to use the church and encourage people without a church to go to, to participate in this local church.

Bob Coibion and group arrive: On May 26th Bob Coibion (5 time alumnus) and his wife Rose and Steve and Roseann Prandini and Nellie Whitlock all arrived to be with us for 5 weeks. Bob and Rose were members of my home church in Sebastopol, CA and now have moved to Roseville, CA. Steve and Roseann are members of the Sebastopol church and Nellie is also a member but now lives in San Francisco with her husband and is in her final semester of Nursing School.

We had many projects to keep them all busy. They also seemed to bring us some bad luck as we had 8 C/Sections for the month they were here (our normal is 1-2)!

Bob and Steve built shelves for a new pantry, repaired my platform and built a shelving unit for my office at the hospital.
Nellie and Roseann arrived to a week of immunizing everyone 14 and under for measles. They went out with Lori every day and fought off the crowds of people! Nellie literally gave thousand of shots during the week. Most days they left by 6:30 a.m. and got back after 8 p.m. Bob and Steve went a couple of days to be their crowd control! One day they immunized 2000 kids! We saw a total of 18,000 kids in 9 days!

Rose helped us in the office with all our computer problems and office work. She is also a great Italian cook and we had her busy making spaghetti sauce, meatballs and lasagna to fill up one freezer!

They also all helped to unpack the container that arrived!

Container arrives: On June 1 the container that had left Sebastopol on 22 February arrived at Chidamoyo! The team spent several days unloading it and we still have more work to do in our spare time! We are so thankful for all the goodies - medical supplies and food things for me! This is such a blessing and keeps us going at the hospital. We are already collecting supplies in Sebastopol for the next one! That is one reason I built a bigger pantry in my house to keep all the wonderful food goodies that were sent. Thank you!

Mukowe School: While Bob and his group were here we were able to travel one Sunday to see one of our newer churches about 2 hours from us called Mukowe. We have built a new school there with the help of ZRSDP a UK based program that helps develop rural schools in Zimbabwe. We held church in one of the new classrooms and we were able to check up on what needed to be done to finish off the project. The people were so happy to see Mr. Mereki come after a long time away they brought many gifts of food, crops and a pig to thank him for his hard work as minister and work in getting the school done.

Travel time: In mid-June I travelled with Bob, Rose, Steve, Roseann and Nellie to spend 3 days at Victoria Falls and 2 days on safari at The Hide. We had a wonderful trip and froze to death in the open Land Rovers! We saw the Falls when they were very full and we got very wet! We enjoyed a Zambezi river cruise and eating warthog and other game meat at The Boma.

Pam and Jack Johnson arrive: The day Bob and group left our next visitors arrive, Pam and Jack Johnson from Seattle. They are alumni from 2007 and were back for a second trip. Pam is an OB nurse and Jack an attorney. We put them to work and Jack kept busy with repairs, building shelves, fixing computers, organizing tool rooms. It is amazing what lawyers can do these days! Pam helped us a lot at the hospital and saw OB patients with our nurses. She brought us better luck—only 1 C/Section in the month they were here!

Long Service Awards: On July 16th we put on a dinner for all of our workers who were celebrating their 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th and 25th year working for our hospital. We killed a pig, had rice, cole slaw and butternut squash and cake. We hosted the dinner for 35 people. My visitors all helped to serve and enjoyed the celebrations as we gave out certificates, clothing and money for their time with us.

New Lorry: We were excited to buy a 3.5 ton lorry (big truck) for use at the hospital. It is used but in good condition. We wanted it in order to transport building materials, crops we barter for and have to sell in town and also use in taking people to church functions. We were able to purchase this with money from selling crops we had bartered for in 2009. We are thankful that the hospital can now take care of a lot of their bills since we are taking in US dollars for our services. Many people still come with crops to barter and we sell those too.

Hannah and Brandon arrive: My niece Hannah Mc Carty and her friend Brandon Somwaru from Ringwood, NJ arrived on June 7. Hannah had just graduated from high school and decided a trip to visit her Aunt was a great graduation gift! The day we picked them up we had a birthday party for Major's daughter in Harare. She turned 13. The next day we left for a funeral in Bulawayo.

Ivan Martin dies: After a 2 year struggle with cancer, our friend and fellow missionary, Ivan Martin died on July 3. Major and I and Hannah and Brandon travelled to Bulawayo, as soon as Hannah and Brandon arrived, for the funeral. It was a wonderful celebration of his life and the work he is done in Bulawayo. His body flew to the US the end of July and he had a service there and was buried in his rural home in SE Colorado. His wife Jo Ann and son Steven travelled to attend the funeral. How thankful we were for our time we got to spend with him at The Hide in March. We drove back all the way to Chidamoyo in 1 day arriving after 11 hours on the road. We wore those kids out!

Visitors busy: We kept Pam and Jack and Hannah and Brandon very busy. The kids helped with Well baby clinics and packing pills for our ART clinics, typing up things on the computer and doing a power point presentation for me for our churches. They were so helpful and had a great time playing with the kids in the Peds ward each day.

Matopos Park: We took Pam, Jack, Hannah and Brandon along with Major, Lori and I and drove for 4 nights near Bulawayo to Matopos National Park. We so enjoyed the beautiful rocky landscape, seeing rhinos in the game park, fighting off monkeys after our food, and trying to get into the cabins to steal things as well as a day trip to see Victoria Falls!

On our way home we stopped to see the National History Museum of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo. There was no electricity and so it was closed but we convinced them we could take our torches and see it anyway - so we did!

Liz arrives: Pam and Jack and Hannah and Brandon left on July 28th and on 30th of July Liz Willis from Sonoma state University in CA, a final semester nursing student arrived. She is here to help us for a month. The night she arrived we had a C/Section - are there more to come?

H1N1 (Swine) flu hits: In Zimbabwe we are always a bit behind the rest of the world and so now a year after the swine flu hit the US and other parts of the world it has hit Zimbabwe. There have now been over 1000 reported cased and 250+ confirmed cases in 2 provinces and we are one of them. We started vaccinations in August and have already seen some cases. Liz is getting lots of experience in giving injections.

Flats being built: We started building another set of 4 flats (1 bedroom, living room/kitchenette, bathroom/shower, and outside covered porch) across from the front of the hospital, in April. We are up to roof level but need another $5,000 for the roof and plumbing and electricity and painting to finish up these flats. We need these flats for our nurses as we now have 18 nurses working fulltime in the hospital - our most ever! We hope to finish these and move people in when we have the money to finish this project.