Wednesday 25th June, 2003

We are in surgery and I am the anesthesliologist. Dr. Keralis and Dr. Mbangani are doing the surgery with our medical student assisting. We are in trouble whenever these guys are operating together,and sure enough they are doing an Exploratory Laporatomy and the guy has a ruptured gallbladder,nothing either of them has done before! Should be interesting!

The past month has been so busy. Our first team of people arrived on May 23-- 3 members of my church in Sebastopol and then on the 25th a team of 10 arrived from Roseville,CA. These 2 groups worked on putting up the rafters and purlings for the new building--the AIDS Education and Learning Center. They built the rafters and then pushed them up and into their place! Some of the people helped in the hospital and we kept them busy for the 2 weeks they were here and then we travelled to Hwange Game Park and Vic Falls and drove to Harare. We drove over the Bing Road to get there in order to save on diesel. If you haven't done that before you have missed an African adventure--6 hours on dirt and then 3 hours on tar. One of the team members was sick all night before we left and I kept her medicated and had to start an IV to stop her vomiting/dehydration! We had one exhausting trip! They left on June 13th and the next group from the same church arrived on June 15th. The Sebastopol group left on June 20th and Dr. Kerlais and family leave on June 27th and Dr. Mbangani leaves on June 29th to go to London for 2 weeks to write his exams.Then on June 30th we leave for the Binga Road and on to Hwange and the Falls with this group (if we get diesel)! All these trips have quickly used up the diesel we have been saving--but we have been able to buy diesel with US$ from the diesel company. It was suppose to be here in 10 days from the time we paid--now 30+ days later they are saying maybe today? We have been praying for it--so we know it will arrive in God's perfect timing! It has now been announced that all service stations have to import their own fuel (in foreign currency) and the government won't help any more. So there are no petrol stations working in the whole country! We have ordered 20,000 liters (5,000 gallons) @ $1.60 US/gallon. We ordered it not knowing where the money would come from to pay for it--but last Friday when I was in Harare I got an E-mail saying that Ringwood church in NJ had sent a check for the work and it was $6100 of the $8000 needed and we had $2,000 in the bank to help--wow! God is good!

The second group that is here helped to finish off the purlings of the new roof and then have been helping around the hospital. Three are in observing the surgery now. They have been interested in the runnings of the hospital and working with the Maternity Patients in our waiting mother's shelters. One of the girls is organizing my videotapes (she used to work at Blockbuster!)--a big job! Five of the girls have decided to spent the next weekend in local villages and then to go to church with the families and then come back. It's interesting to note that the 2 men in the group didn't want to take part in the "sleep-over!"

On July 4th when we take the 2nd team from Roseville to the airport and group of college and post college students arrive (8) from Indiana, Kentucky and Oregon. They will be with us for 3 weeks working in the hospital. I think we must have made the most popular destination in the world guide!

I leave on July 14th for a 10 days visit to Kenya for a mission meeting. I know they closed the American embassy because of security threats--but we live in Zim so we are still planning to go! We will be on the beach (north of Mombassa) for 8 days and in Nairobi a day going and coming back! Look forward to my time away and just sunning on the beach. Hey it's a tough life, but someone has to do it!

On August 1st I leave for furlough and fly to London where I will be speaking to supporters of our U.K. Trust. On August 4-11, I plan to fly to Romania and be part of a mission team who are running a day camp for kids. August 11 I fly to NYC and will spend some time with friends and family and then fly on August 25th to Indianapolis to meet up with my forwarding agents and we will drive through Indiana, Kentucky, Georgia, and Florida seeing friends. I will speak in Largo, FL on September 7 and then head to Ringwood, NJ to speak on September 14th. On September 15th I arrive in SF, CA!

We are still in the surgery and it looks like a ruptured gallbladder, but they are still trying to find it--stay tuned!

P.S. Our patient died 24-hours post-op--there was a big hole in his stomach that we repaired but there was old infection in the abdomen which we tried to peel off his bowel, but he was so infected! Good news--9.927 liters of diesel arrived at 10 a.m. yesterday morning amid load shouts of joy and screaming from Team 2. they can now go on their trip to Hwange and the Falls. We can also get them to the airport!

Love, Kathy