Chidamoyo Hospital in Zimbabwe

One funny thing happened when we were at Matopos. They told us that there were no lions in the park. Major commented "you never know for sure!" Of course i said "Major, they should know!" Yep--on the last day we were there we were stopped on the road by ladies cutting grass who asked us what kind of footprints those were and yes there were fresh new lion prints! A big mom and 2 cubs! So much for no lions!

Major was issued his US visa at the embassy in Harare this week and so he will be on his way to the US on September 14th. I am not sure what I can do without him here, but we will try and hang in there. Here is his schedule and we encourage any of you that are nearby to any of his speaking dates to go and see him. He is excited to meet up with all of our visitors and supporters. 15 Sept arrives in SF and goes to Sebastopol to stay 19 Sept be at Adventure Christian Church in Rocklin 26 Sept speak at Sebastopol Christian Church 3 Oct speak at Natomas church in Sacramento 4 Oct-11 Oct be in Los Alamitos, CA 10 Oct speak at Lemon Grove, CA 15-17 Oct men’s retreat in Occidental, CA 21-25 Oct Seattle 27 Oct fly to Indianapolis and stay with Altman family in Ft. Wayne 31 Oct speak at Monroe Christian Church in Monroe, MI 3 Nov-8 Nov be in Wichita, KS with Phil Smith family 7 Nov speak at Countryside Christian church in Wichita, KS 8 Nov-12 Nov be with Barringer family in Carl Junction, MO 14 ...

We enjoyed a few days away with our visitors: Pam and Jack and Hannah and Brandon. We went to Matopos National Park SW of Bulawayo and spent 4 nights there. A beautiful setting with lots of balancing rocks. We enjoyed climbing up mountains to see caves with bush painting in them from thousands of years ago. We enjoyed a chance encounter with a native rock cutter who made rocks to use on our feet to smooth them. We called that getting out feet stoned! We had a game park close by and saw rhinos everywhere we turned as well as impala and warthogs and plenty of monkeys and baboons. We had monkeys that surrounded our cabins everyday and tried to sneak in if the door was left open! One got in and got into a big bag of biscuits (cookies) and so we called them monkey biscuits and had to throw the whole bag out! We took a day trip to Victoria Falls (6 hours each way!) and on the way home Pam yelled "elephant" and so Jack and I quickly braced our heads behind the seats, thinking he was...

Life continues on in Zimbabwe and it seems like it goes by so fast. We have been very busy at the hospital. It is winter and we see a lot of pneumonia, flu, and burns. Children stay near the fire in cookhouses to keep warm and frequently someone trips or a pan falls over with hot water or hot porridge and they get burnt. The children seem to do well and the mother’s do the daily scrubbing of the burns and the kids are kept busy coloring and playing games with my visitors. We had a new group of visitors that joined us on July 1, Pam and Jack Johnson from Bainbridge Island near Seattle and Hannah McCarty, my niece and friend Brandon from Ringwood, NJ. Pam is an OB nurse and keeps busy with the medical things. Jack is building shelves, doing computer projects and keeping us organized and Brandon and Hannah have been helping in getting our ART meds ready, helping in our vaccination clinics and playing with kids in Pediatrics. It is always fun to have visitors and see their enthusiasm f...