Chidamoyo Hospital in Zimbabwe

We have had a busy few days before and after Christmas.  We hope all of you had a great celebration of the birth of Jesus and that 2015 will be a great year for you and us! We went on 3 days of safari with our visitors from the University of Washington Physical Therapy team on the 19-21of December.  We enjoyed some very close encounters with elephants and saw a lot of other animals.  We had a great time and saw them off for home on the 22nd of December.  Major and I drove straight home after sending them off at the airport and got home at 1:15 a.m. in time to be up by 5 a.m. and planning of our staff Christmas party and a busy day at work since the 22nd was a holiday here. On the 24th we worked half a day and then started our staff party with about 80 of our staff attending.  It rained on and off during the party, but everyone had fun.  We served a lunch of beef and rice and coleslaw and cake.  Everyone ate until they were overfull.  We then ...

We had a great trip to South Africa.  We shopped and ate a lot and saw a movie.  We got caught in a power outage in a major mall one day which shut down everything.  At least here in Zimbabwe all our stores have back-up generators in case their our power shut down, but in South Africa they are not prepared. We got home at 2 p.m. and at 5 p.m. we were back at the airport to pick up Ann Wunderlin from Seattle and the Lake Union Crew Team.  They are a non-profit group that has chosen us as their project in 2015.  They will be building a new Waiting Mothers Shelter that will house 60 women under 1 roof.  She came to pick the building site and to peg it out.  We discussed a lot of the logistics for the team that will in December 2015 to build the unit along side volunteers from here.  It will take 5-6 weeks.  We are so thankful for their big help for this project and wish them well as they start their fundraising. Ann left on Wednesday evenin...

On Wednesday we said good-bye to Dr. Bill and Kaylynn Holloman who left via Victoria Falls and Joberg to return to Tucson.  We had a great time while they were here and they helped us out a lot.  Bill, an internal medicine guy was even turned in a Pediatrician while he was here! All week our Doctor, Nura was gone to a workshop and so for 7 days and nights the hospital was mine.  I was awaken several times at night, but no major problems, so glad for that.  We got everyone delivered without needed a C/Section--which is 2 hours away by a bad dirt road! On Friday Dr. Kajese, our doctor, who was with us for almost 3 years, returned to help us  do a bunch of surgeries.  The surgeon from Harare, Mr. Kundiona and Kajese's wife No, an OR nurse, arrived at 7 p.m. and we went straight to start our first case.  We did 2 cases last night and got home at 11:30 p.m. for dinner and then to bed at midnight and up by 5:20 a.m. to start again at 6 a.m. They ended ...

We said good-bye to Amy Heather, our nurse from New Zealand on the 25th of November.  After 2 months with us she was part of our Chidamoyo family and hard to see her go.  We wish her well as she makes decisions to serve the Lord in third world missions. We met for lunch with Dave and Becky Altman from Indiana, in Harare, that have been teaching at Zimbabwe Christian College for the last 4 months.  We had a great lunch and then they did me the favor of taking Amy to the airport so I could get on the road to Chidamoyo earlier!  I prayed all the way home not to get a flat tyre since I was by myself and when I got to the township I prayed a thank you for that request!  Boom 1 minute later--a flat tyre!  God does have a sense of humor!  I called Major and he came with the guys to fix the tyre and he drove me home!  They were a bit delayed as Major saw another snake on his way to get the car at my house!  That is the 6th cobra we have killed at ...

November is a month that our minds travel to the things we are thankful for and there are many things here that we are truly thankful for. We are thankful for Dr. Bill Holloman and his wife Kayleen who have been with us for the last 3 weeks.  He has stepped in and helped us so much at the hospital.  Even though everything is very different here (our charting, our limited drugs and no CAT scans or MRI's to order) he has helped with a smile and and has been encouragement to Dr. Isala who has been working on his own for 6 weeks before he came.  We are thankful for his sharing devotions and preaching on Sunday.  We are thankful his wife helped out in finding lost charts, going to vaccination clinic and teaching some health lessons.They are preparing to go home to Tucson, AZ in a few days and we will miss them being a part of our family around the dining table. We are thankful for Amy, our nurse from New Zealand who has been here for the past 2 months working in the...

Today is another warm day--up to 100+ (we don't like to look at the thermometer it makes us feel hotter) and gets to high 70's or 80's at night.  We pray this is a great build up to a good rainy season which could start by mid-November. This has been C/Section week.  We have done 5 C/S in a week--all repeat and started this morning with another one!  A busy time for us as we have our regular work to do too! On Thursday (30th of October) we picked up new visitors--Dr. Bill and Kaylynn Holloman from Tuscon, AZ.  Bill is an internist and they are here to help with our work for 3 weeks.  It has been a big encouragement for  Dr. Isala who has been on his own for 6 weeks.  We put him to work making rounds and seeing outpatients.  Kayleen started doing some work to clean up our ART records--a big job that I have been working on slowly in my spare time.  We ended the day with a crash C/Section for a prolapsed arm and Bill scrubbed in.  First t...