Christmas 2011
Cheryl, Mrs. and Dr.Kajese at Christmas brunch
Christmas Brunch
Christmas Brunch
Tea and Bread after church
Mrs. and Mr. Mereki and Carolyn and Michael
Church at the Hospital on Christmas morning
Michael holding a gift for the family
Michael opening a gift
Cheryl getting her gift bag from Major
Staff and their gift bags
Major as Father Christmas
Staff at the hospital party on 23rd
Caroling on the lorry
What a wonderful Christmas we had and I hope each of you did too. This has been a busy week leading up to Christmas. We had movies on Tuesday and Friday nights for 2 weeks leading up to Christmas. The community comes and joins us. We were happy to be rained out one night but postponed the movie until the next night. We were happy to have needed rain.
This past Wednesday night we went caroling in our lorry (big truck) and at each place we stopped added more people to the truck. We ended up with about 40 people squeezed in! We gave out sweets to all the people we sang for. Thursday was a holiday here and the doctors were gone for a wedding, so I did rounds and discharges and then with Cheryl, and the Mereki kids we put together the gift bags for our staff to be given out the next day. That day was hot so jumped in the pool when I got home before making 6 cakes for the party! We were so happy to have electricity all day except an hour during dinner time.
Friday we worked until 1 p.m. and we were running here and there to get everyone’s work done by 1 p.m. so we could start our staff Christmas lunch. We finally got started close to 2 p.m. Michael Mereki played DJ for us and we were happy to have electricity from about 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. when usually on Friday’s we don’t have electricity. We served a wonderful lunch of chicken. beef, rice, Cole slaw and gravy. It was so good. For dessert we had chocolate cake and ice cream—some people had never eaten ice cream before so it was a real treat. We played games, danced, sang and ended with giving a gift bag to each of our 96 staff members of rice, sugar, flour, oil, Mazoe (drink), soap, socks and a scarf! We had bags sent from the US and they were beautiful bags for each which they all enjoyed. We had close to 80 staff there for the party which was great considering many were on leave or days off. We were happy that we had some tent awnings which came in the recent container to put up in our dining area to give us some shade. It was a toasty 108 that day!
We finally finished about 4:30 p.m. and then had a few patients to see and I helped Major pay our construction crew and finally got home at 7:15 p.m. in time for prayers and movie. Went to bed about 11 p.m. exhausted!
Up early to get started on Christmas Eve baking and then to the hospital for work. Got home by 12:30 p.m. and continued with baking. I made cookies, doughnuts, pumpkin and banana breads and Cheryl made an apple pie for our Christmas Eve present opening. We also made coffee, tea and hot chocolate.
The electricity was on from Friday night until about 2:20 p.m. on Sat and then tried to come back for a few minutes about 3 p.m. and died. We knew there was a fault and thought that is it—no electricity for Christmas! I sent them a text message to tell them of the fault and at 7 p.m. when we went to the hospital to start our Christmas Eve candlelight service just as we lit the candles, ZESA came on! Wow! We actually had to go around and turn off lights to have our candlelight service!
After the service, the Mereki family and Dr. Kajese joined Cheryl and I for snacks and opening gifts. We all got wonderful gifts and enjoyed our time together. Major drank 2 large cups of coffee and we kept waking him up as he was so tired! No one left until about 10:30 p.m. When again we fell into bed exhausted!
I was up by 5 a.m. on Christmas morning to start cooking again! We do a lot of eating here! We decided we would have a brunch after church—so I started cooking so it would be ready and we would just have to heat it up when we got home. We were happy to have received 6 mls of rain during the night which cooled us down and it stayed pretty overcast for the day with some more sprinkles here and there. The high for Christmas day was 95 and low 78! Don’t you wish you were here?
We went to church at 8 a.m. and we had a good crowd. We held it at the hospital so the patients could join us. Over 200 people came and then we served bread and jam and margarine and tea to all who came. They ate until they were so full! This was a great Christmas for them.
At 11 a.m. Dr. and Mrs. Kajese, Major and family and Major’s cousin and son joined Cheryl and me for a brunch. We had quiche, ham, sausage, French toast, banana and pumpkin bread, doughnuts and hash browns. We ate outside in my dining room and had tea, coffee and juice. Everyone ate until they were so full—we had a hard time moving! We ate and visited for 3 hours and then Major and family left for their farm at Batanai while the rest of us went to take a long nap.
We ended the day with showing the Jesus film in Shona at the hospital with a good crowd that came out for that. The 26th is a holiday here so we plan to sleep in and go to work at 9 a.m. and only work a half a day and then get ready to go away on Tuesday for a short holiday to the Eastern Highlands to visit with our friend Gladys.
We hope you and your families had a Blessed Day praising our God for the gift of his son.
This past Wednesday night we went caroling in our lorry (big truck) and at each place we stopped added more people to the truck. We ended up with about 40 people squeezed in! We gave out sweets to all the people we sang for. Thursday was a holiday here and the doctors were gone for a wedding, so I did rounds and discharges and then with Cheryl, and the Mereki kids we put together the gift bags for our staff to be given out the next day. That day was hot so jumped in the pool when I got home before making 6 cakes for the party! We were so happy to have electricity all day except an hour during dinner time.
Friday we worked until 1 p.m. and we were running here and there to get everyone’s work done by 1 p.m. so we could start our staff Christmas lunch. We finally got started close to 2 p.m. Michael Mereki played DJ for us and we were happy to have electricity from about 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. when usually on Friday’s we don’t have electricity. We served a wonderful lunch of chicken. beef, rice, Cole slaw and gravy. It was so good. For dessert we had chocolate cake and ice cream—some people had never eaten ice cream before so it was a real treat. We played games, danced, sang and ended with giving a gift bag to each of our 96 staff members of rice, sugar, flour, oil, Mazoe (drink), soap, socks and a scarf! We had bags sent from the US and they were beautiful bags for each which they all enjoyed. We had close to 80 staff there for the party which was great considering many were on leave or days off. We were happy that we had some tent awnings which came in the recent container to put up in our dining area to give us some shade. It was a toasty 108 that day!
We finally finished about 4:30 p.m. and then had a few patients to see and I helped Major pay our construction crew and finally got home at 7:15 p.m. in time for prayers and movie. Went to bed about 11 p.m. exhausted!
Up early to get started on Christmas Eve baking and then to the hospital for work. Got home by 12:30 p.m. and continued with baking. I made cookies, doughnuts, pumpkin and banana breads and Cheryl made an apple pie for our Christmas Eve present opening. We also made coffee, tea and hot chocolate.
The electricity was on from Friday night until about 2:20 p.m. on Sat and then tried to come back for a few minutes about 3 p.m. and died. We knew there was a fault and thought that is it—no electricity for Christmas! I sent them a text message to tell them of the fault and at 7 p.m. when we went to the hospital to start our Christmas Eve candlelight service just as we lit the candles, ZESA came on! Wow! We actually had to go around and turn off lights to have our candlelight service!
After the service, the Mereki family and Dr. Kajese joined Cheryl and I for snacks and opening gifts. We all got wonderful gifts and enjoyed our time together. Major drank 2 large cups of coffee and we kept waking him up as he was so tired! No one left until about 10:30 p.m. When again we fell into bed exhausted!
I was up by 5 a.m. on Christmas morning to start cooking again! We do a lot of eating here! We decided we would have a brunch after church—so I started cooking so it would be ready and we would just have to heat it up when we got home. We were happy to have received 6 mls of rain during the night which cooled us down and it stayed pretty overcast for the day with some more sprinkles here and there. The high for Christmas day was 95 and low 78! Don’t you wish you were here?
We went to church at 8 a.m. and we had a good crowd. We held it at the hospital so the patients could join us. Over 200 people came and then we served bread and jam and margarine and tea to all who came. They ate until they were so full! This was a great Christmas for them.
At 11 a.m. Dr. and Mrs. Kajese, Major and family and Major’s cousin and son joined Cheryl and me for a brunch. We had quiche, ham, sausage, French toast, banana and pumpkin bread, doughnuts and hash browns. We ate outside in my dining room and had tea, coffee and juice. Everyone ate until they were so full—we had a hard time moving! We ate and visited for 3 hours and then Major and family left for their farm at Batanai while the rest of us went to take a long nap.
We ended the day with showing the Jesus film in Shona at the hospital with a good crowd that came out for that. The 26th is a holiday here so we plan to sleep in and go to work at 9 a.m. and only work a half a day and then get ready to go away on Tuesday for a short holiday to the Eastern Highlands to visit with our friend Gladys.
We hope you and your families had a Blessed Day praising our God for the gift of his son.
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