New visitors, old friends

Bob and crew working in new Pediatric addition
Breaking through from the old room into new addition

Kathy, Beth and Joyce Frasure

Dwain, Tammy, Marilyn, Bruce in back row and Jim, Kathy, Joyce and Beth in front

Jim preaching on Sunday morning

Our first X-ray patient with the new X-ray

It is always fun to have visitors we know and recently this past weekend we had 2 doctors and their wives who have worked here. Dr. Jim Frasure and his wife Joyce, a nurse worked here from 1972-1978. They returned with 2 of their daughters, Kathy and Beth who had lived here as young
children. Also Dr. Dwain Illman and his wife Marilyn worked here for 2 months in 1990.
We also welcomed a nurse from Indiana, Tammy and a man who works for FAME, Bruce. FAME is an organization in Indiana that collects medical equipment and sends it to many people throughout the world. We received a container from them several years back.
The group of 8 arrived in time for dinner on Friday evening. We had a wonderful reunion, had
our Friday night prayer time with them and then off to bed as they had only arrived the night before from the US!
Saturday morning after breakfast they went on an extended tour of the hospital. There were many changes from when they were here and even more patients are being seen now. We are so thankful to those who came before us and all they did and added to the work of the hospital.
At lunch the women went with me to a wedding shower for one of young church woman and nurse at the hospital, Bennie Munemo. She is marrying one of our minister’s, Last Nyamaharo on May 5th. We enjoyed lunch and some wild dancing!
Sunday we enjoyed church with Dr. Frasure preaching the morning service and Dr. Illman preaching the evening service.

One of the things they will remember is that we had no electricity from Thursday before they arrived Friday and it came back on in the afternoon on Monday after they left early Monday morning! Because we had no electricity we also had very little water. Our water pump for
our diesel borehole and not been working well and we haven’t had the money to
replace it, so without the electricity to run one of our boreholes we had little
water. So they hung in there with little
water (1 hour a day) for the whole time they were here!! They will remember their trip.
This week we got a new borehole engine for the diesel pump and we now have 2 big storage tanks full—yeah! How relieved we are! We are so thankful for our supporters! God provided the money just when we needed it.
This weekend another visitor from before came to spend a few days with us. Nura Isala was a third year medical school in 2008 when the University of Zimbabwe was closed. He decided to come and work with us so he would not be sitting and forgetting what he had learned. It turned out to be 7 months he stayed with us and became part of our family. We were happy to celebrate with him last month when he passed his exams and he is now officially Dr. Nura Isala!

He returned to thank us for helping him achieve his dream of becoming a doctor. He starts his housemanship in Mutare in April. He will be there for 2 years. We wish him well and maybe we
will see him back here as a doctor in the future.
Work continues on the Pediatric unit and this week they broke through the wall in the current Peds ward into the new one! The roof is on the plaster has been put on walls and they are starting on the ceiling this next week. A team from the UK arrives on March 19th to paint!

We were also happy this past week to get the new X-ray machine installed and up and working! This new X-ray machine has been donateded by AFC and we are so happy to have it up and working. What a blessing this beautiful new machine is!