Back to work!

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Revival at Major's village
I returned from South Africa on Friday, May 18th.  I was feeling better and I had more blood and urine tests run and were awaiting results.  Major was waiting to pick me up and I got to see Dr. Palleschi for a few minutes before he boarded his plane home.  He was kept busy for the 8 days he was in the country seeing many patients and teaching our doctors how to do scans, hernia repairs and prostectomies.  Dr. Kellert served as his scrub nurse some of the surgeries!

We left the airport and spent the next 3 hours running to get things for the hospital before places closed.  We got blood, car parts and some electrical supplies, propane gas and groceries.  Ran into my friend Gladys who was in town from her home 3 hours east of Harare and we were able to sit in her friend, Sylvia’s flat and have tea in the dark—no ZESA!  Then we headed for home and got here 12:30 a.m.

While I was gone a new visitor arrive named Sarah.  She just finished her first year of college at America University in Washington, DC.  She is helping me catch up on needed paperwork and putting some records on computer for easier access.  Her parents teach in the American School in shanghai with a friend of mine.

 By 8:30 a.m. I was called to do anesthesia for a C/S with Cheryl.  Then I had 7 Bible College students from our Bible College in Harare here for the weekend.  They come as seniors to learn how to minister to people with AIDS and how to learn some basics of hospital visitations.  We spent 3 hours learning some basics and then I sent them to visit patients on the wards while I finally went home to eat breakfast—which was now lunch!

In the afternoon we all left for Major’s village at Batanai for a church revival.  There were 5 churches invited and people just kept coming and coming!  We started with visiting and dinner.  Cheryl and Sarah went with me.   The meeting was to go all night and end with church the next morning.  We came home at 11:30 p.m. to sleep in a warm bed!

Sunday night after the group got back from Batanai we had a birthday party for Major—his 48th!  We had lasagna—his favorite and invited the Bible College students to join us for desert and presents.

Winter is here and most nights it is down to high 50’s.  In our non-insulated houses and opened screened houses that is cold!  Especially breakfast in my screened in veranda!  It is also getting lighter later—so it is hard to get out of bed at 5:15 a.m. in the dark and cold!

I have been back working at the hospital and it has been busy.  Everyone said they missed me a lot, and there was a lot of working waiting for me when I arrived back!  We have been very busy with patients the last 2 weeks and haven’t been getting home before 6:30 p.m. each night.

I have good days and bad days.  This past week I started my fevers on Tuesday and they have continued on and off.  They still haven’t decided what is wrong.  All tests show infection but all viruses they can test for are negative.  I will be seeing my doctor in Harare on the 15th of June with all my results from S.A. and they will decide where I go from here.

Last week we had Africa Day on 25th of May which was a holiday and Major’s kids were able to come home after school on Thursday and stay until Sunday.  We took the opportunity to celebrate Michael and Patience Mereki’s birthday on Saturday night with dinner and cake.  Patience was so exited because Major got her a washing machine!  He hooked up this week and she sat in front of the machine to watch it go back and forth the whole first load.  After all these years of doing laundry by hand she was so happy!

Last weekend Major went to a new church, Davari and held the first service.  He came home so excited and said “it was like Pentecost—people kept coming forward to be baptized.”  The only river near them has crocs and a girl was taken by one recently, so Major went back this Sunday with our lorry so he could transport people to the Tengwe River, free of crocs, for the baptisms.  He had 25+ to do!

Since I have been back our phone has been working well all the time.  This is a first for us and a great advantage!

 Michael and Mom celebrating their birthdays

Wednesday the tin for the Nurse’s station/Trauma/Recovery room arrived and the men started putting it on.  By Friday they had finished.  The truck brought more cement so now they will start plastering the inside.  The Vacation Bible School at Sebastopol Christian Church, later this month, is raising money for the paint and boarder prints for the rooms, so we hope it will be done soon!
 Major's Birthday
Bible College students from Harare









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