Chidamoyo Hospital in Zimbabwe

Well it’s the 26 th and holiday here.   Had to go to work this morning until 1 p.m. and now trying to catch up with work at home before dinner.   A whole afternoon off yeah! On the 23 rd (Sunday evening) the youth put on a drama of the Christmas story and also we sang and read scripture too.   It was a nice service. We had a wonderful Christmas Eve without staff Christmas party which started at lunch at 1 p.m.   We had over 75 people attend out of 92 staff so we were happy for the good turnout.   It rained on and off lightly during the party but our canopies helped to keep us dry.   We ate a big meal of beef, chicken, rice, coleslaw and gravy and chocolate cake for dessert.   I got up at 5 a.m. to make 4 cakes and the icing! We had some dancing and games and then gave out the bags of groceries for all the staff to enjoy a good Christmas.   Each staff member got 2 kg flour, 1 kg rice, 1 bottle cooking oil, 1 bottle Mazoe drink, 1 long bar of laundry soap and socks, cap and

It is the Friday before Christmas and all through the hospital not a creature has been stirring only a few rats…No ZESA for 5 days and we wait with baited breathe for that flash of light to tell us Father Christmas has blessed us with a cold fridge that will hold all that Christmas dinner! Last week we saw Rick and Sue Hahn off on Sunday from Harare.   We went in on Thursday night and had an African adventure to get to Harare.   We got as far as Magunje (on the tar road) and had a flat tire—a tire that was supposedly “fixed” before we left.   We quickly changed it and when we put the spare tire on-it was also low.   We rushed to Karoi (30 kms away) to get the tires fixed and found out the spare did have a puncture too!   So we waited while they hand repaired both tires—then we were on our way to Harare!   We got there at about 10 p.m. and fell into bed! Friday night 12 of us went to the annual Christmas pantomime.   This is a Christmas tradition here, put on especially for ki

We have been busy praying for rain the last 2 weeks.   We had a very unusually hot November and no rain.   No one was able to plow or plant at all!   On the 27 th of November we had 24 hours of prayer with people from church and the hospital signing up to pray for 15 minutes to cover the whole 24 hours—that is 96 people!   Juliasdale congregation where Gladys goes to church joined us.   We received our first big rain on the 26 th and it rained more on the 27 th .   This week we had rain from Monday evening through Sat—at least a little bit each day.   People are busy plowing in their fields and planting now.   They are happy not so depressed now that it looks like the rainy season has finally arrived.   Keep praying it will be a good season so that people will have enough to eat. We received some wonderful news this week that our application to Beit Trust—a UK based organization was successful in getting $20,000 for the construction of a new borehole.   Our UK trust is kicking