Chidamoyo Hospital in Zimbabwe

Major turned the big 5-0 on 20th of May.  We started the day with French toast breakfast and coffee--his favorite!  He dressed in his tuxedo and we made him wear our traditional Birthday hat and sunglasses for work all day!  In the evening we had dinner--his favorite meatloaf and a cake with a lot of light! On Friday our last group of third year Bible College students came for their hospital visit training.  We saw 29 students total in 3 weekends in a row in May.  They enjoyed their time here and we used them to preach at our local churches on Sunday. We are always so happy when Friends of Chidamoyo do things to make our life so much nicer.  JoAnne Minnis (my adopted mother) keeps Chidamoyo near and dear to her heart.  Recently she spent many hours making aprons for our nurses, nurse aides and cooks!  She put them in the last container and we recently unpacked the box and gave them out to the staff.  She made 30 aprons! The staff are so thankful for her wonderful work she did f

One thing you quickly find out at Chidamoyo you can never know what the week will hold for you!  We started last Friday with a meeting for all senior nurses from our Province.  I had to leave by 5 a.m. for the meeting starting at 0830 a.m.  Michael (Major’s son) went as my driver and did errands.  We picked up the 2 nurses from Karoi District Hospital that needed to go.  We arrive only 30 minutes late and the meeting didn’t get started until 1030 a.m.!  Typical for here--the last people to arrive are always those who live in town not those of us who have to drive 4 hours to get there! We left by 4 p.m. and got home at 8:00 p.m. just in time for prayers on Friday evening and to meet Zimbabwe Christian College students who came that evening.   Since 1992 we have been hosting all graduating college students to teach them about making hospital visits and working with sick people, especially people with AIDS which they will encounter in their future congregations.  They come on Friday

The yard people at the hospital asked Mr. Mereki for a new hosepipe--he said fix the one we have.  This is how you fix it at a mission hospital in Zimbabwe!  I am glad we have gloves to use for something!

When people haven’t been somewhere it is sometimes hard to imagine how other people live.  I wanted to share with you--a day in town and what it means when we plan a trip to town. Town is Harare, the capital city of Zimbabwe.  It is a big and modern city with over 3 million population.  It is crowded and there is traffic no matter what time of the day or evening.  To go across town takes 30-45 minutes depending on traffic! Major and I left for a 1 day trip to town yesterday.  We thought we had quite a reasonable list to try and achieve in 1 day and come back the same day: Dentist appointment Doctor’s appointment Get watch batteries Get blood from the blood bank Buy some drugs Drop off histology samples at the Lab Have lunch with friends Go to the bank Get glucose strips, pregnancy kits from supplier Drop off one car for service Pick up another car that had been in town for repairs Meet with realtor to see a new flat  Up at 0330 dark thirty to make coffee (so