Big Sunday, 4th of July, Riots in Harare, a funeral and Happy Birthday Carolyn

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On Sunday last week we had a "Big Sunday."  This is when 6 churches meet together to have one church service and fellowship with each other.  The normal 3 hour service went to 4 hours as everyone had to do special music and sing!  It was a lot of fun and a great time for all.  They killed some goats for the visitors to eat with sadza.

Monday was the 4th of July and even though Mondays are always busy at work I managed to run home in time to BBQ hot dogs and hamburgers to go with our traditional American food of potato salad, coleslaw, baked beans, deviled eggs, carrot sticks, potato chips, and all the condiments.  We had 14 people (5 Americans by birth)  to share the meal and it was great fun!  Of course it was very cold when we ate outside and we ended up around the fire we cooked on!  July is our coldest month and gets down to mid 50's at night!

We spent the week unpacking 2 containers and my visitors Caleb, Amanda, Michael and Abbey kept busy organizing and unpacking and putting away things.  This has been a great help to us.

Thursday the visitors and Major went off for 3 nights at Rhino Camp and decided to drive the 6 hours through the bush to get to it.  They are away until Sunday afternoon.

On Thursday I went with 2 trucks full of people to Karoi to bury Monica Ruvando's father.  Monica is one of our clerk's at the hospital and her father has lived with her for about the past 6 years after he retired from work as a cook in Harare.  He had been diagnosed with lung cancer recently and died on Wednesday afternoon at home at the age of 88.  Monica wanted him buried in Karoi and so we all went in to help.  It was a full day and we got back at 8 p.m. very exhausted!

This has been a busy week in Harare when riots started on Monday afternoon and continued through Tuesday and a national stay away from work on Wednesday.  Many hospitals in Harare, Chinhoyi and Karoi closed to taking patients and discharged what they could.  Many patients started coming to us and unfortunately one of our patients who needed emergency surgery was sent to Harare and died after 3 hours in an ambulance because the hospital refused to take her as there were no doctors and nurses working.

There are many issues that people are upset about in the country, but the doctors and nurses were upset because June pay day had been moved to July 14th.  After the closure of hospitals the health workers were paid on Friday, so we hope things will go back to normal now.

Friday a patient from Karoi returned for a checkup and his father brought a bag of maize for the patients to eat as a Thank You.  We are so thankful that people are happy with our work and bring us gifts to help keep us going!  God is good!

Friday was Carolyn Mereki's 19th birthday so we had a special dinner and then cake with those who came to have prayers on Friday night.  We wish her many more!


Big Sunday singing 


 Michael, Caleb and Amanda in their Red-White and Blue

 Major getting into the experience

Abbey and group eating




 Michael and Caleb helping to unload a container

Abbey delivering the goods from container to different departments


 Burial of Monica's Father


Counsellor from Karoi giving us a bag of Maize for the hospital


 Happy Birthday Carolyn!


Michael, Patience and Carolyn Mereki with Aunt Juliet (Patient's sister)




Comments

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