Chidamoyo Hospital in Zimbabwe

We were happy to have Kial from San Francisco and Amber from Lincoln, Nebraska arrive on Friday the 10th of September to join our other two young women here, Liz and Lauren. We put them to work right away. Kial is working on putting all our financial records on computers and Amber, who is a Nurse Aide is busy helping at outreach clinics and around the hospital. On Saturday night we had a C/Section for our after dinner experience. Only Liz wanted to observe the others bowed out! We got home for dessert at 10 p.m.! Major left for the US on Tuesday and he has arrived safely and is busy enjoying food as he tells me and Root Beer! He was met at the airport with 8 litres of Root Beer and he really believe that he was in the land of wonderful! he is busy going out for dinner and catching up with people. He had 100+ voice messages on his cellphone he is using in the US when he arrived--so be patient he will get back to you! The doctors were both gone for meetings from Thursday afternoon until ...

We have two new visitors that arrived this week and started working with us. Liz graduated from high school in May and is starting college in Portland, OR in January. She is a missionary kid born in Zimbabwe—her name is also Tariro and she left when she was 3 years old for Cambodia and eventually Viet Nam and IN. Lauren is from my home church in Sebastopol and is taking a semester off from college in Chico, CA to help us out. It has been a busy week—I hope they don’t think it always like this—if it is I quit now! We had gone into Harare last Friday afternoon (27th August) after work (Dr. Zimudzi, Carolyn Mereki and I). We got there in time to meet up with Major, Lori and the 2 girls who had arrived Thursday afternoon. We enjoyed some peri-peri chicken and ice cream! Saturday morning we were all off for the wedding of one of our doctors, Vernon Murenje and his bride Christine. It was held in a beautiful location on the waterfront of a lake. The wedding was to start at 9 a.m. and in typi...

I was asked to come yesterday for a priest dedication at Chitiki, about a 30 minute drive from us. A young man that grew up in that area was dedicated and took his vows and this was the celebration at his mom's house. We got there at 10 a.m. and we were the special guests. We had tea with the new priest and 3 others who had come to celebrate. Then there was a 4 hour church service. Lots of singing, dancing and talking! Then we had to eat before we could rush off. We ate sadza with a rubber chicken! I took Major's 13 y/o daughter Carolyn who started laughing when she tried to eat the chicken and she couldn't tear a piece off with her mouth because it was so tough. It all sent us into giggles which we had to hide! Finally we left at 4:30 p.m. and back to Chidamoyo in time for night church. I was kept awake on and off all night with a lady not progressing well in labor and finally at 7 a.m. we did a C/Section, not an easy start to a Monday morning! lori is off to Hara...

Well this has been one of those weeks. Nothing went as planned but we survived. Since we have a visitor here we can blame them for everything—so Liz it is your fault! We started the week with 2 holidays—Hero’s Day on Monday and Tuesday. This is to remember the people who fought in the war for Independence and died. We keep our out-patient department closed during the holiday and so only have to make rounds on in-patients, but there are always people who show up because they don’t know it is a holiday! The doctors were gone for 6 days and so I was the one holding down the fort. The in-patient rounds were made, 2 ladies who had high blood pressure and were pregnant were started on induction, several discharges were made and we actually were home before 1 p.m. each day and not called back to work. We had time to work on projects at home and relax. Then Wednesday came and the doctor did not make it back because of car troubles—so I had to do in-patient rounds, do some procedures i...

One funny thing happened when we were at Matopos. They told us that there were no lions in the park. Major commented "you never know for sure!" Of course i said "Major, they should know!" Yep--on the last day we were there we were stopped on the road by ladies cutting grass who asked us what kind of footprints those were and yes there were fresh new lion prints! A big mom and 2 cubs! So much for no lions!

Major was issued his US visa at the embassy in Harare this week and so he will be on his way to the US on September 14th. I am not sure what I can do without him here, but we will try and hang in there. Here is his schedule and we encourage any of you that are nearby to any of his speaking dates to go and see him. He is excited to meet up with all of our visitors and supporters. 15 Sept arrives in SF and goes to Sebastopol to stay 19 Sept be at Adventure Christian Church in Rocklin 26 Sept speak at Sebastopol Christian Church 3 Oct speak at Natomas church in Sacramento 4 Oct-11 Oct be in Los Alamitos, CA 10 Oct speak at Lemon Grove, CA 15-17 Oct men’s retreat in Occidental, CA 21-25 Oct Seattle 27 Oct fly to Indianapolis and stay with Altman family in Ft. Wayne 31 Oct speak at Monroe Christian Church in Monroe, MI 3 Nov-8 Nov be in Wichita, KS with Phil Smith family 7 Nov speak at Countryside Christian church in Wichita, KS 8 Nov-12 Nov be with Barringer family in Carl Junction, MO 14 ...