Chidamoyo Hospital in Zimbabwe

More visitors have arrived recently—all have Zimbabwe roots, and they have been here visiting for a time. Janelle Frayne, is a nursing student from Boise, Idaho.   She was born in Zimbabwe and raised here until 2009 when she went to go to college at Boise Bible College in Idaho.   Her grandparents are Dale and Linda Marshall who lived at Chidamoyo Christian Hospital when the first arrived in Zimbabwe in 1964, and then had a ministry in Chinhoyi until 2009.   They are now retired and living in Boise.   Janelle is starting her junior year of college in Nursing and is here to get some experience as well as visit family and friends. Jesse Richardson, a friend of Janelle’s, also came to get some practical experience for her college degree in Occupational Therapy.   She graduates in December from Cape Town.    Her father and mother farmed in Karoi and lost their farm in the farm invasions.   They now rent property to farm in Karoi.   He ha...

The weekend May 17-20 we had another group of Zimbabwe Christian College students out with us for their practical training in AIDS work and hospital chaplaincy.  We had 12 men and women who joined us for the weekend to learn and do some practicals with our patients at our hospital.  We are happy to have them and to meet our future ministers here in Zimbabwe. May 20th was Major's 49th birthday.  We celebrated with a dinner and for some reason he got a lot of coke for his birthday!  Not hard to figure out what to buy him for a gift! On May 24th a team of 8 people arrived from Countryside Christian Church.  The team was lead by Phil Smith, their Missions minister.  Phil and his family had served for many years as missionaries in South Africa and had been here to Chidamoyo in 2007.  We enjoyed having Beth, Jen, Mike, Theresa, Sandy, Tanisha and Phil and his son Josh with us. Their plane got delayed in the US because of mechanical difficulties but they ...

When I went to the US I got a new smart phone.   At first I was thinking it was the smarter one of the two of us!   I decided to put my message to notify me of new messages on a cricket sound.   The first day I kept checking my phone every few minutes when I heard the c cricket sound but no messages!   This went on for awhile until I finally figured out there are too many real crickets at the hospital and so I was hearing real crickets not a message coming through!   I quickly changed to another sound! This past weekend Major and I traveled to Gweru (in the middle of the country—about 6 hours from here) for the wedding of Sylvia’s nephew.   We left Friday at 4 a.m. from the mission to get to the dentist at 9 a.m. in Harare for a dentist appointment.   Then we met up with Gladys and we had Cheryl with us and we took off for Gweru.   We met Ben Pennington in Gweru that evening and he took Cheryl and Gladys on to Harare while Major and I met u...

Sorry there has been no communication for some time.   I was planning a surprise and couldn’t talk about it on the blog or the person we were to surprise wouldn’t be surprised! In March I worked flat out to get the annual reports done, saw a lot of patients and tried to get work all caught up as I went to the US for 2 weeks on March 28 th !   Major Mereki and I travelled to New Jersey to make a surprise visit to see my older brother, Don, who had been in the hospital since December and got out only a week before we arrived.   Dennis, my brother from California and his wife Kathy Rose travelled to meet us there.   They arrived Wednesday to surprise him and we arrived Friday evening.   When we walked in he was napping on the couch and we woke him and he was dazed!   We really surprised him!   He wondered who else was going to surprise him! The next day we all left for Annapolis to see my niece, Ellie, who is a Plebe in the US Naval Academy. ...

We like to celebrate holidays here and on Valentine’s Day I planned a special dinner for our 2 doctors and their wives and Major and his wife.   They all had to dress up to come to “Sister’s restaurant”.   Michael Mereki put on his suit and bow tie and was the chauffeur to pick them up to come and was the waiter for the 4 course dinner. They had a wonderful time and the wives were all surprised that their husbands planned such a romantic dinner for them!   We had butternut soup, heart jello salad, ham and scalloped potatoes and gem squash for the main course and chocolate mayonnaise cake for dessert.   Then we played the Newlywed Game with them after dinner and heard some funny answers!   The youngest newly married (Dr. and Mrs. Kabanzi—6 months) and the oldest newlyweds (Mr. and Mrs. Mereki—20 years) tied for most correct answers. This is our rainy season and in February we had 13 straight days of rain here and when it rains the grass grows!   We...

Have you ever had the chance to step out in faith, trusting wholly in God?   As Christians we say that we walk in faith each day, but do we really do that and without feeling anxious?   Today I read in my devotional:                 When something in your life or thoughts makes you anxious, come to Me and talk about it.   Bring Me your prayer and petition with thanksgiving saying: “Thank You, Jesus, for this opportunity to trust You more.”   Though the lessons of trust that I send to you come wrapped in difficulties, the benefits, far outweigh the cost. (Jesus Calling by Sarah Young, p. 64)                 We have been struggling at the hospital since last year when government funding which we count on for drugs and other essential items at the hospital, stopped in July 2012.   There was no explanation ex...