Phoebe

They keep coming. Yesterday afternoon Vicki and I were cycling home from B. and came up behind a family walking down the road. A young man carried a very thin child on his back and a young woman swathed in colorful cloth walked beside him. We greeted them and Vicki stopped because she noticed the child. It turned out that the man and woman were husband and wife and the child was the woman's 4 year old sister. They had been asked to bring her to the clinic in B. because she had been sick for 3 months. They had been to the clinic that afternoon and been told to return the next morning when we would be there to see her. When we met them they were walking to D., our village, to look for a place to stay. The little girl's name is Phoebe and she is yet another child with marusmus, severe malnutrition with muscle wasting. We asked them to come to our compound so we could sit down with them and assess Phoebe. The brother-in-law spoke some English so that was really helpful.

They had walked from G., a village maybe an hour and a half to two hours' journey. The picture of Phoebe's weak, fragile body carried gently on her brother-in-law's back sticks in my mind. They were desperate for help for her and I knew the Lord had sent them.

It was nice to be able to sit down with them and have the time to talk and find out what had been going on to bring her to this point and to assess her as thoroughly as we could. We suspect TB for this girl also. We were able to give feeding advice and cover her with some good medicines to treat likely infections, as well as give her a mosquito net to help protect her from malaria. We also prayed for her healing and I would ask you to remember her in your prayers along with the other children I've told you about.

I will keep updating you on their progress. Tomorrow several of them are due to come into the clinic so we can weigh them and see how they're doing. Please pray that the scales at the clinic would work well so we could get an accurate idea of their weight. The scales aren't great.

It's heartbreaking to see these children in such a state. The saddest thing is that they just sit there lifelessly, showing no interest in what's going on around them, a dull look in their eyes or else they are just plain miserable and cry all the time. Please pray for their bodies, minds, and spirits to be restored: their names are Stephen (a boy with marasmus we've been following since before we started at the clinic), Martina, Issa, Omo, and Phoebe.

Martina

This morning Vicki and I had arranged to visit 4 year old Martina, the 4 year-old girl with Marasmus, and her father and grandmother at her grandmother's home in B. We've been praying for her healing and asking God for wisdom in helping them.

We set off on our bikes a little late this morning because we had a bit of rain which delayed us. We arrived in B. and went to the clinic, where we were supposed to meet them. Sure enough, there in the long line of mothers and children, were Martina and her lovely grandmother, who obviously loves her to pieces. We greeted them and Vicki said in the M. language, "We go to your village (house)." So we headed down the street with the grandmother carrying Martina, followed by many curious stares from people on the street, clearly wanting to know why we were walking down the street with this elderly Mabaan woman and her granddaughter. It was fun to use the Mabaan we know to try to communicate with them. We had no choice--no translator today! Vicki and I were both so excited to be out visiting by ourselves.

The grandmother led us over to where she lives and Martina's father, who speaks some English, came out to greet us. We caused a great ruckus in the neighborhood and about a gazillion smiling relatives came over to shake our hands and find out what all the fuss was about. We started talking to Martina's father to find out how she is doing and how the feeding is going. She has finished all of the medications that we gave her to treat a broad range of infections. It sounds like he has taken seriously our advice about giving her goat's milk every 2 hours and feeding her many small meals throughout the day and that she is feeding willingly. However, she does not appear to have gained any weight or any strength back. Vicki is concerned that she may have TB, perhaps in her abdomen. Unfortunately, we cannot test for TB yet without our lab up and running in D. and we won't have permission to give TB medication until we have the lab. So Vicki expressed her concern to Martina's father and said that when our clinic opens, we will see what further tests we can do. He wanted more medicine for her but we explained that we've given her all of the medicines we can for now and that the best medicine for her now is the careful feeding and lots of love and attention. Today we gave them an empty 500 ml plastic bottle and explained how to add sugar and oil to her goat's milk to make high energy feeds. Vicki says it may take several weeks of good feeding to see any difference in her, especially if she has TB. We also gave the family a mosquito net for her (and anyone else they want to put under it--it's huge!) since she is very susceptible to severe malaria with her weak immune system.

We then had the opportunity to share how much God loves her and that He has the power to heal in ways far beyond what we can do. We asked if we could pray for her again and knelt there on the ground beside her grandmother, who was holding her tightly in her arms, and entrusted her to the Lord. The presence of God with us felt almost tangible to me and it was one of those moments where I knew for sure that I am where God wants me to be.

A New Church Under the Tree

Today was an exciting day for the village of N. They had their very first Sunday morning church service under the big village tree! Sebsibe, Abebe and Nehemiah our compound manager have been going to N. once a week for evangelism and discipleship of new believers for about 3 months. This morning all of us ladies traveled with them by foot to join in their first Sunday morning service. We had been looking forward to it and praying for the village all week so we set off through the bush with great anticipation early this morning.

The one-hour trek through the bush was so much fun! We were kind of following the river, although most of the time we couldn't see it because the grass was so high--often above our heads! It was very beautiful--there were massive mango and baobab trees and many palm and acacia trees towering above our heads. I felt like I was properly in the jungle and I got some great pictures which I can't wait to share with you when I next go to Nairobi! It was really breathtaking--so lush. It's not very often that you take such a scenic route to church! I felt more like I was out on a hiking adventure on safari or something!

Finally, there was a clearing in the palm trees ahead and we emerged from the woods to find the cute little village of N. and were welcomed by everyone we saw. The whole area under and around the big tree where we had church had been carefully swept before we arrived and men, women, and many children began to come and bring logs or little traditional stools to sit on. They always bring out a traditional bed for guests to sit on and each person comes over to greet and shake your hand. Some of the children had clearly not seen a khawajah (white person) before and approached us with some fear and trepidation! One little boy about 3 years old mustered up the courage to come by and shake our hands and when he got to Grace, he shook her hand and then looked doubtfully at her and doubtfully down at his hand as if to say, "I wonder if that white stuff is going to come off on my hand?" It was very cute and we had a good laugh over that one!

It sure was exciting to be there to worship with them under the tree! Nehemiah got up and led the singing in the M. language, just off the top of his head as they do here. (Some other time I'll describe a Doro church service for you!) This week I was finally able to start to understand some of the songs and sing along with words or phrases I could pick out. Then Abebe preached in English with Nehemiah translating, about the story of Jesus visiting the home of Mary and Martha and the importance of seeking first the Kingdom and listening to the words of Jesus, giving worship the highest priority in our lives. It was really good and such a blessing to share this morning with the people of N.

We left the village to head back home just after 11 am and it was hard work! The sun was beating down on us intensely and it was about 40 degrees C. I kept my water bottle out of my backpack and sipped as I plodded along, forcing each foot to keep taking its next step and praying for the strength to keep going. I soon had a bad headache and just kept sipping that water. I'm sure glad I enjoyed the scenery on the way there because I barely noticed it on the way back! I had to concentrate so hard on just walking and drinking enough water. When we got home, I basically spent the afternoon sleeping and drinking lots of water to recuperate and now I feel fine. Guess my body just needs to adjust! The last couple days have been 40 C or so but most days are quite a bit cooler because it's rainy season and we get nice breezes coming through before the rain to cool things down.
But the pain was worth it to be able to enjoy that amazing walk to N. and worship with the people there as they started a new church!

At the Market

Today (Aug. 24th) I've officially been in Sudan for 1 month! As I cycled back from B. with Vicki and Grace this afternoon, I wished I could bottle up my happiness and send it home for all of you to taste what it's like to be here. On Friday afternoons, we've been taking the afternoon "off" and going into B. to browse around the market and have lunch. This week we met up with a new friend, M. a young lady from a different tribe in Sudan who is here working with an NGO in B. She's about my age and is here all by herself, far away from her family. We had such a fun time with her. It was great having a fluent Arabic-speaker accompanying us around the market. Here's a typical Friday afternoon:

We start out by having a cold soda at one of the little shops that has a big fridge run by a generator. We always go to the same place since we know the family and we always leave our bicycles there the whole time we're in the market. We sit down and then there's always random people we know who walk by and come to greet us and chat--always a barrage of M. and Arabic and English greetings all around. You're never sure what language to use with who there!

Then we go to lunch at one of the little "restaurant" shops and have fried goat meat and a bean dish with bread. They always cook the same stuff and we always go there because we like how they do their goat and there actually isn't too many other options! Today we ate goat and discussed Sudanese marriage practices with M. It was very interesting.

Then we wander around the market and buy our bread and look for vegetables. Lately there's been lots of maize (see my last post!) and sometimes okra and occasionally a few cucumbers or eggplants will appear. The other day we found some eggs which was very exciting. It's always fun to see what we can find.

Today was especially fun because we had M. along and she could speak Arabic for us. I've been getting by with a few Arabic phrases I learned in Nairobi like "How much is this?" and understanding the numbers they say back to me. I've even been able to barter a couple times with my Arabic numbers although sometimes not very successfully! =(
We've been looking for canned tuna in the market for weeks and I finally learned how to ask for tinned fish so tried that this week and we found it! Vicki got some curtains sewn for her tukul by a man with an ancient Singer sewing machine in a stall in the market. I've been dying to take pictures in the market for weeks and finally managed to get a few today, which I'll share with you when I get to Nairobi next time. I also got a marriage proposal--my second actually. Today it was a young man from a northern tribe called the Fulata and the translation I got from M. was "He said, 'This Fulata would like to marry you.'" I laughed and said "No, thank you" and Grace took over in her role as my mother (which everyone assumes her to be) and told him he'd need 500 cows to which he replied "I'd pay even more." I kept laughing and decided it was time to leave the shop immediately.

Speaking of laughter, there's always plenty of it. I noticed today that every interaction M. had with anyone involved lots of laughter and banter. I really love this about Africa. I remember the same thing from Sierra Leone. Every-day life is all about the people you bump into and talk and laugh with.

Then we sometimes go to a little tea stall where northern ladies sit and make little cups of shai (tea), coffee, or carcade (hibiscus tea). This has to be my favorite thing about going to the market. All of the above are sooooo yummy. They are also loaded with suger! The cups are little and they usually put 3 tablespoons of sugar in the bottom! I love sitting there sipping the strong, sweet stuff and chatting with the other ladies.

Always a colorful experience--never a dull moment!

Ears coming out our ears!!!

Ears of maize, that is! The people are harvesting maize and many have given us maize-on-the-cob as gifts. All week we have been eating maize once or twice a day with our meals. On Monday we had so much maize around that we skipped dinner and just roasted our maize on the charcoal and had 3 cobs each! Today Vicki, Abebech, and I and our translator Butros went to village G. for the afternoon and 3 different people gave us a bunch of maize on the way home so that by the time we got home our backpacks were full of maize! We had to laugh each time it was offered but we can't really refuse it. We were also each given a freshly roasted cob to eat as a snack on our walk home through, you guessed it, the maize fields. It's yummy--exactly like corn on the cob but not as sweet as sweet corn and the kernels are a bit chewier. I really enjoy it and am not sick of it yet! The Sudanese roast it as a snack rather than eat it as part of a meal and walking around the village this time of year, you see every child munching on a cob of maize.

It was a really interesting and enjoyable afternoon. I love being out in the villages! Our walk to G. was interesting as Butros told us tales of the war as we made our way along the narrow, winding path through grass and maize towering way above our heads.

We arrived in G. and greeted many families as we made our way through the village. People shout their greetings from all over the village and many were sitting around roasting maize (surprise, surprise!). A few children started crying when they saw Vicki and I, the scary khawajahs, and other children pushed them towards us for a joke, which freaked them out even more. Most of the children shout greetings in M. and laugh with glee when we answer in M. and think we're absolutely hilarious.

We greeted the family--man, wife, children, sisters, mother, etc.--that Vicki has started doing Creation to Christ Bible teaching with. She did the lesson in M., with Butros' help. The family are very keen to learn and were all very attentive.

When we finished we asked them if they knew baby Issa, the little one with Kwashiokor that we wanted to find and visit. Well, turns out the man whose home we were at and Issa's father are brothers, so pretty soon we were sitting outside Issa's family's hut with the whole extended family gathered around, discussing his feeding. Issa himself was looking a little better--Vicki and I both thought the swelling in his legs had gone down a little--but he is still very sick and has a long road ahead of him. It was good to discuss ideas for feeding him in more depth with his parents and to see what progress they were making with the medications we had given them. He had nearly finished one course of medication but for some reason there was half left of the other so we encouraged them to finish that. We were able to give him a Vitamin A supplement, like the children yesterday, and also to give his family a big mosquito net for their children to sleep under since Issa is high risk for malaria with his poor immunity. Finally, we were able to pray with all of them, thanking God for his life and praying for his healing, committing him into God's hands. This is such an amazing opportunity for a witness to the entire village. We will be able to visit them every Thursday and continue his care. Please continue to pray for him.

More Marasmus

Another morning at the clinic in B. and another 5 year old girl with marasmus (severe malnutrition). It is just heart-breaking to see these kids, so listless and lifeless, so thin and wasted. I felt a bit more confident today with how to treat her and what advice to give her mother about her feeding, the best we can do under the circumstances. So I have another little one for you to pray for: Omo is her name. The history her mother gave made it sound like she may have underlying tuberculosis, which we are currently unable to test for or treat although that will be Vicki's speciality along with leprosy once our health center opens. Her family lives in a village several hours walk away. They have goat's milk available at home so will make the journey and come back next Thursday to see us at the clinic. Her mother spoke of a shortage of food in their area, which we are hearing from other areas of the county also. This has not been a very good rainy season and crops are suffering. Please pray for increased rain.

The other little girl with marasmus who I've asked you to pray for, 4 year old Martina, came back to see me with her father and grandmother today. I was very happy to see her, looking a little brighter somehow and with a report from her father that she was feeling a bit better. According to the scales, she had gained a little weight but I don't at all trust the scales we have at the clinic so it's hard to say. After what I've learned this past week from Vicki and my malnutrition book, I was able to give her more medicines to cover likely infections and also high dose Vitamin A, to build up her immune system and prevent corneal ulcers from xerophthalmia associated with Vitamin A deficiency. Her father reported that he's giving her the goat's milk but that he hasn't really increased the frequency of her meals so I tried to stress the absolute importance of these small, frequent meals every 2 hours. She's going to come back to the clinic tomorrow so Vicki can see her also and so we can make an appointment to visit them at the grandmother's where they're staying and discuss feeding in more depth. Please continue to pray for Martina's healing and growth and for wisdom for Vicki and I as we try to help.

Last week I also asked you to pray for the 1 year old boy with kwashiokor. His name is Issa. Vicki and I haven't seen him since last Thursday as we weren't able to go to his village for the health teaching on Saturday because of a problem with our translator. We are going to that village tomorrow afternoon for visitation and Bible teaching so we're hoping to find him and follow him up.

Please pray that there will be nutritional intervention for children started in the county. We've been talking to the Sudanese man who heads up the work of an NGO in B., the organization that funds the clinic. He was interested to know that we've had several severely malnourished children at the clinic and said that their organization wants to start nutrition work here. Today he "happened" to be at the clinic when Martina and her family came in so he talked to her father and found out where they're staying. Please pray that this organization would make this a priority and that many malnourished children would receive help.

Kwashiokor

Today was my second morning at the clinic in B. Yesterday, I told you about my first patient of the day, a 4 year old girl with marasmus. This morning I walked in and my first patient was a 1 year old boy with kwashiokor, another type of protein-energy malnutrition that involves swelling of the legs, arms, and face. It is more complex than marasmus in that children with kwashiokor often have a very poor appetite and it is difficult to coax them to eat, whereas marasmic children are often very hungry and will eat eagerly. I was glad to have Vicki there to help me, since she has had a lot of experience with a feeding center for malnourished children in Zambia. It was a very good learning experience for me. I had never seen a child with kwashiokor before today, expect in the books, and this child had all of the classic signs and symptoms. His story is classic also. He was weaned from the breast very early because of his mother's health problems--very bad news for a child in this setting. The cool thing is that his family is from G., a village nearby where Vicki has been going for both Bible teaching and health teaching. There is a new church plant in this village. I have been planning to join Vicki for this health teaching on Saturdays but until this week circumstances have prevented me from going. This week I'll go along and after the lesson we'll try to visit this boy and his parents to see how he's doing with the medications (to cover a variety of infections that he's likely to have) and the feeding advice we gave them. Hopefully we can get a good idea of what food they have available so that we can give realistic advice and teaching.

Again, I would ask you to keep this little boy in your prayers, along with the little girl from yesterday, whose name is Martina. We were not able to call her back to the clinic today because the clinic staff didn't know her so I'm praying that God will be protecting and healing her over the next few days, until next week when I had asked her father to bring her back. Both of these children are very sick and at high risk of death because of the severity of their malnutrition. If the facilities were available, they would both be hospitalized and receiving intensive treatment and feeding regimes.

We don't think it's any coincidence that we have seen 2 children with marasmus and 1 with kwashiokor in the last 2 weeks. The child malnutrition rate in South Sudan is huge and although most of the children we've seen around here have looked quite well nourished, there are probably a lot more of these severely malnourished children out there in further villages.

Please pray for wisdom for us as we see patients at the clinic. We're finished for this week and will start again on Tuesday. This morning went really well and I enjoyed it. I'm starting to be able to communicate a little in the M. language, asking questions for health assessment and understanding some of the answers back. It's a lot of fun to be able to communicate with the parents, even a little. Aside from that, I had a good translator working with me who helped a lot.

After work, Vicki and I went to the market as usual to have a cold soda and buy bread and were thrilled to find some fresh vegetables for sale! This past week has been the first time we've been able to buy any vegetables here since I've been here. We had okra and maize (corn on the cob but not as sweet and juicy as sweet corn) earlier this week and today we found bundles of greens that the people use to make stews and eggplant! We were very excited.

Re: Challenges

Today was my first day of volunteering at the clinic in B. with Grace. Vicki, Grace, and I are each going in 2 mornings a week to work alongside the clinic staff and
help see patients. This was an idea from Dr. Rob, our medical director, to help us cope with the growing number of sick people arriving at our gate each day during
this time before our health center opens and we have the staff and resources to run it. During these months over the rainy season, our focus is Mabaan language
learning and building relationships with people in nearby communities and we were finding it increasingly difficult to do this with the number of patients coming at
all hours each day. So now we have been spreading the word that people should go to the B. clinic and that 2 of us will be there on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and
Thursdays.

There are no doctors at this clinic but 2 medics, a couple medical assistants and a traditional birth attendant. It is a very busy place and it is presently the only
health facility for most of M. county so people walk for hours to reach it (as they have been doing to reach us in D. also).

I've agreed to focus on seeing the children while I'm at the clinic. Reality hit fast and hard this morning as my first patient was a severely malnourished 4 year old
with a complex health history. Most of the morning there were 2 translators available but at the beginning there was only one who was helping Grace. The little girl's
father spoke some English so we did the best we could. Talk about being thrown into the deep end and feeling like you're about to sink! Malnutrition in children is a
real area of interest for me, but other than one little boy I helped Vicki with in Doro one day, I have only studied it in the classroom and the textbooks, and
certainly not enough! I had my Handbook of Paediatrics for Developing Countries with me so did the best I could with what I knew and what I had available for treatment
(which wasn't much). I tried to give some advice to her father about increasing the frequency of her meals and giving goat's milk etc. and asked them to come back next
week. I also asked if I could pray for her before they left. I had once again quickly come to the end of my knowledge and resources and knew this little girl needs the
touch of God if she is to survive.

She has been heavy on my heart this afternoon. After my language study, I spent a couple of hours pouring over my nutrition books, trying to learn as much as I could
about severe marasmus (protein-energy malnutrition with severe wasting). Fortunately, Vicki will be in B. with me tomorrow and she has had a lot of experience with a
feeding center for malnourished children in Zambia. We are going to try to send word to the family to bring her back tomorrow so Vicki can see her also and we can try to do a bit more to treat her underlying infections and hopefully arrange a home visit where we can sit down with the family and discuss feeding in depth. Severely malnourished children always have underlying, often hidden, infections and need a range of medications to treat these. They are also at risk of hypothermia, hypoglycaemia and many other complications. Please pray for this little girl. I don't remember her name after a hectic morning but God knows it! Please pray that we can find her tomorrow.

Miracle

I'm far too exhausted to write much tonight but wanted to say hi and tell you briefly about this week.

This week has been a mixture of the awful and the amazing.  On Tuesday morning, an 8 month old baby arrived at our gate with his parents, in severe respiratory distress.  In England I would have called the whole paediatric team or at least a senior paediatrician to lead his care.  All of a sudden that job fell to me, together with Vicki and Grace.

He was a very sick boy and we have no oxygen or any of the respiratory medicines I'm used to using.  We got a positive malaria test on him and decided he needed IV medication and IV fluids to keep him hydrated while he fought for his life with his breathing.  Trouble was none of us had ever put an IV line in a baby before.  And this was the toughest of the tough--black skin, slightly dehydrated veins, a chubby little baby.  Grace has had more experience with IV's in bigger people than me so she tried a couple times first, with the rest of us praying hard.  She couldn't get it.  At first I didn't want to even try--I've assisted with hundreds of IV lines in babies but only successfully put them into a few bigger kids and that was with difficulty.  I never got good at it.  But desperate times call for desperate measures and I was helping Grace look for a vein all over that baby.  (His name is Kamis)

Finally, I tried a vein we thought we saw on the back of his hand and failed.  We kept looking and praying.  Finally I thought I could see another faint vein in the back of his same hand.  It depended on the light and I wasn't sure and I didn't want to ruin our chance at that vein by going in the wrong way.  In the end I decided to go for it.  Grace was praying "Lord guide her hand" in my ear and I was desperately trying to believe that God could help me do the impossible but I didn't think it would happen.  It was such a stab in the dark.  Well, it happened and I fully believe it was a miracle.  I got a good IV line in that remained intact for the next 30 hours while Kamis had continuous infusions of IV fluids with malaria med. in it.  We nearly lost the line a few times when we had to fiddle with the bandaging, etc. but it kept going amazingly well.

That was miracle number one.  Then there was the issue of severe respiratory distress with no meds. to treat it.  We knew he could become exhausted, hypoxic, fall unconscious, and stop breathing at any time.  We had to check his IV line every hour and replace the medication every few hours.  He stayed in the empty tukul next to mine with his parents taking turns sitting up and holding him all night.  There were massive spiritual issues too.  They had taken him to a witchdoctor the day before and he had been given some traditional medicine that his parents felt had made his breathing worse.  Their village is 2 hours walk from D..

We knew that it would truly take a miracle to save this baby.  We did a lot of praying that night.  Grace and I stayed up for most of the night to look after his IV and to pray.

Titus, one of our watchmen who is a church elder, translated for us whenever we needed him, and with his help I had to tell the parents that we were doing everything we could but that we could lose him that night and would be praying for God to save him.  Then Titus led us in prayer for him in Mabaan and that was a powerful moment--he was completely in God's hands.

Well, that little boy kept chugging away all night long-he just kept going.  His parents were great.

Vicki woke up very early to take over so Grace and I could sleep but the tukul where they stayed is right next to mine so I was listening for his breathing and coughing half the time and just praying they would keep going.  I woke up at 7 and went over to check him and found him awake on his Mom's lap, still with significant difficulty in breathing but MUCH improved.  It was an amazing moment--to see that God had heard and answered and saved his life!  We had a chat with them later that morning with Butros, our language helper translating.  They recognized that God had saved his life and said that they would not be taking him to the witchdoctor any longer.  The father said people had tried to get them to go back to the witchdoctor when his breathing got worse but that they had come to us instead.

We had to keep him on the IV all yesterday too because he was still working to hard to be able to feed much and vomitting sometimes.  We sure weren't about to lose that IV line since we had it!  They had to stay a second night because of it but his breathing was much better and we only had to check him every 3 hours or so.  At 12:30 am we were able to disconnect the drip because he was doing better with feeding and keeping fluids down.

Last night I had suggested to them that they could probably leave in the morning but stick around D. until the next day so they could bring him back if he got worse again.  But the next morning he had improved so drastically that we were able to send them home to their village with some oral meds to finish.  His respiratory rate went right down to normal and he was all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed!  Man, he was cute--I got some good pictures of them before they left.

We all prayed with them before they left and praised God for saving him.  It was emotional to see them go, after 2 days with us and such an intense time.  I feel blessed to be here and to be seeing God at work!

Needless to say we are all exhausted today and behind in all of our language learning stuff, laundry, everything.  We made a schedule for ourselves this week to allocate a rota and times for seeing patients and cooking dinner, etc. but that all went pear-shaped this week.  2 of us at a time have been seeing patients from 2-4 or 5 each afternoon but the number of people coming--some sick, some not is getting overwhelming and taking away from our language-learning focus.  They are coming from all over M. county.

Today we got an email from Rob giving us a rather drastic solution to the problem because we are not supposed to be a clinic yet.  He's suggested that we volunteer at the government-funded clinic in B., the market town 3 miles away.  We've been trying to send people there as much as we can, although the care there leaves a lot to be desired by all counts.  However, the 2 medics there know and like Grace and have recently given her lots of dressing supplies.  It's a way of building a relationship with the B. clinic and getting patients to go there to be seen until we officially can open the health centre and getting ourselves off the compound and away from the pressures of people coming.  We are going into B. tomorrow anyway so we're going to stop by the clinic and put Rob's suggestion to the medics and see what happens.  Something's got to change here.

Please pray for another patient we're worried about--8 year old Johanna with severe pneumonia and difficulty in breathing.  He's come 3 days in a row and the oral antibiotics have not done a thing for him.  Today Vicki went into B. to the little pharmacy and managed to get some antibiotic injections.  She gave the first one this afternoon and he'll come every day for an injection until he improves.  He really is very sick and if he wasn't in rural S., he'd be in hospital on oxygen for sure.  He needs the touch of God too.  He's also from a village several hours away.

Stephen, the boy with the bad finger injury that I asked you to pray for, finally headed home to his village yesterday.  Sorry to be graphic but the dead end of his finger finally came off so new tissue can grow over it and his dad will do the dressing changes at home.  Another miracle that he didn't develop a severe infection from a dirty axe chopping off part of his finger, including the bone.  We were very glad he could go home--the dressing changes were a nightmare, especially for Grace who did most of it.

Well, again this was supposed to be quick, but there are too many stories to tell!  Sebsibe managed to fix the problem with my inverter today so I can charge my computer in my house again.  My sat phone is dead--it won't charge at all.  I don't know what the problem is but I may have to wait till Nairobi to get it fixed.  Vicki and I are doing email with my computer and her phone.

In spite of all the challenges here, I'm very happy and know that this is right where I'm supposed to be.