Greetings again all our friends and family. Well, I typed a full email earlier this evening and not sure what I did, but lost the entire thing. It is 1200 AM, all is sleeping, except the one who cannot sleep tonight, so thought I would try this again. It is still raining in Tanzania. Team 2 bring your boots as you are going to need them!! It has been a few days since news from us, as we had no internet for quite some time. Got set up better today so now we can let you know how we have been doing.
Had a pretty tough 2 days last week in a village and when it was time to end there, there were still a full yard of people who still needed to be seen so we set up to go back tomorrow. Saturday was a day at the orphanage. It was very different from the past visits.
There were also 19 new children since January and the majority of them needed medical intervention. Dr. Carley and Tim made another visit today to see several children that needed immediate follow-up. Dr. Carley also saw a teacher's daughter that had a very large growth on here lower back and buttocks that actually prevents her from sitting centered. She has to lean to one side and it is painful. It is far beyond our team’s capabilities, so we will see if we cannot send her to Kenya for an evaluation. We learned that 2 of the children at the orphanage have been abducted by "their parents" as best anyone knows, and they have not been seen since.
Our excitement on the way to the orphanage was that we got stuck in the mud. Our bus was tipped sideways and we were buried to the level of the entrance of the door. We had to exit the bus and with a little help from the locals, our driver was able to push the bus out and we were once again on our way. We also had time on Saturday to do some shopping and that was fun for many of our team.
Sunday was church and although there has not been any dancing in the aisles the past 2 weeks, the music still reaches the depths of our hearts. It poured rain most of Sunday so the day was spent relaxing, playing cards, and for some of us sleeping. It was an afternoon we all needed.
Monday (today), was a day in the Sakila clinic. We began working toward observing the Sakila medical team to learn how their routine works. It is a slow process, but we have a good start. I am teaming with the nurse to try and get an understanding of her knowledge and skills, but the language barrier makes this more difficult. We worked on clean and sterile technique today trying to get her and the team to understand, learn and practice it better than they do. We did some deep cleaning of a very, very dirty procedure room. We also received the shelving today so we will work together to organize and help they know what they have. They are excited about the wash stations coming and showed us where they would like them located.
Our day was extremely busy as Bishop announced in church that we would be at the clinic, and it was easy to see that he was heard. Dr. Marcia removed a growth from a young man’s back with myself and the clinic nurse assisting/learning. I also say a 14 YO child who while cooking yesterday had her skirt catch on fire. She had 2nd degree burns on both legs. I spent 1.5 hours debriding and cleaning the burned areas. The clinic nurse was with me and it was another good teaching moment. The young girl was also mentally delayed, so could not understand what we were doing and she cried and cried. In the end she hugged me and said "Santa" meaning thank you. We gave her a protein bar with a bottle of water and she was all good. If it were me, I think I would never speak to me, much less give a hug!! We also gave Mom the travel money so they can come to the clinic every day for dressing changes. Mary Costello had a day when a 76 year old man came with his 2 children ages 9 and 3. She clarified several times with the translator who finally said "not grandfather, father." The same process occurred when the family went on to see Dr. Marcia. They were both just flabbergasted. We do not know the age of Mom as he was not present.
We have been having Rust, who drills the wells to dinner each night since some of his team is gone for a few days. We have really enjoyed our visits and learning all about what he does. It is very interesting and he has taught us that even though people try and steal parts of the well and they have to hire guards to keep watch over the equipment while they are drilling, his wife uses the phrase of "Tunnel Vision" and no matter what happens we have to keep our sights on the women, children, elderly and those we serve. We had a great discussion about this and even put the works up on our Wall of Joy, which is our wall of encouraging sayings and Bible verses that we take away from our morning devotions.
Well, that is all the news for now. We all send our love and hugs from across the world.
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