Surgeon in the House.

Dr. Mike is a general surgeon from Florida who has come to serve this community for the next 3 months. His happy manners and quick wit have already made him quite popular; and I’m confident his many skills will make him even more so in the coming months.

He will be working at the government hospital since we don’t have space in our clinic. Plus, the government hospital has a tiled room designed for just such surgeries.

The staff has been organizing the equipment and setting up the room for the last few days. Yesterday they did their first surgery --a hernia repair on a 7 year old boy. I’m told things went very well.

It sure is nice to have a surgeon in the house!

Three new blessings!

Pritty (pharmacist), Benedict, James (translator), Sarah, Stephanie

This week, several key IDAT staff went on break all at once. It was hard to see them go, knowing the work it would require filling their shoes. But we sent them off with smiles, nevertheless. They had worked long and hard and needed the rest.

Fortunately, the plane that took them out brought in three new blessings!

Benedict is our new clinic officer. He's a soft spoken Kenyan who looks a bit shell shocked by all the 'rurality' of Sudan. (Yes. I just made that word up!) I'm guessing he had NO idea what he was getting into when he agreed to help us out for a month. But I'm so glad he is here!       

The next big blessing is Sarah. She hails from the great state of Texas and has a heart of gold! She just graduated from nursing school, and wants to learn all about midwifery. She tells me she's hoping to do a masters in Midwifery someday soon. She'll stay for three months. Yippy!

(So thank you all for praying for me to get some help. I'm loving it. Now pray she stays longer... or another precious person comes to replace her in August!)

Our new oxygen concentrator.

The last big blessing is our new oxygen concentrator! Yes, some generous soul bought us oxygen on wheels! What's great about this machine, is we are not dependent on getting oxygen tanks refilled in order for it to work! Woohoo!

What lovely blessings that God has showered down upon us! What delightful answers to prayer! 

Now, start praying that God will drop an ultrasound machine in my lap! Thanks.

By the way, Sarah has a blog. Last Friday, she helped me with a wonderful birth. I'll let you read about it here, if you are interested.

Answer to prayer!

I’m happy to introduce you to Veronica. She has been helping me in the antenatal room for the last few weeks as my translator. She is a gifted linguist and a very bright young lady. The preggos are SO happy to have a female translator and so am I!

What a brilliant answer to prayer!

She can only work half days since she has two children at home. I don’t know how long exactly she’ll be able to work with us, but for the meantime, I’m counting my blessings.

Thank you for praying. Please pray more skilled, dedicated, female translators into this ministry. We need them. Thanks.

The Doctor’s in the house!

This week we welcomed a new member to the team - Dr. Tom! He hails from the sunny state of Florida and plans on being here long term. He practices family medicine and brings with him years of experience, an amiable disposition and .... drum roll please... chiropractic services!

Halleluia! If God wanted to give me a bigger present, I don’t think He could have!

But all joking aside, it’s nice having him on the team. Things just get better and better around here all the time. FYI, we now have running water in some of the rooms and electricity too! Life is so good!

Mike and Amy....

The Yordts are long-term missionaries out of CA who joined our staff a month back. Mike has been here on and off for years. He is our “get ‘er done” man and jack of all trades. His main role is compound manager. Today, he is putting electricity in our clinic! :- ) This makes for a very happy midwife!

Amy has been doing IDATs accounts for ages. She is still doing it, and now has added Clinic Administrator to her job description. It is so nice seeing all the wonderful changes she helped bring to the clinic so far. I’m so glad they are here.

Natali.

My favorite employee got fired today. I’m bummed.

I’ve been training a guy named Natali in the antenatal room for 2 almost 3 months. He was good. He translated well. He understood the details of midwifery... what’s more, he wanted to know it. He was eager to learn.

During births he was compassionate and encouraging. One time he crawled up on the delivery bed and helped a woman into a supported squat. He didn’t think it strange, nor did she. But I know none of our other staff would have done it... not even on threat of termination. He was different. He was a very understanding Dinka man. I never saw him get angry with any of the patients. I had high hopes for him.

But I’m told he didn’t play well with others. He almost got in a fist fight with one of the other employee (who is an instigator) and then this week, he seems to have been acting out a lot – refusing to do his work, arguing, ... I’m not sure what else.

So today, they terminated his contract. I’m bummed because he is my friend, a good “midman” and he needed this job. He’s expecting a baby any day. I’m sad because the yahoos that still work with us pale in comparison to his eagerness to work well (at least for me). I also bummed because... now I have to start all over again.

Please pray we find honest, hard working and eager to learn national staff. I especially ask for a woman to train. One that can work with me almost exclusively in the antenatal room – even two would be even better.

Natali learning to use a feteoscope.

King George.

George. George. George of the Jungle is our new lab technician. He’s Kenyan and loves Jesus. He talks a mile a minute and has some of the funniest facial expressions. I think if I understood half of what he said, I’d be in stitches. But .... he’s hard to get.

Today he was telling me a joke. The poor man had to tell it twice and explain some of the words before I got it. I think my foreign accent application is on the fritz. I can’t get a lot of what is spoken among the ‘English speaking’ Kenyans. ha ha. Oh Lord open my ears, that I might hear intelligible things here in Sudan. :- ) he he.

We call him King George because so far he’s the man to beat in scrabble. I found him reading the dictionary on Sunday in preparation for a match with Margaret. He’s pretty cocky about winning. I have not had a turn yet. But I’m ready for a smack down. Meaning, I intend to clobber him... the problem is.... I’m not sure I can. Stay tuned for scrabble updates.

Anyway... I write only to introduce the newest member of our team. He’ll be helping us with laboratory tests once the lab gets set up completely. We are all very excited for this new possibility at the clinic.

Imagine a clinic able to properly diagnose and treat infections! Woohoo!

Can I get an AMEN?!

Common Knowledge.

Some days teaching is a blast. Some days... not so much.

I've been teaching our health workers to count fetal heart tones and take pulses. Simple stuff, Right? I thought so. But it isn't getting through. Today I asked one of them to count a woman's respiratory rate for 15 seconds. But after waiting a good minute he still wasn't done. I figured he was just losing count and restarting. Then I thought... maybe he thinks he needs to count 50 seconds not 15.

I asked, "You know you only need to count 15 seconds right?" Yes. He says. He understands... only 15 seconds. So he does it and comes up with 75. What?

I tell him that's impossible. She'd be hyperventilating. So I ask him... you do know what 15 seconds means, Right? He just cocks his head to the right and looks at me.

Then I grab the clock and point out 5... 10... and 15 seconds on it. Then the lights turn on! OOOOHHHHHHH!!!!!! So that's 15 seconds!

Huh?

Then he proceeded to count for 10 seconds. I showed him again. 5... 10... 15.... Let's try again. By the third time he got it.

I'm not saying he isn't smart. He's one of our best health workers. I'm saying, I have to remember that what I think is common knowledge isn't here. I keep forgetting that.

Most of the women I treat don't know how to read let alone what month it is. Many of the health workers we are training have only gone up to the 5th grade in school. They are very smart men... just not educated in the same what as I was. Sigh.

Lord may I have patience to train them properly and always remember that common knowledge isn't always so common in Sudan.

Strike.

Today all of our staff went on strike. Not a one showed up for work.

They are disputing their pay and were hoping to make the clinic close down. They thought they were indispensable. But they aren't.

They all showed up late in the morning and were furious when we wouldn't stop caring for the patients and hear their complaints. They were angry that we were able to function without them.

But in fact, today went smoother than anyone expected. We were able to find translators to cover us and were even done by lunch! Imagine that 125 patients by lunch! ha.

Tomorrow is conflict resolution time so please be praying. Some of them will be losing their jobs due to their actions. And all the rest will be on suspension for three days.

Pray for the clinic all next week as we will be pulling extra hours and scrounging for translators. And pray that they understand they are only hurting their community by their actions -- not us.