We're Back!

Where to begin? Maybe I’ll just start at the end. We are back at Namwianga Mission picking up the pieces and getting settled after the medical mission. Today we moved out of the house we had been staying in since July 6 and moved back into the guest house. If you’re counting, that’s four moves in the last five months, with one more to go when our house is finished. The nice thing about this vagabond existence is that I’m finding out we really don’t need most of the stuff we’re lagging around.

The medical mission was an incredible experience. I haven’t processed it all myself just yet, so I’ll probably put more thoughts about specific incidents into later blog entries. For now, I’ll just summarize what David and I did. We had spent many days counting pills and making other preparations for the big team to arrive. On July 7th I started making shuttle runs into the town of Kalomo (4 miles away) to pick up the Zambian nurses who had come by bus. By the end of the afternoon I had made four trips into town to the bus stop. In the evening the huge group of Americans arrived. They had flown into Livingstone and then were brought by mission vehicles to Namwianga. The team now numbered over 220. The next day at noon we headed out into the bush for four nights of camping and three days of clinics.

Our first stop was at Kanyanga. The trip lasted six hours over some of the worst roads imaginable. Our maximum cruising speed was around 15 mph! We arrived after dark. The advance team had already set up our tents, so we were all getting settled in when one of our American team members, Johnny Robinson, collapsed in seizures. Our team of doctors and nurses went into action immediately and were able to get him stabilized for transport to Livingstone. David drove our Land Rover and Kelly Hamby took another vehicle for the trip. Johnny, his wife, a couple who are close friends, Dr. Jeff McKenzie, nurse Michelle Drew, and Zambian nurse Likando Likando set out for Livingstone at 10:30 that night. They made the same trip that had taken us six hours in just three! David said they went fast enough to just hit the top of the washboard roads. They made it to Livingstone in the wee hours of the morning and got Johnny settled into a clinic. He was flown in a special medical evacuation plane to Johannesburg, South Africa later that morning. As I write this on July 21, Johnny is still in Johannesburg awaiting surgery for a brain tumor. He and Cindy have been very pleased with the doctors and the care he has received.

Beginning the mission with such a tragic event was sobering. However, many good things happened that night. Johnny was cared for by Dr. McKenzie, an ER doctor who teaches emergency medicine at Vanderbilt University, and by Michelle Drew, a trauma room nurse from Baltimore. We had a pharmacy truck filled with more medicines than most hospitals in a developing nation. Nurse Likando is from Livingstone and was able to get Johnny into a clinic and under the care of a capable doctor there. But perhaps Johnny’s best help was the constant prayer support that went up on his behalf. As soon as we received word of Johnny’s collapse, the team members gathered in small and large groups to pray. The prayers continued all night long. Dr. McKenzie was quite honest in saying that Johnny’s initial prognosis was not good and that God’s hand pulled him through.

We began the clinic as scheduled the next day on Saturday, July 9. This was the first time the clinic had been held at Kanyanga, so we didn’t know what size of crowd to expect. There were throngs of people the entire day. In fact, at 3:00 in the afternoon many of the people were told to come back on the next day because we could not see everyone who was in line that day. The next day was also quite busy, but the staff did manage to see every patient who came for treatment.

David and I worked in the spiritual counseling area. David went out and preached to the crowds as they waited in line. I taught classes for young women. Both of us conducted individual studies with people who came to the spiritual counseling area for prayer and Bible study. This was my first year to do the young women’s class. My translator would go out into the crowds and collect a group of young, unmarried women and bring them to me. Then I taught a study on sexual purity using the Biblical stories of Joseph and David. The girls were always receptive and interested, and I learned a lot about the struggles they face in their culture. I’ll write more about that on another blog. I did about three or four of these classes each day. The rest of the time I was studying with women who came to our area.

This year David and I were determined to keep better track of how many people we studied with and how many of them were baptized. I managed to keep a pretty accurate tally for about a day and a half. Then I just gave up! We were swamped with people who wanted to study and pray. I would start out studying with one or two women, and then two or three more would come join them. Sometimes there would be a large group to start with, and then we would divide them up based on their needs. Keeping up with numbers just became impossible, although one of the Zambians did keep track of the baptisms that occurred. After seven days of clinics, we had 202 people who committed themselves to Christ in baptism. Again, more than all we can ask or imagine.

Sara worked in the pharmacy, as she had done last year. The alternative name for the pharmacy is Pills on Wheels, because we use one of our big yellow buses instead of a building! The prescription is turned in at the front of the bus and then passed down the aisle as workers put the prescribed medicines into a “blue bowl.” At the back of the bus, a Zambian nurse takes the medicines out of the blue bowl and hands them to the patients along with appropriate instructions. It seems to be a great system!

Hopefully you followed more of the mission’s activities on the ZMM2005 site. I’ll try to add more in the next few days and weeks.

After the mission we spent three days in Livingstone doing some sightseeing and relaxing. Then yesterday we had another heart-wrenching goodbye as Sara left to go back to Tulsa. We reassure ourselves that with e-mail and cell phones we will keep in touch, but just knowing that it will be a year before we see her is . . . well. . . very hard!

Work is progressing on our house at Namwianga. There are floors, walls, electricity,windows, and a little bit of plumbing. Ceilings are going in right now. We don’t really know when it will be finished, so we’re just being patient and looking forward to getting settled in some day!

Thanks for the many blog comments and e-mails we have received. Even though we can’t get to a computer often, we do enjoy getting all those messages. We’ve even gotten some snail mail. Today is my birthday, and remarkably I got three cards today. One had been mailed on July 30, one on July 5, and one on July 11!

Most of all, thank you for your prayers. We feel the hand of God at work in our activities and in our hearts.