An experience

This post is going to be a little different because I don't have any pictures to illustrate one of the experiences that we have had over the last month, so I will do my best to describe it for you. We spent a wonderful Christmas with Gary's mom, Ruth, although Gary was sick with pneumonia and malaria for much of the time she was here. In mid January we all flew down to Namibia for a relaxing holiday before saying our heart-wrenching good-byes to mom and to Kaitlin. It has been a month already since we saw them off and we are still having a hard time adjusting to Kaity not being here.
Over the past few months we have had a few unwelcomed visitors of the rodent variety. We thought we had successfully tracked down all the little interlopers until we got back from our trip to Namibia.There was evidence that the little critters had returned. We cleaned and searched and cleaned and searched and came to the conclusion that they must have moved on to greener pastures. A few days later we had some guests stay in Josh's room for a couple days. The morning of their departure they commented that we must have a mouse in our house because they could hear it eating the rice cakes they had left open in the room. Which raises some questions about why there was open food in the room to begin with, but I digress. Tammy immediately sealed up the room and the hunt was on! We tipped the bed on its side, nope not under or in there. We spun the book shelf around so we could look under that and behind it, nope not there. That left the closet. All right little mousey we know where you are now! We pulled the boxes out of the closet from the right side, nope not there. The tension was becoming unbearable. I removed some clothes from the bottom of left side, still no sign! That left the little electric space heater in the far left corner. As I reached in, I saw him, his beady little eyes, his twitchy nose, his gray coat, but wait, something wasn't quite right. Why was his head the same size as the entire mouse that we caught last time!? YIKES it's not a mouse! It's a RAT! Oh man that's disgusting, how are we gonna catch this stinkin' rat? Because let me tell you, the great white hunter I ain't! Then we remembered that Brent, the other MAF pilot, has a rat trap. Yipppeee, we just force the little varmit to run over it and BAM the dead is done, no fuss, no muss and hopefully no mess.
I ran and retrieved said device and set it with the utmost skill and treachery, the future of this rat was sealed. We sprang into action and forced the rat to flee in the direction of our well placed trap, we watched with anticipation and anticipated the result. HORRORS!! The trap didn't work, in fact that wretched little pest ran back and forth over it three or four times! Cursed modern technology! Now what? Again we plumbed the depths of our minds and came up with an even more ingenious solution, this rat was quickly running out of options. What was our plan? We would simply borrow the cat that lives at Brent's house, how simple, how creative, how letting the circle of life take its course. The cat was brought into the room, the rat was flushed from its hiding spot, the rat ran, people screamed, the cat watched, the rat ran, people screamed, the cat watched. The rat was quickly running out of options as to where to hide and quickly sized up the situation. In the blink of an eye he made a bee-line straight for the cat and hid under it. The cat, being a cat, did exactly what cats do...nothing. Just sat there and wondered what all the fuss was about. At this moment our gardener, who had been trying to step on the rat, simply reached down and grabbed the rat around the neck and carried it outside, mentioning that this rat had a lot of meat on it. This is where Tammy says EWE and double EWE!! I am sure there is some sort of lesson in there, but I either don't know what it is or I don't want to face up to it.

A Day in the Life

This update I thought it would be interesting to take you on one of the trips that we do for the mission hospital here in Lubango. Once a month we take Dr. Steve Foster and his surgical team to the mission hospital at Kalukembe. Since my mom was visiting, she came along and recorded the event on film for posterities sake.

Before the first flight each day the plane is given a thorough pre-flight inspection to make sure everything is ship shape. After all we just can't pull off to the side of the road if something goes amiss.

At the airstrip in Kalukembe we are met by staff from the hospital who will drive us the twenty minutes it takes to get to the hospital.

Dr. Steve(with red coat) and members of his team with a visiting doctor from Germany who is considering moving to Kalukembe. That's me hiding in the back on the left.

The mission at Kalukembe was opened in the 1880's as a rescue mission for slaves that were being taken to Brazil. The hospital itself was constructed in 1944.

So what kind of stuff do you see at a mission hospital?
Well, bandages being changed for one.

This young man has lost his entire calf muscle from a gunshot wound by an AK47.

Burns, this young man has been coming for five years as Dr. Steve slowly restores his arm. The burn had welded it to his side like the wing of a bird.

Crocodile bites. That's right! This young boy was grabbed by a croc around his chest. His mother jumped into the water and jammed her arm down the crocs throat until it choked and let go. The boy managed to get out of the water and while the mom was getting out the croc bit her on the leg. She was recovering in the ladies ward at the same time.

The other thing we got to do was go into the operating room and watch a laporotomy(hope I got that right) That's right my mom came in and watched a surgery! We have some great pictures of the actual operation, but my censor said I wasn't allowed to post them. It is truly amazing to see how God uses these men and women to reach out to the people of Angola. The needs are so overwhelming that it can be so discouraging, but we know that God has a plan and that He brought us here not for our benefit, but to bring glory to His name. Thank you for your prayers and notes of encouragement, they really do mean a lot. We look forward to hearing from you and keeping you posted on what is happening here.