I am fearfully and wonderfully made

The BIG news of the year is that we are expecting our first baby in August 2014!  We are already 12 weeks pregnant, but scarcely obvious.  We are very thankful for this little miracle.

It is one thing to study embryological development in medical school and a completely different thing to be experiencing it first-hand.  As you might guess from Warren's interest in ultrasound, this little baby has already had multiple ultrasounds (weekly).  Our first ultrasound dates to about 2 weeks post-conception when all we could see was the gestational sac (not even a fetal pole).  Slowly we were witnessing changes like the appearance of the heart (taking up half the body size at about 6weeks), to the spinal column, and the tiny limb buds.  Now this little embryo is a fetus with a complete set of internal organs and now simply needs to mature.  It is simply amazing and from looking at me you would never guess I am carrying this little person inside of me.  He/she is very active on ultrasound, yet I can't feel anything.

We wonder what it will be like to have a child that looks like us (maybe even acts like us).  Will we know how to raise him/her?  It seems overwhelming to think about, but I believe this is an area that we will grow in our trust in God and His ability to provide through us.  This is His child, designed by God himself.  We were just involved as co-creators.  What an honor to be a co-creator with God.

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.  

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; 

               your works are wonderful, I know that full well.  

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.  

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.  

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."  

Psalm 139:13-16

Thank you friends and family for all your encouraging/congratulatory words!

Blessings,

Lindsey and Warren Cooper

A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Coopers!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Coopers!

We hope you had a blessed Christmas close to those you love.  This was our first Christmas in Congo.  Our celebration out in the bush was a little different than in the US. We celebrated Christmas Eve with our new friends the Jakobbsons and Strietzels (who serve with MAF-Mission Aviation Fellowship). We realized that this was a first for all of us as newly committed missionaries to the re-building of Nyankunde.  It was a special moment.  Amidst the heat, we listened to Christmas music and had a traditional Swedish meal.    It feels like a new chapter has begun here.  Christmas was a bit simpler this year…complete with a small tree carried in country via suitcase, 3-dimensional sugar cookies, Norwegian rosettes, and friends around the table.  We have hosted our Congolese friends for watching of the Nativity and discussion about Christmas traditions.

A holiday meal with the Jakobbsons

Before the war here in Nyankunde, there was an active mission aviation program here.  Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) has re-established their program here since May 2013, but this has not been without significant hurdles.  There have been two near misses, both involving motorcycles crossing the airstrip as a plane was landing.  The first near-miss resulted in a totaled plane, but no injuries.  The second near-miss resulted in the airstrip closing.  A very large fence is being built the length of the airstrip to prevent motorcycles and pedestrians from crossing.  I suppose the location of a water source on the other side of an airstrip is not ideal.  We believe in what God is doing here and look forward to the flight ministry “taking off” again.

Peterson

This month we said goodbye to our sweet puppy Peterson at only 11months of age.  We are still struggling

On Nyankunde mountain with Peterson

with losing her.  She was the most amazing and powerful dog either of us had ever known.  She loved bounding through the green fields, digging, jumping waist-high, and eating fish.   She never took much interest in retrieving balls…just watching us throw them.  Not only were we her masters, but also her veterinarians, and nursing team.  We did upper endoscopy, placed IVs, fed her by syringe.  Her illness was abrupt and advanced quickly.  We miss her.

Looking back on the year

This new year marks the one-year mark of our moving to Nyankunde.  We are learning a tremendous amount about living overseas including hospitality, gardening, cooking, carpentry, and lots of odd jobs. 

Homemade lasagne (everything local, even ricotta cheese)

Always a bird on his shoulder!

It seems like we almost always have several home improvement projects going on.  We have learned the necessity of taking a Sabbath day of rest every week…it doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t see patients but rather an attitude of the heart.  We do most of our cooking on Saturday, including baking for the week.  Home really feels like a place we can rest.  We are really happy here together and our marriage continues to grow in new ways.

We have seen the coming and passing of many lives here.  Life is precious and fragile, we just don’t realize it most of the time.   I (Lindsey) have had several memorable patients that remind me that life is a gift.  I have mentioned a sweet girl with a severe skin condition called pemphigus vulgaris.  She has basically been in the hospital for the past 6months, with the exception of a couple of weeks.  It was my

Littliest ones of Nyankunde

hope to get her off steroids and transitioned to an antibiotic called Dapsone to control her symptoms, but I can’t seem to do it.  I have traded the severity of a skin condition for the side-effects of steroids.  We have decided that the best course of action is to hospitalize her for exacerbations and keep her coming to the hospital for daily visits/meds from the community.  This essentially means she is living at Nyankunde.  I want to give her the best possible life she can have.  There are two preemies (Nyangoma and Nyakatho) just under 3lbs (1.2kg) who are now 2 months old, finally gaining weight.  It is an absolute miracle to see in this setting where our electrical restraints don’t allow us to run incubators and baby formula is also quite expensive.   The other amazing thing is that the mother is displaced from her home due to local conflict, so the best place is probably in the hospital where she has people to care for her. 

The hospital will begin using the new mattresses that many of your financial contributions helped to purchase.  We are blessed to have more than enough mattresses for our current needs.

 

On-Going Ministries

This year we look forward to new ministries and old.  We continue to support the malnutrition program and cooking for the indigent poor population in the hospital.  Samaritan’s Purse will branch out more into community health intervention and follow-up surrounding the most vulnerable, malnourished pediatric population.  This program plans to incorporate agricultural intervention within family groups.  There is much to be done.

We continue to welcome visiting doctors and nurses and their families to serve and teach.  We pray for more and more opportunities for service, to strengthen the surgical service.

We pray for continued financial viability of the hospital and the spread of the Gospel in and through our work here.  We pray that we would be more and more like Jesus in our service here.  May we be filled with His joy to offer Him praise.

Thank you for your interest in our lives and support this last year.  We welcome your participation in prayer and finances this coming year.  To find out more visit: www.samaritanspurse.org/wmmgiving.  We are registered under the name Cooper and project account: 002121.

I conclude with the Christmas oratorio by Christian Friedrich Henrici and J.S Bach from the 1700’s:

“Come then, only your name will be in my heart! 

Thus I will call upon you, filled with delight,

When heart and breast burn for love of you.

But, my beloved, tell me,

How do I praise you, how do I thank you?

Jesus, my joy and bliss, my hope, treasure, and reward,

My redeemer, defense, and salvation.

Shepherd and King, light and sun!

Ah! How can I offer you worthy praise, my Lord Jesus?

Love and blessings,

Lindsey and Warren Cooper

Us with the Tenpenny's before their departure from DR Congo

Nyankunde Docs (the present and the past)

Thankfulness, an attitude of the heart

December 4, 2013

My joyous rafiki (friend) named Anto

Happy Post-Thanksgiving from the Congo!   The theme of this post will be ‘thankfulness.’

Do you ever struggle to see the bright side of a situation, especially when you see a lot of suffering?  I know I do.  Sometimes I think being thankful is a choice.  Every day is a gift from God.  Simply having breath is no guarantee.  This past Sunday I started to see the Genesis account of creation of the world with new eyes.  Everyday that there is light in the morning, there will be new growth on the earth to give us food.  God also created water to fill the earth, filling our cup.  It is with this same water that keeps us clean and therefore healthy.  This water feeds the earth and the plants therein.
 Let us not forget the

My other little "rafiki" who greets me on the way to church

animals that walk the earth, birds that fill the sky, and fish that swim the seas (including our fuzzy, fun-loving African grey parrots).  Perhaps the greatest gift of all is that of each other, our abundant family and friends.  We are extremely blessed.  No matter the circumstances, or suffering there is something to give thanks for.  I have more of a keen awareness of how precious life really is (and so fragile) since coming to Congo.  When I see someone going through suffering/trials, I try to say ‘thank you God’ for this precious person made in your image.  A joyful heart is good medicine. 

Cultural Things

Indeed, it was National Cicadia Day in Congo last Friday.  Who knew?  Kids were excused from classes and scoured the surrounded hillsides looking for bugs.  It was absolutely a show!  I came home for lunch only to find a few hundred kids hooting and hollering on the hill by our house, scurrying around lighting fires in the tall grass.  Apparently, fire gets the cicadas out of hiding.  It was pure chaos and felt a bit dangerous!  Maybe this is equivalent to our snow days in America!  There were no injuries that we were aware of.

It is also the beginning of dry season here in Congo.  This means that everyone (not only the kids) is burning the fields in preparation for the next growing season.  It is a little unnerving to be out on a hike and come across a spontaneous fire with no one around, or to hear the cracking of fire all night long through our open windows.

Did you know that bathtubs are useful for more than bathing?  Here in Congo bathtubs are also useful for cooking.  Foo-foo is a staple food made from manioc flour.  Manioc (otherwise known as cassava) is a food that really fills your stomach, but is not so rich in nutritional value.  I was walking home the other day when I encountered a group of girls carrying a bathtub in which they would cook foo-foo over a 3-day period.   Who knew?

Burning the hillsides in preparation for the next growing season

Home in Wisconsin

I (Lindsey) had the privilege this past month of traveling back to Wisconsin to be in my dear friends’ wedding, Josh and Kristine Hoiland.  It was such an honor to be part of seeing two friends make these promises to one another before God and man.  I had the real sense of heaven rejoicing with them, almost transcending the moment.  A foretaste of heaven perhaps?  It was so clear that God had brought these two together and had designed this day.  I look forward to seeing what they will be doing in 5 years.  My trip back to the US was quite short, taking advantage of frequent flyer miles.  Still it was great to spend time with my family, visit with my grandma, see my friends’ expecting babies, shop at Target, buy new sheets.  I carried back to Congo lot of fun toys for Warren …even a couple of small Christmas trees and curtain rods.  You would be surprised how difficult it is to find curtain rods…you end up making them out of rebar around here.  Rebar isn’t quite as elegant.

Hospital Work

These last few weeks have been difficult at the hospital.  We continue to receive more and more

patients for care and surgical consultation.  They are coming from farther and father away and are quite sick.  We recently received a woman from Chad!  Pediatrics has seen the passing of so many lives from malnutrition and other causes…I would rather not say how many.  Suffice it to say that we the degree of malnutrition is on the level of a crisis by world standards.  We have supplemental milk (F75), the means to resuscitate, give blood transfusions, etc.  Sometimes it is just too late to go back and the energy deficit is just too great.  I have never seen anything like this.  If there is one area of medicine here I feel most passionate about, it is nutrition and all the medical sequelae.  Pray for our work and us.  Pray for the Congo.  Pray for the broken families.  Pray for Godly leadership of families.  Pray for hope and spiritual awakening.  Pray for people to work the land.  Pray for people to know Jesus.

We look forward to a few physician friends who plan to visit soon, including an orthopedist.  There are so many opportunities for teaching and for specialty surgeries.  Warren is currently studying up on how to perform a total laryngectomy for a man with cancer of the larynx.  More and more complicated cases are coming.  Currently there is a professor of internal medicine from Kinshasa with his entourage of physicians.  “Nyankunde village” is becoming more and more known for the work that is going on here. 

I have been caring for a very special girl named Anifa on and off for the past 6-months.  She has a

Anifa watching Barney& Friends on an iphone

skin condition called Pemphigus Vulgaris which has required strong doses of steroids, an antibiotic called Dapsone (usually used for leprosy), and special steroid creams.  She has basically moved to our village for medical treatment, as it is very difficult to follow a home regimen.  It is my hope to get her off steroids eventually, but so many of the medications that are typically used to control this condition are not available here.  I also have been caring for a young boy with a cyanotic heart condition which would require a curative surgery.  I have been learning how to do echocardiograms.  We are hoping he can been evaluated by cardiologists in Uganda in February.  He is a very special young boy and reminds me of Anifa, in that he also lives with a serious disease.

Thank you to all of you that have contributed to the hospital mattress project.  We were able to purchase 150 new mattresses for the hospital that are sorely needed.  We don’t currently have 150 beds, but anticipate that they will be needed eventually.  I will post photos soon.

Other things

Our days here are full of visitors, cooking, shopping in the market playing with Peterson, our dog, being

Julia, visitor from the UK buying an escabo (local chair)

entertained by our parrots, gardening, local friends…Warren is always adapting something around the house to be more functional or fun.  I (Lindsey) am making new duvet covers for the beds and decorating for Christmas.  Warren recently overhauled a fancy ice-cream maker, so now we are living large and making ice cream and passion fruit sorbet.  We plan to try out coffee ice cream soon.  We are roasting our own coffee and making our own peanut butter.  I can honestly say that I know where all my food comes from.  Life is full and quite fulfilling.  

Any guesses on how many kilos Peterson weighs?

Chaco trying to steal from the horse's mouth

We need your prayers for our work here.  We are becoming quite well known for our medical work.  Pray that even before our medical care, that Nyankunde would be a place where Jesus lives, heals, and walks with people in suffering.  Pray that the staff would be known by their love.  Pray that we would not be discouraged as we witness the passing of many lives. 

Thank you for loving us and your interest in our lives.



Lindsey and Warren

A packed market



Buying local



Our little puppy!