Sunday, October 6, 2024

Thursday, September 12, 2024

Wow, what a lovely and busy couple of weeks we have had, with visitors, and lots of activity! I will try to give you a few snapshots of our lives. It is a blessing to celebrate birthdays together with friends who feel like family. Emmanuel celebrated his tenth birthday with our visiting doctor, Ashton, who was also born in Nyankunde. It was a bit surreal for Ashton’s mother coming back to the very room where she labored and delivered. She even recognized the dark green walls through the chipped paint! We greeted the babies who were born this year on the same day with smiles all around. We celebrated with games and coconut cake, and special friends as Emmanuel requested.

Then there was the first day of homeschool and more cake to celebrate the start of 4th grade! It was as if we didn’t miss a beat with St. Augustine, Pilgrim’s Progress, and poetry by Emily Dickinson. Latin will keep us busy this year. We hope it will help us all with our French. Warren and I are thankful for the opportunity to share in Emmanuel's schooling.

Missionary Baby Born in Nyankunde.

The big news around here was that Baby Elijah Stafford was born here in Nyankunde on August 4th! He is the Stafford's fourth child and is growing and doing well. It has been fun to watch him grow and look older with every passing day. I have realized that birthplace is very significant. We pray that this will be a very important part of his life, being born here. It is an honor to be part of their lives and serve here together.

Laparoscopic Surgery.

Nyankunde Hospital is officially doing laparoscopic surgery as of the last month or so. Warren and Dr. Peter have been seen working on their knot tying inside a box, simulating a patient. Now that we have dependable electricity and all the needed equipment, we are able to offer basic operations like lap cholecystectomy, lap appendectomy, and diagnostic laparoscopy. It is such an equipment-intensive surgical approach compared to open approaches, but the recovery is much shorter. We are hopeful that this will give the hospital other sources of income and be something we can offer for teaching young doctors.

Dr. Ashton.

We have been so blessed to have Dr. Ashton Kilgore join our medical team (and family) for the past 3 weeks. She is an emergency physician with expertise in ultrasound. She spent a lot of time with each of the medical services, helping us with diagnosis and various interventions. She worked with our training doctors giving them some skills and talking about basic medical topics. It is a joy to see the next generation of doctors…it is my hope that they are all like Ashton. We pray for her next steps as she considers the future. Maybe We will celebrate other birthdays together.

Filming Project

We welcomed a Canadian friend for a filming project last week. It was quite a process to obtain a VISA to come to DRC that involved at least 10 signatures, provincial offices, a lawyer in Kinshasa, and a trip to Ottawa to pick up his documents…but he came and we are thankful. For me it is always a blessing to collect stories and conduct interviews of nationals as I always learn something about their lives. Congolese are very resilient people, but they have also suffered a lot. Even our night watchman, Edmond, told us about how he decided to move to Nyankunde. Difficult circumstances (extremists) in the Oicha area caused them to re-locate. He says that he has always been well accepted here by all the tribes in the area and that this was one of the reasons motivating him to come. We were also able to do an interview with a Japanese missionary, Katsuko, who has lived in DRC for 50 years, mostly in Nyankunde. What a blessing it is to hear her encouragement to the next generation to love well, be faithful, and work to adapt to others. We look forward to seeing what he comes up with! Beautiful drone shots, nature photos, and maybe a few personal ones mixed in. Thank you Artur for coming!

Hospital Challenges & Special Patients

These last months our province has been lacking in tuberculosis medications. For the first time in 12 years I have seen children die of tuberculosis without treatment. It is incredibly sad and morally defeating. The medications are available again in our health zone and I am hopeful we will be able to treat children again. Yet this should not happen in the 21st century, but health inequalities are a reality.

I have some really sweet patients with congenital heart disease. I do the best I can to manage their heart failure so that they can live well. Today I told the little boy that we were going to watch his heart show on TV and this was very interesting to him. It is easier to accept a child not receiving cardiac surgery because it is not as available in this part of the world. It is my hope that someday I will be able to refer children for heart surgery.

Thank you for your interest in our lives and ministry. We appreciate your prayers. We have been encouraged, despite the everyday challenges. The Lord continues to sustain and encourage us.

-Pray that our hospital would be a place of healing and encounter with the Lord.

-Pray for upcoming visitors to work with our anesthetists

-Pray for our school year, for Emmanuel to grow academically and spiritually. Pray for development of his Congolese friendships. Many of his friends are beginning to study in the city.

-Pray for continued work on the hospital video project. Pray that it would honor the Lord and move people to pray for this part of the world..

Lindsey for us

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain.

Emily Dickinson

Power!!!

July 2024

Electricity. You are probably taking it for granted right now. You flip that switch and the light comes on. It’s kind of amazing, but we see it as part of normal life.

At Nyankunde we do not take it for granted. We are totally off-grid, in fact there is no grid. We have to generate our own electricity in some way. We do this through solar power or generators. Solar power is incredible, but it’s a challenge. You have to get the system working just right. If you happen to be in the rainy season, as we are now, it’s difficult. No photons, no electrons. That’s the simple math that we’re up against. Generators are also a pain. They are expensive to run, fuel is hard to get, they require maintenance, they wear out. Plus they’re noisy. Also you don’t feel great about the whole carbon footprint thing.

The challenge of electricity is difficult at home. At the hospital, it is devastating. Sterilizing instruments, performing surgery and giving oxygen are all things that require electricity. The most important thing is simply light. Ever tried examining a patient, putting in an IV or sewing up an episiotomy by candle light, or the light of a cell phone? I have, and it’s not fun. So this is where we’ve been at the hospital for several years. We would occasionally buy lead-acid batteries, but they get tired after a few years. We found ourselves running the generator more frequently, but this was a huge expense for the hospital. Diesel fuel is around 6$ a gallon.

The difficult part of the equation was that Samaritans Purse had purchased for us a solar power system with 60 panels and Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries. Unfortunately the wrong inverters had been sent and the system lay dormant for around 5 years. I had despaired that the system would ever be up at running. For several years I looked at 60 solar panels on the roof and felt sad that they had not produced one bit of useable electrical power.

God has his own time and his own way. He knew that in July 2024, the pieces would fall into place. Our long-awaited container arrived with the new inverters. A visit from our friend Dr. Bob Spencer (Cardiologist and all-round fixit man) would lay the groundwork for our team of electricians to come. Bob and I spent several weeks pulling wire, changing wiring, installing inverters, charging batteries, refurbishing the oxygen system, fixing autoclaves, installing equipment, moving generators and so many other things I can’t remember. I am handy in my own amateurish way, but I quickly reach the limits of what I can do. Bob brings a level of expertise and experience which brought us to the next level. Without his help we would not have been able to finish.

Dave Bucklin and Peter Schmitz were on site for about a week. They completed the final stages of wiring, installed the oxygen system in the ICU and sorted through the complicated settings necessary to throw the final switch and make the transition to the new system. In all it was a long, hard month. I did very little patient care, thanks to the presence of Dr. Peter Stafford running the surgical department. Most nights I came home exhausted, after too much sun, too much heavy lifting and too much time in precarious places. Dave was down for the count for a couple days with a stomach bug, but he kept on going.

The result of all the effort was that we have switched over to a solar power system with a huge capacity. We have a newish generator that is more suited to our needs. We have a new oxygen system in the OR and a refurbished oxygen system in the ICU. We have working autoclaves. With the new system we have not lost power one time. It has been an amazing, incredible blessing. There are already patients who would have died for lack of oxygen in the ICU, who have survived. According to Lindsey there are 3-4 babies who have survived because of this system.

This project has been a shot in the arm for the hospital. I believe that it is improving our standard of care. It will represent a huge saving in diesel fuel alone. There is also a tremendous level of satisfaction knowing that we are using the energy of the sun to run the hospital. The system is also connected to the internet and there is an app on my phone which tells me how much energy we are using, what state the batteries are in and many other details that most people wouldn’t be interested in. I’ve been glued to this app and I just can’t get over it.

God’s timing works better than mine. I’m learning a bit of patience. Congo is a good place to learn that you can’t just make things happen by sheer will and frantic effort. At this time we have the incredible joy of electrical power. The hospital has many a flaw and many a need, but for the past two weeks, when I’ve flipped the switch, the lights have turned on and that is a good reason to thank God. We also thank the many faithful servants at Samaritan’s Purse, who had gave generously of time and resources to make this happen.

Warren

Sunday, July 21, 2024

Back in the Saddle Again

July 17, 2024 Coming Back

It is always a joy to be back home in Africa, to drink fresh passionfruit juice, to hear the robin chat “chat, chat, chattering” in the evening, and to re-connect with friends and colleagues. I hear and see things with new eyes. Africa is a sensory experience. It is like plunging in a cold pool and immediately swimming a work-out. It is all-engrossing and a shock to the senses. I live in a place where children come to the hospital barely holding onto life. This last week a now orphaned toddler died several months after being discharged from the outpatient nutrition program. It is just heart-wrenching. It is a place where life and death come to the forefront. Our province runs out of essential medicines to treat perinatal HIV and tuberculosis. We are currently in this situation. Even among animals….life hangs in the balance. Last Sunday we rescued our friends’ young kitten as a falcon repeatedly swooped down to try to kill it.

There is no air conditioning, just the wind and setting of the sun. We do not have a dishwasher and there is no grocery store to buy pre-pared food. Beans get served in different forms until they are finished. All food is fresh. Everything takes a bit longer, especially cooking. It is a different rhythm and it takes a good week or two to get re-acquainted with life. On the equator the sunset is at 6:30pm, so most outdoor activities need to be completed by this time.

Everyday life is more work, life and death are at the forefront, but somehow life is invigorating and there is joy in the simple things. If you are tired you rest. If it rains you plant.

A New Solar System

Currently Warren and Dr. Bob Spencer are preparing the installation of a new solar battery system for the hospital. This has been about a 5-year project between all the challenges we have faced in recent years from lacking certain components, Ebola, and insecurity. We are hopeful that this will bring us back to where the hospital needs to be from a power and oxygen perspective. There really is a need for biomedical equipment expertise here. We are preparing for a couple of electrical engineers who will come out next week to finish the work.

A Rabbit House

We are officially (or unofficially) raising rabbits! On last count we have 9 babies and 5 adults. As it turns out rabbits need a very clean living environment and love all “root based” vegetables and accompanying greens. Sweet potatoes and carrots are their favorites! We are finishing our very first rabbit house with different rooms that is well aerated. It seems a bit fancy!

Summer Break

Emmanuel loves summer break! He has been hard at work with his friends on a treehouse with accompanying moat (for protection from unwanted guests). We have been reading, playing outside in water, riding bikes, and adventuring together. He has a great imagination and is learning problem-solving skills. Homeschool starts in about a month and we are looking forward to a great year!

Medical Challenges

Today I could not find an infant nasogastric tube anywhere! I had 3 babies in the ICU that needed one. This is not a new problem of course. I found an old bag of feeding sets that we will never use and started to disassemble one to see what I could jerry-rig together. After cutting a few tubes, re-shaping some rubber pieces, I had found a way to make two feeding tubes from each set. Somehow this represents many things: lack of resources, on-going need, the need to look past the challenges and tendency to say “there simply aren’t any” and simply a desire to make things work.

One of my 1.5year-old kids has a cyanotic heart condition called coarctation of the aorta. His pulmonary artery and aorta are switched, bypassing the lungs to oxygenate the blood. It is a very serious situation and he lives with an oxygen saturation between 30-50% all the time and is generally irritable. He is simply not growing. This condition is usually surgically corrected in the first weeks of life. There is very little that we can offer in this environment other than managing his heart failure and giving them a diagnosis. It is hard to know if there is more that we should do. Is he a candidate for surgery? If so where? Families understand that surgery is not available in the country and have an easier time accepting this. I usually have at least a couple of babies with various heart malformations that I am following in the community.

Ministry

I am thankful that I can use my medical skills in the direct care of patients. Everyday I have the opportunity to ask people how I can pray for them and share the hope that I have in Jesus Christ. So many people are spiritually lost, looking for answers, making idols to worship. It is my prayer that the Lord will give me spiritual insight to the situations we face.

There is a beautiful lady from the forest who was brutalized, injuring her and cutting her ear off. It hits close to home to see people suffering in this way. Our colleague Dr. Peter has been faithfully tending her wounds, doing a skin graft, and showing love in tangible ways. Sometimes we hear afterwards about spiritual growth in peoples’ lives, but it is often through suffering that God reaches people.

There is no place that we can go to escape the presence of God, “If I say, Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night all around me, even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. 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.” Psalm 139 11-13.

As physicians we can appreciate how we are fearfully and wonderfully made. It is an honor to care for people, and see how God made them. As a surgeon Warren often says that he can modify and remove things from the body, but he can not add anything back. How simple and yet how profound!

We appreciate your prayers as we continue to adjust and adapt to being back in eastern Congo! -Pray for a hospital staff member who is struggling with a serious health problem.

-Pray that we would be able to finish the work on the new solar system and that this will help many people.

-Pray that we would see the spiritual needs around us and encourage staff members to pursue a deeper walk with the Lord.

Lindsey (for us)