All things coffee: harvesting, processing, and finally roasting

October 3, 2020

Arabica beans pattern of ripening
(proximal to distal)

Living the Rural Life

 

This has been an interesting season in life, being isolated in a small village in Africa.  We are learning more about processing grain, the diversity of seeds, and how incredibly time-consuming farming can be!  Any little machine that has been developed in farming serves to make the process more efficient.  We bought a small de-pulping machine for processing coffee and it is saving us days of work!  Picking coffee still is very time-consuming, but the processing less so.  We pick the beans and then float them to eliminate those with lower density.  We then de-pulp them, float them again, and then take the “sinkers,” the good beans. Then you ferment the “sinkers” in water for 24-48hours to remove the mucilage and then put them out in the sun.  It is a beautiful process and makes harvesting coffee fun!  And this is just to obtain the high quality beans.  Then you need to dry and age the coffee and roast it.  Warren has designed his own coffee roaster with local materials…rebar, parts of old hospital beds, bike gears, old chains, and a recycled motor. After some modifications of the paddle to turn more evenly, we had a successful coffee roast tonight!  I will never complain when buying good coffee again.

A handmade coffee roaster

A coffee de-pulper

 

Threshing soybeans

Then there is growing soybeans…also a fascinating process and one with fewer simple machines to help here in Africa.  You wait for the plants to dry out in the fields, but not too long with the rains. Then you dry them in the sun for a week or so.  Next you thresh the grains out of the plants by stacking the plants, and beating them to free the beans.  Then you winnow the grains by hand with a sort of flat basket to remove the chaff, soil, rocks ( I have finally mastered the basics of winnowing grain by hand)!  Lastly you remove the bad grains.  This is quite labor intensive.  If you plant more than one species of soybeans the grains can ripen at different paces and you might have to do this process twice for the same field.  

We recently harvested a field of soybeans covering a surface area of 375m2 and obtained 22kg of grain, or 60grams/m2 or 1kg/16m2.  Just for perspective, in Congo 1kg of soybeans costs $1.  In practical teams this means you need to farm an area 4m X 4m for 3months to obtain $1.  This seems like a lot of work to me, considering that it is all done by hand. We are going to try some other species of soybeans to see if we can improve the grain yield.  There are so many variables from the species of grain planted, the weather (especially the rain), and the expertise in the harvest. 

All of this makes me appreciate the food I eat much more.  It also makes me more willing to pay for food grown by local farmers.  I want to support local farmers and adapt my eating habits to do so!  Peanuts are a whole other level of complexity and processing, for another day. 

 

 

Starting Kindergarten

Emmanuel is officially starting kindergarten this year.  He is learning to read and write.  We are so thankful for his Ugandan teacher Angel and a rich learning environment where he can learn things using his hands.  

 

The A,B,Cs, sound recognition, and reading are coming as well but generosity, compassion, and a desire to help others are also qualities that must be taught and experienced.  Curiosity is another quality we are trying to teach, as it relates to nature, plants and animals.  He understands a lot about how animals are born and has helped in the birthing of a baby goat.  He is also learning how to recognize and care for sick animals.  We live in a great place for him to grow in many ways.  It is very true that the world is a child’s playground.

 

Family

 

We, like so many of you, are thinking about and missing our extended families, grandmas and grandpas. We are really  hoping that things open up again soon so that we can see Warren’s parents in Switzerland.  We miss my parents in the US and our extended family and friends.  We love all of you!!!  In some ways it feels like life has been put on pause; in other ways it feels like our roots have deepened.  We are thankful that in Christ we are united in heart with those that we love, even when we are apart.

-Pray as the hospital goes through difficult security & financial times.  There are less consultations and hospitalizations and staff salaries are down significantly.  Pray that our staff would have their needs met, feel encouraged, and that they would have the courage to keep working.  

-Pray that we would proclaim and live out the Gospel as we should.  

-Pray that we would be able to take some needed vacation time very soon.

Blessings,

Lindsey for the Coopers

Starting hibiscus plants from shoots

A hospital meal

Learning from our agronomist friend Esdras

Very special missionary kids

Attempted Suicide

We were enjoying Emmanuel’s birthday party when they called me to the hospital. It was a man who had attempted to commit suicide.  I groaned inwardly, probably outwardly as well.  Lindsey was beside herself.  It just was not what I was hoping to deal with...but I went. It was an interesting and terrible case.  It affected me deeply and continues to do, even weeks after, as I struggle to write about it.  It is tempting to simply not write about the hard cases, the sad things.  These are the realities which we deal with every day.  I share it not to shock or horrify, but to perhaps show something of Gods grace in a broken world. 

Anyway, without going into all the details, this man obtained a weapon, tried to shoot himself in the brain, but ended up shooting his face off.  When he came in the wound looked so bad that he did not seem human.  I have pictures, but they would get me banned from Facebook.  The blast had destroyed the jaw, the maxilla, the nose and the left eye.  He was breathing from a hole where he face had been.  

Later on I heard the rest of the story.  It is worth telling. Since he was a soldier, the local commander was involved.  When he saw the injury, he figured that he was dead and made arrangements for burial.  They had obtained a coffin, dug a grave and they were waiting around, when the improbable happened.  His phone rang.  Well, it turns out he was only “mostly dead,” as the saying goes.  Everyone watched in amazement as he reached out his hand and took the phone out of his pocket.  At that point they decided to come to the hospital.  I’m still not sure who was calling him.  I like to think that it was God.  

Anyway, he was completely neurologically intact.  We had a pretty serious discussion about whether on not he wanted to live.  He communicated with hand-motions and even wrote something.  It didn’t seem fair to anyone to proceed with any major operation before discussing that.  The chaplain asked him whether was willing to live and even gave him an opportunity to make a profession of faith before proceeding further.  I am a bit skeptical about such discussions but he actually seemed genuine.  

We went ahead with the operation.  I did a tracheostomy (for breathing) and a gastrostomy (for feeding).  I wired back what was left of his jaw, removed what was left of his eye and repaired a small tear in the lining of the frontal lobe of his brain.  I sewed what was left of his face back together.  

Amazingly he is doing well.  We are a couple of weeks out.  He seems to be in pretty good spirits.  He gives me an enthusiastic “thumbs up” sign.  The tracheostomy is out and he is breathing fine.  He can handle his saliva.  He has learned to feed himself through the g-tube.  

He needs more surgery.  I need to figure out some way to get tissue into the top of his mouth. He will never speak properly or eat properly, but he’s alive.  Lots of questions remain.  If he was depressed before, how is he going to be like he is now? Will he try to do it again?  Did the contusion to the frontal lobe give him a sort of “lobotomy” effect?  I wish the best for him, but I wonder what his life will be like.  Despite it all, it feels like a miracle.  It feels like God really did call him, that he said, “Stop!  I’m not done with you yet.  Disfigured, broken, near dead you may be...but I still have some measure of grace for you.”  It’s not a funny sort of case, but it makes me laugh, or at least smile a bit.  It makes me happy to have my own part to play in the story.  

Warren

A Birthday Boy, Refugees, & An Unusual Case of Tuberculosis

August 31, 2020

 

Emmanuel’s 6^thBirthday

 

Emmanuel’s long awaited birthday finally arrived!  We had a reptile themed party, complete with attendance of his chameleon!  The missionary kids played musical chairs for the first time…but it was a little stressful for Emmanuel.  We played pin the tail on the chameleon and ate cake over the campfire in our new fire pit. It was a special day and I think he felt treasured.  He told us the other day that he thinks being 6 is more work.  Maybe he has taken his dad’s counsel to heart that he needs to think about the consequences of his actions before acting.  He is already asking when his next birthday will be!

 

We have a new appreciation for birthdays here in Congo.  It really is something to be celebrated when there is so much disease around, especially malaria.  We are so thankful to God for our son Emmanuel and for health!

 

Pericardial Tuberculosis

We have formed more of an intentional relationship with Adi Hospital.  Adi is located about an hour (by plane) north of here on the border of Sudan and Uganda.  We were called on to go and place a pericardial drain in a child with probable tuberculosis. This is a rare, life threatening complication of tuberculosis.  The procedure went well and the child had immediate improvement in his cardiac function. We are hopeful that he will survive. It was worth the long arduous road between Aru and Adi to be able to help this little boy.  Emmanuel was touched to know that he was almost this boy’s age.

 

While we were there for 48hours, Warren operated on another complicated case.  I consulted several kids and gave a medical conference on pediatric tuberculosis (TB).  I always learn the most when I prepare such a large topic.  We discussed an often neglected topic which is maternal TB and consequent neonatal TB.  As it turns out that in childbearing years, women have the highest prevalence  of TB activation than any other time in their lives.  Pregnancy in and of itself is a risk factor for TB re-activation and it often goes undetected.  We see at least two cases of year of suspected maternal-child transmission of TB.  It is a very relevant topic!  Then we discussed how to manage pericardial TB, the prognosis, etc.  

 

It sounds like they want us to come back quarterly to do some teaching on practical bedside ultrasound skills, and medical/surgical support.  This was so encouraging!  

 

Sickness

 

Emmanuel and I were both sick with a flu-like illness a couple of weeks ago.  His fever last for two weeks and mine one week.  We were both quite tired with upper respiratory symptoms.  Because we are in Covid times and we have had Covid cases in our hospital, we treated this illness like Covid even our tests were supposedly negative.  I am feeling much better and the cough had gone away.  Still it is pause to think and really protect oneself and family, other staff. I hope that we can improve our protocols to better protect people hospital staff and other patients.

 

We are thankful to be back to health again.

 

Refugees

 

Our community has absorbed an additional 600 households due to the insecurity around us.  There is no UNHCR camp, there are no food handouts, etc. People are settled in traditional homes by the village chief and the neighbors are expected to help to provide for their needs, until they can get back on their feet.  Many people can not access their old fields due to insecurity and they are forced to abandon their crops and start over.  This leads to food insecurity and undernutrition.  We sent a hospital vehicle to evacuate a desperately sick man from a neighboring health center.  We have admitted babies whose mothers’ are not making enough milk.  These are hard times.  We are seeing a very exaggerated number of malnourished children, and often their mothers are not well.  We are living through difficult times.  When security is threatened, so is food.  If everyone does their part we will be able to provide for people in desperate need.  

 

Tribalism is an ugly thing. Hate is ugly and makes people do horrendous things.  This geographic area feels quite tenuous at present.  We find that we really need our evening walks and to get out from time to time.  I have a new understanding of Jesus' words about worry.  

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own."  Matthew 6:34

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petitions, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:6,7

Thank you for your interest in our lives and continuing story in Congo.  We trust that God is working through us to represent Him even in tough times.  Continue to pray for reconciliation and lasting peace in our area.  Pray that God will convict peoples' hearts.  Pray for the difficult financial situation our hospital is facing with less patients and consultations, that our staff would have their needs met and have the strength to carry on.

Blessings,

Lindsey (for the Coopers)  

 

Our home soy harvest

Emmanuel loves to help in the field

Gold mining in the forest

Opening of "Le Petit Jardin" & Growing Refugee Needs

August 9, 2020

 

Refugee Situation & Tremendous Needs

Our hospital is a BRIDGE over troubled waters, food insecurity, and illness.  It is a blessing to watch a child that has refused all food accept food again.  It is a blessing to see a child walk for the first time at age 3.  It is a blessing to see a child smile and extend a hug when he sees you instead of breakdown in tears.  As Emmanuel says so astutely, “Kids in the hospital need love Mom.”  He gets it and wants to give his clothes and toys away.  He wants to extend a hand in friendship. He finds true joy in giving.  There is so much that I have learned about love from our son.

If the health of our children is a litmus test of societal health, then our immediate geographic area is in trouble.  We are beginning to see that children are collateral damage of armed conflict.  Collateral damage!  Every day we are admitting 3-6 children to the hospital with severe protein-calorie malnutrition!  If we continue in this way our hospital admission rates will be 4-5times that of last year, and we could approach 600-700 hospitalizations..  We simply will not have enough beds.  I looked at all of the charts today to see who I could possibly discharge to home. Almost all of the 30 current children have come in the last 2 weeks.

 

How can this message be heard?  Shout it from the rooftops:  "We are HURTING our own children!  Lay down your arms!"  

 

 

Pandemic & Play Garden Opens

The pandemic has officially arrived in our hospital.  This virus exposes all the weak points in a health system, including ours.  There are many things that we need to improve to be able to provide care safely without endangering other hospitalized patients (and our families). This is why infection control and isolation is so important.  Hospitals, like ours, can truly be daily “super spreader” events in places like Congo.  

 

Do we open the children’s play garden or do we wait?  

As I walked around the hospital I saw at least two dozen people in one of our pediatric wards…sitting together on beds and the floor…kids crawling everywhere, I said to myself, “Yes, we need outdoor space in such a time as this. Outdoor spaces will decrease transmission risk in a place where social distancing is unheard of.  Staff wears masks, but patients (by and large) do not wear masks.  So in the end we opened the pediatric play garden with a word of blessing from our chaplains and guidance of administration.  It was a fun event as you can see!  Don't worry...we will limit the number of people/children who can use it at a time.

 

Our province has more internally displaced people (IDPs) than anywhere else in the world.  There are thousands of people in refugee camps and living in less than ideal conditions.  Social distancing is very difficult in this part of the world and it simply is not cultural.  Now the capital of our province, Bunia, is seeing lots of Covid cases.  There are difficult times to come.  Pray for us.

 

A Soybean Harvest

Our hospital nutrition program has its’ first soybean harvest!  Now the work begins to dry and

separate the beans for use, storage, and sale. The crop did very well with seed pods growing waist high and very little maintenance!  We continue to have a lot of rain which is good for soybeans.  It seems that soybeans will be an excellent choice for future planting.  It is a learning process and a time to try new things.  It is great for me to learn traditional farming practices and how valuable land is to the people here.  

 

A Project

This past week we completed work on the renovated foundation behind our house.  It was

cracked and overgrown, completely unusable space. Now it is a fenced in play area with room for a basketball hoop….and complete with a hoist for various lifting needs.  It is something we have wanted to do for years and have been saving to do.  

Thanks for your interest in our lives and ministry here in Eastern DRC.  We thank you for your prayers for peace in our region.  We would love to hear from you!

Blessings,

Lindsey for the Coopers

 

 

Seeing with New Eyes & Trip to Adi

July 12, 2020

Looking in on Dad

This is how we roll

Seeing

Do you ever feel like some days life is more in focus than others?  Or perhaps you didn’t even realize that you weren’t seeing well until suddenly things looked clearer with a new pair of glasses?  I recently saw the video of a colorblind man who is suddenly able to see color for the first time, and it was immediately shocking and brought tears to his eyes.   Similarly there are experiences in life that cause us to pause and truly “see”, as if for the first time.  

Many things about working as a doctor in the hospital become routine.  It even becomes routine to walk by a still bundle in a bed that is a child who died from malaria overnight, acknowledge the sadness of it all, and then see the patient two beds over.  These are things we see here every day and I am used to it, even hard things.

I had an experience a couple of weeks back that brought into focus the preciousness of every person to God. I had been visiting a young man named Alpha who was suffering from complications of surgery done at an outside hospital.  I brought him therapeutic milk almost daily at noon and established a routine of greeting his family.  He was getting weaker and weaker due to our inability to feed him with intravenous nutrition (not available in this part of the world). One day his grandmother told me that he was sleeping almost all the time and shared her sadness with me.  The father asked if I could come for a visit when we has awake “tomorrow.”  I sensed that this was important and I promised to see him tomorrow.  The next day I went to visit him with two of the other doctors.  A few ICU nurses joined us.  It is hard to know what to say to someone who is dying and I asked the Lord to give me a few words for him.  I felt like it was important to acknowledge the meaning of his name, Alpha.  I told him that his heavenly Father knew him before he was even born and knew his name: Alpha.  I told him that God has had a plan for his life and that he was deeply loved by God.  I told him that God himself referred to Himself as the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.  I told him that life would never end for those who know God and have confessed their sins before him.  His eyes opened and closed as he drifted in and out of sleep.  He nodded that he believed this.

One of the nurses said that they had been talking about eternal life.  Then we asked if there was something that he still desired to do or for us to do for him.  At this point he affirmed that he wanted to be baptized and named people that he wanted to be there.  It was a beautiful moment that he was able to express this desire.  We affirmed this desire.  We weren’t sure that we would have enough time to pursue, but we took his request to the pastoral staff.  We all experienced a sense of peace just being together and hearing him speak.  

I was so blessed to have this time together with Alpha’s family.  I wasn’t sure what would happen next.  The next morning I walked into the ICU to learn that he had just taken his last breath and passed into eternity.  He had already passed through the deep waters.  I believe that God heard his desire to be baptized.  Who knows?  Maybe that happens in heaven.  I don’t see Warren cry much, but cases like this touch him deeply.  It is so hard for him to watch people die that he would like so much to help.  Sometimes God has other plans and he holds all of our days in His hands.  Alpha reminded me of the beauty and importance that each of us has to God.  We are known and deeply loved.  I am thankful to God for bringing his life into focus at the end and giving him peace. Each individual life is fragile and beautiful, and heaven will be so beautiful because it is made up of people like Alpha.  

A Trip to Adi

This past week we had the opportunity to travel north to the Sudanese/Ugandan border to a place called Adi Hospital.  Adi was an old stomping ground for Warren, and it had been many years since he had last visited.  It was my first visit.  We were invited by our German friends Matthias and Sabine Holmer and traveled with one of our nurses, Ayiko, and our friend Maike. We had an encouraging week together with the staff of Adi Hospital.  Warren was able to help them to get an electrocautery working that hadn’t been used in years. He gave a little workshop on cautery that involved operating on an avocado.  He is a gifted teacher and

can make things practical.  He helped them out with a few cases and used ultrasound on rounds and for decision making.  It was funny to walk in the old operating theater with him and hear about the many hours he had spent there…or sit in an old chair he spent many hours in. He has many fond memories of his friend Congolese friend Akuma, who he trained in surgery in the 2000s.  Akuma died back in 2011 and Warren hadn’t been back to the area.  It was good to visit his gravesite on the hospital grounds. 

I rounded on pediatrics with Dr. Matthias and we discussed what to do with all the complicated malaria cases, and dreaded complication of blackwater fever or “coca-cola urine.”  I learned a lot as we sought help to these clinical questions together.  I was able to reflect on our pediatric practice at Nyankunde and considered some changes I want to make.   It is good for people to be stimulated to think in different ways.  We were then able to reflect on our own team of doctors and the learning environment that exists at Nyankunde.  

It was fun to watch Emmanuel make friends so easily!  He has an endearing phrase:  “Bodubodu” that he uses to greet people.  It sounds silly and makes everyone laugh.  It sounds a bit like the local greeting in Kakwa “Aloboo aloboo.”  He became known as the white, blond-haired “bodubodu” kid.  They taught him all the local games (even a version of duck duck, goose and tug-o-war without a rope)!  He was able to communicate with them in French and gestures.  I hope that he will always make friends this easily!

 

This trip to Adi reminded me of the importance of encouragement in all of our lives.  We hope to be able to return sometime soon.

Continuing On

We continue to provide medical care at Nyankunde Hospital during challenging times.  The security situation in Ituri Province continues to be poor.  There are more internally displaced peoples in our province than anywhere else in the world at present.  The borders to surrounding countries remain closed.  We continue to pray that God will use our witness in these days to turn hearts back to Him.  There is spiritual oppression around us…Covid seems like something quite far away actually. I am reminded that God holds the solutions and sometimes sends drought and plagues to get our attention.  

2 Chronicles 7: 13-16 says “ When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.  Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.  I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever.  My eyes and my heart will always be there.”

Pray for security of our village and area and the work of Nyankunde Hospital.

Pray that we would represent Christ in word and deed.

Pray that Covid-19 would not reach the many displaced peoples.

Pray that borders would open soon and we can get the break we need, and be reunited with family.

Lindsey for the Cooper Family

Evening fun drives with our friends