Congo & Medical Madness

Hi everyone,

It's been a long time since I've posted and it's been an amazing time with lots going on so i'll try and give you the juicy bits. I should preface this post with a few things.

Firstly, I miss you all a lot and love hearing your news so please stay in touch. I have been reliably informed that some of you have been sending txts to my zambia number and I can tell you that I receive none of them. I don't know why. Thank you so much to those of you that have sent msgs. If you do want to txt me, I can actually receive txts on my aussie number.

Secondly, I am absolutely exhausted. It's been busy (see below :-)) and I am just coming off a fairly intense on-call shift. Our small hospital is full and at least 3 of the patients are at ICU level (except of course we don't really have any ICU equipment). It sometimes gets a bit overwhelming because it's often so futile due to lack of resources and the diseases themselves (HIV is a horrible illness). I must admit that before I managed to sit down to write this I had to debrief a bit with a couple of the other docs to let out my frustrations. I regularly need to seek strength and encouragement from God to keep doing the work and for that reason I am so thankful for the environment and people that surround me.

Thirdly, I can't shake this viral infection I have ... grrr

Now that I have got that all out, I dont want you to think that I am not happy or enjoying myself because I am loving every bit of this journey and know that it will cause me to grow. I am so lucky to be here and experience some of the things I have. So here goes at filling in the last 2 weeks.

Everything turned pretty topsy-turvy when the group from the states arrived because my regular schedule disintegrated, which I'm not complaining about at all. We have another church in a quieter part of Lusaka with quite large grounds and a retreat centre and this is where the group stayed. I still had some commitments with the hospital so I was going back and forth between the two places. The other church (St. Mary's in Kinyama) is so much more peaceful and the group that are here are brilliant. The group includes a couple in there 70's that moved to the US from Egypt 50 years ago and have literally travelled the entire world doing medical and mission work. It has been amazing learning from them.

Like I said last time, we travelled by road to Congo for 5 days of mission there and the experience was something none of us will ever forget. One of the local drivers from the church drove our little mini-bus the 8 hours to the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. Unfortunately the minibus was pretty full so three of us took public transport (a coach and then a taxi) and met the others at the border. Crossing the border was a 3 hour process but it all went through fine in the end thank God. Another ride in the minibus (another taxi for us) and we were at St. Mark's Church in Congo greeted by the most amazing singing voices.

Congo is a fascinating place. It has been ravaged by war and poor government; apparently there was some fighting in the north while we were there but we didn't notice and only realised when we got back to Lusaka. The infrastructure is poor and systems are hard to work with, but the people are absolutely amazing and the spirit in the place is like nothing I've ever seen before. The people are generally very intelligent and deep thinkers. As with the rest of Africa, there are hundreds of languages but the najority speak Swahili and/or French, so I had to dig out my schoolboy French to try and get by. The other the thing is that they are brilliant singers, with amazing voices and such a deep spirit in them. Easily my favourite person was one of the local priests Fr. Paul, who reminded me of Rafiki from the Lion King. He's so animated and lively and has a fantastic voice and a palpable love for God and his congregation.

We have five churches in Congo served by four Congolese priests. The main church is where we stayed and had the best infrastructure of them all. We have a generator, but can only run it 1 or 2 evenings per week. We have a cistern at the edge of the grounds that is fed water from the town, and if the generator is working well we can pump water into a tank to have running water, if not we have to gather it with a bucket. All our cooking is done on charcoal fire. It was such a great few days and I really hope I get to go back soon. We spent a lot of time doing various services and visiting people in the area and getting to know the group there. There was also some medical mission to be done because the church does not have a clinic there so whenever they hear that there is a doctor, people appear from all over to get attention.

Ok.. now I have to apologise if this post seems a little disjointed, it's just that I keep getting called away to other things so it's been a work in progress. I'd better try and finish it quickly :-)

So, once we were back from Congo, there were yet more exciting things to do. We went on an outreach trip to one of the other churches here in Zambia, which is in the middle of a sprawling village/farming community about 1 hour from the edge of Lusaka on a potholed dirt road. Obviously the drive was quite an experience but when we got there it was absolutely beautiful with cotton fields and huge centuries-old trees and a wonderful congregation of people. We set up a clinic there for the day as well, and thankfully a couple of other girls had come across from the states, one of whom had just finished med school so that eased the patient load just a bit.

Alright, I think this post is quite long enough now. Tomorrow we're going down to Livingstone for a little holiday to see the falls and hopefully walk with lions :-)

It has been such a brilliant time so far and I am so grateful for all the spiritual growth, but it actually makes me miss you all so much. I wish you were all here to share this amazing place and experience.

God bless