We still have 8 people living in our home with us. It will be good when the campus is finished so that we will have several additional beds for our short term teams and living quarters for our Ambassadors. It is especially nice to have our daughter Kelsey living with us all of April. We have been quite busy with the optical outreaches but hope to find 2 or 3 days to get her up to Victoria Falls for a nice holiday. We have been working flat out for 2 months now since arriving back in SA and it is time that we took a few days for some rest and relaxation for our family. Lisa one of our ambassadors is planning on a short trip to Cape Town for a bit of a break of her own with our friend Carol who is moving to Cape Town to work with our ministry there.
The optical outreach we are doing this week is turning out to be one of the best ones ever. It seems that we are continually learning how to improve the quality of the clinical and spiritual work we are doing. We had the pajama party with our staff about 3 weeks ago where we took a 3 hour online training course offered from Louisville, KY. After that course we started dilating the eyes of all of the children we see to get a more accurate reading from our auto refractor machine. We are now using the auto refractor on every child and then sending them to the clinical stations to have their prescriptions fine tuned and this is also where the children receive their spiritual counseling and AIDS prevention education. Our staff spends about 20 minutes speaking with each child one on one about general life skills, praying with them and teaching them how to prevent the HIV infection.
This week the South African schools were on Easter holiday so the number of patients we saw was bit smaller than usual; we still ended up seeing around 450 children for the week. Most all of the children were open to hear our counsel that their generation must be the one to stop the AIDS epidemic by stopping the promiscuity that is so common in this culture. Since the public schools were on holiday we recruited about a dozen children from a local private Christian school to assist us in working with the children. For the past 3 weeks these children have been going around to many of the area Township schools and screening the children’s vision. Usually we have had the teachers in the public schools screen the children’s vision but we had to change our system because of the Easter Holiday. The children that volunteered from the Christian private school have been an absolute joy to work with. They are all intelligent, have good manners and hearts to serve children less fortunate than they are. I have asked them to write up a document explaining how they did this project this week with us and we plan to work with other similar schools in future communities where we will be working. Especially when we have clinics during the public school holidays.
I had a bit of bad news from Doug Sharp, the architect who designed the abods that we are hoping to build in July. He told me that Iowa Prison Industries had dropped the ball and were not going to be able to manufacture the homes that we had asked them to. This was particularly distressing because if we are to build these homes in July we must start shipping them at the latest May 1st. I had thought that it was so unique to have Iowa prisoners manufacturing homes for our orphan children in South Africa however; it now appears that seemingly good idea was flawed. I am sure that God has a plan for all of this and we will still get the homes built. It is just a bit stressful to get them done on time. God’s timing is usually that everything falls into place just in time and not ahead of schedule. Just like when we did the medical conference, we had no doctors registered 2 days prior to the conference. I asked Doug to call a couple of my friends in Iowa, John McBride and Eric Sheldahl to see if they could help in the manufacturing of these homes. I am praying that they will be able to salvage this plan and still permit us to get the homes build when the teams come to South Africa in July.
We have had such a wonderful time here in Africa this visit that I find it difficult to believe that we will be headed back to the States in just 3 weeks.
This team has bonded particularly well and we have enjoyed many evenings sitting around a campfire sharing stories that the children have told us during the day. Pastor Tim Cox from Washington State brought his guitar and it has been especially pleasant to sit around an African campfire and sing many camp songs and Christian songs. Each evening one of our team also shares a short devotional. Most of the team has enjoyed some long hikes up the mountain for exercise and they have also been able to view many of the beautiful game on the farm. Nearly everyone has seen the zebra, giraffe, wildebeest, warthogs and several different antelope. On the residential side of the farm we have our breeding programs so we often see the sable, njala and impala.
Yesterday I took Pastor Greg Youman to a Rotary meeting with me in Mokopane. I have enjoyed doing several different things like this be get more involved with the community that we are living in. I think that it is important for us to not only serve the children of South Africa but that we also become part of the fabric of the culture here. I have enjoy developing a relationship with many pastors and doctors here as well. Every Wednesday morning I try to go to grand rounds at the hospital more to develop relationships that to learn medicine. I have however been impressed with the quality of the conferences and always learn something new at these conferences.
Last night we had an especially joyous happening here at Shikwaru. Two of our team members have been so moved by their experience here this week that they have chosen to get engaged to be married soon. Joe Leo asked Amada Cowman to be his wife. He popped the question in our new missionary campus. So memories are already starting to be made there even before the construction is completed. Tomorrow being Suday I plan to have a special prayer service at the new campus having these team from First Assembly dedicate this property to God and we will also be praying for the future marriage of this beautiful couple.
I often tell people that coming on a mission trip with us will change their lives. Now I can tell them that coming on a mission trip with us may be the beginning of lifetime partnership. Two years ago our son Dustin proposed to his Rene’ here at Shikwaru. In our family we call moments like this making memories. We have so many wonderful memories. Joe and Amada work together as police officers in Des Moines, Iowa. This morning they were able to visit the police departments of a couple of nearby communities to learn a bit more about what police work is like here in Africa.
As I type this I am sitting under a shade tree in Naboomspruit on the grounds of a small African church. It is a church and community that our ministry has been partnering with and supporting for a couple of years now. Every Saturday we have a 2 hour church service for the children and after church we feed the children. On a typical Saturday 75 to 100 children come and enjoy the afternoon of worship, good fellowship and a good meal. I always enjoy bringing our team members here to be able to see this portion of what our ministry is doing. We contribute to this feeding program by providing food from Kids Against Hunger, another ministry that we partner with in the USA.
This week we have had a pastor Tim Cox from Washington State. He is a bow hunter and loves to hunt. So far he has shot a large warthog and a wildebeest and is still out hunting while the rest of us are here feeding the children. His new nephew Dustin Cox is the youth pastor at Waterloo, Iowa First Assembly Church. They have enjoyed ministering here together in Africa.
Last night we invited all of the people who had helped us with the optical outreach for pizza and fellowship around our campfire. There were about 30 of us in total working together for the last week. We were able to give glasses to about 500 children and demonstrate to them that there are people like us in the world who really do care for them and to give them a ray of hope for their future. We also were able to give them a little glimpse of just how much Jesus loves each of them. All of our team members have been going on and on about how wonderful this experience has been for them. Just experiencing a different culture and the beauty of our game farm has been a blessing but the real blessing for most of them has been in being able to reach out and help these children who have so little but still seem so happy. We have all learned for sure that it is not material things or money that makes people happy. Just like children all over the world these children just enjoy being children and appreciate just being alive. In spite of way too much death here due to poverty, an AIDS epidemic and way too much crime they still knows how to play and have fun just like children all over the world. It is a joy for us to be able to reach out and make their lives just a bit better.
No comments:
Post a Comment