Morokeni Chome! (hello friend!)
How is everyone doing? I am really sorry that it has been a month since I have sent out an email. It's not that I haven't wanted to, it's just that aside from being busy, it has been hard to find the right words to convey what I have been feeling and experiencing.
Transportation (third time's a charm)
I want to thank all of you for your prayers and concerns over my taxi situation. I want to let you know that God has answered your prayers beautifully in the form of my neighbor, Beto. Every morning as I would wait outside for the other taxi I would see a taxi leaving down the street from me. After talking to Imelda, she said she knew the drivers (there are 4 taxis at one house) and she would talk to them for me. Well, it turns out that he is wonderful! He leaves every morning at the same time to pick up the other drivers for the day so he always leaves at the same time. So now I am on time to work! :-) He is also very prompt to pick me up in the afternoons after work. What a blessing! Thanks again for your prayers!
Mosipangero (moe-see-pahng-err-oh) sa Rundu (the Rundu hospital)
Things are the hospital are good, but it seems like it is getting more difficult instead of easier as time goes on! I guess it is really just a different kind of hard. When I first started I was just spending my time getting used to the routines and the new environment. Now that I am becoming more confident in those basic things I am beginning to deal with the different attitudes towards life and death and health care in general, which is a much more difficult task. The basic things are just technique, which is easy to learn, but the other goes against my own culture and my way of thinking. I am having a hard time reconciling the two and figuring out how to react/show concern in a way that is sensitive to the cultural that I am in. Please pray for me in this area as I deal with something new almost every day.
My daughter Anna
My WHAT?!?! We have a special 4 year old patient named Anna right now in the ward that has won my heart over. Her mother has passed away and her father is also sick and can't come very often to see her. When she first came into the ward she was carried by another nurse and looked more like a corpse than a child. She couldn't lift her head and she spent all of her time sleeping in bed. Since she wasn't able to care for herself, I took it upon myself to become her primary caregiver. I don't feel very good when all I do is lay in bed all day and I figured neither did she, so I started taking her out of her crib to carry her around, to let her sit in my lap or go outside to sit in the sun for a little bit. I have been spending so much time with her that the other nurses have started calling me her mother and her my daughter!
Through love, attention and prayers, over the last few weeks I have seen an amazing transformation! Anna is now able to sit without leaning onto a pillow and feed herself, through daily walks she has started gaining more and more strength and is now able to walk without assistance(!), and she now smiles and laughs! It has been wonderful to see the way she has responded. However, on Monday, after being off for the weekend, she was mad at me! She wouldn't even look at me for the first two days! Today though she was back to laughing and smiling. I guess that means I am going to make a special trip in on Saturday to spend a little time with her! :-) Maybe just one day of being off won't get me into too much trouble!
There has been some concern for who will be able to take care of Anna once she is sent home, so today the social worker came and interviewed the father. Since he is unable to care for her at this time, please pray that a situation will be worked out for suitable caretaker for when she is finally discharged.
Church in the Bush
On Sunday the 16th Rob was invited to go with Pastor John to the farthest church that EBC (Evangelical Bible Church- the church that AIM is most closely partnered with here in Namibia) has planted, which is in the village of Kuatarera (kwa-ta-rreh-rrah). It was too far into the bush to take the children (they get car-sick on regular roads, they wouldn't have survived the bumps and bends of the bush) so Rob invited me to join them! We started our journey with Pastor John and four other church members from here in Rundu at 7:30am. After an hour of fabulous off-roading we arrived at the church. This village has never been visited by any of the AIM missionaries, and I wonder if some of the children had ever even seen a white person! (None screamed like they do at the hospital but several of them wouldn't come anywhere near Rob or me!) We were greeted by the entire church, all 25 of them, standing in a row singing to us! They were singing in Luchazi, but Pastor John told us that the song basically means welcome guests, we accept you.
After a wonderful church service (I always appreciate hearing Rob teach since it's in English and I can easily understand it!) the church cooked us a wonderful traditional meal of mahango and chicken. Mahango is a grain that is used for many different purposes. It is dried then pounded three times before it is used to make everything from porridge to a drink that looks sort of like dirty dishwater! (can you guess that I don't like it? ha ha). I hadn't had a chance to try porridge made from mahango so it was a good experience for me. You can probably also guess that though it was a pleasant experience I probably won't be making it for my dinner here at home! :-)
Holiday (vacation) is just around the corner!
One of the cool things about being in Africa is getting to see Africa! :-) My friend Carole that I have told you about from Canada, has her brother here for a visit right now and they are doing quite a bit of traveling. Carole has been kind enough to invite me to join them on two parts of their journey. For the first part we are traveling to Zambia and Zimbabwe to see Victoria Falls (no, we are not white water rafting on the Zambezi River, even though it is supposed to be the some of the best rafting you can do anywhere in the world- at least not this time) and will take a day trip down into Botswana to see Chobe National Park. Then after a week back here in Rundu, we are off to see some more of Namibia. We are trying to go near Waterburg to a leopard conservancy to see feedings (I hope this works out- it would be awesome!!!), then we will travel to Etosha (yes again) for several days and then spend a night in a Bushman (or San) village seeing how they live.
At the end of that trip I will be traveling on to Windhoek where we will be having our missionary conference. Every August all the AIM missionaries take a break from ministry to come together and be ministered to. We have a guest speaker coming and we will have music and lots of other things that will be great fun. It will be nice to see everyone again and get to hear some good Biblical teaching in English!
Pictures
There are two new photo albums to look at. One is 'church in the bush' so you can see our wonderful experience. I am supposed to get Rob's pictures from him soon so I will add those when I get them. The other is 'hospital pics 2' which has more pictures of the hospital in general.
I hope that you are all enjoying a wonderful and safe summer! Eat some hamburgers for me! (random question: why is it called HAMburgers when it is really made of BEEF? Shouldn't we really call them beefburgers?)
love and hugs all around!
kimmie
Praises:
- My older sister, Valarie, passed her nursing license exam!!! It was really hard for me not to be at her graduation but I hope she knows how proud I am of her for all her accomplishments!!!
- Carole's brother made it safely from Canada and they are enjoying the tours of Namibia they have been doing since his arrival
- my vacation and our missionary conference is coming up soon!
- Anna is doing very well!
Prayer Needs:
- For Anna as she continues to regain her strength
- For Carole and her brother as they travel over this week and next week
- For the traveling that I will be doing with them in August
- For our missionary conference in August, that it will be a wonderful time of renewal and rest for all of us
- For me as I deal with the loss of the precious lives of children at work and struggle with how to reconcile my culture to the one I am in.
- For work visas that still haven't been renewed for Mick and some of the other missionaries here in Windhoek
Posted by thekimmieconnection
at 6:48 PM BST
Updated: Wednesday, 26 July 2006 7:31 PM BST
