The last few days Alicia and I have enjoyed a house to ourselves for the first time in almost 2 months! Our time spent here since returning from the States has been quite the whirlwind. We have hosted five different groups with as many as 21 people staying in our house on any given night.
Our first group was from Redding California consisting of an Ophthalmologist, his family, one of his assistants and her son, a Dentist and his family, and a first-year medical student. This group of 13 was a bee-hive of activity with the medical personnel diving into the work they came to do while the other women helped out in all sorts of ways…from babysitting, to organizing medical store-rooms, teaching kids how to brush their teeth, and organizing an Alliance women’s gathering for all the women on the station. All of the kids were given tours of the hospital, taken in to observe a few surgeries with Alicia, and worked on some other projects with me.
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| Giving a tour of the station, here is the future site of House 6! |
We also took this group caving and to the river on the weekend…they had a blast!
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| "Bongolo Waterpark" |
Throughout the time since we have returned from the States, we have also had constant rotation of interns (ranging from 1 to 6!) living at the house assisting us with teams, working on various projects, and shadowing at the hospital.
Our next group was a pediatric ENT surgeon with his family of six from Wisconsin. They arrived here just a few days after the Redding group left, they were small enough to stay in a smaller guesthouse, but Alicia and I still gave tours to the family, and took them to surgeries, projects, caving, etc.
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| Robey family with the Thelanders |
Before the surgeon and his family left, our house was invaded by the Libreville Envision team and all of the interns for a four-day retreat. It was great to have everyone together for a time of fellowship, quiet reflection, worship, and some service! They also helped us host the first annual Bongolo 5k and 4th of July Barbeque for the entire station! (More on that in a future post.)
The Straws (the family who runs the Libreville Guest House for the Hospital and the Bongolo Aviation program) was able to join the festivities with some family and friends visiting from the States. So with the Straws here, us two, and the interns, we had 23 people sleeping in our house! Definitely a record so far…
The next week was relatively quiet with four interns, all of whom were studying or practicing in the medical field and spent much of their time at the hospital.
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Last week we had the pleasure of hosting a team from Faith Alliance Church from Ohio. Alicia and I worked on a project with them the last time we were in Gabon in 2009 and had visited their church a few times since, including a support-raising visit prior to coming out in January. Needless to say we had a great time with the Faith team. Wow! They were hard workers! The team cleaned out the gym from the old MK school that was full of scaffolding, building materials, old appliances, etc. and placed these items into a storage container. They also re-screened the MK school, reclaimed an overgrown part of the station from the jungle, and almost finished digging the foundation for a new church…all in 4 days of work!
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| Future site of the Moutongo church |
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| Rolling a massive log into the Jungle |
Mid-week our team got hit with a 24-hour stomach flu that was going around the hospital afflicting 10 out of 16 of us (including me…Alicia was one of the lucky 6 who did not get sick). I lost 10 pounds in 12 hours and was pretty dehydrated to say the least, but I was able to keep food down and was almost recovered within 24 hours. (Don’t worry mom, put 6 pounds back on within 3 days.) The illness thwarted our plans to spend the morning cleaning up the Alliance High-School, but our team was well enough by dinner to host an event at the hospital which included worship, testimonies from the team, and a short film. Over 100 patients and family members attended, and we were able to pray for those that were sick before the event was over. There were so many people that came that some had to watch from outside!
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| Film Showing at the Hospital Chapel |
So that brings you up to speed on out last month in Gabon! Monday we are looking forward to Field Forum, a week-long gathering of all the Alliance International workers serving in Gabon. Followed by hosting Trinity Alliance from upstate New York.
I would like to leave you with a short story about how you never know what your day will look like when you wake up in the morning…
A few weeks ago Steve Straw flew in sensitive ophthalmology equipment that will allow the hospital to make it’s own eyeglasses. The equipment would have never made it over Gabon’s roads to the hospital and the flight made the equipment delivery possible. Steve’s plane is in the states for repairs so he found a French Businessman that allowed him to use his personal plane for trips to the Hospital. Steve arrived at the hospital’s airstrip as planned, dropped off the equipment and loaded the Hofman family in the plane to take them to Libreville….
But the plane didn’t start!
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| Trying to manually start the engine |
So here we are in the middle of the African rainforest with a plane that won’t start. Steve is certified to work on the plane and knew that the problem was not related to the engine, just the starting system, so if we could just get the plane started he could safely make it back to Libreville where he could get the parts to fix the plane.
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| Paul and Steve finding the problem |
Our first plan was to manually hand-start the prop, So he gave me a crash course on how to safely hand-start a plane, after several attempts we got it started!...for about 4 seconds. At this point Steve and I were out of ideas and called in the big guns…Paul Davis, the hospital’s maintenance director who makes McGyver look like a Girl Scout. He looked at the Engine using a voltage tester and concluded that the battery was bad (keep in mind he has never worked on an airplane in his life) he then was able to determine that the plane had a 24V battery and then successfully jumped the airplane by driving two trucks onto the runway and wiring their batteries together to get the proper voltage. That did the trick and soon after the plane was off on its way!
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| Genius! |
*The plane has since been equipped with a new battery and is still being used by Steve to service the Hospital. He is expecting to have his own plane back by October.
