There is much to update, so we are going to update everything in a 3-blog series over the next week. Stay tuned...
1. Central Michigan University
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| Us, CMU team, 2 interns and the Thompsons...with our half-way painted walls. |
(Alicia Typing...)
Well, the week of May 13th, we finally had our first official team on our own. Lo and Behold, the team was from Central Michigan University (our Alma Mater). Fire Up Chips! It was so great to have some people we already knew come down to the Jungle and to meet so many other great people from CMU. We also had two interns from Canada (Robert and Reinette), who were really cool and very helpful!
The CMU team was able to do a lot of cool things while they were here. As some of you may know, the hospital here owns an airstrip a couple of kilometers out of town. The rain this past season was a bit more than the existing drainage could handle and began running across the runway. It began creating a small "speed-bump" as we called it in the middle of the runway. Now, last time I checked, speed-bumps on a runway are probably not a good thing (don't worry it isn't a safety issue, but it could have been after another rainy season). So our team filled sandbags that we put up to stop the rain from running across the airstrip until a permanent solution can be put in place down the road.
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| Shoveling sand into the dump truck |
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| Part of the Sand Bags....Looks like a bunker |
The team ended up filling about 140 sandbags! It was definitely a lot of hard work. Lots of sweat was lost on this day!
We also had the team help out with the Sunday School at Bongolo Church.
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| Bongolo Sunday School |
We taught them the story of Jericho. After teaching them the story, we took them out to a large field by the hospital and had them help us act out the story. We were the "walls" of Jericho, and they were "Joshua's army".
So, they walked around us 7 times, and on the 7th time we shook like the walls of Jericho and all fell trembling down.
It was so great and the kids loved it! They couldn't stop laughing. :D
Of course, we also got everyone who wanted to see surgery into the Operating Room. It was fun to share a passion of mine, even with non-medical students.
Because this was a team from our home, we thought it would be cool if they helped us make our house feel more home-y. It took forever to paint! The team stayed strong and got it done. It was very much appreciated. It feels great to walk in our house and see nicely painted walls as opposed to off-white walls that were only off-white because of the dirt that had collected on them over the past decade. :D
There are still more plans in the works, so stay posted.
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| "Before" |
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| "After" |
The team was involved in some other great things while they were here too. They got to organize and deep-clean some of the nursing stations down at the hospital. One of the guys on the team was also able to fix a copier/printer for the nursing school. The nursing staff definitely appreciated all of their help.
2. And Beyond...
As you may know, we also help out with all the other visitors that come to Bongolo, including: Visiting Doctors, Surgeons, Nurses, and their Families. Here are some of the things we plug them into while they are here.
A few weeks ago, I took a visiting nurse on a vaccination run. Bongolo hospital sends a few of its nurses every couple of weeks into the villages to insure that babies and future moms are getting the vaccinations that they need in order to stay healthy. The village that we went to was very remote (no electricity). It was such a great experience for both Carrie and I.
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| Some of the Mamas waiting to get their babies vaccinated. |
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There were quite a few kids that came around when they heard all the commotion coming from the babies crying.
Their eyes are so intense in this picture! They loved getting their picture taken and then looking at the photos. |
Something else we like to do with the visitors is take them tubing down the Louetsi river. Here is a picture of us coming towards the end. It is absolutely beautiful and breath-taking. Although, our tubing season has now come to an end because it is no longer rainy season, so the water gets lower and lower every day. (It also gets colder and colder everyday....I have even been wearing sweatpants around the house!) Now, we take our visitors to the Bongolo Waterpark. (It is not really a waterpark...more info and pictures on that later.)
Our new and most favorite part of our job is getting to take people caving. Aka: Spelunking.
It is so much fun. National Geographic has actually come to these caves and mapped out its inner caverns. It is so cool to be a part of something that only a few people in the world have the privilege of seeing! It's really hard to get good pictures while you are in there, so you might just have to come visit to totally get the feel of God's secret creations in these caves :D.
Hopefully, you can kind of get a feel for the caves with these few pictures.
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| Getting ready to enter the caves... |
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| Stalactite (it's everywhere in the caves...Stalagmites too) |
Random fact:
We can trace the words stalactite and stalagmite back to the Greek word "stalassein," which means "to drip." This is fitting because it describes how both are formed in nature. Although they look lifelike and a little creepy, stalactites and stalagmites grow simply because of water running over and through inorganic material.
(HowStuffWorks.com)
Some of these are formed over thousands of years! So cool!
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| This is Kallie...our tour guide. Without him, who knows where we would be in those caves? |
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| So Dirty! Notice how pitch black it is in the background! |
3. Closing Thoughts...
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| Zoom-in on our newly-painted fireplace |
We've had a lot of people ask us about the meaning of the mural above our fireplace. So I thought I would explain our choice. Consider this quote by Billy Graham:
"Can you see God? You haven't seen him? I've never seen the wind. I see the effects of the wind but I've never seen the wind. There's a mystery to it."
The wind is something you cannot see, but you can see what the wind does by the way it moves things, such as the seeds off a dandelion. The Holy Spirit is also something that we cannot see, but the effects that He has in our lives are the ways that people can see that God truly exists. The people and teams who visit here are usually here for a short time, but a seed is planted in them . A seed that we will never know exactly how it has changed their lives. When they leave, who knows where they will end up...just like the seeds off the dandelion plant.
"The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." John 3:8
Just some food for thought...
We love you guys,
Alicia and Dan
