I’m glad to say that after the last blog, Hannah and Grace have now both fully recovered from the Malaria they were suffering with and has been back at work since Wednesday last week. We are now into the second week of working at Shammah without Josh & Nadine here and keeping things running. We have had a sporadic couple of weeks, some days very busy and others with barely any patients. We have had the encouragement of a visiting team from Germany this week, and have shown them round the clinic this week. This team are originally from the USA - most are soldiers in the US military services, and some are veterans working with American soldiers in Germany in partnership with the chaplains there to minister to them.
At Shammah this week we saw one of our oldest patients, 90 year old lady called Liberator (great name!). She is around 2x the average life expectancy for a Burundian, partially blind but still going strong. Liberator walked for 4 hours this morning to arrive in time for Shammah opening to patients around 8am! What an amazing, and inspiring woman, who puts us to absolute shame moaning about the free NHS services and our public services in England which are among the best in the world. Shammah must really be making an impression for her to have heard from her community, a 4 hour walk away.
Over the past few weeks, Hannah and I have built up a relationship with some local children. We met them whilst climbing a hill/mountain near to Shammah, and they climbed all the way to the top with us!!
Since then, they have visited the clinic to see us nearly every day, and thanks to your kind donations of clothing we have been able to give them an outfit each which is a huge blessing to them. They have also been taught basic hygiene and have been able to have a wash at Shammah and learn oral hygiene which is rarely taken seriously here. See photos below.
Some of you know we have had no water for a while…..well I say a while, it has been nearly 4 weeks now since we have had running water except for the odd day where we get 1-2 hours of water from the supply. I have to say though, we are used to flushing the toilet with buckets now and having bucket showers, it doesn’t make it any nicer or less annoying but serves as a great reminder of just how lucky we are firstly in our home in Gitega living in the 3rd poorest country in the world but also in the West with the things we take for granted every day. Apologies also if you have emailed/messaged us on Facebook or contacted us on WhatsApp….we have not had internet or phones either, but we are now contactable again!
Next week, we begin the ‘Shammah Health Centre holiday’ - We can’t wait! We are off work for 2 weeks, which we will be spending with our good friend Grace in Uganda! We have been very blessed financially from a kind gift specifically intended for this trip, without it we just wouldn’t be able to afford to go, so thank you, you know who you are! We will spend a couple of days in Kampala with some friends (Hellen’s two eldest children and their families - Patrick and Shila, then continue on to Jinja, by the river Nile where we will stay the next few days. We will then go on to Mbale where Grace’s family live and spend the remainder of the time there with her family, and travel up into the mountains to see her grandparents. We can’t wait! We’ll definitely be updating our next blog with some photos…
A few weeks ago now, Jassy Mugisha (Hellen’s daughter) visited us from Lina Medical Services (where we will be in Nairobi) to see the work of Shammah and pick up some different ideas of how the clinic is run here in Burundi. It was amazing to see her, and for Andy to meet her for the first time before we arrive in Nairobi. We will be living with Jassy, Hellen and the family in Nairobi from September 2014 - Feb 2015 and can’t wait for the new challenges we expect to face in Nairobi. It’s certainly going to be a busy time in Nairobi, and we discussed ideas with Jassy for the future including the Ambulance service and Lina Foundation which we hope to launch whilst there. Lina Foundation will be the ‘outreach’ section of Lina and once a month (initially) we will be going into the slums of Nairobi to offer a mobile clinic, free vaccinations, and family planning advice and contraception (if required). We cannot wait to get involved in this exciting and much needed project for some of the world’s poorest people. If anyone would like to give towards these outreaches, or would like to come and volunteer in the future please let us know. Andy now has a ‘Lina’ email address so you can contact him at andy@lina.co.ke In the next few weeks, we will also launch the new Lina website, in preparation for all the changes taking place and additions to the services Lina currently offers so keep checking the new website address lina.co.ke to see the website! You can also ‘Like’ the Ambulance service and the Lina Medical Services page on Facebook. Links to each are below:
Lina Ambulance: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lina-Medical-Ambulance-Services/602749239813547?fref=ts
Lina Medical Services: https://www.facebook.com/pages/LINA-Medical-Health-Services/532898723425582?fref=ts
Lina Ambulance: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lina-Medical-Ambulance-Services/602749239813547?fref=ts
Lina Medical Services: https://www.facebook.com/pages/LINA-Medical-Health-Services/532898723425582?fref=ts
Apologies, we forgot to mention this on the last blog. We would like to say a HUGE thank you to Glenn Linell, and Bishopstoke Church, Hampshire for allowing us to use their very large, disused church hall free of charge. This is again an amazing sign of provision for us, and Lina Medical Services and will save us a lot of hassle and money! We are now receiving regular donations of stock from a number of sources and hope to send out a 20ft container in 2015 if finances allow (around £2000). We also need some volunteers to help Mum (Pippa Stupple) to sort through all the items, and write a list/inventory of all the items we have been given and when they come in, which at the moment is every 6 weeks or so.
If you would like automatic email updates for our blog, please follow this link to sign up (it’s really quick and easy and saves looking via the website every time)
http://eepurl.com/T0TPr
We trust that this latest blog finds you well and do feel free to make contact with us - we would love to hear your news too!
Love Andy & Hannah xx
See other photos below:
No comments:
Post a Comment