Please pray for the permanent missionary doctors who are stationed here in Kapsowar.
1.One of the families have 4 children that range from 7 months to 5 years old. Their youngest is a foster child that they hope to adopt in 3 years, according to the adoption laws in Kenya. This child's mother died at childbirth and the family abandoned him with nobody to care for him.He is now in the missionaries care waiting for the adoption process to start. The law in Kenya forbid any child to be adopted before the age of 3 years old. He is adorable but a very fussy baby and need constant care from his new mom (Ashley) , who have very demanding work days at the hospital and dad (Mike) ( Engineer )who does the maintenance and restoration of the houses on the mission grounds.
2.Another permanent missionary surgeon Bill and his wife Laura,have been working in this hospital for the last 18 years. He is an amazing doctor that can do so many different kinds of surgery that you sometimes wonder if he is a general surgeon ,plastic surgeon,orthopedic surgeon or even a gynecologist. People are flocking to this hospital because of his excellent care. He can also speak Swahili and is a very humble man and he works very long hours every day. People come to Kapsowar from much bigger towns to receive first class Surgeries and medical care.
Bill and Laura also travel to other remote places to provide medical care, and their lives are in constant danger. Please pray for God's protection over their lives and that they will find time to rest to prevent them from burnout.
3. Pray for the Chaplaincy program in the hospital as it is a very important part of this hospital.There are 2 pastors who are doing daily rounds in the different wards and they pray, play music and read God's Word to the patients .Their other important duty is to provide care to the families of patients who died and counseling care to patients who try to commit suicide.One of the pastors told me that the town of Kapsowar had 8 young people last year who committed suicide. The majority of those were patients who heard that they are HIV positive. Many patients that come from other more rural areas have never heard about Jesus and some of them will receive a Bible for the first time. All of the patients constantly request prayer for themselves or families and it is a privilege to see their bold faith in God's Word and the hope that it gives to everybody who believes.
4. Please pray for a female patient who is currently in hospital . She became a paraplegic 2 years ago when she fell out of a mango tree. She is a mom of 4 children and she is hospitalized because of bedsores that wont heal.She was very depressed when she arrived at the hospital but it is beautiful to watch how she says in her own words"the dark in her soul has lifted and she now sees the light" . She received a Bible for the first time and asked me to come and pray everyday with her and explain what the Bible teaches.She reminds me of a child who received a special gift and never leaves it out of sight. Please pray that I will have the wisdom to teach her and help her to know that Jesus loves her and is always with her ,even if the bedsores might not heal.
Sunday, 16 November 2014
Sunday, 9 November 2014
The activities of the past week in Kapsowar - November 09 ,2014
This past week in Kapsowar was very busy for Andre and I. This week was the last week of the school year for most of the schools. I was invited to all the school ceremonies and graduations activities.One thing that I have learned this week is that people here have lots of patience especially when it comes to starting time of programs and appointments. You learn quickly that people and relationships are way more important than starting at the advertised time. The pastor of the AIC church just laughs every time I ask him " when are you going to start with the program " . He says that " we in the West have watches but Africans have time " and that is so true. Everything slows down , way down and for Andre and I it feels like heaven.
The town of Kapsowar is bustling with activities and very dependant on the the hospital .It is fun to stroll through their little shops because it feels as if you step back in time. Where can you still buy a coke out of a 300ml. glass bottles or Fanta orange , Sprite or Bitter Lemon Krest for 25 cents US ? It is as if we experience a little bit of our childhood again and it triggers many wonderful memories of our former years growing up in South Africa.
There are also many very skilled seamstresses who are still using old Singer sewing machines that work with foot action and not electricity. I made friends with one of them the last time we were here and she insisted on making me another skirt. Well I don't think that you can buy a beautiful African printed skirt , lined and tailor made to your body for $8 (material included ) anywhere else in the world, And did I mentioned that it was finished within 2 days ? I showed up a little earlier than the scheduled time and she was busy ironing it with an iron that dated out of the 1800's , it is one of those that still uses hot coals inside .
Speaking of electricity , we have at least one power outages every day and on Thursdays it is longer than just an hour,sometimes up to 5 hours .They do power sharing to overcome the problem of scarcity of electricity. We had many romantic dinners with all the candles burning .I am so thankful for a gas stove and as long as we can eat we are happy. We also have to switch the geyser on for hot showers and when finished you switch the geyser off again. We finally started to remember to switch it on at the right time because it takes an hour and 30 minutes before the water is hot enough for a shower.
One of the permanent missionaries is renovating a house for a family that is suppose to arrive this coming weekend , so everybody that can do something is helping out . I love to paint so I got the job of painting the house on the inside.
I was also asked on Thursday to preach at a women's conference held by the local church for all the churches in the area . The conference was on Saturday , starting at 11 am and end at 4.30 with "lunch".The assigned pastor could not come from Nairobi and they thought that as a women I should be the perfect candidate. What a blessing it was to be accepted as one of them by these beautiful women who love the Lord with all their hearts.
There is one thing that African people can do very well , to sing and dance in their worship services. There are 16 local churches in this area and it was just an amazing experience to hear their testimonies and learn that they have the same joys and sorrows as we do. I think they are more honest and open tho share what is truly on their hearts than us .Kenyan women are very warm and caring and they dress very smart for any event that takes place at the schools or churches. Even the little kids are dressed in their Sunday clothes with the boys in suits and most of the dresses are made locally by seamstresses.
Andre and I try to go for a long walk every day for our daily exercise but this week was also a busy week for Andre at the hospital and today was the first day in a week that we could get our daily exercise.
Andre saw some heartbreaking cases this week and I think the cases that breaks our hearts are those of children who die because of lack of means to get to the hospital in time or patients who just do not have the money for further treatments. Although the missionary doctors work for free , the patients must buy their own medicine and pay for surgeries and hospitalisation if they can afford it
The town of Kapsowar is bustling with activities and very dependant on the the hospital .It is fun to stroll through their little shops because it feels as if you step back in time. Where can you still buy a coke out of a 300ml. glass bottles or Fanta orange , Sprite or Bitter Lemon Krest for 25 cents US ? It is as if we experience a little bit of our childhood again and it triggers many wonderful memories of our former years growing up in South Africa.
There are also many very skilled seamstresses who are still using old Singer sewing machines that work with foot action and not electricity. I made friends with one of them the last time we were here and she insisted on making me another skirt. Well I don't think that you can buy a beautiful African printed skirt , lined and tailor made to your body for $8 (material included ) anywhere else in the world, And did I mentioned that it was finished within 2 days ? I showed up a little earlier than the scheduled time and she was busy ironing it with an iron that dated out of the 1800's , it is one of those that still uses hot coals inside .
Speaking of electricity , we have at least one power outages every day and on Thursdays it is longer than just an hour,sometimes up to 5 hours .They do power sharing to overcome the problem of scarcity of electricity. We had many romantic dinners with all the candles burning .I am so thankful for a gas stove and as long as we can eat we are happy. We also have to switch the geyser on for hot showers and when finished you switch the geyser off again. We finally started to remember to switch it on at the right time because it takes an hour and 30 minutes before the water is hot enough for a shower.
One of the permanent missionaries is renovating a house for a family that is suppose to arrive this coming weekend , so everybody that can do something is helping out . I love to paint so I got the job of painting the house on the inside.
I was also asked on Thursday to preach at a women's conference held by the local church for all the churches in the area . The conference was on Saturday , starting at 11 am and end at 4.30 with "lunch".The assigned pastor could not come from Nairobi and they thought that as a women I should be the perfect candidate. What a blessing it was to be accepted as one of them by these beautiful women who love the Lord with all their hearts.
There is one thing that African people can do very well , to sing and dance in their worship services. There are 16 local churches in this area and it was just an amazing experience to hear their testimonies and learn that they have the same joys and sorrows as we do. I think they are more honest and open tho share what is truly on their hearts than us .Kenyan women are very warm and caring and they dress very smart for any event that takes place at the schools or churches. Even the little kids are dressed in their Sunday clothes with the boys in suits and most of the dresses are made locally by seamstresses.
Andre and I try to go for a long walk every day for our daily exercise but this week was also a busy week for Andre at the hospital and today was the first day in a week that we could get our daily exercise.
Andre saw some heartbreaking cases this week and I think the cases that breaks our hearts are those of children who die because of lack of means to get to the hospital in time or patients who just do not have the money for further treatments. Although the missionary doctors work for free , the patients must buy their own medicine and pay for surgeries and hospitalisation if they can afford it
Tuesday, 4 November 2014
Our daily lives and tasks in Kapsowar.
Andre;
Andre's days starts with fellowship with his colleagues ( Psalms ) every morning 8-8.30 except on Wednesdays when all the Hospital staff attend a church service from 7.30 till 8.30 at the Chapel
His working day starts at 9 am and this past week he was assigned to work at the Emergency ward that screen patients for surgery. The hospital is not as busy this time of the year but two of the permanent doctors are on leave and Andre is standing in for them.He has already seen many trauma cases that you will likely never see elsewhere .He loves working in a environment where the common goal is to "Glorify God in everything we do".
Gerda:
My day starts with leading devotionals for the Nursing students at 8 am .I am so struck by the simplicity of their lives and how good their knowledge is of the Bible. This class is not mandatory but there is a full class every morning. All of the students carry a Bible and when I asked them to quote key verses , they know it by heart. This class is the highlight of my day and they all speak English very well.( likely better than me ) .Kenyan people are very friendly and always tell you that you are " very welcome " but it takes them a while to show their emotions. We seldom see them cry even in the most devastating circumstances and you wonder if the reason is because they see and experience so much trauma.
At 10 am I do hospital rounds with the two pastors from the Chaplaincy and we pray with the patients and talk with the families ,The young people receive their education in English so they are all fluent in English but most of the older people only speak their mother language and then the pastors help with the translation. There are 40 different languages and sometimes patients will be from another region that nobody can understand .Because of the privacy of these patients I cannot share their medical details but there is everyday a case that just breaks my heart. It is always so humbling to see how much they want us to pray for them and how much they cling to the hope that Jesus gives ,
I also spend lots of time at the African Inland Church School that is situated just next to the hospital.
This school has captured my heart and the children are adorable. They range from 3 years to 14 years old with 196 students and 18 teachers. I spend a lot of time taking pictures and notes at this school and will share that when we are home , because our internet in Kapsowar can not load pictures.
Andre's days starts with fellowship with his colleagues ( Psalms ) every morning 8-8.30 except on Wednesdays when all the Hospital staff attend a church service from 7.30 till 8.30 at the Chapel
His working day starts at 9 am and this past week he was assigned to work at the Emergency ward that screen patients for surgery. The hospital is not as busy this time of the year but two of the permanent doctors are on leave and Andre is standing in for them.He has already seen many trauma cases that you will likely never see elsewhere .He loves working in a environment where the common goal is to "Glorify God in everything we do".
Gerda:
My day starts with leading devotionals for the Nursing students at 8 am .I am so struck by the simplicity of their lives and how good their knowledge is of the Bible. This class is not mandatory but there is a full class every morning. All of the students carry a Bible and when I asked them to quote key verses , they know it by heart. This class is the highlight of my day and they all speak English very well.( likely better than me ) .Kenyan people are very friendly and always tell you that you are " very welcome " but it takes them a while to show their emotions. We seldom see them cry even in the most devastating circumstances and you wonder if the reason is because they see and experience so much trauma.
At 10 am I do hospital rounds with the two pastors from the Chaplaincy and we pray with the patients and talk with the families ,The young people receive their education in English so they are all fluent in English but most of the older people only speak their mother language and then the pastors help with the translation. There are 40 different languages and sometimes patients will be from another region that nobody can understand .Because of the privacy of these patients I cannot share their medical details but there is everyday a case that just breaks my heart. It is always so humbling to see how much they want us to pray for them and how much they cling to the hope that Jesus gives ,
I also spend lots of time at the African Inland Church School that is situated just next to the hospital.
This school has captured my heart and the children are adorable. They range from 3 years to 14 years old with 196 students and 18 teachers. I spend a lot of time taking pictures and notes at this school and will share that when we are home , because our internet in Kapsowar can not load pictures.
Sunday, 11 November 2012
Pacific Northwest Coast tandem tour ,12 days in July 2012.
The official sign for the Oregon coast Bike route we did this Pacific Northwest Coast tour with our tandem from June 30th to July 13th, 2012.
We started with our tandem from the ferry terminal in Twassen over to Schwartz Bay -Victoria. Total weigh of our bike was 500 pounds included our weight.We did not have a trailer but we made bags that fit in the inside frame of our bike and that just worked like a charm.
Took the ferry straight from Friday Harbour on San Juan Island to Anacortes and started our tour from there. Took a beautiful 10km loop through Washington state park.
This was the first of about 10 major bridges that we had to go over on our tour. The roads ,tunnels and bridges in the USA is just so impressive. All of the bridges have traffic lights that you as a cyclist is allowed to activate before you cross the bridge to warn motorist of your presence on the bridge or in a tunnel.Some bridges have just too much traffic on them and we opt to walk over the ones that do not have a big shoulder on the side.
Yeaaah we have a fire going. We decided to camp mostly at State parks , because they just have the most beautiful campsites and they have special hiker/biker sites that only cost $5 per person/night.
Our first camp in Washington state was at Cranberry Lake State park. We heard the most incredible loud noise at about 11pm and did not know what it was till we realized that we are only 10km away from Oak Harbour a Military basis with lots of Fighter jets showing off their power. We both love planes and the noise did not bother us. Interesting enough it was one of the campsites that we heard the most different kind of birds in all of our tour.
Maybe the birds were trying to make up for all the noise of the planes.The next day was Independance day( July 4th) and it is always a good time to be in the USA and see the patriotism and display of power. We cycled through Oak Harbour and was happy to see the display of fighter jets cutting through the sky , nothing that gives me more goosebumps than that. We end up stopping at the best coffee shop in Washington its called Widbury's coffee bar. Two guys on a tandem saw us cycling and decided to come and tell us about all the great things we can see in that area , we truly appreciated their enthusiasm for promoting their town.
Coupeville was the best looking town to us in Washington but we came across this sign on the roof of the pub at the waterfront that said keep off roof and just had to laugh about that because you must be really drunk or stupid to get on the roof in the first place.
Camp at a little town called Quilchene on July 4th and what a night. Everybody who has a gun was celebarating and we heard so many gun shots throughout the evening and decided to just stay at the campsite and lay low in case of stray bullets. We heard all kinds of gunshots from handguns to fully automatic rifles that shoot many bullets per round and I am just wondering where do all those bullets end? Every night when we camped we could not believe that all the stuff that you see in the picture was on our bike.
We cycled the next day to Shelton and stopped in Hoodsport where we ate at a beautiful Mexican restaurant on the water. This part of our tour was not fun , the road did not have any shoulder and we had two close encounters with logging trucks that almost ran us off the road. This was a very warming , charming town and the color of the ocean was just so beautifull.
The town of Shelton one of only 3 nights in a hotel so that we can wash our clothes and catch up on emails .
Stay at a beautiful bikers/hikers camp spot at Two Harbour State Park in Westport and ate the best clamchowder at the Fish Shack. We did a total of 128.5km of cycling today.
A beautiful old Movie Theater in Raymond
Sleep at a very good KOA campground in Bay Center. Andre took some time off after fixing yet another spoke on one of our wheels.Andre made the canvass bags between the frame on our tandem and it worked like a charm. It was really unbelievable how much things we could fit in those compartments. Many cyclist were asking us where we bought the bags and were really disappointed when we told them that it was selfmade and no we do not take any orders.
Cross the 7km bridge behind me over the Columbia river on our way to Astoria. The last part of the bridge is very steep and we had to peddle very hard to make sure we don't delay the traffic too much because they were working on the bridge and had to alternate the lanes on the bridge.
Stayed at a Hotel in Seaside , our first town on the Oregon coast. Just to take a bath and sleep on a mattress after one week of camping, the ultimate luxury when you are on a cycling tour .
Seaside has a beautiful beach and it is also a very big tourist town so we got the feeling of a nice summer holiday at the beach like it was when we were children. Many fond memories of playing frisbee and body surf with cousins at the beach came to mind.
The town in Oregon that recieved the number one spot on our list is Cannon beach. All the buildings have the same building code and it reminded us of Banff .
We had to go through a few of these very scary tunnels , luckily all of them has a traffic light that cyclist can trigger before you enter the tunnel to indicate that you are going through to motorist.We were very lucky and had only one time that we were in the tunnel while cars were passing us.Some of them are very long and the noise inside when cars were passing was incredibly loud.
So many beautiful beaches along the Oregon coast that are protected from any development and preserved as state parks.The Oregon coastline is one of a kind in the percentage of protected coastline from development in the USA.
Andre busy repairing another broken spoke in front of Safeway , while I am filling up on food supplies.
This was one of the many beautiful Stateparks in Oregon - Cape Lookout Statepark. Stayed at a biker/hiker campsite $5 pp with the beach 10 steps from our campsite.Stop about 2km before this camp at a Mexican restourant and ate the best Marionberry pie and ice cream with Carona beer. Weird combination but it was all worth it after 120km of cycling for the day.
Had to climb a steep mountain of 5km long the next morning but was rewarded with this view on our campground the previous night.
Cycled a total 105km today . The bridge in Newport is impressive and we decided to be safe and push the bike over the bridge. Stayed at one of the most beautiful parks the Jessie . M. Honeyman State park. We met a real survivor type of guy who also stayed at the hikers/bikers site with us. He told us he walked 37km that day with a backpack that is too heavy for me to pick up. We had a blast with this guy , he made a fire out of nothing within minutes and was telling us some interesting stories of his time in the military in Africa and Vietnam. Took a picture of this squirrel literally 1meter from us , calmly eating on something.
Cycled 106km today and stayed at Sunset Bay State park. Came across this beautiful Veteran Memorial with yet another impressive bridge over the ocean before we reached North Bend. I forgot my bike gloves at Taco Bell in North Bend and a friendly American woman were going out of her way looking for us to give it to me , she found us 15km further down the road at DQ .We ate the best breakfast today at the Harbour light caffe at Reedspoort. We saw the evidence of the downturn in the economy when we pass through a few towns that turned into ghost towns.
Look at Andre's nice bike helmet suntan!!!!!
Cycled 99km today and stayed at Humbug Mountain State Park. Luckily this day turn out to be a very fun day for us , if we take into account that it started with a broken chain 2.5km from our campsite and after Andre fixed it had to tackle the seven devils rd. that is very steep. It was also on this road that we had to peddle very fast to get away from two Rottweilers chasing us .We stopped at a very cute town called Langlois where Andre could sit on the bench and wave at people .We had a very strong tailwind , which is almost unheard of in cycling but it sure made the cycling so much fun today . This was our last night sleeping in a tent and we both feel sad that our tour is soon coming to an end.
The beautiful rock formations on Oregon beaches.
We cycled 85km today and Brookings is where our tour of the Pacific Northwest coast for 2012 ended.We saw some beautiful scenery today and the 12 days of cycling went by way to fast for both of us. Stayed in a Hotel tonight so that we can pack our tandem in two boxes( made with bike boxes and good oll' duck tape) ready to be flown with us back to Canada.
On our way back home we were rewarded with this beautiful view of Okanagan lake and could clearly see our neighbourhood . After all the beautiful scenery that we saw during our tour we were just in awe of the beautiful place where we are fortunate to live.
Back home with all our luggage and bike in two boxes and two paniers.
A once in a lifetime experience cycling the Pacific Northwest Coast .!!!!!
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