Hi everyone,
This is Mama Gayle and today we are making our journey back home to our family and friends. Please say some prayers for our team. It has been a very challenging yet rewarding trip. You learn to become flexible here and our plans have changed so many times, but I turn it over to God and know that he will guide us on what to do.
We have served many patients with life-changing surgeries. Alex had been such a great asset to the medical community here because he is an unbelievable teacher and very skilled surgeon. The TZ doctors have learned so much from him. The nurses on the team have been great. Always offering to help in any way that they can. They have learned a lot about the Tanzania culture and what wonderful people they are. We have felt the gratitude from so many. I am a hugger and have received so many hugs and “Mungu Akubariki” which means God bless you.
The goodbyes are always hard for me and the tears roll down my face. My TZ team always tells me “Mama it is not goodbye, but until we meet again”. The changes that I have seen at the medical facilities that we work at are huge and “yes” we are making a difference. Our mission is “not to give them fish, but teach them how to fish”. I was so excited to meet all the students that Hope Ministries is sponosring in their 3-year residency program. They are doctors that will serve many patients long after I am gone. I also was so excited to see some of the 9 graduates and the roles they are playing in the hospital. When we sponsor them, they have to sign a 3-year contract to stay and work at Bugando after they graduate.
A big project that I have been working on is bringing Telemedicine to Bugando so that they can stream the surgeries into a conference room for the medical students and residents to view the surgeries. This will give them a better view of the surgery and the doctor wears a headset in which he can talk and explain what they are doing. The students can also ask questions during the procedure. This will decrease the amount of people in the OR room, which will decease the incidence of infections. Secondly, this will allow my doctors to be with the TZ doctors from the states and can assist them during the surgery. This is going to lift their learning up to a new level. The company I have been working with provided me with the necessary equipment and I worked with IT to get it installed. Then we worked with the moderator in the states to make sure he could see and hear in the states. Well it worked and I was so excited like a little kid at Christmas. Praise God for this. I will include some pictures.
This is the view from the camera. Yahoo!
Thanks to all the supporters of Hope Ministries for your donations and prayers. I wish you could see how you are changing lives. For these people they have no access to health care and/or no money. The cases we see are in the advanced stages and heart breaking. I will be doing follow-ups on all these patients to make sure what we did for them is healing them. Please lift them all up in prayer.
Love to all. Miss you and anxious to return home.
I just read this online and sure applies to my mission trips. “Stress comes from trying to do it all on your own. Peace comes from putting it all in God’s hands.. In fact, God isn’t asking you to figure it out. He’s asking you to figure it out. He’s asking you to trust that He already has. God can make a way where there seems to be no way”. Amen