June 4th

Sorry for not blogging the last couple of days. There has been a lot going on. Thursday evening all the physicians, residents and staff had a supper for the Hope team. It was such a fun evening to be able to visit with all the people we have been working with the last week. Dr. Chandika, who is the assistant director general of the hospital was present and he said many great things about what Hope Ministries is doing to help Bugando Medically. Everyone expressed a lot of gratitude for what we did to help them.

Friday was our final day at Mwanza. Marni, Sarah and I left for the hospital early to do rounds on the patients that we did surgery on this last week. All the patients and families expresses extreme gratitude for what we did to help them. We then met with the ENT Doctor, resident and nurses. We spent the time talking about how our visit went and what changes we could do in the future. Again they expressed a lot of gratitude for what we did while we were there.

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Then because this was the first time they had a visiting ENT and Audiologist, they requested that the local television station come and interview us. Machines were donated to them that can be utilized in the future to test hearing. They also wanted to acknowledge Hope Ministries for all their help over the years with all the medical equipment and more importantly for all the wonderful education that we have provided over the years. This is what will make lasting changes in the future. They plan to do some screening at the schools. Marni patiently worked with two nurses teaching them how to use the machines and then they discussed with the doctors on how to interpret the results and what treatments should be done. We gave them our contact information so that if they needed to consult with Marni and Sarah on patients in the future, we welcomed the continual communications. This is so exciting, because that is what Hope Ministries is all about.

I have one special little boy named Allen, who is an orphan from Mama Lynn’s Children’s Home. He lost his mom when he was two years old and does not know his father. He is now 14 years and has had chronic ear infections and Mama Lynn has noticed that he was having some hearing loss. So we had him brought to Arusha, so that Marni could examine him and we did some hearing tests on him. He did have hearing loss and both ear drums were perforated. Sarah felt he would greatly benefit from surgery. We I sent Mama Lynn and email and she agreed to the surgery. He them fly to Mwanza with a nice young man and I made arrangements to get him admitted to the hospital. I met them and got him settled in a room. I promised him I would be with him in surgery and would take good care of him. We then prayed together and me asked God to bless him, which of course brought tears to my eyes.

The surgery was very successful with Allen and within in a couple of weeks should notice a great improvement in his earring. Thank you God for this blessing. I also said a prayer with him and the OR staff before he was put to sleep. I then went and visited him every day and then he fly home with us to the Kili airport. I have never enjoyed a plane ride as I did this one. To watch as Allen looked out the window of the plane and just grinned from ear to ear. We would point our some important landmarks and after he looked at them, he would turn and smile and give me the thumbs. God I love this young boy.

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When we arrived at the airport, someone was there to pick him up and take him to LIA Children’s Home. I have them medication and instructions on how to care for his incisions. Then Allen started to cry and just kept hugging me and then asked me when are coming back? Oh my…..he made me cry. I get so attached to these kids and hard to say goodbye. He kept saying God bless you Mama. Thanks to all the donors to help this little boy.

Saturday: Today was spent shopping and running errands around town. Now everyone is busy packing for our departure tomorrow. Please pray for our safe journey. Say good bye too all my friends and family here is always hard and the tears have already begun. I am praying for strength to get through tomorrow.

We are all anxious to see our families!

Gayle