2nd attempt to upload some photos !

Getting ready for the party ! This malnourished child seemed a bit overawed at the nutrition centre Christmas feast !

Our internet connection these days is very sporadic. However tonight it seems more stable so here goes for another session.....hope it works. It has taken forever just to uplaod these two photos so that will have to do for now.

Back to DRCongo and Christmas at Katoka

My 2 weeks in UK went past very quickly but it was lovely to catch up with family and some of my friends. I was also able to have a quick trip to Worcerster to visit William in hospital and although seriously ill he was in good spirits and resting in the Lord. Thank you Peter for the lift in the car that was great and I have to say the return trip by rail the next day was excellent and arrived on time in Newcastle!

Rachel and Ian met me at the airport when I arrived in on the 17th Dec and then the 3 of us flew out to Kisenge on Sunday the 20th which was brilliant a lovely smooth flight in the 6 seater plane and we were grateful to Gaston our pilot.

Since arriving at Katoka there have been the usual pre Chritmas activities feast for the old people and special feast for all at the nutrition centre etc. A pre- Christmas trip to Uk is in some ways to be recommended because I came back with lots of presents in my suitcase so we all did very well and we have had a lovely time together.

Travel

Since writing my October blog when incidently I lost the ability to add photos for some reason, we have had a sad time at Katoka. Cathie Rew my friend and colleague for many years gradually deteriorated in health and passed away on the 11th Nov. The funeral which was held the next day in keeping with the custom out in Congo was impressive and a testimony to the high esteem in which she was held by the people with whom she had worked for 59years. Then her husband William who had been having breathing problems and pain for some time also deteriorated in health and we had to have him flown out to Lubumbashi for investigations. The doctor in Lubumbashi advised him to return to Uk for full investigations and so a flight was arranged for him ( with some difficulty ) to travel via Nairobi Kenya and I was asked to accompany him. We arrived at Heathrow yesterday morning 29th Nov and Elspeth William's daughter met him. They travelled to Worcester where Elspeth lives and he was admitted in the afternoon to hospital into the medical assesment unit and we are so thankful for the care and attention which is been given and we pray for the medical staff to have wisdom for his on going treatment.

October update time !

This is the planting season in our part of the world and so all able body people are out and about preparing their fields for their maize and peanut crops. Sandy my colleaque has been very busy organising teams to go out to an area which she is cultivating in order to help provide food for our nutrition centre.
We always have patients who cannot pay their hospital bills with cash so their relatives ask for work while they are away from home so they are happy to go out for the day to work in fields. It is also a source of income for the people looking after orphans here at Katoka so there is never a shortage of people to go and make up the teams.
End of Sept is also the time for the new school year to start so I have been busy with our sponsorship programme for orphans. We always help first of all the children being looked after by members of staff and it is surprising how many of them have 3-4 other children integrated into their families for various reasons...children motherless because of death in childbirth and aids orphans are high on the list.

Update for September.

We have been without telephone connections or internet connections from Friday until Monday lunchtime and it seemed forever !

At first the people manning the zain tower thought it was because they were running out of fuel so on Saturday we loaned them a 200litre drum of deisel fuel but when by evening they were still non functioning I sent to ask what the problem was and they said they were waiting for another technicien to come ! He obviously came today with good results and they also got a delivery of fuel so were able to return our drum to us.

Some of you may be familiar with the title " The curious incident of the dog in the nite-time " well we had the curious incident of the roofing iron in the nite time !!

I was working at the Maternity one morning when someone came to inform me that the roofing iron sheets had been stolen from the holding tank of the hospital water system. It seemed such a senseless theft but following on other incidents I decided to make a fuss...I said that the next day the outpatients dept would only see emergency cases. I also sent all my non essential workers home....this turned out to be a good move although not a popular one but they were so mad at loosing a days wage that they began to do some investigations themselves.....when the elders came out of church the following morning they discovered an anonymous note pinned to a tree outside the Maternity naming two people who they said were involved. We called those named and they came with members of their families and spent the morning denying any involvement and stating catorgorically that it was not in their hearts to do such a thing! We had to let them go but I said I would give them until after the weekend to think about things before I sent the paper naming them to the authorities in Dilolo 45 km away.

Well those fellows had hardly gone before someone else turned up to tell us that 4 of the 7 sheets had been found. Apparently the one who had bought 4 of the sheets when he heard all the fuss got cold feet and decided to return them and lo and behold he confirmed that the two who had spent all morning denying everything were indeed very much involved! Praise the Lord by evening we had all 7 sheets returned and all the guilty ones confessed.

It is very hot at Katoka at present we are waiting for the rains to come and while we have heard thunder and seen lightening several evenings the rain just hasn't come to Katoka. One of our builders was late to work this morning because he said they had had very heavy rain in his village which is just about 10km from here.

Sandy and Bethany have just got back from a quick trip across the border to Zambia they took two more patients for special surgery which can be done at Kalene Mission Hospital which is in Zambia's North West Province so reasonably accessible to people from here.

written from Lubumbashi.

Today I heard that Jonathan had arrived home safely after his 7hr wait in nairobi for the connection to UK. That was good news although we are going to miss him. Mind you in his last week at Katoka he fitted in quite a lot of things and seemed to enjoy himself ! He also managed to see the traditional Mukishi or spirit dancer before he left Katoka.

He and Michael also went to a bush fire hunt which was interesting.

Back from Kasaji ladies dry season conference

Thank you for those of you who prayed for us while we were at the women’s conference at Kasaji. Paul Angela Jonathan and I arrived at Kasaji mid afternoon of Wed 5th August to be given a tumultuous welcome singing and dancing women and even some of the men too had waited for us at the corner at the entrance to the mission! They surrounded the car and escorted us to the house where we were to be staying and then the elders came to welcome us. We had a very good time and they were all very very kind to us all. They gave us among other things a sheep 2 chickens eggs oil salt and sugar .They brought fresh bread rolls and drinking water everyday…such generosity is humbling. I had 11 teaching sessions over the 4days and I translated for Angela on the Tuesday evening session and for Paul at the breaking of bread so it was quite busy as you can imagine. I had 3 sheets of Bible searching questions for the girls and Jonathan kindly did the marking of those for me for which I was very grateful otherwise I would have had some very late nights. We taught the women the words (in Chokwe ) of the beautiful hymn “In Christ Alone my Hope is found, He is my Light my Strength my Song” I am always amazed at how quickly they pick up a new melody and by the time we got to the last session it sounded really lovely. Paul meanwhile was busy putting in a suspended ceiling in one of the mission houses so he too was kept busy.

Getting back to Katoka it was good to see that there was progress in the building of the secondary school administrative building which was very encouraging. Hopfully the ring beam will be poured next week and then we will have the big job of the roofing of this large building.

Jonathan flies to UK via Kenya on the 26th August and another short term worker Bethany Smith also from Tyneside arrives in on the 22nd so the next item on our agenda is the trip to Lubumbashi by road. Dr Kayombo has kindly agreed to give Jonathan and me a lift as there are no internal flights in our direction at present. 2 days journey but the first is the bumpiest part and takes most of the daylight hours of day 1.......

3 days after we leave Katoka, Paul Angela and Sandy also leave, heading for Zambia it has been so good to have them all with us and we are grateful for all their help and fellowship. Well the generator is going off now so I will leave this for today and hopefully catch up again from Lubumbashi.