Good month

We recently returned from a refreshing conference in SE Asia, where we and our girls got to see some old faces as well as meet several new ones. Soon after arriving back in Ghana, we were blessed with some returning volunteers at BMC. One was a JPS resident (the Family Medicine Residency program that we attended) who also came last year, as well as a team that usually comes once per year (consisting of an FM/Surg doc, 2 FM residents, surgeon, pediatrician, and internal medicine doc). They have helped to lighten the load on hospital rounds for the long-term doctors. We are very grateful for their sacrificial service!

On the home front, we currently have one broody chicken sitting on several eggs. Most of the rest of our hens (we have a total of 8) are just laying eggs, but not sitting on them, which is great for when we eat breakfast for dinner! We are trying to keep a moringa tree and lime tree alive until rainy season comes, when they will both hopefully start to flourish. 

Rebekah and Abigail are getting close to finishing up their school year. Lori has been a trooper as a homeschooling momma! Rebekah has started having her first "pen pals" - from the conference. Abigail is noticeably improving in her reading skills. Hannah is growing - both in size and with her words and interactions.

On the hospital front, Tim has been mostly rounding in Isolation Ward, taking care of wounds, meningitis, tetanus, and tuberculosis. Please be praying for one man with necrotizing fasciitis and heart failure- he has come a long way in the past couple weeks, undergoing several extensive debridements (each taking 3-4 hours) - he seems to be going the right direction now. Pray that his wounds will continue to heal well and that he will be able to gain back his strength after prolonged immobility.

Also, an update on the small baby mentioned in our last post: she had been discharged to our Nutrition Rehab Unit back in February, and then she was discharged to home a couple days before I resumed working after returning from our conference. She was 1.8kg at discharge! God is good!

There have been many memorable patients who we have seen God heal at BMC. This week has been momentous in that, for the first time ever since we have been at BMC, Tim was able to discharge a patient with clinical tetanus to go home. He had recovered! Every other case of tetanus that he has seen at the hospital ends with the patient dying in 1-2 days. Praise the Lord! This man was able to hear the Gospel. Please pray that he would decide to accept salvation through Jesus.

Thanks to everyone who prays and supports us while we serve here in Ghana!

Praises and prayer requests

To our friends and family: Thank you for your prayers!

We wanted to post a quick blog to let you know of some praises this week. Tim has had the opportunity to share Christ with 3 different people in the hospital over the past week. He will usually talk to them with the chaplain for language and cultural reasons. Two of the patients decided to accept Christ, and the third is contemplating it. It seemed as if the two who accepted Christ had never even heard of Jesus before.

Praise the Lord for His faithfulness in continuing to bring lost souls into His Kingdom from every tribe (each of the patients above spoke a different heart language). Please pray for the man who is contemplating following Christ. 

Lastly, an update from last post: the extremely low birth weight baby that I mentioned in the last post is still hanging on and going strong. She was born at 0.8kg, dropped to 0.5kg, and is now back up to a little above birth weight after almost 6 weeks. It also seems as if her family is starting to take a little more of an interest in her lately. Please continue to pray for her growth and protection from infection as well as for her family's hearts to continue to warm up to her and desire to take care of her.

The Last 36 Hours

The last 36 hours have been quite busy at the hospital (a little more than usual). It was probably a combination of people waiting until after the New Year to come into the hospital and being short staffed (only 2 long-term general doctors-including myself, one general surgeon, one temporary doctor, and 2-3 students). Patients are lying on the floor (due to overflow) in Male, Female, and Maternity Wards.

I was on-call for the hospital starting yesterday morning. In the subsequent 36 hours, I have performed the following (to all the non-medical folk, sorry for the medical jargon!):
- 7 Cesarean sections (placental abruption with Hct of 14% with IUFD at ~30wks- she had a Couvelaire uterus, woman with two previous C-sections in labor, fetal distress, failed induction for woman with severe preeclampsia, and arrest of dilation for the others)
- 1 Manual rotation of a baby from occiput posterior to occiput anterior with successful delivery of healthy baby soon afterwards
- 1 Incision and drainage for large forearm abscess
- 1 D&C for retained placenta fragments after delivery of a non-viable 15 week baby
- 1 Debridement for Fourniere's gangrene (necrotizing fasciitis of the private area)
- 1 Splinting of a lateral humeral epicondyle fracture
- 1 Suturing of knife stab wound to the upper arm

Other cases seen on the ward in the last 36 hours:
- DKA in young boy with Type 1 diabetes
- Status epilepticus in woman with presumed meningitis
- Extremely low birth weight (~0.6kg) neonate born to mother with HIV
- Two cases of necrotizing fasciitis of a leg (from knee to foot)
- Two cases of Ludwig's angina (bad jaw infection from abscessed tooth)- one in a pregnant woman who began having preterm contractions- now stopped
- One case of tib/fib fracture who did local treatment for two weeks before coming to hospital for wound care. Now in long leg cast with windows in the cast for wound care.
- Polycythemia in a neonate born at ~37 wks via normal delivery a copy days ago to a mother who delivered monochorionic monoamniotic twins - both babies now doing well despite their umbilical cords being twisted in a knot before delivery (mother was referred in to our facility because of labor and loss of fluid)
- Bowel obstruction in older gentleman
- Enlarged right atrium and right ventricle in adolescent boy with hypoxia and elbow abscess

Hope you enjoyed the snapshot of a not-so atypical day here at BMC.
God is good :)

Good bye 2018 and hello 2019

     Merry Christmas 2018 and Happy New year 2019! We want to thank all of you who have prayed for us and given to us this year. You have blessed our family so much! We hope that you have all had a wonderful time celebrating the coming of Jesus with friends and family. We have been grateful to see some patients come to know Christ this year and to minister to those around us. Thank you for allowing us this opportunity! I hope to soon post the blog that I have been writing slowly since October with some pictures. 

Unplanned Trip

Once again, we apologize for the prolonged times between our blogs!

A quick recap of our last several months:

-          We finally received Hannah’s birth certificate in April- yay!- so we made a trip to the US Embassy in Accra in May to apply for her US passport (and to renew Lori’s, Rebekah’s, and Abigail’s passports as well)

-          A couple weeks after arriving back in Nalerigu from Accra, we received a call that Lori’s grandmother had fallen ill, and then a day later, that she had died. We then made an impromptu visit to the US to attend her funeral. She was an amazing godly woman who is now worshiping our heavenly Father at His feet! She will be missed by so many who loved her. We will miss our visits and conversations with her. She was so faithful to point others to Christ and to pray for those who God placed in her path, including us every day.
         We had planned on coming home for a visit at the end of 2018, but because of the time and cost of Ghana to US travel, we made this our trip home, staying for a couple months total with family. We did not have access to a consistent car this time, so we were able to enjoy more time with our families and less time traveling on the road. Sorry to those of you we were not able to see this time! God allowed this visit to be rejuvenating and reorienting, preparing us well mentally and spiritually for our return to Ghana.

Also, God worked in amazing ways to make it possible for us to make this trip home! At the time we received the call about Lori’s grandmother, we had none of our passports in our possession. Hannah’s had just arrived at the US Embassy in Accra, and the rest of our passports were at Ghana Immigration awaiting renewal of our resident permits (reportedly going to take at least 2 months, and we had just turned them in a couple weeks prior). In Ghana, it’s all about who you know (as it kind of is in most other countries as well J). Tim called his contact at Immigration in Tamale, told the guy our situation, and asked for help. God used that man to get our resident permits expedited (without bribing!) so that we could pick them up on our way driving from Nalerigu to Accra. We also had a friend in Accra pick up Hannah’s passport from the embassy as we prepared to travel to Accra.

Lori's parents

We were able to spend a little over a month with each family. During our time, we got to celebrate several birthdays, including Lori's brothers', Tim's, Tim's parents', and Hannah's.

Tim's mom's birthday

Tim's dad's birthday

       






     Hannah turned 1 year old while in the US! Since it was our last weekday before returning to Ghana, she had the privilege of getting her one-year vaccinations (plus some extra travel vaccines- a total of 8) that day at our local county health deparment. Happy Birthday Hannah!

 

Rebekah with some cousins,
two of whom had just
helped pull two of her teeth

      Rebekah lost several of her teeth while we were in the US.  She and Abigail also got better at riding bikes and swimming. Rebekah's favorite memory from our time in the US was her opportunity to ride a camel when we visited the zoo. Abigail said her favorite memory was getting to play with all of her cousins!

      

      

Rebekah officially started 1^st grade homeschooling curriculum back in July. Abigail is also wanting to do some school, so they are doing it together right now.

       Rebekah and Abigail making slime for   
homeschool

Making ''snowflakes for
homeschooling

                                 

Abigail's first haircut

          Other random outings in US:

Cow Appreciation Day at ChickfilA.
You get a free sandwich if you
dress like a cow!

Visit to the aquarium

The deep thoughts of a baby

 Our two adult hens had more chicks (one had two more, and the other had seven) while we were in Accra. Several of our chickens later died presumably from snake bites while we were gone in the US, but we still have 12 chickens left

We arrived back in Nalerigu about three weeks ago. Tim then spent a week fixing things around the house that were breaking or had  already broken. Thankful to God for protecting him when he almost fell through the roof while patching some holes. Fortunately, some friends had just arrived when he broke through the roof, and these friends had experience with roofing locally. They helped Tim repair the large hole he had made. He then resumed work at the hospital the following week.

shiny new roofing over hole area

Please pray for us for the following:
- Tim and Lori waking up earlier together to have devotions each day before Tim goes off to work
- Rebekah (and Abigail) focusing during school and obeying mama
- Lori is registered for the Ghana Foreign-trained doctor’s exam this fall in hopes to start officially practicing part-time at the hospital soon.
- Wisdom on what changes need to be made to make it possible for both Tim and Lori to work at the hospital and homeschool the children
- God to raise up more prayer warriors to fight battles alongside us