Weekends in the Jungle

I spent Friday morning helping missionary Meladee at Depot #5 (Warehouse #5). The hospital receives lots of donations of medical supplies, but there is a huge need to organize everything that comes in. Without the organization that Meladee does, the surgeons and other doctors don’t know what we have and can’t use it. Meladee is so essential to the smooth functioning of the hospital and the use of supplies. Friday we sorted surgical gowns and drapes. These gowns and drapes are sorted and then repaired. Donated gowns and drapes often have quite a few holes, so Meladee spends time mending them so that they can be used. After the mending is completed the gowns and drapes are dropped off at “sterilization”…To put it mildly, sterilization at a jungle hospital is quite different than the U.S. ;-)

Working in Depot #5:


From 1-3:45pm on Friday afternoon I spent teaching Luke & Sarah Thelander about Italy….We went over facts, geography, language, history, famous people and missionaries. All of this involved quite a bit of writing and reading – Luke & Sarah are definitely troopers. We finished off our lesson with two crafts. We made leaning towers of Pisa and gelato cones :- )

My students Luke & Sarah hard at work on their leaning towers of Pisa:


After Luke & Sarah, I gave Neni (a surgical resident’s wife) an English from 4-5:20pm. Neni is a fantastic woman. She is a dentist and mother of two children. She and her husband (Tchoba Simplice) have a really cool story. They are both from different areas of Gabon which means they grew up speaking local mother tongue (tribal language) at home and French in school. Both chose to go to medical and dentistry school in Russia which meant learning medical and dental terms in Russian. Then, they came back to Gabon and were re-immersed into a French-speaking environment. Neni’s husband, Simplice, is a surgical resident and had to transition to learning English when he entered the PAACS surgical residency program at Bongolo Hospital.

Dan and Alicia (working for the EnVision branch of C&MA at Bongolo Hospital) are hosting a short-term team of 13 college students. They invited some of the Bongolo missionaries (including myself) over so the team could get to know the staff and residents at Bongolo.

Got home around 9pm and passed out at 9:30ish. I got to catch up on some sleep today. Naturally, the day could not pass without another insect invasion. I awoke to the sink area of my bathroom crawling with ants. After exterminating the critters, I was able to spend some extending time reading the Biblevwhich was awesome. Later in the afternoon, I went over to Lisa’s where we made the jungle version of American pizza and caramelized popcorn...such a treat out here! Dr. Renee joined us! …Lisa and I have learned that lot of jungle cooking turns into a science experiment!!! I had a great time catching up with Lisa. Lisa was a missionary nurse in Ethiopia before coming to Gabon and is such a COOL person. I met Lisa two years ago and we really clicked, so it was great to spend some time hearing what God has done in eachother's lives over the past two years.

Lisa & I working on our jungle science experiment (a.k.a. caramelized popcorn):


Tomorrow, I am off to church with missionary nurses Karen and Lisa. We’ll be leaving super early for the small village (Marembo) since it is a 1.5 hr. drive. Can’t wait!!!

So, that is how one can spend the weekend in the jungle!