Blog August
In recent months we have received many women with fistula disease in the hospital. What is challenging is creating space for them in the "vila", where they await there surgery. At the moment there are a number of rooms in which 6 women stay ... far from ideal. In the month of July there was a surgeon who really only did fistula surgery, so 17 women could be helped in 4 days. Another surgeon will be coming in a week to do this for 2 weeks. We asked the Province of Bie if they could send 15-20 patients out of the list of 40.
At the moment a colleague has left for a couple of months and therefore I have an extra task. That is the collection of medical data and entering this in Excel file. The latter is a little less fun, but the first I like to do, because I know more and more about the patients.
In the past week, I was able to talk about a text written by Paul in the bible, with the help of my colleague, who supplemented and translated from Portuguese into Umbundo. In these verses Paul says, it is not about what others think of me, or what I think of myself, but what God thinks of me (1 Cor 4: 3-5). We explained that the most important thing is that we seek our self-worth from God. He says about you, me, the fistula women: you are my child, beloved, talented, cleansed of sin, free, precious and there is much more beautiful God says about us! I was a little nervous about this talk, because I think my local colleague can communicate this much better. But my local colleague was also the one that encouraged me to just do it. There was good cooperation and therefore I think we have achieved our goal. The following week it was intended that the women tell what they like to do, what are they good at. There was quite some interaction going on, nice to see!
In addition to work, I was also allowed to do fun things, for example, I spent a longer weekend with a team member in Namibia, Ethosha Park, for 4 days. This was very impressive! Seen many wild animals, including the king of the jungle 😉. This park is about a 7-hour drive from Lubango.
Last week I visited a Dutch colleague in Huambo (also a journey of about 7 hours) with 3 other girls! The trip there did not go as planned, because we had a car accident about halfway through. We always say now that is was a serious accident but with the best outcome we could have hoped for, because nobody was injured, which is really a miracle when you consider that the car has been rolled over twice (because we hit a big hole). I am very grateful to God for his protection, I really see that there were angels around us, because there were so many "coincidences" that happened around that moment. It was wonderful to just relax, with this colleague, after all this. The closing of this weekend was very nice, because we could drive back with the cramped car! Without windows and with a dented roof, but without swallowing any flies. This resulted in a lot of fun / interesting looks from people who saw us coming!
Beijinhos!
Irene
