Shine a Little More Light....

“Can you shine a little more light on the incision, please?  

These lights on the porch just aren’t strong enough for me.  Thank you.  Linda, the anesthesia doesn’t seem to be working.  Would you please go get 10 more mg of Valium for our patient?  Sam, be sure to hold her head carefully.  Since she’s not completely under, she might lunge forward and bite you if you’re not careful.  Ruthie, are you sure you don’t want to hold the retractor? It’s really not that gross, I promise.”

Not your usual operating room conversation, but then again, this wasn’t your usual operating room.

Here’s just one more example of ways Tim has been stretched in his medical know-how here in Rwanda.  First, he found himself (unofficially) doing a residency in Orthopedics – but without an Attending to guide him – and now he has become our neighborhood veterinarian.   This week, after calling an American vet living in Kigali for some advice, and looking up a youtube video on “how to spay your dog” (which only downloaded 1/3 of the way), Tim neutered Umunu and spayed Urusenda, the mission’s new watchdogs.  Both came through surgery just fine, and the rest of us benefitted from some hands on canine anatomy lessons.  

 

The sky is crystal clear this afternoon.  I can see for miles, because we have none of the mountain haze that usually surrounds our sweet little compound.  I’m typing on our back porch, looking across Lake Kivu, with Urusenda sleeping peacefully on the cement next to me, and the cool breeze caressing my arms and face.  Many days I cannot see it, but today the Congolese island in the middle of this large, volcanic lake, is clearly visible.  Kind of weird to think I am looking at another country, distinct in its history, personality and problems from Rwanda, yet also quite similar in its poverty and health care needs. 

One of our favorite little patients, a 4 year old orphan named Deste, is from the Congo, as are all of our doctors here at this hospital.  Getting to know them makes me curious to travel the short distance and see this place, a country so very large in comparison to our tiny Rwanda, and according to our new friends from that place, extremely different from the culture here. 

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We had our largest crowd yet at the Pediatric Kids’ Club this past Thursday.  It will be so sad when Naomi and Dave Harrison leave in mid-December, as they have done such an awesome job with organizing this!  This past club, we challenged our kids to two fun races:  an egg and spoon race, and a  “pass the ball down the line, using only your neck” race.  We also played,  “Samuel Says” (Simon Says), which the kids LOVED.  Even Chaplain Wacana played the games with us!  Naomi played guitar and we all led songs with her, teaching the little kids hand motions – they love doing those!  I told the Old Testament story of the little Israelite slave girl who helped her master, Naaman the Syrian military officer, by telling him how to get healed of his leprosy.  (“Go ask Elisha, the prophet of Israel.  He is a prophet of the One, True God.  He can help you!”).  We talked about how, even if you are young, you can still help others, even folks who perhaps have mistreated you or are way older, richer or more educated than you are.  And, even if you are young, you can always help those who don’t know your true God to perhaps meet Him, just by telling them what you know about Him.  And we noticed how God is willing, ready and able to help those who humbly come to Him and ask for help, no matter their ancestry or religion before coming to Him.  Anyone who is willing to come to Him, He will never cast away.

It is so much fun to help in these little ways around the mission with my children – to be on the same team with them, as we visit patients, or do Kids’ Club, while they do their schoolwork, when we set up a movie on our laptop for the pediatric patients and their moms or caregivers to watch, or while Tim neuters and spays our dogs.   Doing it together, with the members of our family who are here right now, is my favorite part of what we’re doing here.  I’m hoping, at some point, when the timing works out, to be able to have all four of our children here, so we can all experience this ministry in this way.

I love that Tim can usually make it home for lunch, so we can eat three meals together every day.   Back home, we often were all running in so many different directions, some days we only had breakfast together!  That is one thing I really don’t miss from the USA – the speed at which life moved.  Another thing I don’t miss?  Driving!  Many days, I used to feel like I lived in my car!  I know a lot of my American  girlfriends can relate to that emotion!  Sometimes, it all just felt like an out of focus whirlwind. 

Here, we are forced to not multi-task.  We walk where we need to go.  If we can’t walk there, then we just figure we must not really need to go.  We are forced to wait.  We are forced to accept lengthier time-tables for doing things.  Not that we don’t grumble about this sometimes, b/c we do!  But slower is just the way life is, and in many ways, I like it better than the highly efficient, frenetic, juggling pace I live in at home.  (Disclaimer:  I may be adapting to rural Rwanda, but, I still miss texting and doing everything else I used to do on my iphone – and I don’t think that will ever change!) 

I still feel as though I hardly ever have a spare moment, yet I rarely feel rushed or harried.  And my to do list still never gets finished.  It’s certainly never boring here – and it is usually quite physically tiring!  It just isn’t frenetic.  AHHH….I like that.

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Tim has another set of challenging cases here – another young child who fell into the cooking fire (more skin grafts), a 13 year old with advanced sarcoma in his leg, and more of the revolving door of broken arms and legs.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep on saying it:  this place could really benefit from having its own orthopedist! 

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There are some pencil cactus type plants lining many of the roads and fences here.  They are quite plentiful.  The inside of these plants is a milky, white liquid substance.  Just two hours ago, Sam was messing around with the plant and accidentally got some of the juice in his eye, which turned out to be rather painful.  We flushed it with water for almost an hour, and it only got worse.  I took him to the hospital to ask Tim what to do, and one of the young doctors, a man from Kenya, smiled and told us, “Oh, back when I was a boy, my friends and I used to get that in our eyes all the time when we were roughhousing with our friends.  You have to flush it with water for ten minutes, and then you must wash the eye out with cow’s milk, and soon it will be better.” 

So, not knowing what else to do, we went down to the hospital’s cow barn (they have cows here for fresh milk to feed the babies and malnourished children) and asked the men who work with the cows to give us a little fresh milk for Sam’s eye.  They went one better for us - a nurse brought a fresh syringe to use to squirt the warm, fresh liquid into his eye for us.  Sure enough, the milk did the trick.  The intense burning was finally relieved.  Harrison, the young doctor, says his eye should feel better in a few hours, and he recommended Sam avoid this plant in the future! 

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As I was leaving the hospital before lunch this afternoon, I came across Ruthie and Sam with their posse of kids, about 15 or 16 of them, all happily jabbering away in Kinyarwandan.  Somehow, it seemed as though Sam and Ruthie knew what they were saying.  They were answering them all, and getting them all in line for some sort of fun activity.  I waved hello to them, smiled, and kept heading back to the house, feeling a happy sigh deep in my heart.  They’re doing so well here, and I am super proud of them.  It hasn’t been easy to make this transition, but they’ve hung in there and they’ve made it.

Last week, as I was praying for a patient in one ward, someone came in and told me a mom wanted me to come in the children’s ward and pray for her daughter.  I came as soon as I was finished, but when I arrived, I was too late.  J  Ruthie told me, “That’s okay, Mom.  Don’t worry about it.  I prayed with her.”

I’ll close with a portion of the Psalm that I read today, which matches my particular mood as I sit here, content and thankful, looking over the crystal clear, shimmering waters of the magnificent Lake Kivu, drinking in the blue, almost cloudless sky and giving thanks for the cool, gentle breeze that keeps encircling me. 

“Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies.  Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep.  O Lord, you preserve both man and beast.  How priceless is your unfailing love!  Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings.” 

- Psalm 36:5-7