On Call in Gabon

(Dave & Becki Thompson are medical missionaries serving at the Bongolo Hospital in Gabon, central Africa with the Alliance)

August 20, 2005

Dear Friends,

This is a looong letter, so hunker down and see if you have enough eyesight to make it through all the stories to the end! We want to take a little extra time to give you a better idea of what our lives are like.

NGONDO'S STORY

Ten year-old Ngondo followed her mother on the path to the family garden in the forest. They had walked for about five miles, and she was looking forward to spending the day working a little, but mostly playing while her mother and older sister dug up manioc roots, harvested a regime or two of plantain bananas and sweet bananas, weeded, and cut firewood to take home in the empty baskets they carried on their backs. The day was cool and overcast, a lovely, dry season day.

As they entered the familiar clearing, Ngondo's dog darted ahead, barking and growling at something. Suddenly, he yelped, then howled in pain. A large wild boar had attacked him! Torn by one of the boar's sharp tusks, the dog scrambled free and ran directly towards Ngondo, her mother and sister. The boar charged after him, but then he saw the women and turned directly towards Ngondo. She screamed and ran, but the 200 pound animal knocked her down and in an instant tore her abdomen with one of his tusks. As Ngondo screamed, her mother and sister grabbed sticks and beat the animal until it ran off. Ngondo lay gasping on the ground, holding her abdomen, helpless to keep her intestines from spilling out.

It took Ngondo and the aunt who accompanied her twelve hours of traveling and stopping at regional hospitals before Ngondo finally arrived at the Bongolo Hospital. Dave and his surgery residents operated on her within minutes of her arrival. Before she went to sleep in the operating room, she heard them pray and ask Jesus to help them and to save her life.

Following surgery, Ngondo did surprisingly well. During her 10 day stay, she and her aunt heard the story of Jesus several times. Many Gabonese believe that animal attacks are caused by sorcery carried out by secret enemies, and Ngondo was no exception. Her fear began to subside as she saw that Jesus was helping her and would protect her

Ngondo went home two days ago, her wounds healed. Did she become a Christian? We didn't hear her say so, but we do know that a dramatic change came over her three days before she left the hospital, when she suddenly went from being afraid to being happy and confident. We think Ngondo knows that Jesus loves her, that he is the one who really helped her get better, and that he died for all her sins. Would you pray that God would now send someone to take her to the next level of following Jesus?

DAY AND NIGHT SURGERY

We were able to get our two-year visas in Libreville on August 6, right after Field Forum ended in Lambarene. Since then we have been extremely busy at the hospital, operating both day and night.

Our many surgical patients have included Doutsona, a 36 year old mother of 5 children who presented with advanced, but operable breast cancer; Ngouami, a 58 year old man who died from complications after being operated on in Mayumba, a town four hours from Bongolo on the coast; Nadege, a 23 year old girl who arrived from Mouila, two hours away, in shock from a ruptured tubal pregnancy; Nguembi, a 46 year old man brought in from an automobile accident where the passengers sitting on each side of him were killed. He survived with a broken pelvis and a broken arm; Mouleli, a six month old baby whose legs had to be hung up in traction when her left femur was fractured in the same accident; Ibedi, a 7 year old boy who came with an infected left hip that had to be drained; Nzengue, an 11 year old who cut his left thumb with a machete all the way through the bone, including a tendon, and nerve. We were able to put everything back together.

Mouele Mouele, a six month old girl with hydrocephalus, got a shunt put in for one tenth the price in Libreville. Cleo, a four year old girl who came with severe burns on her chest, arms and thighs when her clothes caught on fire needed two operations to graft skin over the worst burns. Princilia, a 3 year old presented with a Buruli ulcer on the top of her foot, a kind of tuberculosis of the skin. It had spread under the skin and required radical debridement and painful daily dressings. It will be a month before her wound will be ready for a skin graft.

Nestor is a 35 year old hunter whose shotgun exploded a week ago when he was hunting in the forest. The explosion shredded his foot and ankle. By the time he crawled back to a road and got to our hospital, infection had set in. After three operations to control gangrene, the last one removing his knee, Nestor is stable but still in severe pain.

Simplice, a 24 year old soccer player, smashed his pelvis when the double-cabin pickup he and his team were riding in lost its brakes at 4 am on a mountain road. Just prior to starting out, the driver had "fixed" a leak in the truck's hydraulic system with a piece of inner tube. He lost control of his truck as it hurtled around the last curve before a bridge, and the truck landed upside down in a stream. Two players died within minutes, and in the darkness and chaos, Simplice and the others somehow survived. Simplice is now hanging in a pelvic sling that Dave made to hold his pelvis together. He will be with us for at least 8 weeks.

Regis, a 40 year old hunter, was accidentally shot in the face and neck with a shotgun at close range by his partner when hunting at night. He died last night, after two days in our recovery room, apparently unprepared to meet God.

Finally, tiny two-week old Moulama underwent surgery last night for a congenital partial bowel obstruction. He arrived starved and dehydrated and somehow survived the two-hour operation. Today he is clinging to life while we pray for his intestines to begin working again. His mother and grandmother arrived with no money.

These are just a few of our surgical patients, and surgery takes up only a third of our beds. If God gives you the time, would you pray for the survival of those still living and ask our Father to bring them to faith in the Son through our efforts and words?

SOME THINGS THAT DON'T WORK

If you've had trouble contacting us, join the club! We've had trouble contacting just about everybody. Our radio e-mail system has worked 90% of the time since we've been here, but a week after we arrived in Bongolo we went to Lambarene for our Field Forum (which was terrific) and couldn't e-mail anybody. When we got back to Bongolo our system was down for a few days, and then we found out that many of the e-mails we had sent out the week before had been rejected by U.S. servers. The next day about 60 e-mails suddenly arrived, and every day after that another 10 to 20, and...well....we may never catch up! How's that for a string of weak excuses?

In the meantime, a number of things have not worked, such as our satellite modem (won't connect to Yahoo), and our water pumps (four out of five got fried on one day when branches got into the electrical company's main turbine). We rationed water at the hospital and in our houses for five days until we got two new pumps ($600 each). After we hooked the new pumps up, one of the automatic switches wouldn't work. Now we turn our pump on and off manually when the water tower overflows four times a day. Our Maintenance Chief isn't working because he's on vacation and isn't back yet! The hospital's phone system is still down after nine months, and we're still trying get the right parts. We've been given a lovely wireless computer network system for the hospital and station, but so far have nobody knowledgeable enough to direct its setup or show us how to use it.

This is sort of par for the course here and we're not all that upset. But we want to make sure we put out enough explanations to enable you to pray for us intelligently!

IS THERE A PILOT OUT THERE...?

When we were in Libreville for two days earlier this month, Dave checked on the new Zenith CH801 airplane God sent to us 18 months ago. It was locked and sitting in a vast, unfinished but secure hangar, covered with dust and being fingered by a blasphemous vine. That is definitely not what an airplane that can land and take off in under 100 feet with a 1000 lb load is created to do!

The good news is that earlier Dave found the insurance agent who last year helped us find a company in South Africa willing to insure our airplane. The problem then was that we didn't have that much money. God has since provided through some generous friends the amount the insurance company quoted. Unfortunately, in the interim the company lost interest. Now our agent friend is looking again and thinks it will take another month or so of work. Please pray that he will soon find a good company willing to insure our airplane for a reasonable price.

Before leaving Libreville, Dave arranged for someone to wash the airplane regularly and to clear away the vine growing up the ropes onto the wings. He then went and found our German missionary pilot. The pilot sadly informed Dave that because his support had fallen away he had to take a job as a commercial pilot in Gabon and would not be free to fly our airplane.

Which brings us to our next point: once we have insurance, who is God going to send to fly our airplane? Do you know of an experienced, qualified Christian pilot and A&P mechanic able support himself (or raise his own support) who might consider the job? If so, would you ask him to write us? Would you pray that God would send us a pilot soon, and miraculously? We could use the services of this airplane right now, not just in a year or two! In the meantime, we're learning a little bit more about waiting for God to work things out His way and according to His timetable.

THINGS TO TALK TO GOD ABOUT

1) For strength and health: Dave's ankle is healing very slowly and he must still take Ibuprofen (Advil) and wear an uncomfortable support stocking to get through a full day of surgery. Worst of all, he is still unable to resume running!

2) For God's clear leading, as tomorrow (Sunday) we visit a possible site for our hospital's next church plant.

3) For Pastor Serge Batouboko, our hospital Administrator. In 10 days he will be presenting a letter to the government asking for a full exemption from duty for all future containers being shipped to the Bongolo Hospital.

4) For Becki, as she, Karen Fitch, and Carolyn Thorson prepare to open the nursing school September 12 for the new academic year.

5) For Dr. Yali Bin Ramazani, a wonderful Christian doctor from the D.R. Congo who is our new first-year surgery resident: that God would provide $7000 a year for he and his family's support, either to the hospital or to the PAACS.

6) For Dave, as he teaches four surgery residents in Bongolo, directs the Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons (PAACS) in Africa, and plans a trip to four hospitals in Cameroon and Ethiopia for the PAACS.

7) For Dr. Hubert Kakalo, our most recent graduate surgeon. He and his family have just arrived in Kisangani, in troubled eastern Congo, where they hope to develop a Christian hospital in which they can serve.

8) In thanks to God, for providing over $60,000 in gifts from many of our friends and supporters for five hospital projects:

- AIDS/Pharmacy outpatient building: $11,716, out of $40,000 needed;

- Eye Ward/Kitchen: $10,309;

- Annex for making IV's: $11,060, out of $25,000 needed;

- Endowment Fund to support Gabonese doctors: $10,836, out of $50,000 requested;

- Bongolo Airplane: $6,030, out of $25,000 requested.

Praise God that your gifts for the Eye Ward and Kitchen were enough to complete the project! Its beautiful!

9) In thanks to God, for orthopedic surgeon Dr. Wayne Fricke's safe arrival from Fort Lauderdale, Fl., to help us with difficult orthopedic cases for three weeks in August.

10) For a six-person laparoscopy team arriving September 13 for three weeks from the Neighborhood Church in Redding, Ca.

We'll have more news next month, including an update on Grace, the little girl whose story was told in Dave's book, "The Hand on My Scalpel."

Until Jesus Comes,

Dave & Becki Thompson