Mar 17 2005
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ON CALL MARCH 17th, 2005

 

 

(Dave and Becki Thompson—joyfully holding their two new grandsons above—are medical missionaries serving with the Christian & Missionary Alliance in Gabon, central Africa, at the Bongolo Hospital.  They are currently on furlough in the U.S. until July, 2005.)

 

March 17, 2005

 

Dear Friends,

             Thank you for praying for us during our recent, seven week speaking tour in Washington State and California.  God enabled us and blessed us with many new friends and partners in this ministry as we each spoke more than 100 times in 9 churches.  As you can see, we have already begun recovering from AGDS (Acute Grandchild Deprivation Syndrome), a disease that seems to afflict many people in America.  We thank those of you who know this disease well and counseled us to endure!

 VISAS HELD UP FOR FOUR BONGOLO DOCTORS

            Three of our doctors and the wife and children of  another have had their requests for two-year, resident visas denied, either because of new regulations that foreign doctors must pay for Gabonese medical licenses or other technicalities.  The demand for a Gabonese medical license came as a surprise to Dr. Deborah Walker, our pediatrician, and to Dr. Karen Stel, our family practice doctor.  Dr. Jean Faya Yaradouno, our newly arrived first-year resident from the C&MA church in Guinea has been stuck in Libreville for 3 weeks and cannot even leave the Guest House property.  The process has been deeply discouraging to our missionary team.  Please pray for Pastor Serge Batouboko, the hospital Administrator, as he talks to various government officials in Libreville this week.  A single immigration official seems to be insisting upon these unexpected requirements, and we are as yet unsure what is behind it.  Drs. Walker, Stel and Yaradouno, and Dr. Kakalo’s wife and children will try again this coming Saturday, March 19.  Pray that this time all their visas will be granted and that no one will have to leave the country.  Pray also that the problem will be resolved before Becki and I return to Gabon in July, and that God will encourage and strengthen our Bongolo team through the experience. 

 CONTAINER TO BE LOADED IN SYRACUSE THIS SATURDAY

            An enormous collection of donated supplies and equipment that has come in from all over the country is now sitting in a warehouse in Syracuse, N.Y., waiting to be loaded into a 40 foot container this coming Saturday (March 19) by volunteers.  God has answered many prayers by sending in more than $15,500 to pay for medicines and 20 mattresses, money to ship the container to the port of Libreville, and funds to truck everything from Libreville to Bongolo, 350 miles inland. 

            Other donations paid for 3 refurbished anesthesia machines, 10 wheelchairs, crutches, hospital beds, a portable X-ray machine, and an O.R. light.  A huge amount of medical supplies, new bed linens, scrub suits and OR gowns were also donated. 

            Pray with us that David and Anna Shipe and their team of volunteers will be able get everything into the container on Saturday, and that no one will get hurt during the process.  Any supplies left over will have to be trucked to Portsmouth, Va., at considerable expense, to be included in another container that the C&MA will be loading there and shipping to Gabon in June or July.

            To all of you who have helped and given towards this project, thank you!  Only God can repay you for your kindness and generosity.  May He start doing that now by giving you great joy for having served Him and ‘the least of these, my brothers.’!

 URGENTLY NEEDED: SOMEONE TO TRANSLATE THE CONTAINER LIST!

            The list of all the items included in this container will now have to be quickly translated into French. This is so that we can already begin preparing a request to the Customs Service for an exoneration on duty charges.  Although we asked donors to put only one or two kinds of items in each box they sent to the container to simplify the translation process, we still received numerous packages with many different kinds of items inside.  There may be as many as 5,000 different items included into this container!

            In the past, I (Dave) have taken a week or two of my time to translate these lists.  This one, however, is so involved that we are appealing for someone to volunteer to translate these lists for us!  The translation does not have to be highly technical or perfect.  It just has to indicate what the item is, in French!  The sooner we can get started on the process, the better.  Please contact Larry Toney if you are willing to take help us with this, and we will get in touch with you.  Thank you!

 OUR SCHEDULE FOR THE NEXT TWO MONTHS 

-         April 3, Sunday:  Neighborhood Church Missions Sunday, Castro Valley, California,

-         April 9-10, Saturday and Sunday (Dave): Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church Missions Conference, Florida

-         April 15-17, Friday, Saturday, Sunday (Dave):  Fairhaven C&MA Church Missions Conference, Fairhaven, Ohio

-         April 24, Sunday:  Butte Bible Church, Chico, California

-         April 25-27 (Dave): Team Leadership Celebration, Rocky Mountain District, near Billings, Montana

-         May 2-3 (Dave): Advanced Trauma Life Support refresher course, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, California

-         May 5-6 (Becki): C&MA Benefits Board meeting, Colorado Springs, Colorado

-         May 21-29: C&MA Pre-Council and Council, Cincinnati, Ohio

 PRAYER REQUESTS

1)  That God would call two Gabonese Christian doctors to work at the Bongolo Hospital.

2)  That God would intervene to provide visas for Drs. Walker, Stel, Yaradouno, and Dr. Kakalo’s family this coming Saturday.

3)  That God would help the volunteers packing up the container in Syracuse for Bongolo this Saturday.

4)  That God would provide a family practice doctor or internist to replace Dr. Karen Stel when she returns to Canada in September.  If a replacement is not found, Dave may be the only staff physician at the hospital while Dr. Walker goes on furlough for three months.

5)  For Dr. Keir and Joanna Thelander, as they complete their application process to serve with the International Fellowship of Alliance Professionals to help train and disciple African surgeons in Bongolo.  Dr. Thelander is a general surgeon currently in practice at the Cleveland Clinic.

 

(Logo of the Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons)

             Thank you again, brothers and sisters of the Kingdom, for your love, your many prayers on our behalf, and for your financial support through the Great Commission Fund, for our work, and for other projects related to our service. 

 Until Jesus Comes,

 Dave & Becki Thompson