Gone on Holiday

Last week, John and Karen, the missionaries here, left on holiday for 8 days. We were left with the task of running the mission, basically by ourselves. We collected eggs twice a day, sold eggs, kept up with the bookstore sales, did some of the mission’s accounting and worked on the mission’s truck. We were busy. I understand now the load that John and Karen carry while the other missionary couple are away.

I was pretty nervous about the egg sale days. The mission divides the eggs into 3 sizes and charge according to size. Most of the egg sellers that come to buy eggs speak a bit of English but it can still be difficult to understand them. If everything runs smoothly, as it should, it goes fine, but one of the days I was selling eggs, all these random people kept coming up asking for eggs. We normally don’t sell to individuals, only to the egg sellers, so with the language barrier it was a bit difficult to sort out who was supposed to get eggs and who we had to turn away. Now that I’ve done it a few times, I know what forms people are supposed to fill out, where the change envelope is located ect. It’s rather fun.

While they were gone we had an emergency medical flight come up. A young man had fractured his knee in two places, one above the knee cap and one below. His knee was loose and jiggly. There was an specialized surgeon that was visiting a town within 10 hours driving distance. They needed to get him there. None of the staff here at Kalene Hospital had ever performed such an operation. With the help of an airplane he could be there in an hour and a half. He had already ridden several hours on the back of a motor bike from Angola. I can’t imagine the pain jostling down these roads. So an airplane seemed to be the answer. Unfortunately, John was away on holiday, and Brad cannot fly alone in Zambia with his US license. A phone call was made, and soon the Lord had a plan worked out. There was a pilot in a nearby town, just getting ready to head in the direction that the injured boy needed to go and his plane was also empty. The pilot was here with in 15-20 min. God does work miracles here in the bush. Not only was a plane provided but it was also a free flight for the young man and his dad, that happens very very seldom.

It hasn’t rained at all in the 2+ months that we’ve been here. Due to the dry season the electric for Kalene gets shut off from 2:00-6:00. That makes blog posts rather difficult. I can’t complain though, in fact its rather nice to have no electric, and no internet. It forces me to spend my time doing things that really matter.

Please continue to pray for us as we wrap up the last 3 weeks. We’ve been very blessed with good health and I pray that it continues so we can finish strong.