These updates are posted via phone from Zambia.

-T

Klay Bartee "nuff-said."

Visiting in line

This is Jay Starkey visiting with an imigration official that drove from Livingstone to be a part of the clinic at Makoli.

July 16 final clinic

We set up our clinic at Makoli today, and for the first time in Zambia Medical Mission history set up within sight of a tar-road. We chose the site for several reasons, but we were not sure what to expect. The crowds were consistent, but not overwhelming and we were actually able to close registration early and start back to the mission. This was a great relief to many who anticipated a late night tonight packing to come home.

We will sit around a fire tonight at the Roy Merritt home after dinner and have what we refer to as our closing ceremonies. We work side-by-side, the Zambian volunteers and the US and Canadian volunteers, and we make lasting friendships. It is sometimes difficult to say goodbye.

If you are reading this, you are a friend, relative or supporter of one of our team, or just someone who cares about us, and we wish to thank you for your interest. May we give God all the glory for any good thing that has or will come of this effort.

God Bless

KB

July 15 home again

We are returned from Chileshi and we have eaten dinner and we are ONE TIRED GROUP. We are ready to get back to our host-family-homes and get cleaned up, only to start again in the morning at 5:30am.

Keep us in your thoughts.

KB

shelves for optical

Dick Flow and Dominique Moonga work together to put together the shelves that hold the hundreds of pair of glasses for the optical clinic.

Cell Service Tricks

You can have cell service at Chileshi as long as you are willing to climb high enough. This is Donald, a Namwianga Driver and a commercial lorry driver making a call for Eleanor.

We are at Chileshe, or as it is sometimes called, "RR" because it is near the railroad tracks. This is a significantly less remote area, and it is part of the way back to the mission place from where we camped for three days. We got off by 6:40 this morning. Our goal was 6:30 and we did great
considering the circumstances.


Last night we sent a group, traveling by Land Rover, to the hospital in Zimba to take a little girl who was suffering from several ailments. She needed oxygen, and we were unable to supply it, so we made the choice to send the girl and Dr. Allen Neese with her. Wil Pippen drove for them and they took along a Zambian nurse and a Chitonga guide to show them the way out of the bush. They did not return during the night, but we were able to call early this morning and find out that they had gone back to the mission station instead with due to a vehicle problem.


Christine Schwer just came by pulling a garden-cart full of Thermos jugs with coffee and tea. Our team tends to stay dehydrated. It is very dry here, and during the day at least, it is hot. As a result, we take around water, coffee and tea during the day to encourage everyone to drink.


Don Oldenburg is handing down a box off of a large truck to Stephenie Reed. She is dressed in a medical gown and a baseball cap. I assume she is working in wound-care.


Neal Coates is talking politics with the village headman. Neal teaches political science.


Jan Miller and Jimmy Welch are walking up and down the steps of a yellow bus taking the white paper from the patients and handing it into the pharmacy.


Kathy Moore and Susan Robin are treating a burn victim.


Mark Broadway is standing in the door-frame that is shorter than he is, motioning for a patient to come in.


Dr. David Moore is hunkered over a computer screen checking the inventory for eye-glasses.


A herd of a dozen goats is drinking out of a bucket at the edge of a concrete platform with a hand pump.


Don Pope is leading a group of 10 or so people across a field toward the wound-care area.


Adam Patterson is leading a man by the arm into a building from the line where he was standing.


Dick Flow is going to the pharmacy tent to get some supplies.


Sara Gregerson is giving a package of pills to a Zambian nurse.


Andy Higdon is digging in a trailer for something for the kitchen.


An elderly woman, led by a small child is slowly moving toward the end of a line that is at least 75 yards long. They are followed by a sickly dog with his ears flattened down and his head low.


A young mother has just sat down flat on the ground in the sun, and untied the chitenge she had wrapped around her child so that he can have some breakfast.


A young man with a pair of oxen in a yoke are pulling a crudely made drag behind. It is just two logs joined together by a few cross pieces.


Amy Walker is struggling to get pair of rubber gloves on her hands as she works in the Kitchen.


And the list goes on.


This may be one of our last opportunities to send a report. The schedule is difficult over the next two days. I will try to give more, including some photos if time, and our satellite phone permit.


We can actually get cell service here, as long as we stand on the top of one of the yellow busses. That of course limits the number of people who we would send to make a call ;-)


On behalf of our entire team, I want to say thank you to all of you who follow our progress, lift us up in prayer, and provide funds for medicine, Bibles, or transportation. You cannot fully know how much we appreciate you.

Cindy Robinson always conducts Bible studies after the daily clinics are
finished, but this year she is in South Africa with her husband Johnny.
Beth Pope took over without hesitation and is conducting the daily studies.

Thursday, July 14, 2005

We are into our second day of clinics at Singwamba. The closest outpost with a nurse is 50 kilometers away. Last night a group of women came and asked the team if they might help provide a permanent clinic here. They have hand crafted over 200,000 bricks and crushed stones into gravel in
their own attempt to build the clinic, but they will need cement and roofing materials before they can construct a building. It is nice to see a group take the initiative to improve their situation. This area is in a different medical-district than our own mission-site, and the politics of helping may prove difficult.

This morning I walked up on the side of a hill about 500 yards away as the clinic started and as I was walking back a man walking with a bicycle came up next to me. He was carrying an AK-47 automatic rifle, and I recognized him as one of the game scouts. He helped patrol our area last night.


I watch the people as they walk up the main dirt path to the school we are using as our base, and they will walk slowly until they reach a few hundred yards away. As they see the crowds in line and hear the commotion of a couple of thousand people they tend to get excited and quicken their pace. While I hate the comparison, we are as much like a carnival as these people will ever see. Last night, as we posted our security guards around our pharmacy, I could see 20 or 30 campfires on the hillside settling in for the night. They sang and talked until 4:30 this morning. It seems odd to us that they don't sleep, but if you think about it many of them have traveled by foot for several days, and they may see friends and relatives that they rarely see otherwise, so perhaps that explains the all-night visiting.


There are a few on the team with respiratory problems. The smoke and dust never goes away, and it is hot in the sun and cold in the shade, so a few sore throats are inevitable. A few have had upset stomachs, but all in all we are a healthy bunch. It would be nice to have a shower, but it won't happen for another 48 hours, so we take comfort in the fact that we are all in the same predicament.


Here are some of the things I see today:

Lindsay Grabowski, taking video outside the dental clinic.

Ray Ferguson, standing with his hand in the air waving at another worker across the way.


Star Ferguson, bent over a red trunk outside a big yellow bus, trying to find the pills that someone else couldn't find.

Dr. Jeff McKinzie explaining to Trey Lovett something about a procedure he is doing with a wound-patient.

Lane Miller, lifting a heavy drum and carrying it into the cooking area.


Brooke Whitlock standing in the middle of a major path intersection directing patients to the right place.


Naderra Sperry pouring something into a cooking pot.


Wayne Biggs slicing vegetables.


We will pack up our clinic tonight, stay here and move early in the morning to another site for a one-day clinic.


I hear the ringing of the "bell." It is actually a piece of railroad track and a pipe but it works as a bell, and it is rang every time there is about to be a baptism. This allows those who are busy at work somewhere else in the clinic to take a break and participate if they wish.


We appreciate your interest.

We are at Singwamba. All in all, the trip was much easier than our trip to

Kanyanga, but the village is equally remote. One of the busses had a flat,
but it was changed in 12 minutes and we were back on the rod. Another of
the big yellow busses has a low step to make it easier to get inside, and
the step just proved to be too low for the roads we were on, so after having
it more or less knocked off by the road, we finished sawing it off this
morning.

There were fourteen vehicles in our convoy and we spread out over about five
kilometers to keep from having to breath the chalk-like dust from the
previous vehicle. We had traveled for about 2 ½ hours on a two-rut-road
into the bush in when we became separated, and though we could still reach
one another on our radios, at least part of us were lost. Our advance team
had marked the path by some orange tape on trees and bushes, but in the dark
it was hard to see.

So we left the "Sunshine" bus alone in the middle of nowhere, and a few of
us in a more agile Isuzu pickup went back to search for the rest of the
convoy. These roads are made by the passing of ox-carts and foot traffic
and don't tend to be laid out straight or direct, so it is easier to get
lost than you might guess. Klay Bartee had realized that the path he was on
did not have any tire tracks on it, and called in on the radio to see if he
could find the rest of us. I had just put fresh batteries in my GPS and
turned it on about 30 minutes earlier, and so it was not difficult to
back-track, and the three groups of our convoy were finally reunited. It
was all much more complex and interesting to live through than it will be to
hear about, and no one seemed to be too worse for the wear.

Arriving after dark is problematic, because it is difficult to find your
tent and get your bearings, but we managed. Now that the sun is up we see
that it is a beautiful area and is actually in the edge of the game-reserve.
When we arrived many of the villagers were out singing to us in mass. If it
came through successfully on the satellite phone, I recorded some of it for
the audio-updates. The village provided us four young men to act as
security guards for our vehicles during the night and two game scouts. It
was not until this morning that we figured out that we are actually in the
edge of the game park and that wild animals are out there:-) The game
scouts are actually paid by the government to prevent poaching but as a
secondary role they do a good job protecting missionaries.

It was not a particularly restful night. Around 2am someone in one of the
tents became ill, and others went down the rows calling for a doctor.
Around 4am some villagers came and got a few of our Zambian nurses to help
save a woman who had just had a baby and was suffering from complications,
and around 5:30 I had to remind our security guards that everyone else was
trying to sleep. Tonight, now that our equipment is spread out over a large
area, we will have to assign some of our own team to act as security guards.
That means that several of our young men and Klay Bartee (who isn't all that

young) won't get much sleep tonight.

Except for minor ailments, we are thriving and doing what we came to do.

I will try to do some more audio updates during the day.

Please forgive the quality of the audio-updates that require the satellite
phone, the sound quality is poor.


Thanks for your interest.

Additional photos

Kel Hamby reaches for his two-way radio which chatters all day long as people call for help and solve problems over the airways. Dan Southall talks to Ronny McQueen. Dan and Ronny both solve problems all day long, and do it with a smile.

Tuesday July 12

My sincerest apologies. We have been out of touch for several days, and I had no real way to see it myself. Operating with only a satellite phone in a place with no electricity, and usually working in the middle-of-the-night on US-Time means our communication is sparse at best.

I am trying to work out the glitches, and will attempt to verify my postings this week.

Three important things.

1 Many of the last postings appeared all at once, so you may wish to start part way down the list and work up. Also, I may not be able to get the photo files on until later today, so you may see a posting that has a missing photo, so keep checking.

2 AT&T phone cards are not working in Zambia, so if you are expecting a call from a team member it may not come.

3 Word is not good on Johnny Robinson. He appears to have a tumor of the brain, and potentially other complications. It appears that Johnny will either be care-flighted to the US or will travel back on a commercial airliner with the team.Cam Hurst, who traveled to South Africa with the Robinsons is due back with us today. I will attempt to get you a better report on Johnny, but you may also wish to contact Hillcrest Church of Christ in Abilene


Today is a moving day. It is 8:30 and our teams luggage is already loaded, and we will send an advance team ahead to set up tents. THe team will do some loading work today and other chores before leaving for Singwamba. We will stay the night there, and start early tomorrow with our next clinic.

The team is exhausted, but upbeat.

Thanks for your interest

Monday July 11

Welcome to Monday. We have been awake since about 5am (10pm Saturday in the central U.S.). We moved our clinic to a place called Kapaule. (Pronounced ka-pole) and it means "The Pole." It is on a major dirt road and very near a large fire-watch-tower which is called "The pole.


One thing about being in a less remote village is that many more people, particularly school-aged children know english. Also it means very large crowds. We expect to see over 3000 today alone. You may have seen an AP story after the Iraq elections about how voters had to dip their finger into a purple dye to ensure that they only voted once. We use the same dye, though strictly speaking, it is not dye, but anti-fungal medicine called Gentian Purple. We buy it in large jugs and as Zambians come through the medical line we dip their index finger into the dye, and when they come for eye-clinic we dip the little finger. You can -wash part of the purple off, but if it gets into the cutical of your finger nail, it will be there a few days. Today, more than at other places we are seeing those who made it through the queue once and are attempting to come through again.



As I write this, I am sitting in the back of a 3/4 ton GMC pickup that was sent over from the U.S., and am watching a large flock of Guinea Fowls follow a domesticated chicken around like chicks. They walk among the 500 people in the court-yard of the school we are using as if they weren’t there. Also a huge bumble bee, apparently attracted to my Green John Deere cap is buzzing around my head.



We rolled into this place about 8:15 this morning, and by 9:15 we were fully operational. Some of the landscaping at the school may never be the same, because to make it happen we just have to roll our big trucks and trailers down through the middle. We talk to the school headmaster, or headmistress in advance, but it still causes me a bit of guilt to run over the carefully laid-out bricks that the students have placed there to form walkways. In any case, it amazes me that we can roll into a place and get set up in an hour. The pharmacy operates by placing a big red foot-locker in every seat. The patient passes the prescription through the back door, and the medicine arrives at the front door. We have two of the big yellow US school busses, and both pull 400 gallon water trailers behind them. We, of course, have to unhook the trailer before we convert into pharmacy-mode.



After the first two days of clinics we had seen over 5000 patients. Our second day moved at a much more rapid pace than the first. The medical emergency of Friday impacted us, but we are now moving at full-speed. On that note, Johnny Robinson who was evacuated to South Africa after a seizure has stabilized. I am hesitant to give many details about the situation because we are not having regular communication with Johnny and Cindy, but at our last report it was believed that Johnny has a brain-tumor and he will travel home with the team in a few days to have surgery in the United States. The ability to have our doctors on the flight with him was central to their decision to go to the U.S. for treatment. Our doctors tell us that trauma patients are rated on a scale of three to fifteen, and that when Johnny was found at our camp he was a “three” and gravely ill. If you want more updated information on Johnny contact the Hillcrest Church of Christ in Abilene.


We thank you for your interest in our mission. Many on the team have been disappointed that they can not easily call their loved-ones in the United States or Canada, so if you are one of those loved-ones, please know they want to call, they just can’t;-)


Tomorrow is a “moving” day, so it may be Wednesday before another update unless I can find a few minutes later this afternoon.

Monday July 11 Post Two

This is a photo of approximately one-half of the tents that house our medical team in a remote village named Kanyanga. It took us almost 5 hours to get here and we were on a paved road for only about 15 minutes. Imagine if you will, grass as tall as your head, and two tire-ruts that form a road as far as your eye can see. The ruts form a canal through which we travel and the brush and trees on the side drag along the side of our big yellow school bus as we move.

This was the kind of view most of Friday afternoon and evening. As it approached dark the sun tried to shine through the talcum-powder-like dust left from the vehicles in front of us, and after dark you could just see the red tail-lights of the Land Rover Defender ahead of us. We spent two of our five hours on these kind of roads, but at the end we came upon a village and a school called Kanyanga.

While it was dark when we arrived, had we had light to see it, the tents in the photo were waiting for us thanks for a dedicated group of advance workers we call the "A-Team."

Monday July 11

This is the intermediate-line. The five main lines usually stretch 100 yards or so back, but the line-workers pull out 10 to 20 people and put them into an intermediate line. Once here they can quickly be moved as a group to the registration lines. After registration, they go through a station to check vital-signs and into a final line outside of the "doctor's office." It is an intricate process that allows us to see about 100 to 150 people every 10 minutes.

Sunday July 10th

Zambia Medical Mission has a rhythm and a balance, and we did not find either of them until mid-day today, but now that we have found them, we are ready to fully achieve what we came to do.



While we are still have limited contact with the outside world, we hear from South Africa that Johnny Robinson is receiving excellent medical care. We wish we knew more specifics, but despite my ability to send this message, we are somewhat cut off from outside communication.



We saw approximately 2300 people during our first clinic-day, which is good, but I predict we will do better as time goes on.



Last year, I sat and dictated what I saw for some of the emails, and many of you said it was your favorite part of the reports, so this year, I will begin it again, with a slight twist to accommodate my inability to see the clinic while using the computers:-)



I see Kelly Moore wearing yet another baseball cap. He wears one until he finds someone who needs it worse than he does, then he gives it away and goes back to some magic box that seems to replenish them as he dips them out.



I see Adam McKinzie counting out medicine with a big smile.



I see Dan (DD) Southall doing, well, just about anything that someone else is too tired to do. I think he as ambitions to be a future medical-mission-director;-)



I see Adam Patterson stepping in where Johnny Robinson was supposed to work in the wound care area.



I see Nadara Sperry



I see LaDonna Armstrong taking digital photographs of every Zambian volunteer so that she can create a directory.



I see Klay Bartee (he who never sleeps) cleaning a wound.



I see Jimmy Welch looking up into the back of a big yellow school bus that has been converted into “Pills-on-Wheels,” taking bags of medicine and handing them to individuals in a crowd.



I see David Moore typing on a computer (an incongruent sight) keeping an inventory of the glasses that have been given, while looking in an inventory system for another prescription.



I see Chad Morris standing just outside a door waving for someone to come in.



I see Don Oldenburg sitting at the end of a huge truck full of supplies ready to find just about anything that the team might need. Don’t let the sitting part fool you, he is one tired fellow at the end of the day with all the lifting and moving that has to be done.



Of course, I can’t see all these things at one moment, but I do have the unique vantage point to let me see a host of people doing things they may or may not have been trained to do, and doing them well.



Thanks for your interest.

Saturday July 9

We experienced an emergency last night. Johnny Robinson either suffered a siezure and fell and hit his head on the side of a truck, or as a result of hitting his head on the truck suffered a siezure.

We contacted Med-Ex, our evacuation insurance carrier by satellite phone and gave them our GPS coordinates in hopes that they would come in a helicoptor to pick him up. Instead we had to drive him out of the Bush to an airport. We chose Livingstone, because the Choma air strip does not have landing lights. As it turns out, it was daylight before the plane could arrive anyway.

He was unconsious when he left and not responding to even deep pain, but we were able to get a report back from Livingstone that he had awakened and was in more stable condition.

He arrived in Joberg South Africa around noon and was taken to a local hospital. The emergency room was just over 15 hours away from us. This really punctuates the need for medical care in Zambia.

We have contacted Hillcrest Church of Christ, Johnny's home congregation and they may be able to provide a more up to date condition report regarding Johnny. Cindy, Johnny's wife and Cam Hurst accompanied him to South Africa.

We will provide more information as we have it.

Also, on a more mundane note, those on our team with AT&T calling cards have not been successfull at making them work. So if you are expecting a call from a loved one, it may not come. The rest of the team appears to be in find physical condition.

This was hastily written, but I will try to get more information out later.

Problems Posting to the Blog

We are having problems sending email, which is our method for posting to this blog. As soon as we have the email problem resolved, we'll post several updates.

Medical Team Arrives

The medical team all arrived on their designated flights today. The group
with the shortest layover in Joberg did not receive most of their luggage,
but we had prepared them in advance to come with as much as possible in
their carryon luggage, so most of them are set to go. For those who were
missing sleeping bags, others had brought two and shared and we have come to
learn that you can wear the same set of clothes several days in a row ;-) We
are missing 76 pieces of luggage, so we had to wake a trucker late this
evening and hire him to take his truck to Livingstone tomorrow.

This has been a very long day for all concerned. Kelly Hamby became ill
with a stomach-virus this morning which forced us to a contingency plan for
drivers and duties. This is a huge team of over 135 from the US and Canada,
and over 100 Zambian volunteers. They were very patient tonight as we went
over a list of a hundred details that they needed to remember.

We are loading the trucks at 7am tomorrow and moving to a remote village,
while a group goes back to Livingstone in hopes that the remaining luggage
arrives on the next flight.

We covet your prayers, and thank you for your support. More details once I
have had some sleep and am a bit more lucid.

The Team is on the way

The weather is cold and getting colder and most of our team is headed to the airport. We are in a frenzy with last minute details getting ready for their arrival. A vehicle has a broken spring, another is missing a starter. We are loading a several thousand pounds of food into our trailer for our travel to the village.

We are more or less assuming that several of our team won't make their connecting flight in Joberg, and that means substantial contingency planning. It is no small task to travel to Livingstone to pick up a group, and once we move to the villages, it is very difficult.

We appreciate your interest. We will try to post audio reports and reports here as often as possible.

Thanks for your interest.

KB

Pharmacy workers keep counting...

In this photo, pharmacy workers labor diligently in preparation for this year’s clinics. Today was children’s vitamins…tomorrow we will hammer out the prenatal vitamins and from there move on to painkillers.

How many medical-missionaries does it take to build a loft? Well at least three. Klay Bartee takes on the hard work, I pose for the picture, and Josh Massingill waits to hand Klay more screws. While the main team is here, we spend as many nights in tents as we do indoors, but before they arrive we cram several people into a few small indoor spaces. This loft, above the doorway in one room creates an additional sleeping space.





Eleanor inspects some of the 6000 bottles of water that we have collected to provide to the team while we are out in the field. Some of the water at the mission is drinkable, but much of it is not, so we need lots of bottled water. We will also carry with us two large army-surplus water trailers for cooking and drinking.




Darrell, Janice and Angela Conway arrived today. Darrell comes early to work on the many vehicles we will need to transport our people and stuff. During the mission, he is the “Soul Mechanic” working on the Spiritual Team. Many of the team spent the day preparing tents for the outings, and many spent all day counting pills into individual doses.

Remember that this site, and the audio update site are updated regularly. You may not receive an email alerting you to changes, so if you are interested in up-to-date changes, check this site regularly. There is a link to Audio Updates below in the side-bar to this site.

Advance Team on Site

Yesterday we drove down the main road that will take us to the clinic at
Singwamba. The road was not good, but it was passable, and we were able to
average 15- 20 miles per hour. We came across these girls carrying cotton
that they had just picked, as you see in the photo. The cotton is
transported by large, very overloaded trucks and the cotton balls get caught
on the trees that line the road. The result is the appearance of
"cotton-trees."

We have a fairly large "early-team" here already with more arriving each
day. The days are filled with mechanic work, planning, sorting tents and
camping supplies, counting medicine into individual prescriptions, and all
sorts of other efforts. The main team is scheduled to arrive on Thursday
July 7th, though some of the nurses are coming one day early to complete
their registration with the Zambian Ministry of Health.

More later. Thanks for your interest.

Remember that this site, and the audio update site are updated regularly. You may not receive an email alerting you to changes, so if you are interested in up-to-date changes, check this site regularly. There is a link to Audio Updates below in the side-bar to this site.

Andrew's water

His name is Andrew, and most of the medical team will never meet him, but he is responsible for making the intricate water system at Namwianga Mission work while we are there. 135 westerners put a major strain on the infrastructure of this compound, and Andrew will spend long hours seeing that the water flows as much as it possibly can.

He is standing by the US Army surplus water trailer that we use to transport our clean water. Eleanor purchased 6000 bottles of water for drinking last week. It is amazing how much it takes to care for a caravan of 200 to 220 roving medical missionaries.



Many are leaving for Africa over the coming two weeks, and the main team leaves on July 6th.

Thanks

KB

A way to receive AUDIO UPDATES

We will be sending audio updates this year about the trip. We are often able to use a telephone even when we do not have access to the Internet or email, so you may wish to check the audio-update site even if you haven't received an email prompting you to check the site.

The URL is


http://64.62.190.200/podcast/

You can paste this into your browser and go there directly also.

Updates will be come frequent after July 6th.

Have a great day.

The 2005 trip is near

This blog will be used to post the photos and comments from the Zambia Medical Mission 2005 trip. Many of you have been directed here from a mailing-list, but you may give this URL to anyone interested in the progress of our team. Our post will be frequent during the actual trip, but will be limited otherwise.

Most of the team will be leaving for Africa on July 6th.

Thank you for your support.

KB

Ba Moonga

His name is Dominique Moonga and he is a powerful evangelist. He is perhaps the most eloquent man I have ever heard speak. That is a Chitonga language Bible clasped to his chest.

Caroline

As we prepare for our trip, our minds run back to memories of those we work with each year. This photo is of Caroline.

This is a rare moment from a women whose eyes most often radiate a smile, but smiles mean joy, and in her world, the world of a Zambian nurse, joy is not always appropriate. But competence, confidence, compassion, and care are there to step in where joy fails, and they are all apparent in this beautiful face.

Welcome

Welcome to the Blog for the 2005 Zambia Medical Mission trip.