Dear Friends
Preaching on the miracle of the raising to life of the son of the widow of Nain in Luke 7, Spurgeon says:
"Behold, dear friends, the overflowing power of our Lord Jesus Christ. He had wrought a great work in the centurion's servant, and now, only a day after, he raises the dead.. He blesses this day, and he blesses the day after. Never is our divine Lord compelled to pause until he has recruited his resources, but virtue goeth out of him for ever.. No time, no place, can find Jesus unwilling or unable. When Baal is on a journey, or sleepeth, his deluded worshippers cannot hope for his help; but when Jesus journeys, or sleeps, a word will find him ready to conquer death, or quell the tempest."
What an encouragement that is to us here, particularly on the days when we seem to be rushing from one crisis to another.
This is October in Mandritsara: wall to wall blue skies, dry, very dry and dusty, and the busiest month of the year in the hospital. So far this month we have done 76 operations, 16 of which were Caesarean Sections (8 this week!), almost all emergencies, and a good few at night. David feels a bit like an old-time houseman, having been up four nights in the past week.
It has also been a time of visitors. Liz Angell from Tear Fund was here from last Saturday until Thursday to visit the Community Health work. Dr Francis had a busy programme of visits to villages near and far. She was extremely encouraged by all she saw.
On Tuesday Dr Alan Breed, a retired paediatric orthopaedic surgeon from Wisconsin and his wife Carol, arrived by Helimission, on a brief visit from Kenya where he is helping in a mission hospital for a few weeks. Many parents had heard of his arrival and brought their children with various "bony" handicaps. From Wednesday to Friday morning (they left by Air Madagascar in the afternoon) he had operated on 5 girls and 3 boys with a total of 11 clubfeet. These are children (the oldest was 10 years, but most were around 3 to 5) who have always walked on the tops of their feet, but now, thanks to the kindness of God in sending Alan to us, will walk normally. The first to be operated on was the son of a lady who has been attending one of the recently planted village churches. The second was the daughter of a couple who had heard the announcement of Alan's coming over the local radio. They live over 70km away and we had no idea the local radio reached so far! Please pray for the post-op care of these children - and for the message of the Good News about Jesus to reach them and their parents. The parents were all absolutely delighted, as in the publicity we had said that this was just a visit to see what needed to be done and we did not expect operations to be performed this time! Alan and Carol hope to come back for a 6-week visit next year.
Helimission was back on Thursday to bring a TV crew from the Dutch Evangelical Broadcasting Association. They are here to make a documentary about the hospital, particularly showing the need for maternity work. The aim of the broadcast (it will be shown on December 27 in Holland) will be to raise funds for the construction of the maternity block. They were still filming the helicopter as it took off again to take Liz Angell back to Tana, when a lady arrived with a bleeding placenta praevia needing urgent Caesarean Section. So the camera crew had not even gone to take their bags to their lodgings when they were whisked off to the operating theatre to film the safe arrival of a little girl. The theatre team, who had already been operating all morning on club feet children, were rather tired and hungry so we put off the afternoon club foot case and rearranged the remaining 4 club feet for a 6am start on Friday morning.
At 11pm that evening, David was about to get into bed when the ward called to say a lady in labour had arrived by oxcart having travelled all day from a distant village. The baby was dead, and David was worried that the uterus had almost ruptured, so quickly drove into town to pick up the theatre team. But first he picked up the camera crew who had asked to be called for emergencies. It was almost comical to watch from the Land Rover as one of the theatre team tumbled out of his house pulling on his T-shirt with a spotlight and camera fixed on him! David wondered how the theatre team, going home around 1.30am would feel about the 6am start - but they volunteered that this was a special occasion and they did not want to disappoint the parents of the club feet children.
By Friday afternoon when Alan and Carol left to return to Tana, everyone was somewhat weary, though happy that the planned club feet operations had all been done.
During the night, Francine, the pregnant wife of one of our watchmen arrived, leaking amniotic fluid, but not in labour. The date the baby was due was not sure, and since she was not in labour we decided to review what to do on the Saturday morning ward round (the baby was upside down, and the mother's uterus was abnormal, and in view of her having lost a previous child in infancy following a head injury we had planned to deliver her by Caesarean Section).
As we completed the ward round in the morning, a taxi driver came running to the ward saying he had brought a patient. She had delivered a baby in the night at her house in town, but had been found collapsed by her 12 year old daughter who called the taxi. As we brought her into the ward, the camera crew arrived - they had come to film the helimission helicopter which was due to arrive again. They found a "total action" situation. The lady had no pulse or blood pressure, was extremely pale and had obviously lost a huge amount of blood. Drips were put up, Annie McColm was called in to cross match blood, and Jaclyn (one of our clerks) was called to urgently donate blood.
While this was going on, another pregnant lady was brought in in severe pain and bleeding. She had not been in labour and we thought at first that the placenta had detached (the baby was dead in the uterus). In fact, as we discovered when we operated, the uterus had ruptured, probably due to a scarred uterus from a previous criminal abortion.
As we rushed around with all this, we discovered that Francine was also in early labour, so the morning was spent doing a Caesarean Section and a Caesarean hysterectomy.
A little later, a bush taxi pulled in bringing an unconscious child with what turned out to be meningitis.
Today, all these patients are improving, though the child is still unconscious. The lady who nearly bled to death yesterday morning was sitting up in bed in the evening and went home today!
One thing is sure - the camera team has already got more than enough for a 25 minute documentary and they are only half way through their visit. We are very grateful that Hilde is here - she is our nurse from Antwerp, who speaks Flemish which is very similar to Dutch, so the camera crew have been very happy to have her on the film - explaining and interpreting.
They have also visited the Good News School, done a ward round with Dr Adrien, interviewed a lady in the ward who has recently had an obstructed labour and is developing a vesicovaginal fistula, been to the village to interview a lady that Adrien will operate on this week for a vesicovaginal fistula, climbed a local hill to get a good view of Mandritsara and the hospital, filmed the Sunday school, and followed various chameleons (they asked of there is any wildlife here!). Tomorrow they are due to go with Helimission and the Community Health team to vaccination sessions in distant villages.
With our sincere thanks for your prayers and support.
David and Jane Mann
Gifts for the project should be sent to:
Mr Derek Alcock
Friends of Mandritsara Trust
244 Obelisk Rise
Northampton
NN2 8TW
email: derek@mandritsara.org.uk
Please make out cheques to "Friends of Mandritsara Trust" (F.O.M.T.) Gift Aid forms are available.