16-21 October, Liz Angell from Tear Fund UK will be visiting to see the progress in the Community Health work which Tear Fund is heavily involved in supporting. On Monday 18 October she is due to visit the work at Maetsamena, 35km from Mandritsara, where there is a Village Health post and worker and a small church group that receives regular visits once a month from the team at Mandritsara. Liz will be interested to see the gravity fed water scheme - a local spring in the hills has been protected and the water piped to provide clean water to the village. This is the first water project that we have done and arose from the year that Mat Linley spent helping the Community Health team in water development.
19-25 October, Alan and Carol Breed from the USA will be visiting. Alan is a retired paediatric orthopaedic surgeon from Wisconsin, and is currently working at a mission hospital in Kenya. The visit is for him to assess our set up and needs to decide whether to come for a longer period next year to help. The main focus will be on children with club foot.
19 October, Professor Violette Andriantsoa, a professor of eye surgery in Tana, is due to come for the day to see Dr Hanitra and the eye programme. The visit on 19 October will be with Helimission and this will enable Dr Francis to take Liz Angell to some distant villages to see the community health work. (Our maintenance team has just completed the first heli-pad in Mandritsara - in the hospital grounds)
21-29 October, a film crew of 3 from the Dutch Evangelical Broadcasting organisation are coming to make a programme about HVM and Mandritsara highlighting the need for a maternity work here. The programme is due for broadcast on December 27, the aim being to raise enough money to fund the construction of our maternity block.
Please pray that we may be a blessing to all these visitors and that their visit may also be a blessing to the folk here.
Two containers are on the high seas. One from the International Dispensary Association (IDA) in Holland has almost 8 tons of medical supplies - our year's supply. It is due to arrive in Mahajanga on 30 October. The other, from Unimatco in England, has a new Land Rover, spare parts and tyres, tools and equipment and various donated items. It is due to reach Mahajanga on 8 November. Please pray for Fianarana in Tana as he looks after the paperwork, application for customs exemption etc, and for getting all these items safely to Mandritsara.
Wall to wall blue sky, 33 deg C in the shade, and people burning the countryside, especially the hills,causing a red glow at sunset and polluted air (it is illegal but still happens). Welcome to Mandritsara in October! It is also one of the most busy months of the year in the hospital. It is easy in the heat for folk to become stressed. Please pray for patience as well as patients.
Zoky Solo and Mr & Mrs Radesana are spending a weekend of gospel outreach in a new, but very dark village with a dark name - Antsahameloka. It means "fields of guilt" and is full of pagan influences. Pray that it may become worthy of a name change - to "fields of forgiveness" for example!
The new Sunday school term has started with many new folk. Last Sunday there were 338 children and 40 adults! There are 16 teachers when everyone is there, but most weeks some are away on outreach visits. We need more teachers. Jane is battling hard to keep up with producing the lessons and visual aids each week - she does separate lessons for the younger ones as well.
David Mann 15 October 2004
Gifts for the project should be sent to Bryan Lumb, 41 Upper Tooting Park, London SW17 7SN.
Please make out cheques to "Friends of Mandritsara Trust" (F.O.M.T.) Gift Aid forms are available.