Dear Friends
"He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed" Isaiah 53:5
One of the first patients in David's consulting room when we returned from England at the end of August was 12 year-old Herman (pronounced Airman). David did not recognise him until he lifted his shirt to display a large surgical scar on his abdomen. Dr Adrien had nicknamed him "Herman the hero". One Sunday morning in July Herman was walking down the road with his 4 year-old brother Horace (pronounced Oris!). An ox-cart was coming towards them rather fast. Horace, unaware of the danger, wandered into its path. Herman lunged forward to pull him out of the way, but in doing so fell under the cart, which ran over his abdomen. He sustained severe internal injuries including a ruptured spleen, which we removed. Horace, however, was saved. Herman the Hero became the illustration for the Children's talk in the Sunday service, and for several Gospel messages in the ward while he was a patient. Herman saving Horace was a picture of what Jesus did at Calvary when He died in our place, taking the punishment which should have been ours for our sins, and bringing us eternal life.
Returning to Mandritsara again after a trip away, we have sought to recommit ourselves to the urgent task of making known the glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to folk who live their lives oblivious of death and the judgement that will surely follow unless they are rescued by the Saviour now.
We had a wonderful trip to England in August. Ruth's wedding to Neil Martin gave us much joy and cause to praise God. So many people worked hard to make it a special day. Ruth and Neil's testimony to their love for God and for each other shone through. But the greatest thing was the consciousness that God was there. Ruth and Neil are now happily settled in their flat in South Wimbledon. Neil's health is progressing steadily, as is the book he is writing on facing intellectual struggles in the Christian life. Thank you for praying for them. If anyone would like to see photos of the wedding we will be glad to email some to you if you let us know.
The week before Ruth and Neil's wedding was the 40th wedding anniversary of David's sister Margaret in Loughborough. That was another very happy family occasion. It was the first time that David and his four sisters had all been together for about 15 years!
Since returning, we have been busier than ever in the hospital. We have more patients, operations, laboratory tests etc, and many folk are coming from further and further away. Paul Steinkuller and Dr Hanitra recently did cataract operations on a man from the East Coast. He had been carried on a deckchair tied to two bamboo poles for 10 days to get here! He had paid the 4 porters 7.50 each!
Now that Dr Hanitra has moved over to the eye department, we have one doctor fewer doing general outpatients. Dr Adrien was away at the beginning of the month, and Dr Jeannine, our anaesthetist, is away in France for 6 weeks, including attending an anaesthetics congress. She trained in anaesthetics in France 10 years ago, but has not been back there since. So for the present David is permanently on call, either as surgeon, or anaesthetist, or both.
We have had some challenging patients to cope with, including a 3 month-old baby with an intussusception (bowel obstruction) that we operated on last Saturday. At the end of the operation, David went to speak to the family who were anxiously waiting outside on the veranda for news. The young mother, however, had disappeared - too frightened to hear the outcome. What a change, a couple of days later when David did the ward round and asked the mother how the child was. "She's playing!" the mother beamed.
Last time, we mentioned Odile, a girl of 16 needing an amputation for severe sepsis of the leg. Thank you for praying for her. She survived the amputation and made excellent progress - being discharged with crutches while we were in England. She and her family had many opportunities to hear the gospel. We also mentioned Solofo, a boy of 13 dying from a lymphoma. At the end of July it seems that he put his trust in the Lord Jesus. When we came back we expected to hear that he had died - but he is still alive though very weak. His mother and all the other children have been coming regularly to church and Sunday school and seem very interested.
Mat and Katy Linley are a young couple from Sutton Bonington in England. Katy is a doctor and Mat a water engineer. They have taken a year out to serve the Lord in a mission situation and had been accepted for Nepal but could not get visas. Late in June, Colin and Christine Molyneux, who are from their church and are missionaries here in Madagascar with AIM, contacted us to see if we were "interested". With our medical situation as already described there was no doubt that we were very "interested" in Katy coming! But what would Mat do? We thought about the possibility of researching and developing water supplies for the villages, through the Community Health team, but Dr Francis, in charge of the Community Health project, was away in Benin at the time. When he returned we put the proposition to him. He beamed widely and said, "I think it is the answer to our prayers". It appears that safe water supplies is the next area of activity that the team had been considering - though not knowing how to proceed. They had been specifically praying about this - and here it seems was the answer. So the plan is that Mat will look at existing water supplies in the 6 villages where we have health workers and see what can be done to improve them. The hope will be to protect a spring on a nearby hill wherever possible, and channel the water to distribution points in the villages. Protected wells would be the other option.
Some words of a hymn to close with:
"I've found a Friend, O such a Friend! He bled and died to save me; and not alone the gift of life, but His own self He gave me. Naught that I have my own I call, I hold it for the Giver: my heart, my strength, my life, my all are His and His forever".
May the Lord help us to make that true each day as we serve Him.
Thank you so much for your fellowship in prayer. David and Jane Mann
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.