While Will Was Away

Will is gone now in Gore at the refugee camps, and he took his phone with him which has the internet, which means, I’m without internet right now.  So, I am going to write little snippets of my days without him and save them in Word then post them all later when he gets back.  So, if you’re reading this now, this blog post is several days old.  :)

8/18/14

Happy Anniversary to Us!  We made it to a year already!  Amazing how fast time flies!  Will has been suffering from insomnia the last few days (probably left over from the jet lag) and wakes up early, like around 3 or 4 in the morning.  Much to my chagrin, I seem to be forced to have insomnia too, whenever he has it… he wants to cuddle, read, check emails, and talk to me, but he is usually greeted with sleepy mumblings because I really don’t feel like being up at that ungodly hour.  But somehow, I can’t fall back asleep when he wakes me up.  Well, this morning, it was the same, but I was a little more ready to wake up this time because it was our first year wedding anniversary!  We exchanged cards and gifts and chatted softly about our past year while the house was still wrapped in slumber. 

Now, some very exciting news!  I pulled my first tooth today!!!  How about that?  I was called in the morning to come to the hospital because some patients were waiting to see me.  I first met a couple and the husband spoke English which was nice.  They both had oral issues, but sadly, I couldn’t do anything about it.  I offered to clean their teeth, which they gladly agreed to.  The wife had many possible areas of cavities, but I referred her to the local dentist, because I didn’t feel comfortable pulling a perfectly good tooth that can possibly be filled, and I can’t take x-rays here either.  The husband complained of jaw pain, and after some inspection and critical thinking (worn down teeth + sore jaw/muscles), I suspected he clenches and grinds his teeth and so I asked him about it and he believed he did.  I talked to him about how to avoid doing it and told him I wasn’t able to fix that problem.  The husband had more calculus then the wife and took me a little more time.  Later that day, I was doing laundry and was called again to the hospital.  This time, it was obvious what the problem was.  The man pointed to a tooth that was rotted away on the mesial side (sorry, dental language for my dental friends) and was quite loose and painful.  I explained to him (through translation) that I could pull it and he said that was what he wanted.  I prayed a prayer for God to help me, because I have never pulled a tooth in my life.  I tried numbing him with a makeshift needle and syringe and his whole jaw became numb except for his tooth.  I numbed him more, but it just wasn’t numbing up, possibly because of the immense inflammation there.  He finally just told me to pull it.  So I did.  I was almost as surprised as he was when I pulled out the tooth with little complications and in record time.  It was so loose that I probably could have pulled it out with my fingers.  A sense of excitement rushed through me as I held that ugly, rotten, bloody tooth in my gloved hand.  I had pulled a tooth!!!  I was so thankful for all the helpful advice I had received and thankful to God for no complications and an easy first extraction.

8/20/14

I am really proud of myself!  I am now helping out with wound care and dressing changes!  I have learned that eating breakfast before going to do rounds makes a HUGE difference (that was part of my problem the first day).  Also, I believe I’m already feeling a little better about things, although some wounds I am just not ready to deal with yet.  I am taking care of the patients with sutures and closed wounds, or very mild wounds that aren’t pussy or bloody.   So far, I’ve done well!  I still gag when I see a fresh amputee’s stump or when a wound pours puss.  But, my stomach is handling a lot more than before!

I had my shoes stolen today.  Chadians are notorious thieves… it’s built into their nature, they don’t even think about it as stealing.  I had been told not to leave my shoes outside of the hospital building (they remove their shoes before entering) because they might disappear.  I had to run into the hospital just for a minute and returned to the door to leave to find that my flip flops were missing.  I searched all over the place and couldn’t find them.  It was raining out at that point, so there was no way I was going to walk all the way back to the house without shoes on to get my other pair (thankfully, I packed two).  I asked someone if they had seen it and Lindsay said she saw a guy walk into the lab with them.  I then proceeded to walk to the lab window and peered in to see a male Chadian wearing my pink sparkly butterfly flip flops.  I wanted to laugh and tell him he could keep them as long as I got a picture of him wearing them.  But I refrained, and instead, just said, “Those are mine. May I have them back?” in caveman language so they would understand me.  He said, “oh, oiu, oiu” and handed them back without saying another word.  I’m sure my shoes stood out and so were the choicest pick of the bunch for a Chadian to smuggle.  I took my shoes with me into my dental room later when I had a patient.

8/21/14

Will came home today!  Oh glory!  It is so good to be back in my husband’s arms!  Yesterday I moved all our stuff into a new room that is bigger than the one we had before and is separate of the main living area.  Will had plans to be back yesterday, which meant I wouldn’t have to spend my/our first night in the room by myself, but he had some delays and ended up not being able to make it back that night.  That meant I was all alone in the room, and I had a hard time falling asleep.  But tonight, I have the pleasure of his company!

Today was a quiet and rainy day. Everything started out slow because of the rain and cooler weather.  I didn’t have any Chadian patients today probably because of the weather.  They think anything colder than 70 degrees is freezing.  Not much was being done around the house or hospital, which left more time to piddle around.  When Will got back, I went around with him and Patricia, another volunteer, to do PT with the patients.  It’s great to see them improve.  I’ve never watched this much of Will work, and honestly, I’m impressed. He can get a lady’s leg from stiff and nearly straight, to bending at 72 degrees.  He’s so good at what he does.

Well, folks, that’s all for now.  Will will be posting about his time in Gore soon.

 

Cleaning a volunteer's teeth in my makeshift dental room

Cleaning a lady Chadian's teeth

An Update From Jolene

Will did a wonderful job updating you all about our travels and first few days here in Chad (encore to him, right?).  It has been an eventful few days with so much that happened that it seems like we’ve been here for a week at least.  We already feel endeared to the Chadians and the other volunteer missionaries.

Bekki put Will to work the afternoon we got in from our 8 hour bus ride to Moundou.  She did allow him to eat first, but they both have a lot to learn and do together that she went right down to business taking him around to the different patients and their cases.  I went along for the fun of it and to see the wards and patients.  I had prepared myself to see some pretty disgusting things while I was here, so I braced myself for the worst.  But, it really wasn’t that bad walking around with Will and Bekki…

…Until Friday morning during rounds.  Will and I thought it would be good to see how rounds go and watch the wound care and dressing changes.  The day before, everyone’s wounds were bound up, but that morning they were undressed for the doctor to see them.  If any of you have seen the pictures on Gardner’s blog, you know what I’m talking about here.  My stomach started twisting inside me to see all the open gaping wounds, some deeper and larger than others.  I avoided certain beds when I caught glimpses of their wounds.  When we went into the men’s ward, oh the smells that accost your nostrils!  A mix of betadine, body odor, urine and whatever infected wounds smell like (it’s gross).  I felt my stomach trying to expel its contents into my throat, so I quickly left the ward before I vomited on everything.  I had to stay out of the ward for a while before I could try going inside again.  I’ve been told by Scott and the volunteer missionaries that it’s common even for the most calloused health care workers to feel a bit queasy for a few weeks/months when they visit the wards or help with surgeries.  It’s just such a shock for all the senses.  Will seemed to handle it just fine.  I’m sure I’ll get a little better, but I am the owner of a very weak stomach, so how much I can get better is probably pretty minimal.

Even then, I hope to help out as best I can.  I have hunted, sorted and gathered all the dental supplies that were scattered abroad around the hospital compound and today I plan on trying to figure out the sterilizer.  A few Chadians have mentioned needing dental help or wanting me to look at something.  Sadly, because I don’t have my official paper license with me (it’s sitting in the mail at my house), they can’t advertise any dental care I’m available to do on the radio because the government would have a fit.  Don’t want any problems with the government, so we’re just advertising to the patient’s families and the church members.  So, I’m not sure I’ll be doing very much dental care, except for a few cases, and those will probably just need extractions.  I brought cleaning supplies, but when accidents, death and sore teeth are the bigger problems here, people don’t put value in getting their teeth cleaned.  I might get a few interested people, but it will only be a handful I’m sure.  But even if I don’t get to clean/extract teeth as much as I planned, that’s okay; there are still lots of work to be done here.

The Gardner’s have a huge shipping container that has all sorts of medical supplies and things for their home in it.  It took months for it to finally land on their doorstep (read their blog more if you’re interested in the details), and now we have our work cut out for us.  The house is literally buried in boxes.  We spent the majority of today unloading the shipping container and unpacking the boxes in the house.  When Gardners kept talking about their “container,” I was thinking of a small box… no, this is the kind of container that you see trains carrying… yeah, those huge metal things.  Those things are bigger than you realize.  So much was crammed in there and it’s still not completely unloaded yet!  Needless to say, we will all sleep really, really well tonight.

We wish we could post more pictures of our adventures here, but sadly, Chad has made picture-taking illegal unless you get a permit.  Some of the missionaries had problems with the police because they were taking pictures of tortoises.  So, most of the pictures that we will show of life outside of the hospital compound were sneakily captured with our iPhones as we nonchalantly pretend to be fiddling on our phones.  So far, no problems.  But this makes sharing pictures really difficult.

Church on Sabbath was interesting and so neat!  Sabbath is my favorite day whenever I am on a mission trip because it’s such a cultural experience and I love seeing how different cultures worship God.  The Chadians love to sing and move with the music.  They don’t have accompaniment, just drums and cymbals (some churches in America would cringe).  All of us volunteer missionaries had a really hard time not laughing when the choir starting singing a religious song to the tune of “In the Jungle” from the Lion King!  We all looked at each other and tried stifling our giggles.  I wish I knew their words to it.  Most likely it’s a common African tune which is no surprise it was added to the movie.  We enjoyed the rest of the service through translation.

I believe I’m becoming a real Chadian… riding a moto (small motorcycle) in a skirt.  It’s a challenge to do but I think I’m getting the hang of it!  See, in Chad, it is improper for ladies to show their knees, so to hoist yourself onto a moto while keeping your skirt or dress below the knee is a little challenging, then add on a bag or two from the market that you are holding, and it makes it even more difficult, but I somehow today managed all this and stayed completely modest.  I felt like a pro as I rode behind the driver with a bag in hand and my skirt blowing in the breeze.  It is pure joy to ride on a moto.  If I were a male Chadian that would be the career I would choose.  It is so hot at times, and yet, on a moto, it refreshes me with the breeze. 

Tomorrow is our first year anniversary!  Can’t believe it’s been a year!  Surely, it has been the most blissful and happy year of married life that either of us could imagine.  Because Will is leaving early tomorrow to head down to the refugee camps south of here, we don’t have anything spectacular planned, which is fine, because we had a little celebration at Olive Garden before we left for Africa, well knowing we may not be able to do anything here.  It will be fun to later tell our children about our first year anniversary in Africa!  We look forward to eternity together.

We were able to talk to our parents today, which was so nice and I’m sure a relief to them.  We only have about 2 more weeks left before we leave.  Thank you all for the continued prayers.  

Jolene on a moto with Scott taking a Sabbath ride

Our ride to church... we fit 22 people in this thing

Church service Chadian style

First days in Chad

We are pleased to let everyone know that we are safely in Chad.   Praise the Lord!

The flights went well, with no major complications.  It was somewhat of an adventure finding our flight in the Ethiopian Airport.  It is slightly more chaotic than an American airport.  When we arrived at the Chadian airport they were doing temperature checks as you walked in, to keep Ebola from entering.  It is good to see that they are taking those precautions.

The part I was most nervous about was going through customs and the arrival of our checked bags.  If our stuff didn’t arrive it was no big deal, but we had three 50 lb totes full of supplies for the Gardner’s, and our suitcase included another 20 pounds of their supplies (A special thank you to St. Joe’s for medical supplies, Allison Hays for the French books, and many others).  The medical supplies are quite valuable and much needed in Chad.  After some broken English with the customs official and a little confusion over my address in Chad I went through without a problem.  As I walked through I was praying for the arrival of our totes.  The Lord abundantly answered that prayer!  Not only had they arrived, but one of the baggage men had already gotten all 3 of them loaded on a cart.  He walked right up to me when I arrived and asked me if they were mine.  I guess because the bags were marked from Seattle and I was white it was a pretty safe guess.  I then gave him my fourth baggage tag, and he proceeded to get that for me as I waited by the totes and looked for Jolene to get through customs.

Now we were in N’djamena, not Moundou yet.  2 days of travel thus far and we wouldn’t actually arrive in Moundou for another day.  A local Chadian, Abraham, met us outside the airport.  He was already there and had a sign with Jolene’s name.  He is a godsend.  He had the taxi for us, took us to the TEAM Mission to unload our bags, got us registered with the police, and changed another $100 into Chadian Francs.  The TEAM Mission was wonderful.  It even had a TV.  We watched “Gifted Hands” and “The Andy Griffith Show,” as Jolene fought falling asleep in the chair (It was still early evening in Chad and we wanted to force ourselves to adjust for jet-lag quickly).

The next morning we took a 7 hour bus ride to Moundou.  Everything went smoothly.  The bus driver tried to tell us something during the halfway stop, but we don’t speak French and he didn’t speak English.  We just stayed on the bus and eventually got to Moundou.  Bekki was already there waiting for us with their ambulance.  Two other volunteers, Nick and Kelsey, were also there.  They both just graduated from nursing school and are doing a year of volunteer work with the Gardner’s.

Now that we arrived, actually being helpful here is a whole other challenge.  It’s easy to feel inadequate here.  It takes a few weeks to get oriented to a new job in the States, and here everything is quite different.  The Gardner’s seemed very happy with the medical supplies, so if we do nothing else at least we did that I guess.

Bekki mostly wanted me here to help her with her physiotherapy.  For those of you who don’t already know, much of what they do is orthopedic surgeries (mostly fractures from motorcycle accidents).  I am hopeful that with God’s grace I will be able to provide her some help.  The difficult part is that what they do it more like acute PT and I specialize mostly in outpatient PT, and then the situation here is much different than any PT setting in the States.  They can have patients here for months.  But often that is due to persistent infections and repeated surgeries, so from a PT standpoint they are kind of stuck in the acute stage.  And of course PT school doesn’t place any focus on how to treat in Africa.  One blessing in disguise with the difficulty here is that it makes me acutely aware of the necessity of prayer.

The first day in Moundou Bekki took me around and showed me her PT patients, but we didn’t do much treatment.  We got the supplies somewhat organized for Gardner’s, ate dinner, and had worship.  The Gardner’s have been trying to get a shipping crate for months and they had, and still have, a lot to deal with in regards to that.

Yesterday was our first full day here.  You may make a plan for the day, but here you never really know what a day is going to be like.  Scott said that another missionary described their work schedule as something like: 7:00 worship, 7:30 breakfast, 8:00 start rounds, 8:01 all hell breaks loose.  We did rounds in the morning, ate breakfast, brought a boy to the handicap center, and then I got a moto (motorcycle taxi) to the market to get credit for our phone.  The boy’s name is Franklin.  He has been at the hospital for months.  He had multiple surgeries done on his leg, and then a week ago finally had to have it amputated.   We went to the handicap center to have them assess him.  They said that they should be able to make a prosthetic limb after he is healed.  The center was quite nice.  $50/month for therapy, with free housing!  They have parallel bars, bikes, practice stairs, and more!  They even had a poster up for the McKenzie Method (PT’s will understand that).

In the afternoon Bekki and I were able to do our physiotherapy treatments.    Jolene helped out.  We also had another volunteer, Patricia, arrive and help with PT.  She is starting medical school in March, and will be here for 7 weeks.  That will include the time that the Gardner’s will be gone on vacation.   I think the PT went ok.  Bekki is already doing great work here.  She is getting people up and moving, and that is really 90% of what you can do.  We added exercises for some patients and started or progressed mobility training on a few.  I still need to pray that my trip will be worth it for Bekki.

We had 2 other guests here on Thursday and Friday.  They are working for an aid organization.  Right now they are doing stuff (I’m not exactly sure what) in 3 refugee camps in Southern Chad.  They have already gathered medical information on many of the refugees and need to figure out the next step.  Many of them may eventually end up either at the Centre Adventiste here or the handicap center in Moundou.  They have asked me to come down with them to help with that.  It would mean that I’d be gone from Monday-Wednesday.  I’m excited about the opportunity and unless something changes in the next 2 days I plan on going with them.  It will allow me to personally help a lot of people in a short time, and I don’t think it will interfere much with how much I can help Bekki.  Most of what I can do for Bekki will probably be within the first few days of doing PT with her, and as I said she already seems to be doing good work.  It would be great if eventually she got a PT here for a few months (enough time to really get settled in and figure out what works best).  I will get into more detail about the PT here in a future post.  

Thank you everyone for your prayers, and thank you to everyone who provided supplies and money for the trip!

                                                      On the way to Moundou (Bus)

                                            Our Room in Moundou (For the first few days)

                                                               1st day of PT treatments

                                                        TEAM Mission & Taxi (N'Djamena)

Mission to Chad

Hi there!  We're sure the reason you're on this blog site is because you are interested, concerned, and/or curious about what this trip is all about.  First, let's introduce ourselves.

This blog was originally started by Jolene, who did a short mission trip to India and Thailand at the beginning of 2012.  If you're interested in reading about her adventures there, just check out the posts from January/February of that year.  We are now going to use this same blog to post about our adventures together, as a couple, in the mission field.

We are Seventh-day Adventists, a newly married couple (we will celebrate our first year anniversary in Africa!) with a passion for ministry.  Will is a physical therapist and I am a recently graduated dental hygienist. 

Some friends of ours, Scott and Becki Gardner, recently moved to Moundou, Chad (pronounced "moon-doo"), to lead the Moundou Surgical Center Hospital. Scott is a surgeon and Becki is a registered nurse. We received a call from Becki several months ago, and she proceeded to, shall we say, beg us to come over to their center and help Becki set up a PT program there. She also said that they could use some dental work there as well.  We prayed long and hard about it, for we weren't sure we could fit in a trip to Africa, what with my graduating, my sister's wedding this same summer, a trip to New York to see Will's family and the possibility of us moving.  Adding in a trip to Africa seemed like a crazy idea, but we promised Becki we would pray about it. After a time of prayer, we decided to go ahead and plan a short trip over there in between our move and Will's first day of work. Since making that decision, multiple emails have been exchanged with the Gardner's and plans have been underway. God blessed us immensely with several donations and extremely supportive churches and friends. We felt God's leading all the way through.

So what exactly are we planning on doing over there? I used the word "planning" for a reason, because really, we could end up doing anything over there (read: change dressings, wound care, surgery assistants, cooking, you name it). But, what we are planning on doing over there is this: Will is going to use his expert PT skills to assist Becki in improving her physical therapy program, give Becki and the staff a crash course on PT techniques, bring supplies and assess what other supplies they may need.  I (Jolene) will be doing dental cleanings and extractions and whatever other dental care and I can provide. The access to dental care is minimal, if not nonexistent, in most rural regions. Although I have no formal training in teeth extractions, I am the most qualified to do them in Moundou.  I have picked the brain of a dentist friend of mine and have practiced techniques on a dentoform (fake mouth with teeth) and successfully extracted one of those plastic teeth completely by accident, but hey, I know my technique works, right? Either way, the people there won't care a bit about my qualifications and will just be most happy to have their dental concern(s) pulled out. I am ready for anything (famous last words).

We will be leaving for Africa this upcoming Monday (11th) and will be back in the US by September 3, not quite a month.  This is Will's first mission trip and my fourth.  Neither of us have been to Africa so we are both super excited to experience the culture and minister to the people there as best we can.  If you're interested in reading more about Gardner's ministry in Africa, check out their blog at http://gardners2koza.wordpress.com/.

Now, to calm some nerves a bit, let me discuss a few concerning things that have been presented to us. Literally every single person who has talked with us recently has inevitably asked, "what about the Ebola outbreak in Africa?? Are you safe? " A valid question, to be sure. We have done our share of research and would like to let you know that, as of today, no cases of Ebola have been recorded in Chad. The countries that are suffering worst are west of us. Even with this information, we are still  choosing to take extra precautions to protect ourselves. We are also taking medication to help protect us against malaria while we are there, and it is comforting to know that we are at a hospital where we can receive care quickly and from people we trust.

Thank you to all who have supported us with prayers and finances.  We hope that you will be blessed by reading of our time there and we look forward to sharing our experiences with some of you in person.  Until then, au revoir!  Let the adventure begin!