Hansen's Disease and High Chairs

We recently had the chance to visit the leprosy village just down from the hospital grounds.  It is called New Hope Village and close to 20 former leprosy (aka Hansen's Disease) patients live there now.  Even though we can now cure leprosy (can take over a year), some of the patients are not welcome back home due to the stigma of the disease.  The New Hope Village gives them a chance to start a new life and the hospital provides for some of their needs, especially if the disease has left them crippled.

This is the meeting area at the New Hope Village.  When we arrived with the nursing staff, we were greeted with singing and a short devotional from the Bible.  Despite the hardships that the people have been through, they have not lost their trust in God.

Leprosy has left many of them with frequent wounds due to nerve damage in their limbs.  The man in white is dressing a wound of the other man.  They both had leprosy.  The man in white has special shoes made to help him walk.  These were provided by the hospital.

I saw this image in the dresser's office at the village.  Just before we arrived and he started dressing the wounds of the patients, he was taking time to read from his Bible.

We sent some household items from the US to Cameroon by sea crate last July.  There is a crate that comes over every 6 months and we were able to add some items to it like cookware, rugs, sheets, bedspreads, microwave etc.  Unfortunately, only about half of the items arrived.  We split all that we received with JR and Lindsay and at least both families have some things.  Another crate arrives in a few months, so we are hoping the rest of our stuff comes then, but who knows...

One thing that we did not receive on the crate was a high chair/booster seat.  So we have created one out of a cinder block, towel, and the luggage strap from one of our suitcases.  It is working nicely and Isaac approves.

Washing machine update...It is installed and working!  However, it did require that they connect the water supply to the main water line for all the hospital housing.  In the process of this, the pipes started leaking and spraying water everywhere before Mamudu was able to get control of it.  The water was only off for a little while to the other houses.

Angela started work today and Lindsay watched both kids.  It seems that every patient that we see has a serious medical problem and we are constantly challenged to come up with the correct diagnosis and a treatment plan from our available resources.  Just in the past week we have seen patients with the following:  malaria, postpartum cardiomyopathy, HIV, PCP pneumonia, cryptococcal meningitis, severe pulmonary hypertension, TB of the spine, polymyositis, TB meningitis, cretinism (congenital hypothyroidism), tetanus, severe jaundice in a newborn, osteomyelitis, sickle cell disease, and multiple malignancies.  The needs here are great and we feel blessed to a part of the hospital's ministry to the patients.