Improvements

We have had a busy and eventful first few weeks back at Mbingo.  One great thing about being back was seeing Dr. Koudjou after he returned from his away rotation at Tenwek Hospital in Kenya.  We recently started a partnership with this famous mission hospital in East Africa.  They now take our residents in their final year to do a 3-4 month rotation focusing on critical care.

This is Dr. Koudjou after his return to Mbingo.  Tenwek Hospital has an ICU and he was able to learn more about shock, resuscitation, ventilators, and other critical care topics than we can not practically teach here at Mbingo.  He also found himself useful in teaching Tenwek some of the things we do here.  He gained a lot of confidence and we can say that he is clearly a better doctor after the experience.  We hope that the partnership with Tenwek continues for many years to come.

This is the new NICU.  The walls have been painted and tiled and the cupboards hung.  The new incubators are in place and there is actually room for a fifth one when needed.  This renovation has greatly expanded our ability to care for premature and small infants.  We even have a visiting NICU nurse, Leigh Greer, here for a few weeks and she is helping to improve the nursing care in the NICU.  Once again, we are thankful for your generous donations to help with these improvements.

Greg Kline, an endocrinologist, is here giving a lecture on hypothyroidism.  He gave almost 15 lectures during his 2 weeks here at Mbingo and the time served as an endocrine rotation for our residents.  Many medical specialists are not sure how God can use them on the mission field and this highlights how we can use just about any medical specialty here at Mbingo.  Greg did not know where God was leading him to come, but was willing to go.  He prayed about it and later that morning had an email stating there was a need for an endocrinologist at Mbingo Hospital in Cameroon.  He immediately started making plans to come.  If you feel like God may be leading you to work overseas in some way, just be listening and He may open a door like He did for Greg.

This is a lumbar spine x-ray showing Pott's Disease, which is TB of the spine.  You can see the collapsed vertebrae is the one that looks like a triangle instead of the more rectangular shape of all the other vertebrae.  This is a fairly common diagnosis for us here at Mbingo, but this was one of the most pronounced x-rays that we have seen.  You can also tell that the physical exam is markedly abnormal with what is called a "gibbus", or sharp angle to the mid-spine.

This is Helen at her shop in the market.  If you remember, Helen works at our house during the week to help with cooking.  Her shop is open on Saturdays, which is the big market day.  She sells onions, peanuts, and all types of beans.  She buys and transports the items from Bamenda in bulk and then sells them in smaller amounts in order to make some money.  There are quite a few shops like hers in the market, but we try to buy from her as much as possible.

As soon as we arrived back to Cameroon, we were able to go to a conference in Bamenda for a few days with all of the other missionaries that work with the Cameroon Baptist Convention.  It was a great time to hear from an American pastor and hear from other people about their ministries around the country.  This picture shows the crowd during a picnic dinner.

Isaac is a runner.  Or at least he loves to run.  It is pretty much all he wants to do when he is outside.  He loves to chase you and be chased.  The other day, he ran almost a mile doing laps in the backyard.  This picture shows his sheer joy at trying to catch Chuck on the sidewalk behind the house.

As always, thanks for following along with us.