Denis Nkenji Update

We wanted to give all of you an update on Denis Nkenji.  As you will remember, Denis is the young boy with a serious cardiac lesion.  Without repair, he would not live many more years.  With the help of many of you giving generously, we were able to help pay for him to have his needed heart surgery.  The surgery was done at Shisong Catholic Hospital in Cameroon.  It was done in May when a European pediatric cardiac surgeon was at the hospital.

The surgery went great!  We immediately heard that it was successful.  He then spent a few days in their ICU and then some more time in the hospital, but always on the path of recovery.  He then went home and we just recently got more good news.  He returned to the hospital for his follow up appointment and he continues to do well.  We look forward to seeing him and his mom when we are back in Cameroon in October.  Below are some pictures that the cardiologist at Shisong Hospital shared with us.

This is Denis with his mom after getting out of the ICU and into a regular bed at the hospital.

This is Denis when he came back to the hospital for his regular surgical follow up appointment.  Nice suit Denis!

 Thanks again from Denis, his mom, and us to each of you for all the prayers and financial support.  Denis Nkenji's life has been changed.

Goodbye

It is hard to believe that we have been at Mbingo for over 2 years and we are getting ready to move back to the United States.  As we mentioned before, we are moving to Charlotte, NC.  Mbingo has become our home over these 2 years and it will be tough to leave.  However, Cameroonians do know how to do a proper goodbye with multiple parties and multiple outfits.

The hospital gave us these "country clothes" as a way to say thank you for the time we have worked here.  They are traditional outfits for the NW region of Cameroon.  They are quite intricate with hand stitched embroidery and very colorful.  They even made one for Isaac and a small one for Ben!

It seems there is a cloth for every organization here.  This is the official cloth of the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Board.  It shows a patient being cared for and part of the mission statement of the health board - "Assisting in the provision of health care to all as an expression of Christian love".  This picture was from the tablecloth at one of our going away parties.  We have seen official cloths of churches, regions, women's/men's groups, weddings, and many other events and the men and women usually have an outfit made from the cloth that they wear proudly.

The residency program had their own goodbye party for us as well.  This is a picture of us in the outfits that they gave us along with just some of the people at the party.  We ate well and enjoyed the fellowship, but it would not be a Cameroonian party without speeches.  A few of the residents and faculty each took a minute to say some nice things to us and we were able to thank and encourage each of them during this time of transition.  They really are an incredible group to work with.

Angela also received a Cameroonian outfit from the women's group she attends and another outfit from the maternity ward.  She will have to give a Cameroonian fashion show when we get back to the US.

As we leave, there will be some gaps in internal medicine and pediatrics.  Over the past 2 years, Angela and JR and Lindsay Young have worked hard to produce two protocol books - one for pediatrics and one for neonatal care.  These books were recently finished and printed and we have been handing them out to everyone that cares for children here at Mbingo.  We are now in the midst of distributing copies to all of the hospitals and health clinics run by the CBC throughout Cameroon.  Having these books in the hands of the doctors and nurses will greatly improve the quality of pediatric care in Cameroon.

This is Angela with Zidane.  Angela and JR and Lindsay have been caring for Zidane for the past year.  He was extremely ill from an autoimmune vasculitis and has improved with immunosuppression. He has had many bumps along the way, but always has a great attitude.  He is also one of the more knowledgeable patients about his condition.  Although he is only 14, he usually has to arrange his own ride to get to the hospital (he lives hours away) and keeps track of his own medications.  Angela has been able to work with one of the residents (Stephanie) over the past few months to arrange for her to care for him in our absence.  Stephanie will do a great job with Zidane, but she knows we are all just an email or phone call away whether it be for Zidane or any other patient.

This is Unity (on the right) with her mother and child.  Unity has renal failure, but did not know until she presented in respiratory failure from volume overload after she stopped making urine.  Her child was 5 months old.  We did not think she would make it.  She is only 22 years old.  Chuck started peritoneal dialysis on her to stabilize her while we talked to her about longer term dialysis (hemodialysis).  The government helps provide for hemodialysis in Bamenda, but the cost is still out of reach for almost all of our patients.  Unity did not have the money to start dialysis.  In fact, she could not even pay her bill here at Mbingo.  We used some money that had been donated by many of you to help pay her hospital bill here and get her started with dialysis in Bamenda.  The family said they could afford the ongoing costs of dialysis if they could get her started.  We don't know how long she will be able to afford hemodialysis, but we are thankful that we could help her for now.  She and her mother both wanted their picture taken after her bill was paid.  They were so happy and just clapped out of joy for a few minutes.

We are also happy to tell you that Denis Nkenji is scheduled for his heart surgery on May 12th.  We have told his story over the past few blogs and continue to be thankful for your generous giving to make this possible.  Please keep him and his mother in your prayers especially around the time of the surgery.

Dr. Kamdem will be graduating this year from the CIMS residency program.  He spent time at Tenwek Hospital in Kenya doing an ICU rotation last year and has progressed significantly in endoscopy over the past few months at Mbingo.  Chuck has taught him diagnostic EGD, some therapeutic EGD, and colonoscopy.  After he graduates, he is going to stay at Mbingo for a little while during this time of transition and his skills in endoscopy in addition to internal medicine will be a great asset to the workload at Mbingo and the residency program.  He has even started to teach the residents below him some diagnostic EGD and is doing a great job.  Chuck is proud of what Dr. Kamdem and all of the other residents have accomplished during the past two years.

It is also amazing to see how much Isaac has grown at Mbingo.  He was a toddler when we came out and now he is a little boy.  This picture replicates one of the first photos we took at Mbingo and put on the blog.  Take a look to see how much Isaac has grown over the past two years - Feb 7, 2012 Blog.

Ben is growing too and he is loving the swing in our backyard.  He is getting teeth and smiles all the time and we love him very much.  At the goodbye parties, the Cameroonians like to refer to Ben and Isaac as "Mbingo Boys" since they have spent most of their lives here.

This is a picture of the missionaries and short-term volunteers that celebrated Easter with us at Mbingo. You may notice that Mike and Betty Kimbrell are in the picture too (Angela's parents).  They have been here for a couple weeks and will be traveling back to the United States with us this week.  It has been great to have them here to help as we pack and will be great to have them with us as we try to take a 30 hour trip home with two kiddos!

So, goodbye for now Mbingo.  We will miss you.  Although we are leaving, we know God has great plans for the hospital, the training programs here, the hospital workers, and the patients that come for their care here.  As we have mentioned before, we are going to be able to return 2 months a year to work at Mbingo, so knowing this has made the goodbyes not quite so hard.  Still it is hard to leave our Mbingo family, but we are excited about the next stage in our lives and look forward to being back to Mbingo soon.

Partnerships

We have recently had the chance to work together with people from different hospitals in Cameroon, Kenya, and the USA.  We wanted to share some of those experiences.

This photo shows Angela giving a lecture at the Njinikom Catholic Hospital.  Njinikom is only 40 minutes from Mbingo by car and we recently met some family medicine missionaries that moved there a few months ago.  We have served as consultants to them from meeting in our living room and going over cases to answering phone calls and emails about how we would handle patients.  A few weeks ago, they invited us to give a lecture and tour their hospital.  Angela spoke about 4 pediatric topics where small changes can make a big difference - neonatal jaundice, pediatric malignancies, neonatal hepatits B, and sickle cell anemia.  Chuck spent time answering questions on management of difficult medical cases in a resource-limited setting in Africa.  It is great to be able to partner with the Catholic hospital in Njinikom to try to improve the quality of care for all people in this region.

This photo is from the front of Njinikom Catholic Hospital.  Another catholic hospital in Cameroon is Shisong Cardiac Center.  This is where Denis Nkenji (7 year old boy that we have been raising money to help) will get his heart surgery.  The money for the surgery has now been paid and he is scheduled for this open-heart surgery on May 9th.  Please keep him and the surgeons in your prayers.  Thanks again to each of you who donated money towards this surgery.  What an amazing blessing you have already been to Denis and his mother.

This picture shows John and Lovely Mbah.  We took this picture one evening after we all had dinner together.  John is one of the main nurse anesthetists in the surgery department and Lovely is the charge nurse on the pediatrics ward.  They are two of the best and most dedicated staff at Mbingo.  Their partnership and dedication to the hospital started at a young age - they were both born at Mbingo!  They have sacrificed through the years in giving their time and energy to caring for patients and Mbingo is certainly a better place because of it. 

This past week we were happy to have Brent and Morgan McDonald visit us.  They are great friends from Nashville, TN and work at Vanderbilt.  Morgan is a internal medicine/pediatrics attending and the assistant program director for the med/peds residency program.  She rounded on the pediatrics and medicine wards and helped with many of our teaching conferences.  This picture shows Angela and Morgan just after rounding in the neonatal ICU.

Brent works in hospital administration at Vanderbilt and met with our hospital administrators to see how he could help both now and in the future.  It was great to have them visit us and show them what life is like at Mbingo.  This picture is from a hike that Brent took with Chuck.  While hiking up one of the mountains, a local farmer asked us to stop while he went to get his son. He told us his son (pictured) had never seen a white man before.  Brent offered to shake his hand and the boy slowly made his way to the fence line that keeps the cows out of the man's farm.  They shook hands and the boy just stared at Brent and Chuck for a minute or two.  It is amazing that someone that lives just a few miles from our house has never seen a white man before.

This is our new BiPAP machine.  It was brought to us by a respiratory therapist named Annette who has been working at Tenwek Hospital in Kenya.  She came to work at Mbingo for a few weeks.  While here, she helped Chuck take care of a few young adults in severe respiratory distress.  The BiPAP machine delivers positive pressure with each breath and can function somewhat like a ventilator, but with only a mask instead of a tube in the trachea.  Using this machine, we were able to keep the patients alive and breathing long enough to diurese or dialyze them to improve their respiratory status.  In addition, the machine will be able to help many post-operative patients who are still having trouble breathing after surgery.

We also recently started a partnership with Bamenda Regional Hospital here in Cameroon.  They have a GeneXpert machine that does rapid PCR testing for TB (very sensitive test to find TB in sputum, tissue, or body fluids).  We had a meeting with the doctors who run the machine and worked out a way for Mbingo to be able to use the machine as well.  We now collect samples and send them by courier to the Bamenda Regional Hospital (45 minutes away) each day.  After the test is run, the results are texted from a cell phone in Bamenda to our SMS printer in the lab (only requires cell phones to be working).  We then act on the results, whether positive or negative.  The machine is far superior to looking for AFB (TB) under a microscope and even gives information on drug resistance if the sample is positive (rifampin resistance which is a marker for MDR-TB).  Chuck and Angela created the algorithm pictured above to guide our doctors and other staff at Mbingo on the correct way to manage possible TB patients while utilizing the GeneXpert machine.

This picture shows some of the local kids in their school uniforms on their way home after school.  They all decided to give us a thumbs-up, except the girl in the middle who gave us a pose.

This is Ginger (Chuck's mom) with Ben.  Ginger stayed with us for almost 6 weeks and was a huge help taking care of Isaac and Ben while we both worked.  We already miss her and the boys miss their GiGi.

Connected

It is easy to feel disconnected living so far away from family and friends.  We are thankful for the friends we have here, but we are also thankful for the way the internet allows us to stay connected to our family and friends in the US.  That being said, we often have problems with our internet here at Mbingo, but we have recently had some help to improve things.

This picture shows Chris Jackson high in the air on a tower to install an internet radio at Mbingo.  Chris Jackson is a missionary with Wycliffe (Bible translators) and generously donates his time to help us at Mbingo when our internet is giving us problems.  Over the past 6 months, he has started converting us from an overgrown often-failing home type network to a much more stable and consistent business style network.  Currently, our internet comes through the air from a town 45 minutes away bouncing off multiple towers as the signal makes its way to Mbingo.  After the tower receives the internet signal, it spreads through the hospital and also broadcasts the signal back out to our houses to allow us to have internet at home.  We are thankful for all of the efforts he has made.  Despite significant improvements, we still continued to have many connection problems...

Josh Shinar has also been helping us tremendously with our network.  This picture shows him with Lori, his wife, and Charlie, their daughter.  They were missionaries in the Central Africa Republic before being evacuated last year in the midst of violence.  Now they are missionaries in a small town in Cameroon (Banyo), but have been living next door to us for the past month here at Mbingo.  Josh owned his own IT company before becoming a missionary and has been teaching a 2 week IT course for Cameroonians while here at Mbingo.  He also has helped us take the next steps in having a much more reliable and dependable internet connection.  Now that he has most of the kinks worked out of this increasingly complicated network, we need to find some money to buy more bandwidth!  Lori was an oncology nurse before moving to Africa and she has been helping with our chemotherapy and palliative care departments this month.  Charlie has enjoyed playing with Isaac and we will miss all of them when they go back to Banyo next week.

In addition to staying connected to the US, the internet is an incredible medical resource and an increasingly effective way of teaching.  Over the past 2 months, we have been taking part in an online HIV course for the medical residents and nurse practitioner students.  The course is run out of the University of Washington in Seattle.  We show a 2 hour lecture each Friday and hold discussion groups during the week in addition to the online homework and quizzes.  This picture shows Dr. Kamdem and Dr. Tumi (2 medical residents) following the powerpoint on the computer while watching the lecture in class.

Chuck recently went with 5 other guys from Mbingo (a mix of full-time and visiting doctors) to climb Mount Cameroon.  It is the tallest mountain in West Africa and remains an active volcano.  The picture was from the top after 10,000 feet of climbing!  It was an incredible trip.

Mount Cameroon's last major eruptions were in 1999 and 2000.  This picture shows the group approaching two of the volcanic craters from these eruptions.  It was incredible for Chuck and the other doctors to explore this volcanic region, walk across lava fields, and finally end the 3 day hike while descending through a rainforest.

Chuck's parents have been at Mbingo for 2 weeks now and have been a big help.  Isaac and Ben have loved spending time with GiGi and DoDad.

Chuck's father, Charlie, is a gastroenterologist.  He has been working with Chuck doing endoscopies when he is not spending time with Isaac and Ben.  One of the new endoscopic procedures that Chuck has been doing is placing esophageal stents for advanced esophageal cancer.  Chuck and Charlie had a chance to do three of these together this past week and this picture shows Charlie placing the third one.

Some of you will remember a picture from the early days of this blog with Isaac looking at Chocolate, his favorite horse here at Mbingo.  Now Chocolate has a little sister who is only two months old.  Isaac loves to go each day to walk around Mbingo to try to find Chocolate's mom and the new horse.  When we look back at that picture and compare it to this one, we can really see how much Isaac has grown up since we moved here.

Speaking of horsing around...These are the three Barrier boys in the backyard.  It seems Ben is getting bigger each day!

Changes

Things have been changing at Mbingo.  Some changes have been good and some have been sad.  As many of you know, JR and Lindsay Young are great friends of ours and came to Cameroon with us two years ago.  Just over a week ago, they moved back to the USA after finishing their 2 year commitment through Samaritan's Purse.  They made a big impact to the pediatrics care here and we already miss them.

This is JR and Lindsay with their daughter Cathen.  The hospital gave them these new outfits and they wore them on their last day of work.  They are characteristic of the traditional dress clothes of the NW region of Cameroon.  They are quite intricate and difficult to make.  After they wore them, they were told - "now you look African".

Last month we told you about Denis Nkenji, a 7 year old boy with a congenital heart lesion.  We felt led to help pay for his needed heart surgery to be done at the Catholic hospital (Shisong) here in Cameroon.  Many of you have helped by donating money towards this.  We wish you all could have been with us when Denis and his mother returned to clinic this week.  When we told her that we would have enough money to help her pay for the surgery, she started crying.  Denis did not really understand why his mom was crying and he started crying too.  Truly they were tears of joy.  He goes back to Shisong Hospital in March and the surgery will be scheduled for April.  The picture above shows the avocados, nuts, beans, and garri (ground and dried cassava) that Denis' mother brought for us as a gift.  We ate some of it last night, but wanted to share a picture of it with you all as well.  Denis and his mother say a heartfelt "thank you".

Recently we had Ron Johannsen (cardiologist) and Lou Kohl (cardiology fellow) here at Mbingo.  During their time here, they rounded on a ward, taught cardiology to the residents, taught Chuck some echocardiography, and did rheumatic heart disease screening at the local primary school.  This picture shows Ron looking at an echo of a 8 year old boy with Henry (Cameroonian echo tech) and Lou looking on.  Chuck went to the school with them and learned quite a bit about doing cardiac echos.  Rheumatic heart disease is a big problem in Africa and causes a significant amount of valvular heart disease in young people.  Children first get a strep infection and have an immune response that in a minority of patients causes some damage to their mitral or aortic valves.  The goal of the screening is to identify those children who have early valve lesions and put them on penicillin prophylaxis to decrease their chance of having further injury to their heart valves.  Ron is trying to figure out the best, fastest, and cheapest way to implement this and was currently testing a 1-2 minute screening exam in the school.  The reported rate of rheumatic heart disease that can be seen on echo in children in Africa is ~3% and they found about that number at the school.  Those children were subsequently referred to Mbingo for a full cardiac echo.

Another change recently was the training of "Baby Care Providers".  Angela, JR, and Lindsay taught a total of 12 nurses and midwives over the past few months to take care of newborn babies.  They are now trained to do newborn exams and provide quality nursing care to both sick newborns and premature babies.  The picture shows Angela giving a certificate to one of the graduates in chapel.

The wards here are changing too.  The hospital fully renovated two of our medical wards recently.  This picture shows the empty men's ward (holds 28 beds).  They used the time just after Christmas when our volume was a little lower to empty the ward, paint the walls, replace the ceiling, redo the electrical wiring and lighting, and paint and repair beds and other ward furniture.  It takes about 5 days to do each ward and they move fast because we have to cram patients in other wards during this time.

This shows the bed and furniture being painted on the lawn between the wards.  The men's and women's wards are now bright, clean, and much nicer for the patients and the staff.

Each January there is a missionary conference in Bamenda for all of the missionaries that work with the Cameroonian Baptist Convention.  This picture shows the whole group.  It was just a few days, but it was a nice break and a chance to spend time with people who are busy showing God's love and sharing the gospel across Cameroon.

This shows Isaac and Cathen's alphabet work of art.  Over about a month, they made letters each day and put them on the wall outside.  They were proud of their craft project and know their letters quite well now as a result.

We have been hearing about all of the cold weather in the US and wanted to show what Ben has been doing this month in Cameroon.  The boys have been enjoying the inflatable pools in the backyard since our weather has been warm and sunny.

Isaac has been missing Cathen and was sad when she left.  But as many of you know, it will only be a short time apart.  JR, Lindsay, and Cathen moved to Charlotte, NC.  When we were in the US last summer, we were both able to get jobs in Charlotte.  Chuck will be teaching in the internal medicine residency program as a hospitalist at Carolinas Medical Center.  Angela will be a pediatric hospitalist at Presbyterian Hospital.  God clearly had His hand on us getting these jobs and we will even be able to come back to Mbingo for 2 months each year!  We will be moving to Charlotte at the beginning of May and Isaac and Cathen will be reunited.

Christmas Spirit

It was strange to celebrate Christmas when it was 70 degrees outside, but we had many opportunities to get into the Christmas spirit here in Cameroon.  Giving gifts, singing carols, Christmas parties, and even grasshoppers are all part of the Christmas experience at Mbingo.  Mostly though we were thankful for the time to reflect on God's gift to us through the birth of Jesus many years ago.

This is Denis Nkenji.  He is a 7 year old boy who recently came to the pediatric clinic.  Angela examined him and found him to be the size of a 3 year old and heard a loud murmur on the cardiac exam.  The heart echo showed multiple congenital problems with his heart including a VSD (ventricular septal defect), aortic insufficiency (leaking aortic valve), and pulmonic stenosis (tight pulmonic valve).  He was not growing normally due to these heart lesions and would not live many more years.  We immediately felt that God was leading us to try to help this boy if we could.  His mother is incredibly loving and this is her only child.  Her husband left them when Denis was very young.  We sent him to the Catholic cardiac hospital in Cameroon called Shisong.  After making the 3 hour trip, they quickly returned to see Angela.  The great news is that Shisong Hospital felt they could fix the defect without replacing any valves and we confirmed this with a phone call to the cardiologist there.  The heart surgeries are generally done by European surgeons that travel to Cameroon every few months.  This is a great service, but the problem becomes money.  These surgeries are normally not possible for most Cameroonians because the typical cost is 7000 US dollars.  Considering the invasive surgery that is being done, the price is fair and Shisong is certainly not making money off of this, but it is still far too much for most Cameroonians.  When the mother found out that the surgery could be done, she said "I will work in the kitchen at Shisong for as many years as it takes to pay off the surgery".  She would do anything for her child just as all of us would.  The difference is that she would never be able to earn that much money.  So, we have decided to help her and use money that many of you have donated to our project account to do so.  We have part of the money that is needed, but if you feel led to give towards this, please see the side of our blog or email us to know how to give to our project account with Samaritan's Purse.  If we end up with more than we need, we will look for the next person like Denis that could benefit from your generosity.  Being able to tell Denis Nkenji and his mother that we would help them with the cost of the surgery was a great Christmas gift for them and a true joy for us.

This picture shows the local chapter of the Cameroonian Baptist Convention choir who came to our house just before Christmas and sang Christmas carols to us and some of the other missionaries.  They were going house to house around Mbingo and singing to get people into the Christmas spirit.

On Christmas Eve, we went with some of the other missionaries from ward to ward and sang Christmas carols to the patients.  We enjoyed it and the patients loved it.  It is not easy to be in the hospital over a holiday, especially Christmas, and this made it just a little bit better.

In addition to singing carols, the pediatricians also had a Christmas party on the pediatric ward the weekend before Christmas.  They served food, sang some songs, and gave out a bag of Christmas gifts to each child.  Included were donated items (mostly from the US) like handmade blankets, coloring books, balls/toys, and handmade woven hats.  This picture shows Angela with a child receiving her gift bag and wearing her new hat.

Just like in the US, eating with family and friends is a tradition on Christmas day.  It is even better if you can serve chicken.  This picture shows Cynthia (works at JR and Lindsay's house) and Helen (works at our house) with the chicken that we gave Helen.  Cynthia also received one and they happily served the chicken on Christmas day in their homes.  We raise chickens in our backyard so we ate one with some friends on Christmas day too!

The hospital also received a great gift just before Christmas.  We have been waiting for the new digital xray unit to arrive from Samaritan's Purse in the US for months.  The hospital purchased the unit and it was sent by ship.  On arrival to Mbingo, each of the two containers was found to weigh 1700 pounds.  This picture shows the crew unloading this fragile but heavy box by pulling a rope wrapped around the box and sliding it down some wooden planks.  We have to admit that we were nervous about this, but they carried it out perfectly.

Christmas time here is also grasshopper season.  Cameroonians love to fry and eat them.  They catch them by the bucket full.  Isaac and Cathen got into it too and were seeing how many they could catch in the backyard.  They chose to give their grasshoppers away instead of eating them, but Chuck tried a fried one and it was really pretty tasty.

This is the photo that we used to make picture frame ornaments for the other missionaries at Mbingo.  The kids helped paint the edges and otherwise decorate the frames.  It was not easy to get these 3 crazy kids to smile at the same time, but it turned out to be a nice Christmas present.  We kept one as well to put on our Christmas tree in the future.

We hope that each of you had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and are excited about what the new year holds.

Under Construction

Mbingo Baptist Hospital has grown incredibly over the years.  It started as a small leprosy hospital over 50 years ago with only a dirt road to access it.  Over the years, the services expanded.  Once the road was paved from Bamenda, people could more easily come to the hospital and the number of patients grew quickly.  Then, over the past 7 years, a surgical residency program (PAACS) and a medicine/pediatric residency program (CIMS) were started.  The hospital is now close to 300 beds.

This picture is from 1957.  There was one building for the hospital and a few houses for the staff.  There were also some houses for the long-term care of leprosy patients.  But mostly there was a lot of open land.

This is what the hospital looks like today.  What a change.  The hospital now functions as a referral center for many poor patients from all across Cameroon.  In addition, it is a teaching site for many doctors and nurse practitioners that will go out from here to work all over Cameroon and even across Africa.  God is clearly working here and it is neat to be a part of it.

This is the homemade map that greets patients and families when they arrive to Mbingo.  It is a rough sketch of all the hospital buildings that we have here.  It is not the most intuitive, so we have plenty of people wandering around that we have help guide to the right place.  It does give you an idea of the growth from one building in the early days to what the hospital is today.

The growth has continued over the two years that we have been here.  This is the new TB ward that was completed a few months ago.  It allows us to properly separate our TB patients and those we are concerned may have TB from our other patients on the wards.  As with many of the building projects, much of the money to build this was from outside donors.  Mbingo Baptist Hospital and the Cameroonian Baptist Convention are always very grateful for the generous donations they receive to improve the facilities and care of the patients.

Another project that was recently started is a hostel.  We are desperately short on housing and we have many instances where Cameroonians travel to Mbingo for a conference or teaching course that can last days to weeks to months.  Currently, there is no good housing options for these short-term visitors or even for the nurse practitioner students.  We are always scrambling to find a place for the nurse practitioners to stay that is not too far away for the year they are in training here.  The hostel will provide over 20 single rooms (like a dormitory) to greatly improve our ability to house people here at Mbingo.  This is another instance of multiple generous donations coming together to improve our facilities.

For years this building above has been unfinished.  We use the first level for our internal medicine, pediatric, ENT, OB/GYN, HIV/TB, and chemotherapy clinics.  This second floor was started a few months ago and will house the new surgical clinic.  Currently, the surgeons have to use a single room that is divided into three sections by cloth dividers to see all of their patients (often over 100 in a day).  Many of them have to undress in that setting or even have minor procedures done (suturing, etc.).  This clinic will provide the space the surgeons need to properly evaluate and treat their patients.

A big project that has been underway for about a year now is the surgical ICU.  This picture shows the almost finished main room of the ICU.  There will be beds along the walls with the central nursing station.  Currently we have no true ICU care here because we have no ICU facilities.  This certainly impacts the level of care we are able to provide.  The surgeons are limited in what surgeries they can undertake by the lack of post-operative ICU care.  We expect this ICU will start to change that.  There will also be space for pediatric patients and some medicine patients when needed.  There will be ventilators and proper monitoring.  This is no easy project as bringing this level of care to our setting requires new equipment, new expectations, and a need for a new level of training of nurses.

This is Keith Streatfeild with Ben at our Thanksgiving gathering.  Keith is a missionary anesthesiologist from Australia.  He and his wife, Kaye, are dear friends of ours here.  Keith has been busy training nurse anesthetists since he arrived over 2 years ago.  He is now in charge of training nurses to deliver intensive care in the new ICU mentioned above.  The impact that he has had here is clearly felt and will continue to be felt for years to come both here at Mbingo and across Cameroon.

We recently heard about this thing called "Dinovember".  Basically, each night of this month Isaac's plastic dinosaurs do some activity and he sees it in the morning.  This picture shows them reading books.  They have also colored pictures, built with legos, played musical instruments, folded clothes, and built a train.  He loves it.

Ben is doing great as well.  Here he is hanging out in the grass on a warm December day.  We have been hearing about the cold weather back in the US.  There are some advantages to living in Africa!  However, we do miss our loved ones a lot during the holiday season.  We are thankful for the family and friends that God has provided here.