Time is flying
on and winter has turned to summer without the benefit of spring. Just a week after the short-term mission
(STM) team left, the temperatures entered the 80 during the day. I’ve put away all my winter clothes and taken
the duvet off the bed. Thankfully, here
have still been a few cool nights, so I’ve been enjoying the last few cups of
tea for the year.
All in all the
STM team went well and we accomplished quite a lot during their stay. The team was made up of two veterinarians,
Cathy and Bonnie, and a vet student, Jen.
Mon-Wed they came to the clinic with me and enjoyed getting to know the
students. One of those clinic days, we
took the students to lunch at the cafeteria on campus and were able to
experience the chaos of ordering a meal when everyone just clusters around the
window and tries to get their order heard next.
The options included stew with pap (kind of like stiff grits or
polenta), chicken with pap, fries, and premade sandwiches.
Two evenings
during the STM we put on supplementary trainings for the final year
students. It was a lot of fun getting
them up and moving pretending to be hearts pumping! Topics included cardiology,
fecal analysis, one-health, and cancer.
The cancer talk also gave Bonnie a great opportunity to share her
testimony through her own cancer story.
We also
participated in a spay/neuter day here in Mafikeng along with the government
veterinary services. I had decided to
organize one during the STM trip and got in touch with the government vets to
see if we could use one of their mobile animal clinics. They loved the idea and took over organizing
it and we ended up having 6 vets perform over 75 sterilizations in one
day. Although the American vets couldn’t
do the surgeries (not licensed here), they helped tremendously in monitoring
the animals during and after surgery, keeping instruments clean and organized,
running errands, etc.
It was a new
experience for most of us Americans as the surgeries were performed under
injectable anesthesia only. The animals
were induced with ketamine and Domitor and topped up with thiopental if
needed. We had brought Propofol along so
our team from NWU used it instead of thiopental. Most of the animals had no anesthesia
monitoring, but our team had enough people to do some monitoring during
surgery. I’m so glad that we don’t have to do surgery this way at the
clinic. The experience made me
incredible grateful for our anesthesia machine and monitoring equipment.
On another
morning, we joined the Mafikeng SPCA for a rabies vaccine outreach in a local
village and vaccinated 90 dogs in 3 hours!
The dogs were also dipped for ticks before they went home. It still amazes me how the majority of people
don’t leash their dogs. Dogs of every
description were just running around us loose, while owners tried to catch them
so we could vaccinate. Thankfully, only
a few fights occurred.
The STM team
also participated in our weekly student Bible studies and witnessing training
on campus and the AWANA program run at my church.
Finally, they
had two days on safari and managed to see all the big five (lion, leopard, cape
buffalo, elephant, and rhino) plus wild dogs, hyena, zebra, giraffe, and lots
of antelope species. We enjoyed fabulous
sunset stops during the afternoon game drives with snacks and drinks, hot
chocolate stops during the morning game drives, and amazing meals at the lodge.
On a completely
different note, now that I have been on the field for almost a year and a half,
my prayer letters will start coming every other month rather than monthly. The newness is wearing off and life here has
settled into routine. My next prayer
letter will come to you in December. To
keep up with events this side as they happen, be sure to “like” my Facebook
page. The page also includes quite a few
more photos from the STM team’s visit.
I will be flying
back to the US for most of December and would love to get together with as many
of my supporters as possible. Please
let me know if you would like to meet for coffee or a meal in Western WA.
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