Courtenay BC 

February 19, 2010

Jack and I have been home for about 2 months now and we are settling into our new routine here in Courtenay even though our thoughts continue to be in Malawi on a daily basis.

In January we went to Alberta to visit Rod and Anna, Karen and Darryl and other family and friends.  Our youngest granddaughter was born while we were in Malawi and though I had been home to see her, this was the first time Jack saw Robyn.  Robyn is a very happy baby. What a friendly smile she has for everyone.

                                        ROBYN AND CHAD 

At the end of January we had our annual meeting for our charitable organization Baobab Christian Outreach (BCO).  We thank the Lord that Canada Revenue Agency approved our organization for Charitable Status in Canada.  This allows us to provide all our donors with Tax deductable receipts.  In fact, many of you have already made donations during 2009, the tax receipts will be mailed to you next week.  We thank each of you to allow us to continue to work in the Nkhoma area helping not only the hospital, but also some of the surrounding villages.  We are currently attempting to finalize the BCO webpage which we hope to have completed within the next few weeks.  We shall let you all know when this webpage is complete.  This webpage will then become our family webpage.

On one of our last web pages from Nkhoma we asked for children’s books to be sent to Ebenenezer School. We would like to thank so many of you who sent books. The school is so very grateful for this effort.  They received books from:

·         Lethbridge AB

·         The Netherlands

·         Edmonton AB

·         Spruce Grove AB

·         Coldstream BC

·         Courtenay BC

·         Chilliwack BC

 

Frequently we continue to receive e-mails from Nkhoma saying “we got some more books”.  Again many, many thanks for sending the books you did.  If you would like to send more books I would advise that you do not send more than one or two in a package as this seems to be the fastest and most reliable way for these books to reach Malawi.  The need for books continues to be great now that Ebenezer school is entering into its second year and more students have enrolled, which is also a real blessing.  A teacher from the United States has arrived to teach and train the local teachers during this coming school year.  In fact, if there are teachers among you that may be interested to volunteer and teach kindergarten and elementary grades we can put you in touch with Willeke TerHaar the person coordinating the programs.  Or you can contact Willeke yourself at the following address:

                        Mrs. Willeke TerHaar

                        Nkhoma Hospital

                        Box 48

                        Nkhoma, Malawi

Africa

 

 

 

Willeke can also be reached at the following email address  nkhoma2008@gmail.com

 

In closing we just want to make a couple of comments regarding the continuing needs at Nkhoma Hospital where we worked for the last 16 months in administration and accounting.  A Dutch organization called Malawi Mission Work Team (MMWT) has been rebuilding most of the hospital wards.  They plan to finalize their work this year by rebuilding the surgical ward.  This has been a real blessing for the staff and patients of the hospital as the old facilities were in fairly poor shape.  The Lord has greatly blessed the MMWT from Holland to be able to take on such rather extensive, but very important work.  This is greatly helping the staff to provide the patients with improved health care services, even though the health care services still are considerably left wanting because of the lack of funding to even purchase their weekly pharmaceutical requirements.

Baobab, as well as the Evangelical Free Church of Courtenay has been able provide the hospital with a properly working generator.  Furthermore we purchased some lab equipment that allows the hospital to provide 56 more blood and urine test that previously were not done and the doctors merely had to “guess” and provide necessary medication by “trial and error”.

The X-Ray machine which is about 25 to 30 years old has been broken down in excess of a year and again only X-Rays for small areas such as simple breaks can be done.  Patients have to be transported to Lilongwe, some 60 KMs away for any other X-Ray requirements.  A second hand X-Ray machine has been purchased from a health facility in England that will be operative within the next month or so.  It is our desire to fundraise for a brand new digital X-Ray in order that Nkhoma Hospital can provide improved medical services to the 70,000 people within Nkhoma Hospital’s catchment area.  Having a digital X-Ray will also allow for much improved evaluation of the patient’s condition as it will allow the X-Ray results to be sent to South Africa or North America for immediate evaluation if the expertise is not available locally.

Just thought to mention this today as this need is extremely urgent in order to better serve the unfortunate people within the catchment area.

We shall provide further detail about some of our experiences that revealed so many needs amongst the people of Malawi and Nkhoma Hospital.

Please pray with us that sufficient funding may be generated to provide Nkhoma Hospital with a new X-Ray within the next two or three years.

 

Many blessings to all of you and thank you for your support:    

 

Jack and Henrietta

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Courtenay BC

December 23, 2009

 

 

We returned from a hot and sunny Malawi ten days ago to a cloudy and rainy Courtenay.  Because of the lack of sunshine, we struggled with jetlag for quite a while, but it seems we have now overcome the time difference of ten hours between Malawi and the West coast of Canada.  We seem to be acclimatized and are trying to get back into the swing of things.  Whatever “the swing of things“ happens to be for us which is not yet clear.

 

It is good to be back and see some of our grandchildren again.  We hope to spend Christmas and New Year with Mike, Jen and the kids here in Courtenay.  In January we plan to travel to Alberta to spend some time with Rod, Anna, Karen, Darryl and their kids.  Jack has yet to meet our youngest granddaughter, Robyn.  The next few weeks we will be busy re-acquainting ourselves with the little ones and of course their parents.

 

Our experience at Nkhoma Hospital in Malawi has been a rich and blessed one.  For every frustration we encountered there were twice as many blessings.  God has allowed us to come in touch with some of the most wonderful people imaginable.  People that have so little, yet many of them are so rich.  We have tried to overcome the challenges that a different culture presented to us.  Often time we failed miserably, yet it has provided us with a wonderful insight of the people of Malawi.  In fact, I (Jack) have taken up some home reading by Geert Hofstede, a Dutch sociologist, in order to more clearly understand the powers of culture.  It has been some very interesting reading.

 

Now that we are back in the world of “virtual uninterrupted” and high-speed internet, we shall attempt to provide you with some stories of our experiences in Malawi

 

On Saturday we went for a walk to the downtown area of Courtenay.  Just before we returned home Jack stopped and felt his bad knee (old soccer injury) “snap”.  He could hardly walk on that leg anymore but somehow made it home.  Since the pain intensified, we finally went to the hospital on Sunday.  An X-ray was taken but it was so swollen it was hard to see what the problem is. The doctor said it was more than likely a snapped tendon/ligament.  So now he is hobbling around with a leg brace and crutches.  Seems there will not be much skiing this season.  Other than that we are healthy and doing well.

 

Some people have asked if we plan to go back to Malawi.”  We will leave that decision in the Lord’s hands.  We have gone as far as we could at this time with the implementation of a computerized accounting system.  We hope and pray that the work we have being doing since March will be sustainable and that the local staff will be able to maintain the processes.  We thank our sister Nel for coming to Malawi at her own expense, to help with these processes.  Please continue to keep Nkhoma hospital and its entire staff in your prayers as they continue the work that has been started.

 

We thank God for having used us to help Nkhoma Hospital.

 

In closing we wish you all a blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year.

 

 

 

Henrietta and Jack

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NKHOMA MALAWI

OCTOBER 23, 2009

 

 

NKHOMA EBENEZER INSTITUTE OF LEARNING NEEDS CHILDREN'S BOOKS

 

 

How can YOU help a Primary School  here in Nkhoma obtain new books for their school?  Very Easy!

 

 

 

Let me explain:

 

 

Ebenezer Institute of Learning is a new primary school that opened this year in Nkhoma. There are two classes at the present. One is pre-kindergarten and the other is kindergarten. Next year grade one will be added and additional grades each year thereafter.

 

Nkhoma Mission was founded in early 1900.  As  a  mission the emphasis was on evangelism, health and education.  Since its foundation, Nkhoma mission has over the ye6ars expanded its services tremendously.  This has led many people with different professional backgrounds to come and work at Nkhoma.  Most of these professionals come from the city where there are good schools for their children.  When they come to Nkhoma, they find that there isn’t a school that can offer quality education for their young children.  As a result these professionals often leave Nkhoma for places with better schools.  In order to retain these professionals, Ebenezer Institute  of Learning was founded to offer quality education to kids from Pre-school to Primary levels.  All classes are conducted in English.

 

 

 

I have been volunteering at the school for a number of weeks and noticed that the school has very few good story books.  Many of them are old and worn out.  It is often very  costly to purchase good children’s books in the city of Lilongwe.  So this is where YOU CAN HELP!

 

 

As most of you are starting to think about Christmas, I ask that you would include Ebenezer school at Nkhoma on your Christmas list!  I ask that you would please send us a book.  That’s all, just one book!  It doesn’t have to be new, used in good condition is fine.  I am sure that those of you with young children can spare a book out of the children’s  library.  Or let the kids pick a book they would like to mail to us!  This is a Christian  school so any Christian book or Bible stories would be great.  Make this a family project, Sunday School project  or a church project.  It would be best if the book parcel doesn’t get too large.  So for a church or family the best would be for each person, family to send one or two books per parcel!  Can you imagine the number of books the school could  have.

We take so much for granted; when I see the few books at the school’s library here in Nkhoma it makes me sad to see there is so little for the kids in Nkhoma to work with. 

 

 

 

The books we need at the present time are for ages 3 to about grade 2 level.

 

Please mail to:

 

Willeke Ter Haar

Nkhoma Hospital

Box 48

Nkhoma, Malawi 

Africa

 

Thank you and the children are looking forward to all the books coming to Nkhoma!

Please pray that the Malawian  postal system will be able to handle all these books in a trustworthy manner.

 

Blessings

Henrietta and Jack