Thursday

(written Wednesday night)
Well, second day of clinic. My face is still swelling(allergic reaction to sheets), so the day has started out like I thought it would. Yesterday, we ran out of batteries for our glaucoma pressure tester. When we tried to change the battery, we had ordered the wrong battery. So, for the next three days, we have no glaucoma testing. Dentistry is doing good. They saw 15 people yesterday. As an eye/dental building, we served 181 people. What a day!

Hope we can follow it up today. Miss all your guys back at home. Hope to see you guys soon.

Alex

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From James, Thursday, 11:00 AM

Power did return shortly after posting the blog last night, but the rain did not arrive.

First thing this morning, it was reported by Security that people had been arriving since about 3 AM. By the breakfast, they had stopped registering people at 500. The vendors have been doing a brisk business. The clothing seems to be more colorful today. Even though we have stopped accepting patients for the day, more continue to arrive by taxi or bus. Our new supply of malaria medicine is getting dispensed as fast as it can be counted out. More meds are being obtained.

Relationships are important in Africa and we are understanding more how this works. Our continuing to return on a regular basis has proved to be important in their perception of us, and more people seem to be placing trust in our team, which grows every year. This leads to the question, how do we address the growing popularity of our clinic? We are at the limit in terms of the size of the traveling team?

It was fun to watch Randy coax a smile out of an 8 year old girl after asking the interpreter to tell her that the "white doctor will not bite." (It is really okay to say things like that here). With a few more gestures and kind words, the smile appeared and the girl relaxed allowing Randy to do the doctor poking and listening. Things like this goes on all day long, making friends while we do our best to help.

We are indeed privileged to serve our fellow man in this way. May our God be glorified.