We are settling nicely into our lives here in Chimala. While life here does not have the bustle of going to rehearsals, practices, and meetings, we are all quite busy every day. We each have our own niche on the mission where we are all contributing to the mission and the surrounding community.
Rena is busy each day teaching the children in our home-school. She also helps out around the mission in various places each day. With her nursing background, she will often get a question about a medical issue when we travel to local congregations. She is going to start volunteering one day a week at the hospital in the OB ward. There is a large influx of patients due to the government health care laws and help is desperately needed.
Anna (17 years old) has been quite busy. As I write this report, she is busy with one of her Tanzanian friends preparing for teaching tomorrow. She and a friend go each week to a small Massai village to teach Primary School children. Also, she tutors a few of the mission workers on their English skills. When it comes to her, Anna is in her element!
Laura (15 years old) often goes with Anna to the OB ward at the hospital to deliver baby blankets to new mothers. She enjoys being out and helping others.
We had some special visitors in the month of October. John and Linda Wagner (Chad's mom and dad) came over. They were quite glad to see the grand-kids and we were glad to see them. While here, they sure made themselves useful around the mission!
Chimala Mission Notes
The Chimala Mission Hospital serves people in a 200 kilometer radius. We are offering OB services free of charge to the residents while the government is supposed to cover the costs of this service. They, however, have not been totally faithful in covering those costs. Also, we are assigning more nurses to the OB to cover the patient load. In fact, in April of this year, we delivered 111 babies in the whole month. In October, there were 287 babies delivered. We have almost tripled our patient load! The mission hospital is doing the best that it can to cover those costs, but it is putting the hospital in financial jeopardy. Also, we offer several services to HIV and TB patients. On a recent, normal day, I visited this section of the hospital. As you can see, the hospital is quite busy.
There are several needs at the hospital, as you can imagine, and I would like to share a few of those with you. First, we need American medical professionals to come over on a short-term or long-term basis. Working and serving at the hospital and the mission is not as bad as one might think. There are houses available and plenty of work to do! Second, there are several capital improvements needed at the hospital - from a renovation of the records room to an update at the morgue. Third, we are in need of donations of medical equipment to be used at the hospital. If you would like to help with any of these, please let us know. We are striving to show the love and compassion of Jesus to a sick and dying world while making a medical and spiritual difference.
Preaching the Gospel
We visited several congregations over the last few weeks. Recently, I preached at the Isitu church of Christ. They were having a Gospel Seminar. They had our CBI students there all weekend and I was able to preach on that Sunday Morning. If you notice the gasoline generator behind Menard (my Estate Manager and Translator), it was purchased by the Tanzanian Christians to do their own seminars. That is evidence of the local Christians taking ownership of the evangelism in their own area!
I will be starting a class at the Igawa church of Christ each week on Friday. They would like to have more in-depth teaching. This congregation is doing a good job in evangelism and church growth and I am honored to be a part of their work.
Special Appeal
We are still in need of support for our family. We came over to Chimala on faith that the LORD would provide. We pray that the LORD will work through you and your congregation to help us in our work. November and December are times when churches plan their budget for 2013. Also, individuals are looking for year-end opportunities for contributions. We are in need and await your support and assistance. Currently, our overseeing congregation fills in the need of $1,500/month in our support, but it is quite taxing to the mission work. If you can help us in our work, please let us know.
Chad Wagner and family
To see Chad’s report with pictures, please click here.