Same Song Just Another Verse

Well here I sit in the Faith Academy library, once again checking emails. For no apparent reason we are without phones once again. Our whole area is out. Rumor is they are replacing power poles, but the power seems to be working fine. We have also had no and low water for the last 10 days or so. This is a result of it being hot and dry. We have entered in with a vengance to the hottest time in the PI. So while I miss the internet and the water, I can always check email here and have water trucked in. I am just more than thankful that we do have power. Which is known to have outages during hot season. Imagine July in the South without even a fan! This is the one time of the year we allow ourselves to use with aircon unit in our bedroom. We don't have central air, just a window type unit. Power is so expensive here that we make oursleves survive the warmest nights during the rest of the year with just a fan. It usually isn't too bad, but when the temp of our bedroom climbs to the mid 90's and above a fan just can't cut it. Hope you are enjoying the lovely Spring weather!

An over due Thanks!

I need to apologize to a certain group of kids because I have been remiss in my blogging. Some dear friends from Greenwood occasionally send us local newspapers and church newsletters and bulletins, and other items of interest. In the fall they sent us a newsletter they thought we would be interested in since it involved us. For months this newsletter from our church in S. Carolina has been sitting on my desk waiting to be scanned. Unfortunately that means things got stacked on top of it and I kept putting it off. It is too important though to let it go by completely unnoticed.



Last summer the kids at South Main Street Baptist church in Greenwood decided they wanted to do something for missions and for their friends Emily and Will in particular. This was not a parent or leadership driven thing, but the kids themselves deciding to do something to make a difference. So in August, as school was just getting started, they held a talent show to raise money to support our work here. I am told it was an exciting evening (I'm still waiting for the video tape, Susan) full of great acts by the kids. I hate we missed seeing the show.

We want to say thank you to the kids at South Main Street Baptist Church.

You truly are a group of SUPER KIDS!

Emily and Will miss you guys so much!

A forgotten Helper

I would like to add something to Allan's blog below about the clinic update. This project was truly a family affair.- including our guests. Down toward the bottom there are 2 pictures of our "crash cart". This project was given to my dad when he was here.

Thanks for the great paint job, Dad!

Clinic additions

Ginger has been so faithful to post about our family and personal experiences during the past few months. I, however, have been completely remiss in posting about the clinic and our ministry. A project that I have been working on for some months is expanding the clinic's capabilities and organization. We have been so fortunate to receive modern supplies and equipment. To put this new equipment into daily use required some rearranging and additions to our clinic.

Here is what we started with ...















While incorporating the new equipment, we tried to improve the overall "flow" to place our most used medicines and supplies in easily accessible areas. To do this we first disassembled most of the supplies and grouped items by category and frequency of use. Emily was a big help during her school breaks. She cleaned some of the dirty equipment and helped sort and re-package medicines.















Then I designed a set of cabinets that allowed some of our emergency and surgical supplies to be near the patient treatment area. These cabinets were custom built by another ministry that trains Filipinos in cabinetry and woodworking.

Then came the task of reassembling the clinic.
Our EKG now sits on a slide-out tray (shown covered here) which allows quick and easy access to the patient laying on the exam table.

Ginger help fill the cabinets with our new "kits". The plan was that each kit would be used for a certain event, such as IV starts, suturing, eye exam, minor surgery, wound dressing. It is a work in progress and as we try new things our plans and layout should be able to adapt easily.

We also converted an old hospital medicine cart into a new "crash cart" which contains alot of our emergency medicines, a new cardiac monitor and defibrillator , IV supplies and portable oxygen.