Saturday, February 28, 2009

Gabon Team Prayer Retreat

PRAYER RETREAT

We're down at the Bongolo Hospital mission station (on the hill behind the hospital) for a prayer retreat and a couple added days of relaxation. We drove down on Wednesday, had our prayer retreat Thursday thru Saturday, went to some local churches on Sunday, did some swimming (and jumped off the bridge!), went "fishing", explored some caves, and swam at the pool, among other things. We are going to try and get some new pictures posted from our time here as soon as possible. Here is a link to see our pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/gabon.pilot. I am trying to keep up on getting pictures for all to see there. Here's a picture of our team.

For the prayer retreat there was a team of 6 people here from an Alliance church from Cleveland who facilitated the retreat. It also included a VBS styled time for our kids. The first night we had a delicious "kick off' dinner and relaxing conversation. It's much cooler in "the bush" compared to the big city of Libreville where we call home.

Thursday morning we took a tour of the hospital. It continues to grow and serve more and more people. It's maxed out, right now, due to a hospital worker strike at the public hospitals in Gabon. People are dying as the strike enters its' 8th week... it's all about salaries. It's incredibly hard to believe.

As you know, the hospital is pushed to the max, so we are
in a little bit of a crisis mode and searching for short term solutions for doing medical evacuations and transporting medications to resupply the hospital. The Belgium company that I do a little flying for has agreed to allow me use their airplane (beechcraft Baron) providing that they are not using it that day. This is great news! They would require us to pay them $760 per flight hour for the use of the aircraft, but this is a much better deal than anything else we were able to find at the moment. We are awaiting a couple of repairs to the hospitals airstrip so that it can receive the gov't blessing for use. I hope everything will be in place by next week. This "temporary solution" is being underwritten by a generous donor from the states. He said he'll pay for everything as long as the medical strike continues... the airplane, the airstrip upgrades, government fees, and additional medications, to name a few. I was blown away to here about this individuals generosity. It will easily be about $10,000 before we even start the first flight. Here's a picture of my friend Egmont and I flying the Beechcraft Baron:

Also on Thursday, I had an impromptu meeting with the mayor of the town, here- Lebamba. It is protocol to establish a connection with the village "chefs" (leaders) as you set up any sort of long term visit or work there. He was very nice and is throwing his support into the mix. It may come into play as we may need some "encouragement" for a construction company to expedite their equipment to do the work on the runway. Like I said, we hope this will happen in the next week or two.

So, that's a little more insight to what's shakin' on this part of the globe.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

A Quick Update

We are making it through this week. A few power outages here and there. It seemed to affect the ATM's here. I tried 3 locations yesterday for money, but none was available. Today, the one at the
super market (called "Mobile") was still not functioning but, thankfully, the
one at the Intercontinental hotel was! Yeah! Tomorrow morning I'll be buying
some electricity "units" as well as paying our water bill. After that, I'll
head to a gas station ("Total"- French owned) for an oil change. While they do
that, I'll get some exercise jogging/walking along the beach nearby.

Next week is the big road trip down to the Bongolo Hospital for prayer conference, so we need to have all things in order. We'll also store up some things to pass out to the police at the
checkpoints along the way.

Lots of love!

Steve

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Response to Medical Strikes

So, here in Gabon, the public hospital workers are going into their 2nd month of strikes. This means what you think it means... people that are sick have only the option of private care. However, here this is simply not possible due to cost. Therefore, many are going without care and literally dying.

At the heart of the strikes is the matter of salaries. I really have no idea if the workers have a point and their salaries are too low, however, there are people dying as they discuss money. It just seems that there could be a better way to handle the matter. It is comforting to hear about one or two doctors here and there that cross the picket line to try and tend to people hurting, but it's simply not enough.

Due to the strike, the Bongolo Hospital is at maximum capacity. The word is that they are having to set up extra mattresses to handle the overflow and that they are running critically low on medications.

If they had an airplane...

If they had an airplane, the additional medication could be ordered and brought to them directly. Unfortunately, our aviation program is not operating, so they will have to make their order, our team in Libreville will arrange for delivery and load a truck, and then they truck will make it's journey. This will take at least a week or more to accomplish. With an airplane, we can eliminate much of the process.

What can we do...

In the meantime, I am interviewing pilots of private aircraft to see if they will pitch in- donating their time and their airplane or, at least, allowing us to hire their services during this strike. We are also looking into hiring a charter service that caters to the wealthy business people of Gabon. They have a Cessna Caravan that could make its' way to the hospital, but I'm afraid to hear what they will charge.

Please pray that this strike will end soon and that the people of Gabon will have the health care they need. Pray that the Bongolo Hospital will be able to meet the needs and that the over worked medical professionals there will have stamina for the job.

A Quick Update

We are making it through this week. A few power outages here and there. It seemed to affect the ATM's here. I tried 3 locations yesterday for money, but none was available. Today, the one at the
super market (called "Mobile") was still not functioning but, thankfully, the
one at the Intercontinental hotel was! Yeah! Tomorrow morning I'll be buying
some electricity "units" as well as paying our water bill. After that, I'll
head to a gas station ("Total"- French owned) for an oil change. While they do
that, I'll get some exercise jogging/walking along the beach nearby.




Next week is the big road trip down to
the Bongolo Hospital for prayer conference, so we need to have all things in
order. We'll also store up some things to pass out to the police at the
checkpoints along the way.


Lots of love!


Steve