The Doc & Chaplain Team

I have just finished my first day of work here at Mbingo...I am the children's ward chaplain! So Melissa and I are working together in the same ward...AND we make a pretty good team...I do a morning (6am) devotion with the kids/parents and have prayer with them...then we have staff chapel...Melissa does morning report afterwhich we have breakfast and then we all round on patients together to see progress and/or digression...Melissa is the attending physician and is over a team of nurses and residents...so she also gets to teach the residents that are in training here at Mbingo...I am in and out periodically throughout the day talking with the parents and praying with the children...I brought my iPad in the ward and one boy named "Emanuel" LOVES the game Angry Birds...he is in the hospital because he fell off a car and fractured his pelvic bone in two places...so it's a thrill to see his face light up when he "kills the green pigs"...another little girl who doesn't speak english loves to climb on my lap and rub my face...I thought it was a little strange until one of the nurses told me that she probably hasn't seen a white person's face up close and she is trying to say "why isn't his face balck?"...she is very curious...there are several really sick kids that unless we call out to God for healing, they might not make it...Saturday night Melissa and I were out on the hospital campus greeting people and we were walking past the childrens ward, and a woman ran out screaming...I sat down to pray and Melissa ran in while they were recessitating a 9 year old girl...they got her back to a heart rate then moments later she died....I was outside waiting for Melissa to get done and the mother was screaming and crying...when Melissa called the death, the mom sounded out a mourning battle cry and ran in and just screamed and cried over the little girl....there was nothing they could do....she had some type of head trauma from a fall with multiple complications and just couldn't recover...Friends, this is reality here in Africa...please pray for us...it is no accident that God sent us here...we desperately need His help...I will try to keep you updated on specific prayer requests...one of the critical ones right now is little Jennifer that has a kidney disease...I talked to her Dad today and had prayer over her....later tonight Melissa checked her creatinine levels and they improved a little , but still needs to improve much more...there is no way to do dialysis here in Cameroon, they just don't have the capabilities, obviously she needs a real miracle...okay...I have to get some sleep...I hope to have pictures up soon...we are having Internet issues at the moment and we are too busy to get someone from the computer dept over here right now...we love you all and thank you for praying! - Jeff