#15 Cameroon

Dear Family and Friends,
We are now into our 10th week in Koza. Wow time has
flown. Our first few weeks we went without the most
electricity. Now that the rainy season is over it is
less common. Only two times this past week.
Fortunately we did not have any operations at those
times. The Petzel headlamp company would probably
enjoy my pictures of operating with their tekka
headlamp. We also have our next student missionary
here now, Krissa. She will be here in Koza for 9
months. She has finished college and is waiting to
get into medical school. We enjoy having students
here with us.
We have been so blessed financially recently. We
have had a variety of donations come in to my father
and to AHI (Adventist Health International). The
money not earmarked for a specific purpose, we have
begun using for necessities to run the hospital. We
have used it to purchase medications, x-ray film and
reagents, and plan on using some for laboratory
reagents and more medications. Also a sizeable
donation has been made by Sunbelt and we hope to be
able to use this to help get a handheld ultrasound
machine. This would be very useful for diagnostic
purposes and also for obstetrics. It would also bring
income and referrals into the hospital. We are trying
to use the monies for items that are necessary and
also bring revenue into the hospital. So we are very
thankful for all those who have been moved to help the
Koza Hospital and the people treated here.
We have also been blessed by our sister hospital in
Bere, Chad. They were aware of the difficulty here
and have given a significant quantity of medications
to our hospital that were very much needed. We thank
the physician and staff of the hospital who were so
generous. We hope in the near future to be in a
position to help other sister institutions (Bere and
others) when needs arise.
So as you can see we have definitely felt the Lord
leading in various ways recently. We still have not
been able to pay salaries yet but as we see Gods
leading we are continually encouraged and uplifted
that we are still in His hands.
I also want to thank all of you who have been
responding to our emails. When we travel to Mokolo we
download all the emails present and take them back to
Koza and read them. These are our favorite times, to
hear from all our friends and family. We are still
praying that we get our ham radio permit soon so that
we can email from home. It has been about 6 months
now and no word yet. I’m sure in His timing it will
come through. The same thing applies to our container
of personal items and donated medical equipment. I
have heard it is to arrive in the port city of Douala
around Nov. 8th. Please pray that we are able to get
it cleared through customs quickly and without large
fees to pay. I know that other containers are
arriving with donated equipment and there have been
large in-country fees. Please pray that this does not
happen with our container and that we get it soon
after it arrives so as to use the equipment in it.
We have recently finished a book as a family called
“The Purpose Driven Life” by (Rick) Warren. It has
truly been a blessing to us and would recommend it to
all of you. If any of you have inspirational books or
ones that are uplifting we would be happy to have the
name or read them. Sarah and Audrey read for leisure
and go through books rapidly. I hope in the near
future to be doing ham radio things for my leisure
wind-down activity. We continue to be fairly busy in
the hospital with about 40-45 patients on average.
We look forward to having my parents (Greg’s) here in
a few weeks. We wish our other family members could
come also. Please continue to pray for Audrey’s
mother. She has finished radiation and continues with
chemotherapy for a couple more months. She is doing
better now that radiation has finished. We enjoy
getting calls from her and my family periodically
(cell phones are wonderful, especially out here,
started working the day before we arrived).
Please pray for Audrey. She has been sick on and off
for the past month. She has had periodic fevers and
dizziness. She has finally started medication but is
not better yet. It makes life more difficult to be
sick.
Thank you again for all of your prayers and support.
It is very meaningful to us. At times we feel very
alone. Even though we know God is with us it is very
nice to have our family and friends in contact. Keep
close to God, this is the most important thing you can
do in life. Sincerely, the Shanks