June 25 Greetings from South Africa

Greetings to family and friends back home!

I was asked to write one of our daily e-mail messages to get the "medical doctor" perspective of our medical mission here in South Africa.

We all woke up to another gorgeous morning of blue and sunny skies. Today was our 3rd clinic that was held in the church at Empembeni which Melissa mentioned in yesterday's e-mail letter. Shelly and Melissa left early in the morning to go grocery shopping since we were definitely low on the food supplies. The rest of the team made their way to Empembeni. As we approached with our caravan, having passed through several sugar cane fields, we came upon the church (which Ian and Adam had built in 2001 and is still standing strong) with at least 70 people already waiting, listening as Isaiah Mafu was giving his opening sermon before beginning each of our clinics. More patients we had passed along the way, making their way to the church/ clinic. What I noted initially as we made our way into the church was that those standing in the crowd were mostly women and young children. I remember a remark that Sharon made yesterday that the young population we were noticing was due to the deaths of the adults from HIV/AIDS.

Our Zulu brothers and sisters in Christ helped us set up the clinic inside the church building. After our pre-clinic group prayer and song, we got our clinic up and running. Us doctors Sharon, John, and myself along with our most helpful and efficient nursing team of Kristi, Katie and Megan V. saw some patients who really needed our help. Sharon saw a malnourished child from poor protein intake in the diet which we term kwashiorkor. Another 2 month old baby who was moderately dehydrated bordering on severe dehydration. Fortunately, we had some oral rehydration salts that we were able to formulate for the baby. I had a misfortunate boy who had a really severe case of impetigo, a bacterial rash around his mouth extending down his neck. Later in the day, I had a family with a severe case of scabies with some of the rash becoming infected already. Kristi and Katie had their adventures in washing out ear wax and even finding an ant come out with one of their ear lavages!

All of us doctors continue to experience the "laundry list" of physical complaints that our patients present with which I think is due to the fact that we may be the only doctors these people will see for the year. Furthermore, the whole country of South Africa proceeds into its 3 rd week of a labor strike of government service workers – including the teachers and nurses. So some of our patients inform us that they cannot go to the local clinics because they are closed. (We continue to pray for this nation-wide situation) We also continue to go through the often-times humorous and sometimes tiresome process of determining what "chest pain", "kidney pain", and "eye pain" actually means. I think even our Zulu translators who have been most helpful for us physicians are becoming aware of the common ailments we are diagnosing: upper respiratory infections, ringworm, allergies (which I think may be due to the local methods of waste disposal by burning trash), conjunctivitis, diarrhea, arthritis and headaches.

Sarah, Tracy, Robyn, and Megan O. continued to run our little pharmacy with efficiency and they continue to keep up in interpreting medical abbreviations from us docs with their crash course in medical shorthand, even as the doctors (John and I) were reverting to our shorthand unknowingly. Pat continued to do an excellent job as the traffic controller, especially today when we were all a little more space-limited. Cheryl manned our mebendazole station, as we have been providing this medication used to de-worm patients; since this condition/ infestation is quite prevalent in the community. David continued to dispense our limited number of glasses but as we noted later, God was still faithful in providing just the right amount for the right number of people who were in need (despite the fact that one of our missing boxes from London remains to be the glasses). Richard continued to be our nutrition counselor dispensing our vitamins to our patients. Adam and Melissa was our prayer warriors for our patients who continue to seek our prayers for their health and hopefully will have understanding of God's power and grace. Ian was our camerman turned reality-TV videographer getting his photos and footage of our clinic in action.

We were blessed to have this clinic day finish at a good reasonable time. And though we did have to turn away some patients so as not to be overwhelmed, we at least were able to tell patients that we would be returning tomorrow to hopefully see those who were not seen.

But this day had more blessings in store for us. Most of us attended the prayer meeting at Grace Evangelical Church where David reminded us of the Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnipresence of God. After a dinner prepared by Shelly, Richard, Ian and Adam, we were graced to hear the testimony of our wonderful hosts The Mafus- Isaiah and Mercy. The floor was theirs for this time when we were able to hear of God's faithfulness in their lives and the struggles they faced as they established the African Christian Ministry from South Africa to the United States and back again. We continued to hear heart-warming stories of the life tokens from Shelly, Kristi, Adam and David and how God has been faithful and present in their lives.

So today was a very blessed day not only for the patients whom we were able to serve but also for the team. We are over half-way done with our stay here in South Africa and I believe God is working in each of us to move His Will forward, not only here in South Africa but when we return to the United States.

God Bless,
Alex, MD