Meeting with Joy

We were so delighted to get together with Joy (formally known as Patience) while we were in Cameroon. You may remember her story from past blog pages. We met her in Cameroon 2018. She was a very sick young lady with severe mitral stenosis. We were able to fix her valve in Kenya. She did very well and returned to Cameroon.

Joy with her father and baby Michelle

She and several of her family came with her to Mbingo hospital . After her appointment we invited everyone over to the guesthouse for tea. We were able to meet her aunt, father brother, husband and her baby Michelle. They brought us several gifts including a couple live chickens When the chickens were removed from the basket one of them escaped and everyone had a good time hunting the doctors chicken.

Joy’s aunt, father, husband and baby. I don’t think I mentioned that Joy met her husband on the plane flying back to Cameroon from Kenya after her procedure.

It is such an honor to be used by God to make a profound impact on this wonderful family.

Avisha

Meet Avisha, a 2 year old Cameroonian with pulmonary stenosis (a narrowing of her pulmonary valve restricting blood flow from her heart to her lungs).

We met with her worried parents in Douala. She was doing fine but will need to go to Kenya to have a procedure done to fix her valve. Her father is a surgeon graduated from the PAACS (Pan African Association of Christian Surgeons) program. He is currently working at a mission hospital serving the poor. He could make six times the money if he worked in the private hospital system but feels led to serve where he is most desperately needed. If you would like to help you can do so through the foundation.

2020

2020 has been a year of disappointment and adjustment.

With trips to Kenya and Ethiopia cancelled due to COVID and travel shutdowns and restrictions for much of the year. With faith and persistence we were finally able to travel to Cameroon this November/December. We had our first visa applications refused so we sent them again. The airlines changed our flights 4 times making connections and layovers impossible. But in the end with Gods help we were able to pull it all together.

It’s been a couple year since we’ve been able to visit Cameroon because of the conflict going on in the area that we work. Visitors have been scarce so they were delighted and encouraged that we were able to come. Because it was too dangerous to visit Banso Hospital farther north, we limited our trip to Mbingo Hospital.

We were able to do a lot of teaching with the Internal Medicine residents, PAACS surgical residents, OR staff and ECHO technicians.