Project Nappies!

Here is the story behind the idea of "Project Nappies". The story and pictures are from my friend Laurel.

'M's Story

Triplets aren't very common in Botswana. So a woman in a village carrying triplets is quite an event.

I, Laurel, met 'M' when she was about half way along in her pregnancy. She lives with her mother, her eight year old daughter, sisters and other family. She was receiving good prenatal care at the local hospital but was struggling as no one in the family was earning money.

During the next few months I visited regularly and made sure that 'M' was getting good nutrition and getting to her prenatal check ups.

At the end of October I received a phone call from 'M's neighbour to say that she had given birth to her triplets and had been transferred

to the main hospital in Gaborone. The birth was two months premature,and shortly after birth one little girl passed away.

'M' and the other two babies were being cared for at Princess Marina Hospital in Gaborone and I started visiting regularly.

There were many challenges for both mum and babies. The babes spent a total of 9 weeks in the special care nursery, 'M' stayed in a room at the back of the postnatal ward, sharing with a number of other women who also had babes in t

he nursery. They had a 2 hourly routine of going to the nursery for feeding and changing 24 hours per day. Each woman carried a small bag with her containing all the babies needs, including disposable nappies which they had to provide – quite difficult for someone with no income. The friendships that they formed were a great support for one another......their needs,practical, emotional and spiritual are great.

After 9 weeks, I took 'M' and her babes home to their village. Two days later baby B, the other little girl passed away – she had been born with

severe hydrocephalus and her brain had not developed properly. B was buried next to her sister at the family home, as is the practise in the

culture here – babies who die at less than one year of age are kept close.

Mogomotsi, the brother of the girls is growing well and is nearly six months old. His family tells me that he must miss his sisters and that they will tell him about them one day.

This is a picture of 'M' with her daughter who passed away two days after being discharged.

Below is 'M' with her son, Mogomotsi.

During the time Laurel spent at Princess Marina with 'M' she realized there were huge needs among the women there. Among the many practical needs are nappies, hence the name "project nappies". Most of the women have no income and really struggle to provide the disposable nappies they are required to buy for their babies. These women provide around the clock care for their babies so would not be able to have a job while their baby is in the special care nursery. Many of the women do not even own a pair of underwear. So their basic needs are great! Besides their practical needs these women need the Lord most of all! Our goal is to start a program to minister to these women. We are in the process of making the right contacts at Princess Marina Hospital and hope to very soon be able to start ministering to the women there. Please be praying for us as we start this new venture!

Prayer Requests:

• Please pray that Laurel and I and whomever joins us in our venture will have wisdom in knowing how best to minister. That we will be a light and encouragement to these women.
• Please pray for the women that their hearts will be open.

Thank you so much for praying for us! We are very excited to see what the Lord does in all of this!!

If any of you would like to be involved in helping with the practical needs here are some ideas...

For 100 pula about the equivalent of $15 US we could provide the women with one of the following:

• 60 disposable nappies
• 2 dozen cloth nappies
• Combination pack of onesies, socks, hats and a blanket
• Toiletries and underwear for the mother

If anyone wants to get a group together to send a Care package here are ideas of what the women could use:

• Toothbrushes
• Hand sanitizer
• Baby clothes, any sizes
• Wash cloths
• Underwear, any sizes
• Sanitary Pads
• Blankets (they especially love receiving blankets)
• Crocheted baby hats, mittens, socks, blankets and outfits (they love crocheted items!)
• Home-made cloth bags for use as a diaper bag

I look forward to keeping you all updated on our ministry at Princess Marina Hospital. As soon as we have more stories to share I will post them for you all! Thank you for your patience with "Project Nappies"!! I am so glad I was finally able to share with you this exciting ministry opportunity!

Answered Prayers...

The Lord has answered a big prayer of ours. He definitely answered in a way that I never could have possibly imagined…but “we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose." - Rom_8:28

I wish it could be a fun and exciting story but sadly it isn’t. The evening of January 20^th we were sitting with some new friends in our living room drinking coffee and enjoying some wonderful fellowship when we heard a strange noise almost like car horns blaring. I still have no idea what that noise was but soon after that weird noise started our doorbell rang and the woman at the gate yelled the house was on fire. Immediately I panicked thinking she meant our house but soon realized it was our neighbor’s house that was on fire. We quickly grabbed Tristan out of bed and loaded our most important things into the car and got out of our house in case the fire spread. Praise the Lord our roof did not catch on fire even with the wind blowing in our direction! Sadly our neighbor’s house completely burnt down and she has lost most everything. The people in the neighborhood ran inside to try to save as much stuff as they could before the ceiling collapsed but still most everything is gone. The Fire department did eventually arrive but the fire had almost died out by the time they got there. Probably around 11pm we felt safe enough to go back into our house. About that same time some women in the neighborhood organized to have the things salvaged taken to a number of the neighbors houses to keep it safe and out of the rain. We offered to let them store some of her stuff in our guest bedroom. We then learned she didn’t have any friends or family nearby to stay with so she actually stayed in our guest bedroom for about a week with her youngest son who is 11 years old. She is Batswana but does speak English very well. Her son does not speak much English but enough that we can understand each other. It is a learning experience culturally and has had its awkward moments for sure! Each day they were here got easier and more exciting as we started to build a friendship with them. Friday evening (Jan 21^st) the community had a meeting to decide how to help Mma Thabo. Many people donated things such as a school uniform for her son Phenyo or small gifts of money. It was so neat to see the community come together to help her! We had been praying for a while that the Lord would give us an opportunity to reach out to our neighbors. With big cement walls (or “stopnonsense” as they call them) all around our house as well as most of our neighbors houses, it is very hard to get to know any of them. You don’t really see many people unless you happen to be going in or out at the same time. So we kept praying God would open doors and help us to somehow get involved with the community and our neighbors. Well this has thrown that door wide open! I wish it could have happened because of a happy incident but again we know that God has a plan and a purpose for everything! Through it all we have gotten to know many of our neighbors and they welcomed us into their community. It has been so exciting to have this breakthrough! Please be praying for us that we can be a light in our neighborhood as well as an encouragement to our neighbors who have just lost everything they own.

Encouragement

I am the type of person who has to write things down the moment I think of them or else I forget them altogether. So rather than making dinner I am sitting at my computer writing you guys an update =).

I have wanted to share how the Lord has been encouraging my heart over the past few weeks but finally my cultural experience today gave me the inspiration to put it into words. When we first arrived here the pula/dollar difference was quite the shocker. You would go buy a box of cereal that would normally be a few dollars and you see 35 pula! Which truly is expensive but the first thing that pops in your head is WHAT 35 dollars?? Then you remember “Oh ya, I have to divide that by 6 and a half”. The other shocker was how expensive everything was. I had in my mind that things would be really cheap over here. In a country where most everything is imported, cheap just isn’t possible. The combination of those two things could be very discouraging at times.

Recently the Lord has been really encouraging me with both of those areas! After 5 months of dealing with pula it isn’t quite so shocking anymore (except for when it really is shocking…seriously 30 US dollars for 1 pack of diapers??). Also I am starting to find what and where the cheaper things are. In the States I bought a lot frozen vegetables since you could typically get it cheaper than the fresh. Here it is the opposite. We have been having so much fun going weekly to pick out all of the fresh fruits and vegetables we want that week. Also the nice bakery bread you pay big bucks for in the States is what is cheap here. If you want the long lasting loaf you get from Wal-Mart for a dollar you pay a lot of money =). We were so encouraged to learn that and enjoy freshly home-made bread from the bakery each week! Yes, we do pay a lot for most things but we are getting spoiled in many areas as well!! One other thing I should mention is about our meat. Beef is the cheapest meat here and what we call Filet Mignon in the United States is one of the cheapest cuts here. You can get Filet for 3 US dollars per pound…needless to say we are getting very spoiled and I don’t know what we are going to do if we ever leave!

My cultural experience today came through a good friend who took me to her favorite little shop that she calls “The Spice Shop”. As we got out of the car I could smell all of the spices before even walking in. Then when I walked into this little store that is just a small room with concrete floors, I saw large bins in rows all across the room. Each bin was filled with a different spice, some with rice, and others with things that I have absolutely no idea what they are. I found the normal garlic pwd, oregano, basil, parsley, rosemary and so on. My favorite find was poppy seeds!! For less than 1 US dollar I got about the equivalent of 2 of your large jars of poppy seeds. All of the other spices as well as the rice were amazingly cheap! I picked out a number of things and after I left with my little bag of treasures I felt so encouraged and am still thanking the Lord for that awesome store that will be seeing a lot more of me! So there are cheap things here. You just have to patiently learn where they are. =)

So again today the Lord has really encouraged me in the grocery expense department! Next time I grumble over the price of diapers I will just remember I get to go home and eat a big Filet Steak for dinner and can buy a couple years worth of oregano for less than a dollar =). When you put it like that I don’t know why I ever grumble!! =)

Distributing Bibles in the Children's Ward. Singing our way down to different wards with the Bibles on a stretcher.

Here goes “Project Bible Distribution”!

As I shared in my previous blog post and email, every year Flying Mission distributes Bibles at Princess Marina hospital on the day after Christmas. They raise money for the Bibles throughout the year. This year the Setswana Bibles were in high demand here in Botswana and stocks were low. The demand increased the cost making them 80 pula each which is about $13 US dollars. They may be cheaper this time next year but for now they cost that much. I wanted to share this opportunity with all of you! If God has given you a desire to share His Word with the people of Botswana consider supporting this annual Bible distribution event. Also we need prayer warriors to be praying for the patients and nurses receiving Bibles! Please pray the Lord gets a hold of their hearts!

Please email me if you want information on how to help us purchase Bibles!

My email address is jeffnsarah527@gmail.com .

I am still putting together information for “Project Nappies”. There is a very touching story behind it all and I can’t wait to share it with you. I am awaiting the story and pictures from my friend, Laurel King.

On a lighter note...Tristan is walking!!! He took his first steps a few days ago. It is so much fun watching him learn! He is looking so grown up now that he is walking...can't believe how fast it goes! I will upload pictures soon.

Bible Distribution at Princess Marina Hospital

Well today was Bible distribution day at Princess Marina Hospital. Every year Flying Mission staff and some volunteers meet at Princess Marina Hospital the day after Christmas to give Bibles to all of the patients. This year we had over 650 Bibles to give away! We feel honored to have had the opportunity to be a part of sharing the Word of God with so many people!

I probably spent the most of my time in the maternity wards since there were over a hundred women in there with their brand new babies! One of the women even asked me to hold her precious little girl who was just days old! She was the tiniest baby I have ever held…way tinier than Tristan was! What an honor it was to hold that new little girl and give her mommy a bible in her own language! It was definitely a bit of a shocker walking into the maternity ward…it is nothing like the maternity wards in the United States. Each room had about 14 or 15 beds squished together with barely any room to walk in between and then every spot on the floor that was big enough was another mattress. Every room looked full to the max! There wasn’t such a thing as private rooms…I have never seen anything like it. How spoiled I was to have had my own room for delivery and then my own room for recovery as well. I was pampered by the nurses and had constant help from them! Those women were pretty much on their own…plus had absolutely no privacy. It was a very humbling experience to say the least.

Jeff had the privilege of praying with one of the patients we gave a bible too. He was unable to use his legs but we were not told why. It was very sad. When he leaves the hospital how will he support himself? Does he have family to take care of him? Those questions have been weighing on my heart and mind but ultimately does he know our Savior? We can’t know these things but we can pray that the Lord will bless him and take care of him and bring him to an understanding of his Word! Please be praying with us that all of these patients we briefly met and gave Bibles to would come to know Christ as their personal Savior! So they can stop living in fear and live eternally with their loving God and Creator! Thank you so much! Your prayers are greatly appreciated!

Today while at the Bible distribution I became aware of a few projects that you guys could be a part of. As soon as I get a little more information I look forward to sharing these opportunities with all of you! I will be sharing about these projects in my next note =). Be looking for “Project Nappies”(their word for diapers here) and “Project Bible Distribution”.

Also a friend took a bunch of pictures today and as soon as possible I will post some for you all to see!

A note from Jeff

One of my on call days last week.

The day began nice and slow. It was about 10:30 AM on what was shaping up to be a very hot day in Botswana. I had been home for about 14 hours since my last flight had landed at around 8:30 the night before. Sarah and I had been able to enjoy a nice breakfast together and Tristan was playing with his new kitten friend. The call came in around 11:00 and within 10 minutes I was airport-bound. I arrived at our hangar about 10 minutes later and began the preflight. Jon, the Captain for this flight, arrived shortly after and began filing the flight plan and checking the weather for the flight. Once our medics, Patrick and Collin, arrived we closed the cabin door and started up for Maun. We were airborne from Sir Siretse Khama International Airport just over 50 minutes from the time of the call, our goal for every Mercy flight.

Jon took the 1st leg to Maun and within an hour and half, we were on the ground. Go figure, the ambulance was not there. African time is very different from US time and when they hear an hour and half, they expect it to take at least 2-3 hours. Oh, by the way, when I say ambulance don’t have in mind a nice United States ambulance with all the fancy life saving equipment inside. Think instead of a pickup truck with a covered back and AMBULANCE written across the side. Inside this ambulance was a lady and the tiniest baby I have ever seen in my life. Evidently she had needed an emergency c-section before the baby was ready to be born and only had the local clinic to do it. In the process she had lost lots of blood which can be very hard to come by in an AIDs stricken country, not to mention she was out in the middle of nowhere. Our medics started doing what they do best and got the patient stabilized and loaded into the airplane. We had brought a baby incubator as part of our equipment for this flight because we didn’t know the status of the baby, but it wasn’t needed. Despite being only 2.5 lbs, the baby was doing just fine and was sleeping soundly. But the mother needed a hospital so we fired up the King Air and departed for the closest hospital located in Francistown at about 290 miles per hour. It was my leg now and 55 minutes later I landed in Francistown where the ambulance was waiting to take mother and baby to get the help they need. I got to carry that precious 2.5 lb baby off the plane, hands down the best part of the flight!!! Thank the Lord for a safe flight!

After fueling we headed back to Gaborone and landed at around 7:00 PM. We fueled in Gabs just in case there was another flight that night. I walked in the door to our house at around 8:00 to the sight of a smiling baby boy! I’ll be honest, I don’t think that could ever get old. I kissed Sarah and was getting ready to give Tristan a bath when my phone rang. It was our Chief Pilot with another emergency flight to Maun. I laughed and said “Good one Tim”. “Sorry Jeff, no joke this time”. So 20 minutes after I had walked in the door, I was walking back out again for the exact same place we had been just 6 hours earlier! Sarah is an amazing girl and keeps a good attitude even though late night flights aren’t the most fun for her either.

It was my leg going to Maun this time, at least we got to change that part up a little bit. We were cruising at 26,000 feet that night and although it was clear, there were no lights below us as far as the eye could see. It’s an eerie blackness flying over the Kalahari at night and it still gives me an odd feeling when I experience it. But when I look up on those nights, the stars are brighter than any night sky I’ve ever seen. We dim the cockpit lights way down and experience God’s magnificence and glory in a way that few get to experience. I was filled with awe and a verse in Hebrews 11 was brought to mind, “By faith we understand that the universe was formed by God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible”. What an awesome God we serve who could create such beauty out of nothing! We arrived in Maun to a little boy not much older than Tristan. He had swallowed sulferic acid, commonly used in lead-acid car batteries. He had acid burns all over the outside and inside of his mouth and who knew what else internally. When I looked at him, I could see Tristan and my heart hurt for him. Again, we flew to Francistown and delivered the patient safely with his mom to the hospital there. By the time we got the airplane put to bed and got ourselves something to eat (as it had been since breakfast when we had all last eaten), it was around 2 AM. There was no way we were going to try and fly back to Gabs. We wandered into the FMS guest house in Francistown and passed out on the nice comfortable beds that were waiting for us. If only we would have known that at 10:30 the next morning we would be going BACK to Maun again for a lady who was in sepsis from blood poisoning.

We flew back to Gaborone after our final Maun-Francistown run late in the afternoon. After dodging some of the hugest thunderstorms I’ve ever seen, we made it back to Gaborone. I walked in the door around 7:45 PM after having been gone for the better part of 2 days, with people and experiences in my mind that I will never forget.

Thank you all for your support of Sarah and I! We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you!

Love,

Jeff

This is my co-worker, Jon, holding the 2.5 lb baby. I managed to snap the picture right before we headed off to Francistown.
This is the mother receiving a blood transfusion in the airplane.
This wasn't from that particular flight but it gives you the idea.

My new word for the day...."Nnana"

Well Tristan is sitting nicely eating some banana puffs we brought from the States so here goes another note!

Yesterday Jeff had the day off work so we decided to do some fun shopping...or as we call it "Chinese shopping it". Chinese shops are little stores that sell a variety of things for very very cheap. They always have different things and we always enjoy finding awesome deals on things we need. So we spent the afternoon driving around to as many of these different shops as we could find. We found some great deals on a few things we needed as well as some fun little Christmas presents for Tristan. While we were in one of the shops a cute little girl walked in with her mom and as soon as she saw Tristan started pointing and yelling "Nnana! Nnana!". It was so cute and I figured she was about the age where little kids point and yell baby baby when they see a baby. So as we walked past I asked the Mother if that meant baby. Yes it did!! So my new word for the day was Nnana meaning baby! How fun to keep learning new words here and there!

We are really looking forward to officially starting our language study here! We just received an email saying the next beginners setswana class will be starting sometime in January. So starting January we will be going to a setswana class once a week. We are excited to get to learn more than just the greetings and few words that you pick up here and there. Please pray that we will be dedicated in our study of setswana!