Trip Winding Down

Hello All! (Alicia typing)

Today I went to work at one of the mobile medical clinics. There weren't many people there, but we had an awesome time with the core team that works with the clinic. We had an awesome time of praying and singing (and dancing!) Dan went with some people to put a roof on an addition at a church. One of the little girls fell asleep on him at lunch time and the Gabonese mamas cooked the team a huge meal!

Well...tonight is officially our last night in Gabon. This has been the fastest 40 days ever. We are sad to leave here, but at the same time we are really excited to get back home. Please pray for safe travels. See you soon.

Love,
Alicia and Dan

Operation Christmas Child Testimony

(Dan Typing)

Many of you may have heard of Operation Christmas Child, for those of you who have not basically what happens is people across the U.S pack shoe boxes with toys, toiletries, a card, etc. to send off to places around the world as Christmas presents for poor children. I have been able to see with my own eyes the impact that those little shoe boxes can make.

There is a village about 30 minutes outside of Libreville that unlike the rest of the country has been very skeptical of Christians. The Church being planted there attracted some kids but really no adults at all. this village was a distribution site for Operation Christmas Child last year, because of the simple shoe bokes many kids got to receive their first Christmas presents and as a result the amount of kids attending church soon ballooned to over 100 and the church has also attracted a few adults from the village as well...including the chief! He was very skeptical of Christians, but when he saw how we loved their children his skepticism turned to trust. A villager recently donated a piece of land for a church to be built on...

And that is where the teams and I enter this story, a few weeks ago we broke ground on the donated property, we have cleared the land and on Friday should be finishing the foundation. soon after that a wood structure will be in place and the people of the village will have their own church building!

All of this was made possible because some people in the states spent $20 and put together a shoe box of goodies to give a kid the gift of Christmas, and a chance to hear about the greatest gift of all.

Love Wins.

-Dan

Jesus Film Update

So we showed the Jesus film to a village about 2 hours east of the hospital. For those of you who don't know, the Jesus film is a movie made in the late 70's with the script taken from the book of Luke in the Bible. Since the 70's the film has been translated into hundreds of languages and dialects. The movie showing set up is pretty cool, since the electricity was completely unreliable we brought a small Honda generator with us which powered a DVD player and projector as well as a speaker with a built in amp with microphone. everything is super portable, the DVD player and projector are a kit that fits nicely in a suitcase.

We walked around the village with the local pastor inviting everyone to come see the film, but when 7pm came around and we were supposed to start nobody was there! We were a bit concerned but remembered that we are in Africa and everyone is always late. Tim (The Bongolo short term missions director) decided to put in some Donald Duck cartoons to get the bugs out of the system and we prayed that people would come to see the film. When we prayed we were the only people in the church, at the end of the cartoon we turned around and the place was full!!! everyone was so quiet coming in we never heard them! in total we were able to show 120 people the story of Christ in french...pretty cool.

love,

Dan and Alicia

Fire at the Hospital!

On Saturday night while we were out at the village the warehouse at the hospital caught on fire! The fire seems to have originated from a refrigerator that held insulin and HIV/AIDS tests that was surrounded by unopened boxed from thier last shipment of supplies. The fire was put out, but about 20% of the warehouse was consumed. A portion of the the roof was melted as well as the wiring near the fire.

From what a doctor told us the biggest thing lost was the new shipment of IV fluids. We were unable to hear the extent of supplies lost because we left before they were able to review their stock.

For more information and also if you want to help go to the hospital web page at http://www.bongolohospital.org/.

p.s. a praise from this ordeal; there were 3 barrels of 100% ethanol no more than ten yards away from where the fire stopped...had they exploded the warehouse would have been a total loss and people could have been injured/killed by the explosion...praise God!!

Hello From Bongolo Evangelical Hospital!!

(Dan Typing)

Hello! we safely arrived at Bongolo Hospital on Thursday after a grueling 10 hour car ride over bumpy winding roads. On Friday, we were given a tour of the hospital compound. This morning I jumped in on a soccer game between the hospital staff and the kids from the local village, it was a blast! In about an hour we will be heading out to a remote village with no running water or electricity. We are putting on a showing of the Jesus Film with the local church for the community. We will be back at the hospital tommorow afternoon.

To give you an update about what we were up to last week we were laying concrete for a new church building in Libreville. The church is about 500 strong and it has been meeting in a single room that can hardly hold all of them, the new building will be a huge improvememt, will seat many more people and will have offices for the pastors, and other rooms important for their church to continue growing. The work site was an amazing clash of followers of christ from two sides of the world working towards a common goal, there was music, dancing, fellowship, food, and of course plenty of hard work mixing concrete by hand, and moving literally tons of concrete, gravel and sand. Thankfully we had many hands, both American and Gaboneese to share the load, what an amazing experience!

(Alicia Typing...)

It has been an awesome week so far for me. It has been good to finally do some physical labor, but God had some different plans for me when I got two huge blisters on both the palms of my hands from tamping the dirt to make it level and compact for concrete. I was able to sit down and have some conversations with some of the Gabonese people. I had an 1 1/2 converstion with a man in Spanish. We were able to understand each other because we both had poor grammar and conjucation abilities. haha. As lunch time ended, I was really nervous for what God wanted me to do, when I was led to a room full of worship dancers for the church. I ended up dancing with them for a good 3 hours, and I was sweating just as much as the volunteers working outside with the concrete. It was good to use the international language of dance to praise God together.

Bongolo has has been really awesome so far. Yesterday, I was able to watch a surgery. The man had broken his jaw in several places and they were wiring his jaw shut. It was definitely an intense and vigorous surgery. Dan came in to watch the surgery for a few minutes, but had to leave because it was grossing him out. haha. Today, I went on a round with one of the Internal Medicine doctors here, Dr. Renee. It was very.......interesting (I am not quite sure how to describe it). A lot of patients here have tuberculosis and two of the babies we treated this morning had HIV. The medical staff here is quite amazing! They are truly doing God's work. They not only see the people as patients, but children of God that need caring for. It is great to see!

Please continue to keep us in your prayers. Pray especially for the village we are visiting tonight and showing the Jesus Film to.

Love,

Alicia and Dan

Internet Down

Hey All!!!

The internet is down in our section of town so we have been unable to update the blog and will be unable to for a few days. We are still doing great!!

We will be heading south into the interior of the country on Thursday to spend a few days at the Bongolo Evangelical Jungle Hospital. We will be back on Monday, hopefully with lots of awesome stories to share with you all!

Peace and Love,
Dan and Alicia

A Few More Pictures

(dan typing)

hi All,

I had a few minites so I decided to throw up a few pictures i didnt get to the last time. the first picture is the back door, as you can tell you would need a battering ram to get through it...i had fun doing that, made me feel like i was in a zombie movie getting ready for an attack. next picture is of the footer freshly poured.

things are still going great! I stayed back at the house today and started building shelving to organize the bins in the storage room. and fixed a doorhandle while i was at it. so far so good, they should be done with another half day of work, pictures will come later.

(Alicia typing)

Hello Everyone!!!

In the picture above, I am holding a 2-week old ènfant. So cute. The mother told me the little girl liked me because I got her to stop crying and rocked her to sleep. Did you happen to notice the shelves in the background. (sorry....for some reason I can`t type in question marks) At the clinic today, Mama Francias kept saying ``merci dan, merci dan`` to no one. It was quite hilarious and awesome at the same time to see her so grateful, she was thanking the air. haha

Working at the clinic has been different everyday and I seem to always be seeing new things, but I also see a lot of the same things. Malaria and stomach pains due to parasites or worms are just a few.

God is doing awesome things here....thanks for all the prayers and support!

Love,

Alicia and Dan

Great News for Hope House!!!

Great news for Hope House! last week the church had it's national general council. the needs of hope house were brought to light and a motion was passed stating that every alliance church in the country will now have a representative for Hope House so that the churches will be notified of future needs and send support. already pastor Isreal has gotten alot of positive feedback and it seems that help is on the way. there is still howeaver alot to be done, the house they are currently renitng is on the market and may be sold soon making developing the land they were given even more imortant. the first things that need to happen is a well be dug to get fresh water to the land and a source of electricity which may have to be a generator until the power company expands it grid in the coming year or so.

keep on praying that Hope House gains the support that those kids need in the coming months.

-Dan

Some work Alicia's been doing...

(Alicia's typing...)
Hello All!!!! I decided to bring my first aid kit to Hope House to repair some wounds I had seen from previous visits. This wound was majorly infected and it was fixed by some simple peroxide and neosporin! All the kids were very interested, and I had many eyes watching me. I guess first aid is something they don't see very often!

I have continued my work at the clinic this past week, and I start consulting on my own on Monday. Please pray for wisdom! It is still hard to see cases that I know would easily be "fixed" in the United States. A 26-year old came in the other day who could barely walk he was so hunched over. He could hardly urinate without screaming in pain. He could not afford an ultrasound to search for kidney stones, so the most we could do was give him medicine for the pain and infection...a treatment he had already recieved that had not been working. It was sad to see, but we ended up praying over him and he left the clinic walking a little straighter and with a bigger smile.

God has been showing us amazing things down here ... Psalm 77 has been a huge encouragement to me when I get discouraged towards the health care here in Gabon.

Love,
Alicia

Dan Dan the Handyman

(Dan typing...)

hey guys!! finailly got some pictures up!

I have been busy doing handyman projects on top of helping with the big projects the teams are working on. last week the teams sterted the foundation for a new church, this week we are working on finishing a pastors house and sunday school building alongside members of the congregation.

side project i have been doing include designing and building the bunkbeds for the guys bunkhouse (pictured above) fabricating shelving for the medical clinic Alicia is working in, updating the security on the back door to the bunkhouse, and small jobs at Hope house. my next jobs will be putting in the tolitet paper dispenser in the boys bathroom (I know it sounds complicated) and then designing and building shelving for the cluttered stoage room.

in a crazy turn of events on sunday the church we attended had me be a guest speaker so I was able to give a message about following Gods calling to 180 Gaboneese!

God is good and he is working all the time!

-Dan

Hi all!

Sooooooo it's been quite a while since we have updated the blog and we apologize for that. It gets really busy around here and the internet is real sketchy.
-
(Alicia's typing here:)
I started working at the clinic last Tuesday. The first day was quite an experience. They started me off right away with consulting several patients. It was very frustrating because I had not even been given a tour of the clinic yet and was unsure of what it had to offer. I felt like God had totally thrown me in the middle of no where and uncapable of doing what was expected of me.

I talked over my concerns with Tim (our site coordinator) and he explained that in the Gabonese culture, instead of starting a person at the bottom of the totem pole and working their way up, they start them as high as possible and work them down the totem pole from there. This is so that someone does not feel disrespected.

So starting that next Wednesday...I went into the clinic with a completely different attitude. I know God has me here for a reason, and it may or may not be for my medical experience. It has been different for me to fall into the supportive role instead of the active role. I shadow a nurse everyday and by the end of this current week I will be consulting patient's on my own. I was also informed today that I will be the main consultor the first week of August because the nurse is going on vacation. Talk about trusting in God!

Working in the clinic has opened my eyes to many things so far. I am still trying to compile them and organize them in my head. The thing that people really need the most is a loving smile and someone to truly listen to them.

(dan now) Hi all! since getting back from the bush I have been busy being a handyman around the complex building bunks to house the incoming tems and other small projects. today we spend the morning at a place called hope house which is a home for abandoned children. the house is in total disrepair and while the teams played with the kids some of the men and i adressed some issues with security fixing doors and windows, some minor plumbing, and fixing a bed that was badly needed. there are 23 chldren living in a house that should really only hold 8 max. Hope of a new place for them is on the horizon, a woman from a local church donated land for them to build a complex. be praying for hope house, the kids there and the future of that ministry.

tomorrow I will start work building the foundation for a new church about 30 minutes outside of the city with a team from ohio, between that and ongoing work at hope house i should be busy the next few days.

Thank you again for all of the prayers and support, I love being here showing these kids and people we help that somebody cares about them and by doing so spreading the love of christ.

in his service,

Dan and Alicia

Here is a picture of Dan and I at the CMA church in Makukae.

This is considered a very nice church. Probably one of the nicest buildings in the village.

The goats truly do rule the city. They are everywhere. These two decided to pose for a picture. Look how close we are to them!

Back from the Bush

Wow! Is all we can say as far as first impressions go. We were literally dumped into the African rainforest with a few Africans to trust to guide us. They were amazing, AMAZING people.

The first village we arrived at was very.....African. There were goats running around everywhere (which is a common theme in any African village). The goats and dogs live their own lives with humans living around them. There were no "toilettes", and getting used to mosquitoes (breeding malaria) biting your butt while trying to use the bathroom took some getting used to.

We then moved into our next village via a ferry (with large tractors) where we would be staying for the next 3 nights called Makouke. We were so blessed to have a place to stay that had a toilet and a running water....even if the water was brown.

The first night, we ate GAZELLE. How many people can say that? We had some fermented banas root....it was alittle rough keeping that down. In this culture, what you take on your plate you must eat. After dinner, we had a random worship session with the Africans. We sang in English and they sang in French. It was so amazing to see the love of God, even if we couldn't understand what each other was singing about.

The next day, we started the medical clinic...Alicia was sent to consult and diagnose! while Dan took blood pressure and body weight. Most people here have hypertension...mostly from their lack of water and their high intake of salt and animal fats in their diet. A lot of people have STD's and most children and older men and women have malaria or tchikungunya (which is the same as malaria but they also have such a hard time walking because of extreme pain in their hips). Also, many people have tumors that would have been taken care of in seconds in America.

A really sad thing was to see an 18-year old woman, who most likely has breast cancer. There were so many tumors in her breasts, and we had to send her to hospital for a mammogram. Who knows if she will actually be able to make it?

Later on that night, we ate ANTELOPE....gazelle was better (it reminds us of goose meat).

we went to the CMA church here in Makouke, the church only had about 50 people but i have never heard people worship the Lord any louder! it was awesome to see them worshiping God with such passion.

Riding around here is......Interesting. That is for sure. You either feel like you are going to die or hit the pedestrians. It is really fun though to ride in the back of a truck and feel the African breeze.

this next week Alicia will be working 9-2 in a clinic about 5 min. away with the aid of an hired interpreter, while Dan builds bunks and unloads a shipping container filled with supplies for Bongolo  hospital.

a few pictures from the last few days should be soon to follow.

-Until next time,

-Dan and Alicia

We are Finally HERE!

After leaving Detroit at 11:00 AM on July 1st, we arrived in Gabon on July 2nd, at 12:00 PM Michigan time. Over 24 hours of traveling can be lots of fun when you are traveling with the right person. :)

We are now in the process of settling into our homestead, and we are off for our 4-day trip into the Jungle (Ebel Abanga) for a mobile medical trip. There will be no running water or electricity. Dan will be doing construction, and Alicia will be helping out in the clinic. Talk about jumping in right away.

We are PUMPED!

Permethrin and Packing

Dan is getting ready to spray our clothes with Permethrin- a bug repellant

Can you believe it?

We are leaving for Africa in 7 days!!! It seems like just yesterday that God blessed us with this opportunity!

We have multiple flights in order to get to our destination. We fly from Detroit to Atlanta, Atlanta to Paris, and from Paris to LIBREVILLE, GABON!

Please continue to keep us in your prayers and thoughts. We are going to need as many as we can get! haha

Thanks for all your love and support!

So...we are getting super pumped for our upcoming adventure.  Vaccines and Visas are taken care of, and now we are on to shopping for bugspray,  sunscreen, etc. 

As you may have heard, the president of Gabon died this week.  We are unsure what that means as far as our travel circumstances go.  Please continue to pray for us!

Love,

Dan and Alicia

Thank you

Thank you for all of the support so far!

Update!

As of so far we have $4,186!!!!
We are now more than half way to our goal amount of $7,500. That is amazing! Praise God.
Please continue praying for our trip!

Praise God

So far, we have raised $2, 761 for the trip! That is absolutely awesome.  It is 36% of the $7,500 we need to raise.  We thank you so much.  Please continue to pray for this trip! 

Thank you for all your support so far.