Africa Day 9

Koomba

Today was a difficult day because we were without any missionary presence and the road was an extreme washboard situation. Pete decided that if he had soap he could properly agitate the clothes for a good wash! We arrive about 9:30 to an empty clinic area. We help setup and discover that the few people that had arrived were not there for the dentist so Chuck and I headed to the village to see if we could drum up some business. We begin walking through the village and greeting people and informing them of the dentist. We travel through looking for the chief's house. He is not in town today and soon found the elders under a tree and a house full of women not far away. It seems that someone had died earlier and they would be, as a village, tending to these needs. There were a few who went on to see Pete, but we packed up at Noon and returned to the city. We became stuck in the sand twice and realized that the van had no first gear or the driver couldn't find it. Either way we pushed our way out of sand twice and soon made it to pavement. We had made plans to go shopping a little before going to the guest house until we smelled the putrid odor of a burning clutch. No one else seemed to mind, but we instructed that we simply wanted to get to the guest house!

We did make it! We unloaded, stored things away, and sought after lunch. After a gourmet meal of MRE's it was time for Pete to work on the missionary kids by sealing their teeth. Since we had the afternoon in town, the best use of time and his skill was to work on them missionary kids. He is good with children. I think he got bit only once!

There is a conference in the city this week and the guest house is filling up so we will not be able to spread out quite as much! Several kids are screaming streaks of color through here now, so it feels like home?!?!

We have been discussing something today that we would like for you to pray with us about. Should God call us to return another year we would like to consider focusing on one village for a long period of time. Instead of hitting several villages over the days, we would minister and do dental work in one village for 5-6 days. In this way we could know them better, get more dental care accomplished, and our church body could begin to pool resources to one place rather than to many. I believe it would focus our attention and be a greater blessing in the long run for more people. Please pray with us about this!

Enjoy the pics!

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