Prayer Letter

The rainy season has also affected the possibility of Ingrid seeing the little boy with cerebral palsy in a nearby village (mentioned in the last couple of newsletters). He lives on a floodplain, and so even with the 4x4 she has been unable to visit recently to continue his physio exercises and walking practice.

The structure of life and work here also switches gear when the kids are on their school holidays. Gone are the holiday clubs and nearby family to babysit. This means that one of us needs to be close at hand to attend to the kids while the other gets on with work uninterrupted, with activities or meetings needing both of us done in the evening. That or a kids film is strategically put on in another room!

We have been busy working on the final aspects of the planning for the Prosthetics and Orthotics (P&O) department at Guinebor 2 hospital, contacting various suppliers for quotes to work out the best and most cost effective way of getting materials and componentry here. A lot of items we need to make custom prostheses and orthoses cannot be found in Chad, and so they will need to be imported. Also, with it being likely to still take a while longer before we can get all the relevant machinery here, and the solar power system needed to power it, we are continuing to look at ways we can get started without a full workshop. Things in Chad very rarely run to plan, or in the time-frame you would hope. The sewing machine we bought in South Africa earlier in the year, piggybacking off a shipping container due to be coming from there to Guinebor 2 hospital, has been delayed. Unfortunately, it's looking like it won't arrive until January now. With these things in mind, we are hoping to custom-make a gas oven for heating up materials to be able to make bespoke items.

The kids will start back to school in September, so we will be able to get back to a more normal routine from that point.

At the beginning of the school holidays, we had a trip to the UK to visit family. It was lovely to see everyone, spending time in both Northamptonshire and Scotland, and the kids managed the long hours of travel very well. It was also a blessing to have some respite from the heat and humidity of Chad! We took the opportunity to eat as much cheese and chocolate as we could fit in (normally very expensive imported items in Chad), and wear jeans and jumpers and generally be at ease knowing exactly how things worked there.

We used the opportunity of being back in the UK to buy some good quality specialist tools as a first step towards a P&O workshop. We were also able to collect some very generously donated second hand P&O equipment which we have brought back to Chad to use with patients here.

At one of the recent physio-led Child Development Clinics, Ingrid learnt that one of the patients, a 9 month old baby, had travelled from the other side of Chad to receive treatment at Guinebor 2 hospital. They made the arduous journey on unpaved roads (approx. 1000km) from a village near the Sudan border. He's been attending the twice weekly clinic for almost 2 months now, and while they continue to see progress in his development, he and his mum can stay with relatives in N'Djamena for up to a year. It's stories like this that remind us of the good name the hospital carries in Chad, as well as the extreme lengths people have to go to in order to seek out healthcare.

Praise God:

For a special time visiting family and friends in the UK, and the safe return of both us and all our luggage.

That we were able to bring back to Chad many items and tools needed to for the new P&O department.

Prayer Requests:

With the rainy season comes lots of mosquitoes, and malaria cases at the hospital have increased. Pray for those affected, particularly the very young and infirm, and those most at risk from the disease. Pray also that people will be able to live and travel as safely as possible. Pray for governments around the world as they making wider decisions regarding climate change. The impacts of which are felt most fully by the world's poorest nations.

Pray for the progression of the P&O department, particularly for the many funding applications that will need to be submitted.

Thanks everyone, for your ongoing support. It really does mean a lot to us!