Blood Drive

Wednesday, August 28

I actually slept really well last night and I needed it.  I felt much better waking up with the sun today. Today, Hanna (tropical medicine resident) has organized the first Nkhoma blood drive.  The draw was a free coke and cookies, so I had picked up 30 colas and bags of cookies on Sunday at the supermarket. Just want to point out that sodas are in glass bottles here and times 30 equals very heavy.  So, the students, Nina, Riske, and Lisa, heaped me haul all the sodas and cookies to chapel.

Hymn #1 the same everywhere!

Chapel was a delight and I secretly recorded some of the singing so that you could have a listen.  I also was touched as the chaplain at one point said “ You may be asking yourself, why am I here? What am I supposed to be doing?”  Funny after my comments last night. “You are here as a friend of God, to show Jesus’ love, and to wait for His coming.”  

We got all the sodas down to the lab, signs were made, and flags were hung to make the start of the blood drive.  Many participated. Donors included medical staff, people from the village, the adoptive moms, and many visitors. In total, 38 units were collected.  This will save so many lives. The way the system has worked in the past, a patient in need of blood would need to have a guardian that could donate and the blood be a match.  We have had many patients needing blood but without a guardian that was a match to donate, so they didn’t get blood. With the blood bank reserve, now a guardian can donate and even if not a match, their donation will be kept and the appropriate type given to the designated patient.

On Wednesday, there is a Pediatric clinic for all of the premie babies, CP kids, and other chronic problems.  Catherine has asked me to help with it each week and it is great to get to work alongside her being able to help and learn all at the same time.  We saw about 40 patients and worked until way after lunch. Me pronouncing the names to call them into the room seems to be super entertaining to the moms.  I might be the biggest comedy act this side of Lake Malawi! The patients are absolutely precious though as you can see in the picture.

I went back to the guesthouse for a quick sandwich and headed back to the pediatric ward.  We had a couple of new admissions. One was a 4 ½ year old weighing only 14 pounds with cerebral palsy and severe malnutrition.  Another had been admitted for asthma, but listening to him it appeared to be more like severe croup. It took quite a while to get appropriate medications started and as I type this I still worry a little about him, but he was improved when I left.  We are also having more patients with malaria admitted. It was a long and busy day but I leave feeling that I was at least helpful.

The children greeted me as I arrived home.  They were happy to review color names by pointing to the colorful balloon buttons on my white coat.  I also have been carrying my things for work in a bag Mom had made for me with family pictures on it.  I have had half a dozen Malawians stop me to ask about the pictures on my bag. They just can’t believe it!  The kids did the same today and required me to name everyone in the pictures, which is about everyone in the family.  

We had a big dinner all together tonight.  I like our little group we have now and hope that it stays this comfortable as other guest come and go.  We cleaned up and while the moms put the kids to bed, I chatted with the students. We started talking about the chapel service and they asked a lot of faith/religion questions.  We covered topics from heaven and hell, death of children, to God’s will. I was able to present the full gospel and what my faith means to me to a young German Catholic, Dutch agnostic, and Dutch atheist.  

The atheist commented that she had had many conversations like this in her life because she is curious but that the Christians never seemed to be clear about what they believed and why.  The agnostic asked many questions about heaven and hell that I answered honestly. I explained that many Christians worry about sounding judgemental or being offensive in stating that there is a heaven and a hell and without believing in Jesus you are not going to heaven.  The truth is, though, if I really believe what I say I do, that then it is much more mean and unloving for me to not share and to not let people know about the good news of Jesus. I asked the atheist if any of that was offensive to her and she assured me it was not and that she liked that I was clear and not vague.  We talked about the differences in religions with great questions about what I saw as the fate of believers of other religions. I was able to share how Christianity is different in that the God loves us and has pursued a relationship with each of us and created a way for us all to be saved and join Him in heaven. I told them that I believe our time tonight was about God loving them and putting someone in their path to share that with them.

Melissa came in and joined us and questions were asked of her and she responded often verbatim of what I had said such that they giggled and laughed.  She also shared her sweet testimony. We again discussed hard issues like death and disease. The backdrop of Malawi adds an element of difficulty to this talk.  We talked about Joseph and Lee Strobel books and free will. We sipped our tea, laughed about other things, and headed to bed. Hopefully seeds were planted.  

Bottom line, it was a life saving day.  From temporal fixes in the blood bank to sharing eternal hope.