After leaving Tansen Mission Hospital we took a holiday in South Africa. We spent Christmas in Cape Town, which is absolutely beautiful. Table Top Mountain, penguins at the beach, wine country, pristine coastline, a safari, and many hours splashing in the waves were the highlights.
We arrived in Harare, Zimbabwe, Jan 11, 2013 fully rested
and ready to get to work. Our original
plan was to head straight out to Karanda Mission Hospital in the bush where
Ryan had previously spent 6 months in 2006.
However, our plans have changed as the Medical Council here granted
Ryan’s medical license contingent on spending 3 months working in Harare. At first we were quite disappointed with this
news. However, we have again been shown
that the Lord’s plans are better than our own.
Ryan has been working at the two main trauma and teaching hospitals in
the country that provide care for the poor, Harare Hospital and Parirenyatwa
Hospital. A good friend and Karanda
missionary, Jon Christiansen, dropped me off at Parirenyatwa Hospital the first
day, knowing that we had wanted to be serving at the mission hospital. He offered up a prayer that I hope would
resonate with you wherever you are working.
He prayed that even though I was working at this government institution
and not the “mission” that I could be “salt and light to the people you
encounter wherever you are.” This has
been an encouragement to me and I pray that it would be for you as well. 
The typical day starts with doing an x-ray round with the
orthopaedic residents at Parirenyatwa Hospital and then driving the Toyota Tazz
across town to work at Harare Central Hospital.
It has been wonderful to work with these eager residents and get to know
the handful of orthopaedic surgeons working in this country of 12 million
people. My first day rounding at Harare
Hospital I met an 18-month-old girl named Angel. Her mom is in South Africa and no one knows
where Dad is. She had been looked after
by a nanny and was just brought to the hospital after neighbors were
concerned. She wasn’t able to walk or
crawl and further examination showed she had been systematically abused and had
a total of 9 fractures in every limb of her little body. Nobody comes to visit her. I have taken this little Angel under my wing
and with traction, lots of prayers and time her fractures are healed. Unfortunately, adoption is regarded as a last
resort for placement here. We are
looking for a safe place for her.
Rounding at Harare Hospital these first days the situation seemed
quite desperate. The wards and clinics
are full of patients that need an operation, but we are only able to accomplish
1-3 orthopaedic operations per day and 1PM is the witching hour when everything
seems to come to a halt. In a little
over a month, reasons for the theatre being shut down have included: no power,
no water, no steam for autoclave, no nursing staff, no anesthesia staff, the
equipment wasn’t washed, the implants were lost, no gowns, no sheets, underpaid
staff leaving early to moonlight in private clinics, continuing medical
education, etc. To hear a patient who
has been on the ward for weeks weeping after spending the morning waiting in
the OR hallway only to have their surgery cancelled again is difficult. I have focused on the patients we can help and
prayed about everything else. Slowly,
our team is starting to get more done. These
hospitals were in fact shut down just a few years ago as Zimbabwe hit bottom
(hopefully) and at least now the doors are open and the lights on (sometimes).
Despite the difficulties, there is much to be encouraged
by! One of the most exciting blessings
of this Harare detour is that SIGN (www.signfracturecare.org),
described in a previous post, is providing intramedullary nail equipment to
care for the desperately poor patients with fractures at both Harare Hospital
and Parirenyatwa Hospital. This wouldn’t
have happened if I had been permitted to go to Karanda straight away. Sponsorship of these programs is still needed
if you are so moved. One of the first
patients we treated with the SIGN system in Zimbabwe was a woman who was 6
months pregnant and had been in a bad motor vehicle accident before Christmas
in Zambia. She fractured her femur,
broke her tibia in two places, and had the skin peeled off the back of her
calf. She tried to get treatment in
Zambia and couldn’t. She rode a bus to
Botswana looking for treatment and couldn’t find it. Finally, 6 weeks after her injury she arrived
in Zimbabwe very pregnant and with a very shattered limb which we were able to
put back together with the SIGN system.
Without this donated implant her unborn baby would likely have been
walking before she was!
Recently we took a fly-fishing trip out to the Highlands
near the Mozambique border with Dr. Prawius from the U.S. Embassy and Pastor
John Bell. We had first been introduced
to Pastor Bell after his sermon on “Salt and Light.” A week later we were sharing the poetry of
the fly rod. Not my first time out, I
fished hard for two days and was empty-handed.
Andrea took a turn and landed a nice Rainbow Trout on her third
cast! Pastor Bell said God routes for
the underdog. I could only smile J
It felt good to smile, as there have been many tears at our
house the past few weeks. Our friend,
Becca Sweeney (Koch), was called home to the Lord after battling leukemia,
leaving behind a husband, two young children, and a legacy of love and
grace. This news came a few days on the
heels of the passing of my grandfather, Harold Horazdovsky. I last saw my Grandpa Harry in July and would
have guessed he had many years left with us.
When my Grandma Sally passed just a couple months ago after a lifetime
together my Grandpa told her, “Don’t get too far ahead of me.” They are together again. Being far away during these times has been
hard.
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| Harry and Sally |
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| Kidwell's hours after the addition of their newest member |
Win, Andrea, and I all piled in the front seat and drove an
old Land Cruiser out to Karanda Hospital for the weekend Thursday night to
treat some fracture patients. The 2.5-hour
trip took almost 5 hours due some of the wildest thunderstorms we have ever
seen. We saw a tree fly through the air
and topple a power line. White knuckled
we drove in the dark on beat up roads submerged in water and through the river
to reach Karanda safely. That old
Cruiser is now officially part of the family.
While we were at Karanda we got to see the mission family grow as
well. The Kidwell’s (www.kidwellsinafrica.blogspot.com)
delivered their much anticipated little girl, Grace, faster than expected right
on the living room floor, while their two young boys ate dinner and watched a
movie with us. No one can remember the
last time a missionary had a baby at Karanda.
Perfect timing!
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| Win riding shotgun |
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| Love this truck |
