Spared from Certain Death

Oh how we wish you could see the impact your prayers and support are making here at the Good News Hospital!

Just yesterday, Jesh was faced with a situation that has kept him up during the night. 

An 8 year old boy had been brought in last week with necrotising fasciatis, or flesh-eating disease. When Jesh tried to clean up the wound, it was discovered that it had already gone from his waist down his leg. The necessary "clean up" wasn't enough to save this child. He needed an amputation. 

But when Jesh told the family, they said "no". In fact, they wanted to just bring the boy home immediately. 

We couldn't understand this, and tried to imagine what sort of circumstances would lead to a decision like this. How could this be what the family wanted??

Jesh told them they needed to leave him one more night, and meanwhile, he agonized over what to do. 

Today, Jesh sat down with the family again, to see if there was any way we would change their seemingly-determined minds. We had talked it over, and prayed about it, and decided that if there was any way at all that we could help the family through this, while keeping the boy at the hospital and giving him the best treatment we can manage, we would do it. 

I just received word that the family has said if we can help financially with their child's care and bills, they will allow Jesh to proceed with his plan to attempt to save this boys' life by removing his leg. 

Our ability to offer this kind of care and financial support necessary is directly because of our supporters and donors. As it turns out, the family received their first medical bill yesterday. Undoubtedly, they knew they could not take on the enormous burden of not only the hospital bills, but also providing someone full-time to help care for this boy at the hospital. This was most likely more then they could manage, so their only choice was to leave, and watch their child die. 

Today, we were able to give this family hope. We were able to see a need, and respond. And all because we are here, thanks to those of you who are invested from afar. 

Today, we were able to look on impending death through the face of a child, and fight for him. Because month by month we are joined by many who are setting aside their hard-earned money to be used in places like our small, rural hospital in Madagascar. 

And we are so grateful. 

It breaks our hearts to think of how common this is. Families have to make incredibly difficult choices between saving one child and keeping their remaining family members alive and fed. It's impossible to imagine what they face. 

This story of perseverance and the hope of survival for this boy is one of many. But it matters. He matters. And we want to take this opportunity to thank you all who have given over the years to allow children like this a chance at life. To give him hope. 

The road in front of this child and his family will be long and uncertain. The surgeries and recovery necessary to see him through is going to be intense. But we have an opportunity, day by day, and even month by month, to encourage them. To remind them that their son matters, and not just to us. That this gesture of love and concern is only a fraction of what God offers to all of us, if we allow him to. Just like they are allowing us to help, we can allow God to lead us away from the face of death to glorious life in Him. 

So THANK YOU. You're making an impact in the lives of those who literally could not do it on their own. 

Open Borders

*Please consider sharing our Teacher job posting below!

Change is finally coming! Madagascar’s borders have opened for the first time since COVID began in March 2020. Many teammates are in line to return throughout the next month, hopefully rested and encouraged after their much-needed time away. In addition to the 6 long-term missionaries returning, we have a new young family and 2 short-term medical staff who are arriving soon. One family has already made it into the country, and another is at the airport as I write, so this is hopeful!

As we welcome some, we also prepare say goodbye to others. The family who came around the same time as us will be leaving. They have become dear friends, and as their children are the similar in age to our oldest, this loss will be felt greatly. Our life requires flexibility, with so many comings and goings, but we feel it most for our children. God has always provided friends for them, though, and even though we don’t see any English kids their ages coming in the near future, we trust He has a plan. We are encouraged by their relationships with french-speaking friends at the local school, and hope to nurture those relationships even more as the children once again say goodbye. 

Meanwhile, there are many projects happening that keep this place, and us, busy. Jesh has been working with an Engineering company who will come from South Africa to help make plans for sustainable water/electrical/solar solutions. Some of you will have seen on Facebook that we have been in a season of limited water. While it’s time-consuming to run around filling buckets each day, it’s a privilege that we even get water. We watch people in our neighborhood hauling water in the heat every day and count our blessings. We hope that better systems in place can allow the basics to function consistently, so we can focus our time and energy elsewhere. 

It’s been amazing to see God move others as we work to get  Engineering Ministries International here, as professionals like this team are not cheap to obtain. If you’d like to invest in the water and solar projects, please email us here.

The new Surgical Ward at the hospital is nearly complete, and an electrician will come from Ireland soon to help get everything hooked up. And after that will be a huge inauguration celebration in January. Rumour has it some very high-up dignitaries may come, so it’s a pretty big deal around here. 

In addition, we have had an ongoing fundraising appeal happening with Fellowship International to raise the necessary funding for the residency program beginning in just a couple of months. Over $100,000 has come in from across Canada. Isn’t that awesome? Check out the video here.

I (Julie) have been supporting our guesthouse through this season of no visitors by using the extra time to teach new recipes to the staff. It's helped them stay employed, while increasing their skills for our team in the future. And it's been so fun to see (and eat!) their results, and hear they have even tried some at home for their families. 

I have also been helping our team with administration, in addition to the administrative needs for our family and projects. 

Through it all, we continue to plough ahead with our kids' education. While the children all attend some french classes at the local school, I am primarily responsible for their english learning. It's been neat to be so involved, but our capacity to keep up in this environment is limited.  

We are looking and praying for an individual who might be willing to come and help us with their future education as they get into middle school years and their needs become more complex. Know anyone who might be interested? Please consider sending them this job posting.

So this is us right now! 

Bless you as the seasons changes and we begin to anticipate the special holiday ahead! 

As the heat is rising, I’m busy trying to incorporate mint and pumpkin spice into everything cold... 

Enjoy getting cozy around there!

Julie, Jesh and the fam

Hope & Healing

Strangely, some of my favourite and most challenging conditions to treat are severe burns. What makes them challenging are a number of factors. Take for example my current patient a young man named Gerard (name changed to preserve his identity). He fell in a cooking fire backwards in his home likely the result of an undiagnosed seizure. When he came to our hospital several months ago, his entire upper back, neck, shoulders, side of face, arm, eye and skull were severely burned. His skull specifically was burned right down to bone. In most developed countries, patients like this would be transferred to a high volume burn care unit where there would be treated by a multidisciplinary team of plastic surgeons, nutritionists, physiotherapists and nurses. 

In developing countries, there often aren’t high volume burn centres and frequently patients are so poor that they lack the means to get there, let alone afford the care (if available). Care can be sporadic and interrupted due to lack of finances or resources.

For patients like Gerard, it’s really is a matter of life or severe suffering and eventually death.

His first major challenge is nutrition. Severe burns basically destroy the skin and the capacity to retain fluid and protein. In fact, severe burns are the highest demanding injury for nutrition - even higher than trauma and severe infection. You can imagine the need for the body to reconstruct skin, soft-tissue and the cells required to resist infection while at the same time losing the ingredients to do so through extensive open wounds. 

Protein is key! 

But in Madagascar, many people do not regularly eat protein. Some people only eat meat once a month because it is expensive (or a luxury food). You can understand the challenge! 

Gerard is on strict doctor's orders not to share his protein meals with anyone! Sometime he eats duck and we joke with him that we are jealous of what he is eating…but he has been told not to share with us. This makes him smile. 

Burns need regular dressing changes with clean sterile dressings. This takes a team when a larger percentage of the body is burned. Dressings need to be regularly removed as bacterial and infection begins to multiply in them. Replacing them, keeps the wounds clean. Recently we ran out of vaseline gauze. You can imagine pulling dry gauze off an open wound after it is kinda stuck. Thankfully, we have been able to start making and sterilizing our own gauze (which actually works better in my opinion) than the pre-packaged stuff. 

Another challenge is timing surgeries. Because of the massive metabolic needs and limited nutritional resources, it is critical to get his wounds clean so they can be grafted in a hurry before he loses the nutritional race. For Gerard, I grafted as much of his wound surface early as possible, leaving more complicated areas for later. This reduced his metabolic demands quickly allowing his body to “catch up” and gain ground resisting infection and beginning to heal.

Then there is the issue of the skull. With desiccated dead bone on the outside and brain not far below the challenge is how to create a surface that can be grafted to. You can’t graft onto dead bone. The only option in Gerard was to try to stimulate granulation tissue by drilling partially through his skull. This would allow any viable tissue within the thin skull to slowly grow out and hopefully cover some of the exposed bone. Additionally, an outer layer of his dead skull bone would separate from the live bone below it and slough off with granulation tissue below that can be eventually be grafted. Waiting for this takes patiences, nutrition and lots of wound care. 

Then there is the challenge of protecting the delicate grafts. Each graft is harvested from a part of his body, legs, back, arms or buttox. Using a “glorified cheese cutter” knife, skin is shaved from each donor site and sutured over the burn wounds. Vaseline gauze is placed over both sites and everything is wrapped to keep infection out. Having worked in Africa, I have seen grafts infested with maggots after several days and all my graft patients are under strict orders to rest 24 hours a day in a mosquito netted bed to keep away insects. They also are instructed not move their grafted body parts for up to 7 days. For large burns like Gerard’s, there are not endless body parts to get skin so making each graft count requires strict measures.  

Then there are the challenges of patient resources. Many people in developing countries suffer significant financial loss from health care bills and burns are famous for this. As a surgeon, I am always trying to think of ways to save patient’s money without compromising their care. To save Gerard and other patients money, we sterilize T-shirts to them as re-usable bandages. This also helps because covering the torso is challenging.

Over the last four months, our tireless team of nurses and OR staff have performed dressing changes 3-5 times per week for Gerard. He has undergone multiple operations. Miraculously he continues to heal. In fact, up until his more recent surgery, he was coming to the hospital as an outpatient.

The reason I love treating burns is being able to witness hope and healing. Walking these patients through each dressing change. Encouraging them to stay strong. Giving them realistic goals. Finding ways to make them laugh and experience joy among the suffering. It’s the reason I love my work as a surgeon in Africa. Giving dignity to those who would likely otherwise have little or no hope. 

Gerard is frequently told that he is a walking miracle. And in many ways given the context we are working in... he is! I think as we work to get the last of his wounds covered...he might be starting to feel like one! 

I am extremely grateful for the advice of two plastic surgery colleagues who have both worked in challenging African contexts and who have helped me treat Gerard using Whatsapp! (you know who  you are)

Jesh

A Tale of Take-Out

People working overseas will go to great lengths to get take-out, especially when certain restaurants are not available. Indian food is one of the those foods our family loves. 

I was recently in the capital to help present the new surgical training program (PAACS) to the Health Minister. A trip to the city means one thing to my wife - access to food. Armed with her shopping lists and a cooler bag, I was tasked with traversing the city for ingredients unavailable in our rural town north on the island. Along with cheese and chicken, I was given the Indian restaurant wishlist.

So after purchasing some coveted sauces two nights prior and freezing them in the hotel freezer, they made their way to the International Airport, through security, and aboard a Helimission flight north, where two excited families will enjoy Butter Chicken, Tika masala and Tandoori! 

If groceries are this complicated, you can imagine the hoops we jump through to bring surgical equipment and medical supplies to our site. Along with the ingredient-search, I spent many hours visiting medical suppliers and pharmacies to research sourcing the necessary medications and equipment to better serve our community in Mandristara. I am surprised that we are able to so much surgically with such limited access to resources.

However, because of donors like you and partners like Samaritan's Purse, we have a container of life-saving medical equipment and supplies en route to help us serve here. 

Last summer, I had the opportunity to drive across the closed US border to get to the World Medical Missions warehouse in North Carolina. It's an incredible warehouse, larger then Costco, with shelves stacked with supplies obtained for the express purpose of serving hospitals like ours. I was able to select equipment that will be foundational in helping us better teach and operate.

Of course, it has to get here. You can imagine the effort that requires when simple ingredients take Herculean effort to obtain! 

After months of complications and delays, we have received word that this container should "land" at the coast of Madagascar in the next couple of days.

So please join us in praying for this process. It will arrive at the port, and face a potentially costly customs negotiation. Then, it will day a couple of days travelling ridiculously rough roads before finally making it here. I may need to leave our already understaffed hospital for a long drive and a few days of discussions to help the process along.

But once here, we will have equipment and tools to fix what is broken, build what we need, and hopefully bless and improve many lives as a result. 

And, my wife will be thrilled to see her christmas decorations and homeschool books. "Happy Wife, Happy Life", they say.

Additionally:

- We are actively seeking a missionary teacher for our older children. 

As the english community grows with many young children, our older children need educational support moving into the higher-level grades. Our current teacher already spans 6 grade levels, and as our oldest begins middle school, we are aware that our ability to be his primary educational support is limited. 

Please share this need if you know of anyone, young or old, who has a heart to teach and support english education.

We are happy to share more details and discuss what this could look like!

- The children begin french school next week - English school when their books arrive on the container!

- Julie will be more involved in teaching this fall. Our teacher is visiting England, but current border closures are keeping missionaries from being able to get back.

- These closures also mean we are short-staffed at the hospital. Please pray that we have stamina and grace for the work and the wait.

Thanks for supporting this vital work here in Madagascar. We are so grateful for this community who loves and cares for us and this project.

By Jesh (and Julie)

Discharge Advice

These pictures give a bit of insight to our operating room and some of the staff here that make generally 5+ major operations happen per day. Yesterday for example, it was three C-sections, a debridement of necrotizing fasciitis, an ectopic pregnancy, a D&C, a 20% surface area burn graft change which includes head and face, two arm fractures/casts and an ankle reduction. Without the people in these pictures, none of this would be possible... but these pictures have nothing to do with this post. I just want to brag about my team.

So often I give patients advice or counsel but easily forget about their reality. I recently discharged a young boy with a bad osteomyelitis infection in his leg. He had a chronic wound over his leg which drains pus everyday. X-ray confirmed the diagnosis. It was a usual presentation of osteomyelitis which is a fancy word for infected bone. It is hard to treat, especially in Africa. Bone is generally resistant to infection but once it gets infected, a part of it dies and produces pus forming a chronically draining wound.

As a surgeon, you can’t just remove it, at least not right away or you leave your patient without a functional leg or arm. In North America, we have an armament of antibiotics, special long term IV lines and surgical techniques and rarely do patients present with chronic osteomyelitis. Here, we have two antibiotics and I can’t afford for the infection to build resistance to them. Waiting is key. Over time, despite the presence of infection, healthy bone will separate itself and envelopes the dead bone while keeping the structural functionality of the limb. This process takes time, weeks to months. Once there is adequate separation and the healthy bone can support the limb, an operation can be performed where the dead bone is removed. Sometimes this dead piece of bone is inside the healthy bone and a hole needs to be made to pull it out as the healthy bone has grown around it. The wound and residual healthy bone is then left open to granulate in and with wound care it heals. It’s a lengthy painful ordeal for the patient but it works.

Until the operation though, the infected bone continues to produce pus which chronically drains. It sucks for the patient and I hate sending people home with chronic wounds but there is little else that can be done. I am working against a challenging illness, limited antibiotics, antibiotic resistance and also the financial resources of the family who generally can’t afford multiple operations or lengthy bouts of wound care.

To save the family money, I suggested they do some of the wound care at home. They live far from the the hospital and it was not realistic for them to come every day for a wound that won’t change much over the course of several months. I told them they could just wash it with water from a tap or a pump. It’s my usual wound care advice. Water from a hand pump or a tap can be expected to be reasonably clean. But, the father responded that they had neither near them. I asked them where they got their drinking water from. He replied from, “the river.” Sometimes I forget my patients' reality.

We discussed options and settled on the family using a pop bottle of clean water from a tap or pump to use for their wound care. They would have to get it from afar and bring it home. He will come back in a few months and hopefully the bone separation process will be complete so we can remove the infected bone and get his wound healed.

As the family walked off, I couldn’t help but think about life without running water. I realized in that moment how blessed I was to have water come out from 7 places in my house. Taps, toilets and a washing machine were things that this family definitely did not have. I wondered what illnesses they might get from drinking from the river.

Perspective is really important when giving discharge advice but it’s also important because it drives thankfulness in my own life. I couldn’t imagine living without running water… it’s just one of the many realities my patient’s face.

By Jesh

Transplanted

verb

/tran(t)sˈplant/

1. move or transfer (something) to another place or situation, typically with some effort or upheaval.

 

Cherry tomatoes, basil..and pineapples!
'Cause, we can...(and in the background,
Jesh's blue compost - on rollers!)

I love gardening. 

With each move, I’ve made an effort to get something - anything - growing (usually edible, let's face it). It is just so therapeutic to get your hands dirty and care for something while it takes shape, nourishing it along the way. 

For me, gardening makes a place feel like home. Our new home in Mandristara has been a blank canvas, in need of design and order and vision. The rains made quick work of the red clay soil around our pathways, and rivers wore down the mud, eroding the new banks that held up our walkways surrounding the foundation. Jesh used the need for retaining walls to envision spaces for planting and growing. So fun to plan what to plant and leave to grow for years to come. A space to find rest and beauty; to breathe after hard days, and at the start of new ones. 

Jesh's multi-purpose design - which we now have 
great soil in, and plants growing

Lots of room for ideas!

I have found great satisfaction in moving and transplanting and propagating trees and flowers, waiting to see what will work in their new environments. 

Being transplanted feels like exactly what our family has done, over and over again. We had no idea we would end up doing 5 international moves in 4 years! 

My attempt at a "Xeriscape Garden"
to use an area with poor soil/irrigation. 
Hoping it will work in the dryer season!

Most of these are shoots from other plants,
shared by friends and workers or found growing wild.
The sustainability appeals to me.

But there are certainly benefits to being transplanted. 

"Plants that have already developed roots and other systems are stronger, making them less vulnerable to outside conditions." (from the internet)

I love getting to see the parallels in our lives and God's creation. 

I am left certain that He knew just what we would need in order to be ready for each new season. That He understood it would take "effort" and "upheaval", but that He knows where we need to be in the long run, and is preparing us for that. 

And I am aware that it takes time to develop new roots after a transplant. We are in that space once again. Navigating this new environment, re-establishing and strengthening our root system. Productivity can feel "stunted" as change takes time to adapt to. For awhile after a transplant, plants may not look like they're visibly growing or thriving (and here, they sometimes just look totally dead, but every analogy has a breaking point!). 

But there's a lot happening under the surface. 

Attempting to propagate a Hibiscus -
from stick, to roots, to growth, so far so good!

I'm willing to trust the Master Gardener's overall design and am seeking to enjoy the (sometimes slow) process of putting down new roots.

HAPPY SPRING!

By Julie

Here's a few "highs and lows" to keep you in the loop until we write again!

- The Good News Hospital has been accepted as a PAACS Surgical Residency Training site! The surgical department's first residents will begin January, 2022. 

- COVID has picked up in the country, and we have national friends who have been losing loved ones at a rapid rate. While 4 missionary staff and other national staff have recently had COVID, we are grateful that all have recovered well. We hear vaccinations may be available for hospital staff soon, though we hold that loosely!

- The kids have adjusted wonderfully, in spite of multiple quarantines/lockdowns/confinements and changing restrictions, like everywhere. They began part-time at the local french school, but that has been closed since Easter, so they're doing english school (a mix with our amazing teachers and homeschool) here on our hospital compound.  Once again they have lovely friends, which we never take for granted! 

- We have been trying to persevere with language acquisition - prayers appreciated!:)

**CURRENT NEED:

TEACHER for english-speaking missionary kids (short or long-term possibilities)

 **Teaching qualifications not necessarily required

We currently need some teaching support for our homeschool curriculums while our long-term teacher gets some extended time in England. 

Additionally, as our children get older and more young families arrive, we are looking ahead at the need for another teacher for a year or more. 

Please e-mail us with any interest or inquiries, and feel free to forward this post!

Hope

We are excited about what is happening around our new home at the Good News Hospital in Mandritsara. Last month we made the trip from Canada to Madagascar during this pandemic world. Our timing was coincidentally or providentially good because the route we took has now been shut down due to further travel restrictions into Madagascar. 

Despite what is going on the rest of the world, the hospital here is bustling with construction activity including a new surgical building, new houses and supporting structures. It is beacon of hope in this remote community. 

But, buildings and construction are not the only things bringing hope. We were very excited to meet new and veteran national and international colleagues and their families who like us, have also come to support the hospital. This includes a Malagasy surgeon and his wife who moved to the hospital to help support the surgical department and future training. His arrival gives us the minimum number of surgeons we need to train surgical residents and we look forward to this spring as the details of a surgical training at the Good News Hospital will be determined. Our team is a truly multinational team.

We can honestly say that we are excited to be learning a new language (in fact, the wife of the Malagasy surgeon is our teacher) and yet it is humbling to feel like a child again! But we know that as our capacity to communicate in Malagasy increases, so does our capacity to better support the work and build relationships. Most patients and those in the community do not speak french so understanding the local language is vital for building relationships and working. 

On Sunday we attended a small local church a short walk from the hospital. As we expected, it was almost all in Malagasy. We were just thankful to recognize a Malagasy number when they listed the song numbers. What we didn’t expect was when the choir and congregation attempted to sing a song in english. What an encouragement and joy to worship God in two languages together even when we don't speak each other's language....yet!

When I read about the life of Christ, I can’t help but see two essential and integral aspects of His ministry. The first was His message of hope - the Gospel. But the second, which validated the gospel, was His life. He helped the suffering through healing, the hungry through feeding and the downcast with encouragement.

This is the hope we want to reflect and we need to live it! Jesh

Making a Way

 We made it!

We arrived safely to a small island off the shore of mainland Madagascar on February 11 after an uneventful trip-which was no small thing! 

Once here, we realized we had been “holding our breaths” in many ways. The risk-factors in getting here had felt so high, we had been bracing ourselves that we may not make it. In spite of knowing that, we also knew that we needed to move forward, trusting God could make a way. It makes me think of the Israelites in the Old Testament, when God brought them out of Egypt. How easily they saw the problems and challenges they faced, and how quickly they forgot about God's faithfulness to them. We didn't want to forget...and we are so thankful for those of you who stood with us in faith and prayer that God would make a way. 

Eerily quiet at Toronto airport.
There were only 77 people scheduled
for our flight to Ethiopia!

Nosy-Be - the most wonderful quarantine
location I can imagine!

After 5 days on the small island (Nosy-Be) we took a little plane to our new town, Mandristara. This stop was just a tease-we spent a total of 16 hours here! Jesh was able to join his surgical colleagues for a virtual site visit with leaders of PAACS (we have written more about this surgical residency program in past posts, but here’s the link to their program https://paacs.net, which we hope will come to the Good News Hospital in 2022). 

Leaving Mandritsara 16 hours after arrival. 
We will be back - soon!

While Jesh was in on that meeting, I was able to lay eyes on our newly completed house. I can hardly believe the beautiful place we will get to settle down in and call our home! A handful of teammates quickly helped take measurements and make notes on items we needed to gather in the capital city, a 2 days drive or a short flight away, to finish the home. 

It was a total whirlwind, and after a short night, we were off again. 

This is where we have been for nearly 2 weeks now! In between Jesh and I getting rather ill, we have spent many hours traversing the city and making decisions so we can have a stove and curtains and somewhere to sit at the end of long days. We had put some basics on a container of medical supplies last summer (that post is here) that is being sent here by Samaritan’s Purse, however, due to covid challenges and weather issues, the container has not yet left the USA. We hope to see it arrive this summer. 

The streets of Antananarivo,
capital of Madagascar

The process to get to the Good News Hospital has been anything but simple. And yet, what a joy to get front-row seats as God made it happen. 

We hope that you can be as encouraged as we are as you hear of His provision, and are reminded that we serve a God who can make a way "where there seems to be no way". 

Prayer and praise:

• We made it! Looking forward to putting away our suitcases for awhile...

• A week before us, another surgeon and his wife also arrived. This is exciting for multiple reasons. Marco is a Malagasy surgeon who was trained by the PAACS program in another country.  Him being here gives the hospital the required number of surgeons to seek approval for the PAACS program. 

Prayer:

• Please pray for the PAACS leaders as they present our hospital to their board and consider approval to begin the residency training program in January, 2022

• We head back to Mandritsara tomorrow - and "real life" begins!

• We will start the kids in their new french school next week, as well as continue with our English homeschool curriculum. Praying we get some better routines in place as the last 8 months have been rather crazy!

• Jesh and I will begin learning the national language at the end of this week. It is daunting, but we know communication is vital for building relationships, and both of us will need the local language in our circles. 

• Also pray with us that the container full of medical supplies (and some personal things!) will arrive safely in the coming months. It has many items necessary for the hospital to be ready to train surgical residents.

We will continue to keep you in-the-know here on our blog, but more day-to-day tidbits and photos can be found on our Facebook page. You can find us here.

By Julie

READY...SET....GO!

After arriving back in Canada from Togo, West Africa last June we have definitely made our way around the country. Covid extended our stay in Canada by almost 4 months. Due to the unreliability of flights and the fact that we have travelled with most of what we own, we opted to do most of our travelling by land. If we seemed a bit red-eyed, this could be why:

• We travelled 4200km across Canada and back.
• Jesh travelled 1300km to North Carolina and back to help load a shipping container of supplies
• Jesh travelled 600km to southern Alberta and back
• Our family travelled 500 km from Vernon to Vancouver and back twice.
• We moved 1000km from Kingston to Northern Ontario while we awaited visa paperwork and then moved back.

But after all this....we will finally be departing for Madagascar on Feb 9th!!!

We have learned that travelling during a pandemic is no a small undertaking with special paperwork, visas, protocols and travel arrangements. Again, we find ourselves in a living room surrounded by bins though we felt a new country deserved a new colour so instead of our typical yellow lidded bins, we have opted for red. 

Julie has been packing each bin carefully. She recently reminded me that when she packs, nothing breaks. Sadly, I hold the record for the lone broken item. She truly does hold this record and this will be her 5th international move with around 15 suitcases/bins of checked luggage. If there was medal, she deserves it!

As for the kids, they have decided they are ready to leave snow having happily experienced -30C in Northern Ontario. Again, even there, they learned how God has provided friends wherever they go. Recently, they had a video call with two other children their age who have recently arrived at the hospital in Madagascar and are anxiously awaiting their arrival. We are so grateful that God has given them good friends wherever we have been.

And so on Sunday we got our first set of covid tests, Monday will be a second set. We really need them to be negative so that no flight/accommodation changes need to be made. 

There are a lot of logistical dominos lined up to get us half way around the world.

Getting to a country that has basically banned all international travel as it turns out is a challenge. We first fly to Ethiopia, then to a small island off the coast of Madagascar (still open to international travel), then we take a Mission Aviation Flight (MAF) to the hospital where we will drop most of our luggage spend one night and then proceed the following day to the capital 500km away to get visa paperwork and some household things not available at the hospital. We will then return by air with MAF and stay permanently at the hospital around the beginning of March.

Is this whole venture risky? For sure! So many things could go wrong. But our faith motivates us to plan for the best, prepare for the worst and trust that God directs our steps… 

The reality is, while people are dying from a pandemic we can do little about, a lot of people are suffering and dying from illnesses we can do a lot about. This is the reason we choose to go.

Covid is not very conducive to a nomadic family and we appreciate the many people who have made it possible for us to spend these last 8 months in Canada.  

There are a lot of exciting developments at the Good News Hospital which we will update you on soon...

Jesh