The Final Countdown

 It's been a bit of a stretch of no communication, and we thought we would double the fun this month!

In actual fact, projects are in full tilt, and we would love to not only update you on the happenings, but ask for your prayer in the process. Progress can be a test of patience, and even with deadlines looming, many key details have yet to be sorted out. Naturally, this brings with it a fair amount of stress. It think our heart rates might be reading as if we are doing a steady amount of cardio exercise these days. 

As many of you will recall, last fall we ran the #WithoutWater campaign to bring more water to our hospital. The campaign was a roaring success, and we successfully raised nearly $60,000 to support obtaining more wells and infrastructure to support bringing more of this life-giving resource. 

Little did we know that this past January, our water levels would reach an all-time low. Rainy season didn't come to our part of the country, and water restrictions began - 7 months earlier then usual. 

Thanks to #WithoutWater, the hospital has been surviving off the added well. 

God knew what he was doing when you all pitched in to make that project a success. Even with the additional well, our maintenance team are trekking to the dry riverbed daily to dig holes and supplement the hospital's water needs. 

But we aren't done yet! 

Pump houses surrounding the wells from 

the #WithoutWater project last fall

Our maintenance team has been digging trenches
(for weeks!) so we can connect the pipes
and electrical to the wells in the fields.
Still a ways to go!

This year, we have continued to move forward to finish up the projects that began last fall. While our electrical overhaul began, we were unable to finish it...until now. At the end of June, a team of 9 from Ireland and Australia will come to help us run wires, upgrade the current transformer, add a new generator, and (Lord-willing) add a power conditioner to the hospital grid. 

This is a lot of technical jibber-jabber. Basically, we hope that by July, we have more water coming in, and more, better quality power. 

As we speak, Jesh is in the capital city trying to source equipment needed for the electrical upgrades (Don't even get us started on that - why is the power company not doing this, one might ask?). The container with the necessary cables for the electrical team is stuck in customs. An important shipment from the Engineering team in South Africa is also stuck. And our power conditioner didn't get sent in time...so we don't know if it will be here while the electrical team is still here. 

Hence our call to prayer. 

We recognize that at the end of the day, there is only so much we can do. And yet over and over we have seen God "make a way where there seems to be no way". These basic resources are fundamental to continued hospital operations, and ultimately patient care, so it propels us to do everything we can to continue forward.

We are asking that you join us in praying these projects through to the finish. We know that it might not all work out perfectly, but we are just praying that some of the pieces shift so we can see progress come to this struggling part of the world. We long to bring the resources that will fuel hope, healing and encouragement to the sick and weary in our corner of the world. 

We will try to keep our facebook page updated as we move into this next month. 

Oh, and would you pray for our family as well? I (Julie) am heading out of the country (Jesh and I will pass in the air!), and it feels like the worst possible time in many ways. I'm trusting these plans are meant to be, but praying Jesh and the kids will not only survive, but mange well (and selfishly, that I don't come back to chaos??:). Additionally, that we would find ways to navigate the stress and busyness of the next month with grace and strength. It's definitely full-on, and we are readying ourselves for the (hopefully) final push on some of these things!!

Thanks for standing with us,

By Julie 

Do you Love Blood?

I have a love/hate relationship with blood. Thousands of years ago it was written that “the life of the flesh is in the blood.” There is so much truth to this. I do appreciate blood for this reason. But, I also hate it. It is often the time limiting factor to performing life saving surgery. It gets in the way of a nice dissection and can be time consuming.

In the west, blood banks provide hospitals with needed blood when a trauma patient comes in or when a patient bleeds during a miscarriage or C-section. Where I work, getting blood is a constant challenge. We have no blood bank, meaning any transfused blood must come directly from live donors. For elective surgery it means we have time to find compatible donors prior to a potentially bloody surgery. 

Unfortunately much of the surgery we perform in Mandritsara is emergency in nature. A normal blood level is around 120-140 but we see people coming into hospital frequently with levels 40-50 and sometimes even 30. 

As a surgeon, when someone is bleeding we are trained to resuscitate usually involving IV fluids and then blood. Too much IV fluid dilutes your blood and impairs its ability to clot. 

So what happens when blood isn’t available? 

This is where it gets tricky. In a bleeding patient, give your patient blood and they are often in better shape to tolerate lifesaving surgery, but if that transfusion doesn’t come, then your patient is in worse shape to operate. 

So how long do you wait?

If your patient is actively bleeding, you need to stop the bleeding or they may die. But if they have lost significant amounts of blood, they may not tolerate the surgery you want to do to save them. Losing blood not only decreases your capacity to bring oxygen to tissue but it also impairs your ability to clot which makes bleeding worse. It also makes you cold impairing the biochemical processes necessary for life to occur. 

A frequent transfusion threshold is 70 in the west and sometimes higher for certain conditions. But here, depending on blood availability and how stable the patient is, we are forced to operate on patients with levels below this.

Finding compatible donors is sometimes so challenging that recently in our town, a radio station was advertising on behalf of a family willing to pay a compatible donor to give their blood for their loved one in the hospital.

I have on several occasions provided blood for patients I have operated on. This is a strange experience but one that really puts into perspective the importance of giving so others can live. 

Blood represents life in so many ways. It makes me appreciate the idea of Christ giving his blood (or life) in order to save me. It is not a stretch for me to grasp that I am hemorrhaging spiritually because of the sin in my life.

Thankfully, according to the message of the Gospel, the ultimate blood donation was given. 

This post is dedicated to our amazing lab staff who tirelessly work finding donors so that lives can be saved! JESH