Our overall feeling about our trip to Tanzania this year is a deep sense of gratitude. We are so grateful to Mission Doctors Association and to our friends and family for making this work possible and for giving our family the opportunity to build-up and sustain the health center there. This being our third summer in Tanzania, we have also come to cherish our friendships with the people in our parish and in the hospital in Bwambo Village. At times we are ready to throw in the towel, as our work there is wrought with medical challenges, sickness, lack of water, electricity, and creature comforts. However, we know that the Lord has truly called us to this place.
We are sorry the journal entries were few and far between this summer. We had no internet in Bwambo this year, which was actually a blessing for all of us. To be removed from media, computers, phones, and cars is a wonderful way to get to know your family members better. From morning until evening, the kids were painting, cleaning, digging, and planting around the hospital grounds. On their off hours (which were many), they made crazy videos in the banana groves, cooked exotic foods with local ingredients, and made up games in the bush that involved home-made slingshots and dirt balls. In the evening, Banana Gram tournaments and Bush Baby sightings were the entertainments of choice.
We became godparents to "Mary Elizabeth" (Molly's Baptismal name) and our little Francis became a Godfather to a "baby Francis" on the same day. After a beautiful Mass, we were invited to the family's home for a big feast of rice, roasted meats, fruits, and more rice, all served in large plastic buckets. Little did we know that the entire church choir would accompany us and sing beautiful hymns the entire day while we prayed, ate, and visited with over fifty guests. What a glorious day we had! One of our greatest joys is visiting families in their homes and sharing in their simple, but spirit filled celebrations.
Julian spent many hours of each week interviewing and video taping the staff and volunteers. He hopes to make a documentary on our time in Bwambo so as to encourage other medical missionary families to join the Mission Doctors Association’s wonderful ministry. Our family has been so blessed by this experience and we cannot say enough about how supportive MDA has been to our work in Bwambo.
The best news is that, after eight years of having no full-time physician on staff, Dr. Fr. Beda is now at Bwambo Health Center. After saying Mass in the morning, Dr. Fr. Beda begins his work, staying on-call and ready for patients 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Mark was not only able to work with and teach Dr. Beda some new medical techniques, but he was also able to give Dr. Beda some much-needed time away with his relatives and fellow priests. Mark has many stories to tell about the many babies he delivered, the classes he taught, and the great help the donated medical equipment and medicines were to all involved. He now considers Dr. Beda a colleague, but also a new and wonderful friend. Please keep Dr. Beda in your prayers.
Below is a list of the many ways in which your support has helped Mark and the staff in their work.
1. The ultrasound machine has saved many lives over the past three years and is still in good condition.
2. The x-ray machine has arrived and a staff member is going to Moshi (a nearby city) to be
trained as an x-ray tech this Fall.
3. The pharmacy is well-stocked with donated medications and medical supplies.
4. The newborns are all now wearing hand-knit hats from generous parishioners in Stillwater, MN. Being that the mountain is over 6000 ft. up, it can get very cold at night, and the hats are really important for the health of the new babies.
5. The new Maternity Ward, which Dr. Beda had built, was decked out with new mattresses, sheets and blankets all donated by friends and family members.
6. The St. Croix Catholic Youth Center, built through generous donations from the Faith Formation kids in Stillwater, is complete! (Pictures forthcoming.)
7. The Woman-to-Woman Project, which provides micro-loans to women in the village to start their own businesses, has been very successful. 14 women have been recipients of these loans and 100 percent of the women have started businesses and paid their monthly dues to the parish. We were able to eat a big chicken dinner at the home of an entrepreneur who started a poultry business. Another started a small pharmacy which was doing very well. We would like to continue this program and hope more people will be interested in donating $100 to sponsor one woman.
8. Over 20 kids are attending the new Kindergarten which we sponsored this year. It is fun to see the beautiful little children reading books and writing in new notebooks. Francis and Rose spent many mornings there exchanging English/Swahili phrases and sharing games from both cultures.
Again, many, many thanks to all of you for all the prayers and support you have given the hospital and parish. We could never begin to express the joy that these acts of generosity bring to the people of Bwambo Village.
We hope to continue our work in Bwambo and support the village through the hospital and parish. This coming year, we will be collecting donations to rebuild a very dilapidated house in order to bring long-term medical volunteers to Bwambo. We will also continue to collect baby hats, midwife packs, medicines, and money to hire new staff at the hospital.
We look forward to seeing many of you in the next few months and hope to share our gratitude personally with each of you some day soon.
Many blessings and thanks, The Druffners
