Jan 27, 2019 Daloa - First few days

We are enjoying the 98 degree temperatures and the air-conditioning in our new home. We live just inside the Daloa city limits on a rutted dirt road—kind of like Howie and Gwen's in Koforidua. It has lots of room and very high,ceilings, also small cockroaches and ants and unfiltered water. We don’t go barefooted very much and we buy all our drinking and toothbrushing H2O. The grocery shopping is much more limited than Accra—so far I have found lettuce, tomatoes, okra, a weird colored eggplant , onions, tiny peppers, purple cabbage and potatoes. Our hot meal of the week was potato chowder which actually tasted really good and we have eaten papaya with lime every day since our arrival.

Looking est over our roof at sunset.  It's time for the cows to come home.

 

We love our mission president and his wife, the Shermans. They do a great deal of traveling to get to all the sisters and elders for zone conferences and interviews. We have been assigned 4 branches which are not in a district yet so they have no district leaders. We attended church with one of them today, and also visited with the members of a group about 7 km. from the branch. These members have been meeting together for a year and are waiting patiently to be officially organized.  They meet under a big tree in a swept dirt area (or in a nearby house).  It reminded me somewhat of Galilee, the same simplicity of spirit, without the water. The branch had about 65 in attendance, a well-ordered Aaronic priesthood and reverent passing of the Sacrament. The spirit was very strong despite the chickens scratching and the roosters crowing. I wondered if I dared drink the water but just ignored that caution.  Four new Priests and 1 Deacon were sustained and set apart today. We had 3 youth speakers and Tom spoke  with 2 minutes notice on tithing. He shared my dad’s testimony of earning money for my brother Jack’s mission and having just enough to pay his tithing and what was required to go to South Africa in the 50’s.  My dad carried that tithing receipt in his wallet until the day that he died.

Some members of the Saioua Branch

A few members of the group in Godoua

We have never owned a truck before but the condition of the roads absolutely requires it. Our travel today was 70 km away and took us 1 hour and 50 minutes.  When we got to Saioua, we had no phone coverage so could not call to ask for directions to the meeting.  There were many people walking down the road, one with a white shirt and tie so we stopped him. He was a member and a young man with him jumped in the back of the truck and helped us get there.[ You always know when the Lord takes over].  We would NEVER have found this place. It was a covered open air veranda with some class rooms around it surrounded by a high wall.  It will be a challenge for Tom to know how to teach without all the technology the church has to offer (since the internet is slow and somehow all the prior French language tools disappeared). If anyone can do this, he can.  The only person he answers to is the mission president. 

Bro. Gballo and our new truck

We have P day on Monday and district meetings on Tuesday and we get to decide what to do with the rest of our time to be useful.

Jan 20, 2019 God is in the details of our lives

Friday night we finished a wonderful week at the Missionary Training Center.  As we prepared to go to sleep Sue turned on her CPAP machine and nothing happened.  Uh-oh.  We knew her machine was old.  We had tried to replace it in November but Medicare rules require the provider to follow up in three months, etc. and there wasn’t enough time to do that.  We felt grateful just to have a prescription and get her new hoses and masks.

We knew that we could buy a new machine without all that red tape but we would have to pay for it ourselves.  We had the prescription saved in our photos but how would we find a medical device company open on Saturday who would be willing to sell us one?  I did a quick search on the internet for medical device businesses in Utah and Salt Lake counties and those I could find were closed on Saturday.

The idea of going to Africa without CPAP just didn’t seem like a good idea.  A day or two here or there without it isn’t a big deal, but not for 18 months.  It looked like we would have to call Church travel and have them delay our departure until Tuesday or later until we could get this resolved.

However, we learned in good old Woodbadge training to use our resources.  There was a medical clinic in the MTC (closed until Monday) but also a front desk at the MTC open 24/7.  Perhaps they might know someone who could help us,  or know of something open on Saturday.

Not sleeping well that night, we went to the front desk at 5:40 AM and shared our predicament with the young man working there.  He found a number online for Intermountain Health Care in Provo and called.  It rang over to someone answering in Salt Lake who gave him the address of the IHC Homecare and Hospice in South Jordan, which opened Saturday at 10 AM.  He gave us the number to call.

Our plans had been to check out of the MTC at 8 AM Saturday morning, thanks to the generous offer from the Grahams, to drive us  to Hugh’s home in Salt Lake. We hoped to spend the morning with grandkids while Hugh and Kristi went to a temple session.  Should we delay departure to 10 AM until we knew we could actually get a CPAP replacement machine,  or should we go and hope for the best?  We decided on the latter.  As we had our morning prayer we felt a sense of peace about that decision. 

When we called the IHC number from Hugh’s home at 10:05, they said yes they had CPAP machines and could provide us one on the basis of the prescription, but without insurance (and  Medicare red tape) it could cost up to $2,000.  We bundled the kids into Hugh’s van and headed off to the address, which was not far from our destination (the aquarium) with the kids.

When Sue arrived at the large building she connected with two people at the front desk.  They said a replacement CPAP machine would be $1400 which they could sell us as soon as they received a copy of her  prescription. Tom sent it from his phone in the car.  While the first went to get the machine, another attendant there suggested they check the power box before taking our money.  They had an old one which they connected and voila! the machine worked just fine.  Sue asked if she could just buy it and Brad (the technician) said he would just give it to her. He also checked the filter, replaced the dirty one, and sold us a small supply for the sum of $18. 

We were on our way to the aquarium, Hugh and Kristi made it to the temple, no delay in flight plans, and we had a freshly cleaned CPAP machine that worked.  For us, a remarkable tender mercy: help from heaven and its earthly angels in time of need that we could not have taken care of by ourselves.  A sweet reminder of our favorite scripture: Proverbs 3: 5-6.

Our plane leaves tomorrow morning at 8:36 am.