Miles In Missions

One of the biggest blessings our compound gets to see is a container coming and being unloaded with much needed supplies for the reutilization of the hospital. Living and building “in the bush” of Africa has its challenges. Some of those challenges are being able to find quality construction materials, medical equipment, and other things that help make the missionaries lives more comfortable while serving here.

    God has truly blessed this community, hospital, and its missionaries with an incredible support team in the US and Canada. They are dedicated to revitalization project just as much as every missionary living on the ground in Egbe. They are in constant communication with all the missionaries and ask, “What is needed?” Most of the time we answer this question and a few months later, whatever the request, it’s at our door step being offloaded from these containers. With every container comes hard work to unload it, but also comes the huge boost to morale. When each box, pallet, or shrink wrapped piece comes off, we say “Wow, look at that!” or “There that is!”

Also, each empty container is dropped off of the truck to be kept on our compound for temporary storage and we are in the process of making future plans to make small buildings with these containers in the future. These may become low-cost workshops or possibly store fronts for the hospital vendors. The possibilities with containers are truly amazing when you start to research their potential. One website I had found shown people with really nice houses made out of a few of these containers. Really creative!

The most recent container #14 had shown up on Sunday, August 17 at around 9:30 a.m. I wanted to capture the hard work and the organized “chaos” each container brings when unloading one. I placed a time lapse camera on the roof nearest our unloading dock to capture the entire process. The video shows a total of five hours worth of unloading and then removing the container off of the trailer. The camera took one picture every five seconds for a total of 2,900 pictures. These are played back at 25 frames per second. The five hours of work has been condensed down to two minutes of video. Enjoy to the end were we try to “offload” the container from the trailer. We tried to keep it upright just like all of the offloads before it, but….

What’s going on in Egbe?

The new guard house at “Gate C” is under construction and about to get its roof. This will be the “first impression” of our hospital as people drive from the main town square of Egbe. It is the main access point for the nursing school, hospital staff, residents, and visitors.  This guard house will serve as the nearing end of our large scale project of over 1800 feet of concrete block that makes up the new hospital wall.

The new CSR (Central Supply Room) is getting a major makeover and expansion for much needed space and organization of hospital supplies and surgical instruments. This was where our old pharmacy was located and is directly under our OR (operating room). As the CSR is being renovated, things like plumbing and electrical upgrades for the OR are being conducted as well.

Maternity and Women’s wards are getting ready for a much needed makeover as well. The building is in need of large scale plumbing repairs, window/door repairs, bathroom upgrades, and a major painting facelift.

All of the lettering has been added to the buildings making for a professional and appealing look.

Missionary housing upgrades include two houses currently under construction. Houses 8 & 9 are in various stages now and we are doing our best to have house 8 finalized before the arrival of Rick and Martha Bradford in August. House 9 needed an entire new roof structure because it was eaten by termites. We were able to salvage the old metal roofing and reuse it on the new wood framing.

Resident Doctor’s housing upgrades include houses 15 & 17 almost complete. Another great transformation on these two houses. Both houses had to have new roof framing and metal installed, gutting of kitchens and baths, new cabinets, tile, and painting throughout. House 16 will also be upgraded in the very near future as well.

Dr Carter and his wife Anne joined us two weeks ago. There history at Egbe goes back many years. Dr Carter is here for one month to complete as many surgeries as possible. Anne has been helping in the warehouse organizing medical supplies. She is also one of the best bakers around. Upcoming Blog to follow soon on their story.

ECWA Hospital Egbe recently received its West African College of Physicians Accreditation

We are preparing housing for Katie and Nick Riddle who will arrive in July along with Dana Iglesias. Katie will be the MK teacher at the compound while Nick helps at the hospital. Dana is our new family physician. All of these wonderful people will be coming to Egbe for two years.

Please continue to pray for the work going on here. It may seem silly sometimes to pray for construction projects, but truly it is for God’s glory. Which each new upgrade, it helps this hospital save more lives, which allows the doctors to share the good news of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ to many people.