July 16

16 Jul 2009 – Day 36

Greetings in the name of Jehovah , the LORD who heals us! (Ex 15:26, Ps 103:3, Ps 147:3)

O da deviah ma? (What is the child’s weight?)
Deviah Nanoh-a? (Is the child breastfeeding well?)
Meba-NAH-dee. Babuya de-KAH. (Please, I have one question.)
May lay nada dim. Fica srronye? Fica vinye-wo. (I am looking for something. Where is my wife? Where are my children?)

Those last two are on my favorites list. The last usually gets laughs, especially when I say it for practice and Cari is right beside me. I can get even more laughs by adding a “-wo” to the end of “srronye” to make it plural. (“May lay srronye-wo dim.” = I am looking for all my many wives!) Meba-NAH-dee is a fun word, too. It’s like please in French (S’il vous plait) but literally interpreted it’s not please. “Please” in Eve is “Medakuku” which no one ever uses. Meba-NAH-dee literally means “I want to tell you something”… and it comes out sounding like “Hey you!”

There is something wonderful about learning someone else’s language. It’s a rapid rapport builder with staff and patients. And it’s definitely the quickest way for me to generate laughter (a favorite thing of mine). The hospital staff all seem keen to teach me a new word or phrase every day, and the patients and their families often enjoy teaching the “yovo” (if they aren’t staring at me blankly not understanding a word). The other day a lady called out to me on my way home and asked where I was going – after a couple seconds for processing, I was able to respond back “Me le yi apeme” (I am going home) – I learned this phrase quickly and enjoy using it at the hospital as often as possible!

Tuesday night we have prayer meetings. One of the women that come to help Bea Ward teach the teachers is a worship leader back home. This was her last Tuesday so they asked her lead us in song and we had a jamming guitar/African drum/ukulele time of praise. We sang many favorites including Days of Elijah.

Things have been quieter at the hospital. The complicated follow-up surgicals from the Mercy Ship have mostly been seen. The pediatric ward was empty the other night for the first time in a while and the hospital census has been down in general for a couple days. Our new surgeon is here, Dr. Saloam and his wife Dianne. He’ll be here for three weeks. He was here 5 years ago and I gave him a tour to get reacquainted. We shared call last night, his first night here, and we put him to work right away. We had a 10 year old hit by a moto with a lacerated Achilles tendon (not good) that he put back together lickety split. And then around midnight a classis typhoid perforation (severe abdominal pain for several days, very tender abdomen, and free air under the diaphragm on x-ray) that he fixed no problem. Typhoid is so common here that we’ve banned eating raw cookie dough (very sad for the boys and I).

I bought three flashlights before we left, none of which work reliably. And the two we bought here (for a buck) stopped working so walks back to the house at night are interesting. We still chant “no snakes” a lot. And with supplies somewhat hard to come by we economize quite a bit. The other day I actually used the soap until it completely disappeared – something I’ve never done before.

Good quiet time out of Mark 10 – the rich young man. I love this passage for many reasons.
1) Because it’s the only place in the Bible someone left Jesus’ presence SAD (happy, joyful, thankful, angry, furious, etc, yes….but never SAD ---I think….correct me if I’m off all you Bible quizzers out there). 2) Verse 18, God alone is good. So often I fall into the trap of thinking that being a medical missionary makes me a “good” person. When people say we’re good people for coming here it just inflames the pride. But here Jesus himself rejects the label “Good teacher”!!
3) And I may be following most of the Christian “rules”, but what one thing do I lack – what one thing do I have a hard time surrendering completely to the LORD? I actually came up with several things that would be hard to part with (starting with M&M cookie dough!!): favorite foods, carpeting, no ants in the house/bathroom/kitchen/bedroom/incubators, football in the fall (high school games Fri evening, college, NFL on Sunday, fantasy football), favorite books and movies, going out to eat at local restaurants….
4) Its wonderful promises! Jesus loves us (v21), treasure in heaven (v21), all things are possible (v27), a hundred times family members (v30), and most of all eternal life (v30).

Thank you again and again for your prayers and support. We couldn’t be here without you. May you wrestle with God and with your own “one thing” and overcome like Jacob overcame.


Mawu ne no kpuli wo (May God go with you)

Yours in the service of our LORD,

CADT (The Robertsons)