Ahh! It was time for sweet sleep at the C&MA guest house in Libreville following a wonderful dinner with the Solvig family. It capped a wonderful two weeks in Gabon working at the hospital in Bongolo and a mercifully uneventful return to Gabon’s capital. We were looking forward to a good night of sleep before the long trip home to Hawaii. Blissfully unaware were we that in the Solvig neighborhood there is a nocturnal competition of sorts – not among people, but some very confused roosters. It seems that each one tries to assert its vocal prowess by seeing which can rise the earliest and crow the world awake. So at about 3:30am the competition began. … and we had a wonderful opportunity to spend a lot of time at dawn in prayer… about our attitudes and our sleep, any other thought that came to mind during those wakeful hours. Well they weren’t all spiritual moments and not all wakeful either; I actually slipped in and out of sleep, and during those little moments of REM sleep dreamed of, you guessed it… how to do those innocent possessed roosters in. Really, I did. I thought about the efficient methodology at a chicken “processing” plant (for those who don’t know, it’s a nifty little guillotine); I thought of the method I grew up seeing in Vietnam – where the cook snagged one by the neck and with a quick whack with the knife a headless bird spasmed across the yard. And then I thought of how good chicken would be for breakfast. All these dreams and schemes drifted in & out of my consciousness til it was time to get up. And then I realized to my delight, we aren’t having chicken for breakfast, silly. We’re having those amazing croissants Cheryl promised us! Suddenly the frustration seemed to disappear. Funny how emotional I get when I think about food…

Gabon Eye Mission

I wanted to update all of you on the ongoing eye project ot Bongolo Hospital. Last year Robert Trent,M.D. and Chris Lin, M.D. began eye surgery for God's children (young and old) in Gabon. They returned this year to perform more surgery and to instruct the nurses on how to better assist the doctors. They also were able to bring approximately $20,000.00 worth of new equipment that had been donated to improve the care at the clinic. Each year they have been able to complete 55 surgeries, which is more eye surgery than is done in the whole country in a year.

There were many good stories of the miraculous things God did , but I will briefly tell only two. Chris was able to operate on an infant with congenital glaucoma. This child was sent to Chris by the Lord unbeknowst to him. Now, Chris is one of the few people in the world trained to do this surgery. Pray for the Lord to heal this Child's eyes. Robert was able to operate on a woman, who had not seen her last child . There was a flood of tears the next morning when mom finally saw her 17 month old for the first time.

I hope you have enjoyed hearing about the things that the Lord is doing in the eye clinic in Gabon. Robert

Part I:

This year we’ve seen patients with some very sad or difficult eye problems. We unfortunately had to tell several people with retinal infections we couldn’t make them see again. One woman had a severe infection with her eye bulging onto her cheek—this will need to be removed. We saw a patient who had a traumatic dislocation of his lens—Robert was able to remove this lens and replace it with a lens implant today and this patient suddenly in English thanked Robert for using his heart and hands to help him. He knew this was the only place he could come for help to see again. Chris operated on an 8 year old with bilateral congenital cataracts today—if he sees better in this eye, we’ll do his second eye before we leave. Chris also operated on a 5 month old baby boy with severely damaged eyes from congenital glaucoma—both eyes cleared somewhat immediately during the surgery, but there is still less than a 50% chance of success of these types of surgeries. Please pray for the success of these surgeries. Please pray that all these people, whether the surgeries are successful or not, will learn about Jesus and accept him as Lord and savior.

Part II:

We wanted to update you on our activities here in Bongolo. In our last note, we asked for prayers for two of our youngest patients. Last week, the 8 year old young man who had his right cataract removed came back for his first postop visit and was excited that his vision had markedly improved. This was very good news and an indication that surgery for his other cataract would likely be successful as well. He underwent the left cataract surgery today and hopefully will see as well with that eye. Because he has lots of astigmatism, he will need eyeglasses to achieve his best vision. He will likely have to travel hours away to visit an optometrist who will make him glasses both for reading and for distance. Despite his visual problems, he has remained among the top five students in his class, and this was a great blessing because most children with severe vision problems don’t get to go to school!

The 5 month old child with congenital glaucoma underwent bilateral surgeries last week. Both of his corneas started out so cloudy that he appeared to have blue eyes. During the surgeries, the corneas cleared enough that a view of his pupil emerged in each eye despite the permanent corneal scarring that had already occurred. Today this patient with went back to the OR for an examination under anesthesia (the only way to accurately examine a child of this age). This revealed very good low eye pressures and clear lenses in both . In other words, his surgeries are both functioning well. Unfortunately, both eyes’ retinas show great abnormalities that will keep him from having normal vision. The good news is that his mother feels he is now seeing and following faces and objects, and in fact he clearly followed and reached for a yellow toy presented in front of him. Prior to his surgeries, he did not display any signs of vision. For the time being, it looks like he may develop some vision where without surgery he would have had none.

Dave Thompson told us that the country of Gabon keeps surgical statistics. Last year, due to our visit to Bongolo, this hospital did more eye surgeries for the people of Gabon than the rest of the country combined!!! This year we are doing approximately the same number of surgeries per day as last year. Patients have traveled from all over the country to have surgery here. Today 3 people arrived from other countries to have surgery. Two of them had their surgeries today and one will have a combined cataract and glaucoma surgery tomorrow. The poor people can not afford surgery in Libreville, the capital city of Gabon. The doctors there have poor training and charge exorbitant rates. Most of the affluent people (there aren’t many) fly to Paris for health issues as simple as a cold or as complicated as surgeries.

The ministry here continues to thrive and we are thankful to have a small role in establishing and improving the eye care ministry here at Bongolo Hospital.

Introduction to Gabon journal... This journal started as a hand written record to help me recall events of my trip and to remember some of my impressions about this part of Central Africa.  When email became more reliable (even from the middle of the jungle) it became a means of keeping my family informed on a more or less daily basis. More recently it has been sent to more family and friends who seem to have some interest in what I am doing here.

This is my fifth trip to Gabon in as many years. The packing for the trip is always a challenge. The airlines allow two 70 lb bags for overseas travel along with the usual carry on allowance. This sounds like it would be more than enough to bring along anything that could possibly be needed for a 3-4 week stay. And of course it is, even though you cannot buy anything that you may have forgotten once you get to the interior. So you have to pack carefully.

It is enough baggage allowance until you start getting requests to bring/take various items that are difficult, expensive or not possible to get even in the capital city of Libreville. These items this year included such things as printer cartridges, chocolate, Kool-aid, hand lotion, tennis balls (!) batteries and miscellaneous surgical supplies.

These things that I “mule” to Africa are for use at the hospital and for the missionary staff use. The most troublesome item this year was medical laboratory testing material that needed to be kept refrigerated in a Styrofoam container until delivered. Most of the requests are made and the items obtained weeks in advance and packing can be planned. Unfortunately, although the container was to be sent to me some 10 days before I was to leave it did not arrive until the day before I left. I did not know the dimensions of the package (approx. 15 X 15 X 12 inches) so it was a bit surprising when I first saw it along with some other non -refrigerated items. The total space required necessitated taking a third bag on the plane. Much less expensive, quicker and safer than shipping. By the time I finished packing I was hoping that I had enough room for my own clothing and necessities for my time there.

Another challenge is the travel. This year I flew from Ft Myers to Atlanta and from Atlanta to Paris. The flight from Atlanta left on 8/11 at about 9:30 PM and arrived in Paris at about 11:30 AM (an 8 hour flight with the time difference) I then had a layover in Paris until the flight for Libreville Gabon left at about 11:30 PM.

I went to a hotel near the airport to take a nap and shower and get something to eat before returning to the airport for the next flight. That flight arrived in Libreville at about 5:30 AM on the 13^th (about a 7 hour flight with the time difference) Arnie Solvig picked me up at the Libreville airport and took me to the guesthouse in Libreville. I will stay at the guesthouse until the next flight leaves for Mouila Gabon (about 200 miles of the 350 mile trip to Bongolo Evangelical Hospital) on Monday the 15^th. So I have some time to recover from the main part of the journey.

Arnie and Cheryl Solvig and their 3 girls (Nicole, Stephanie and Katie) are missionaries who live in Libreville at the guesthouse owned by the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church in the US. Arnie is the business manager for all of the Alliance missionary activity in the country of Gabon. This includes the Theological training school and a number of mission stations along with Bongolo Evangelical Hospital (BEH.) Cheryl runs the guesthouse, which serves as temporary housing for missionaries and visitors who are in Libreville for a few days to a few weeks. I am staying with them until Mon the 15^th) Pauline Linton is also staying here. She is staying in the “jail” which is one of the rooms downstairs. I am staying in the upstairs apartment. Pauline is a missionary from England who is working on revising the Yinzibi translation of the Bible. Yinzibi is a major tribal dialect in Gabon and the current translation is about 30 years old.

In the afternoon I had my first orthopedic consult. Christine was in a rollover auto accident about 3 months ago and among other injuries sustained an injury to her wrist. The pain from this injury resulted in secondary problems with her hand and with her arm. She still has a painful wrist despite been in a cast for about 2 months. She still has the cast on and I have no way of removing it to do an adequate exam. I have a pretty good idea about what the problem is based on her history and on multiple negative x-rays that I reviewed. She will make the 350-mile trip to Bongolo some time while I am there so I can remove the cast to better evaluate her wrist. She will probably need surgery. She is very nervous about the trip to Bongolo since she would have to travel on which the accident occurred.

I had dinner at the guesthouse. There were a total of 10 of us at the table. The 5 Solvigs, Pauline, Kelly McLallen (a teacher at the International Academy in Libreville) her visiting parents from California (Davis and Kathy) and me. This number is not unusual at the guesthouse. Cheryl made pasta salad and Arnie cooked chicken on the grill. The main room of the guesthouse that serves as the living room and the dining room has been remodeled and enlarged since last year. A second bathroom has also been added for the Solvig family. This is a very welcome addition particularly for Arnie who no longer has to fight 4 women for time in the lone bathroom. The patio upstairs (next to Arnie’s office) has been tiled and screened in. Two nice improvements.

The time change and associated jet lag make getting on a good sleep schedule difficult but with the aid of a sleeping pill I was able to sleep pretty well my first night here. I am thankful for that.