Chez Hofman

Hidden Surprises

2011-11-22T09:07:00.000-06:00

Sometimes living in Gabon is a little like looking through a Where's Waldo book. You have to look really carefully, or you might miss some things.
So, here's a little bit of Where's Waldo, Gabon-style. And these are all living creatures. See if you can find the hidden surprise in each photo. The answers appear below each photo.

We're starting with a very difficult one. Yes, there is a living creature in the above photo. It looks like a twig, but it's actually a living insect that we call a "walking stick". We did infact put our figure close to it to verify it wasn't just a stick, and it moved!

Can you find this next one? It looks a lot like a leaf, but actually, it is another type of insect. Pretty weird, huh?

This one isn't too hard to spot, but it was hiding from us as we came out our door. Praying mantis's are notorious here for waiting outside a door and trying to jump on you when you come out. But don't worry, they're harmless (at least, that's what I tell myself).

This one isn't hidden in the picture, but it was hiding just a few minutes before the picture was taken. It was hiding in the shower curtain that we had moved to our hallway while our bathroom was being painted. A scorpion - yikes! And it was just inches from Wendy's finger as she picked up the shower curtain - talk about a shock! Thankfully no one was injured (except the scorpion, which was smashed with the nearest available shoe!)

Can you find this final creature? Of all the creatures shown so far, this one probably is the most havoc-producing. One minute, she is trying to pull down a laptop by its cord, and the next, she is making a disaster area of the kitchen! But she's also quite loveable, as you can see in the following picture.

May your Thanksgiving be filled of plenty of good surprises as well!

Some eye clinic updates

2011-10-12T07:27:00.000-05:00

Recently our internet has been very slow, so unfortunately I've not succeeded at uploading any pictures this time - perhaps in a followup posting!

Anyway, here are a few highlights....

The ophthalmology resident who is training with me, Elisee, has done his first couple of trabeculectomy surgeries! This surgery is to help treat glaucoma, related to an elevated pressure inside the eye that causes irreversible blindness if not caught in time. This is a huge problem in Gabon, so it is good to see Elisee begin this surgery. He is doing great and is now performing some cataract surgeries unsupervised too (though I am always available if he has questions).

The wife of the president of Gabon came to visit Bongolo hospital last week! Her tour was unfortunately rushed and she was only in the eye clinic for about 2 minutes, but I got to shake her hand and she saw the hospital.

I had a middle-aged lady come to the eye clinic about 6-8 weeks ago with a very large mass over her central/left forehead that displaced the eye downward and to the side. It had been there for 18 months. She's originally from far away, and we sent her to the capital city to get a CT scan (a 350 mile trip), which she brought back to us for her second visit a couple of weeks later. The CT showed that this mass had eroded through bone and was pressing on the brain....and indeed, she had her first seizure during this trip to the capital because of this. Knowing she needed neurosurgery (brain surgery) soon or she would die, we began praying for God to make a way for her to have surgery. God directed us to a surgeon at Kijabe Hospital in Kenya, who said if we could get her there, he would operate on her right away. So the patient began fundraising, and our eye clinic paid for some expenses, and God provided through our administrator in the capital, who visited with a government official that paid for her plane ticket! She and her caretaker flew to Kenya last Thursday and she had her surgery yesterday. It went well and the mass was simply an old abcess, so there is no cancer and she should have a long life. She knows that God has provided for her throughout this time and is very thankful to him. Please pray for her continued recovery.

Finally, a 2 year-old girl came to us about 4 weeks ago for a trauma to her left eye. An older boy was standing at a sink with his back turned away from her, and threw a glass bottle over his shoulder. The bottle hit her left eye and lacerated the cornea. Elisee, with my supervision, sutured up the cornea and 2 days ago I did the followup surgery to remove the cataract and some of the sutures. She is doing well.

The latest on Esther

2011-09-10T09:14:00.003-05:00

Here is a little bit about Esther and how she is doing as a missionary kid in Africa, from about 3-1/2 months to 5 months old!

She has discovered her toes - though they often flee from her before she can get them satisfactorily into her mouth

She went with her mom and dad to Field Forum, an annual missionary conference in Gabon

Here she is wearing pants for one of the first times - such a big girl!

She exercises her smile every day, and her daddy makes her smile a lot!

Believe it or not, one of her favorite things is to be read to, and she sometimes seems to try to turn the pages

She also loves to be sung to...and sometimes seems to sing along!

Although her expression doesn't reflect it here, she really enjoys our visits with one of her Gabonese "uncles," our friend Eric - and she gets to practice her French

She is definitely our little princess!

But sometimes she just likes to hang out, too

One of her favorite things is to go on walks, and she often gets carried off for one (in someone's arms or in the stroller) 2-3 times a day. One of our African friends here said that she goes on walks more than any kid he knows.... But it is a pretty place to walk!

She is becoming increasingly interested in watching us eat our food, and apparently has pretty good instincts, too - going after her mommy's brownie :) . We've just recently started giving her some rice cereal once a day, but other than that she'll have to stick with mommy's milk and formula for the moment.

Here she is doing baby push-ups, which she does many times a day - I know my arms would be tired if I did as many as she does

This is a video of one of Esther's special "tricks" - press the play button and we hope it works for you (our internet is too slow for it to work right for us)

We often get down on the floor and play with her, too

Some people have asked us if Esther crawls yet. The answer: well, no.... But play this video to see her own special mode of locomotion!

Both of us have fun dressing her up for church on Sundays.

Here she is, already stylish!

First eyeglasses ever!

2011-09-10T07:00:00.001-05:00

We have started making our first eyeglasses at Bongolo hospital! Way back in June 2010, we started a conversation with Wooddale church as they were looking for ideas for their "Generosity!" campaign. We presented the great need for eyeglasses in Gabon, Africa, where we work. Here patients often have to travel to the capital city of the country and spend $300+ that they don't have in order to get eyeglasses. Many times a day my nurses and I would write out prescriptions for eyeglasses to my patients who needed them, knowing that these prescriptions would never get filled.

The result of this conversation was a donation for eyeglasses-making equipment - thank you so much, Wooddale! And thanks to our aviation missionary team partners, we were finally able to transport the equipment from where the oceangoing container had left it, in the capital city of Libreville, to our hospital out in the bush. Finally, thanks to work by our maintenance missionary team partners here at Bongolo hospital, we have outfitted the eyeglasses-making room ("optical shop") and set up the equipment.

And I have spent the last couple of weeks learning how to make eyeglasses along with my resident and nurses, with great success!

The first pair of glasses we made

The first patient to receive eyeglasses - he has retinitis pigmentosa and these are special glasses for people who have low vision, providing the magnification they need to read

This lady said, "I can see all the way to the river!"

This older girl will be able to see the board better now at school (she's pictured here with her sister)

This lady's glasses were made by one of my nurses, Jean Paul, pictured on the right

It is such a joy to have patients come into our little air-conditioned optical shop to pick out their frames, and be able to give them what they need to see well - without even the risk of having to operate on them! Praise the Lord for his provision and instruction to provide these glasses for our patients.

We are currently looking to hire someone in the community to help us with the backlog of glasses orders we've already accumulated. We'll have to fully train this person, of course, but hopefully we can find someone who is good at arithmetic and has a faithful walk with the Lord. One of the applicants goes to our church.

We'd also like to hire someone to work at the reception desk so the nurses don't have to do that, since it takes up a lot of their time (when they could be examining our crowds of patients). This receptionist can also serve as chaplain to the patients and give them a little extra T.L.C., since we get so busy we sometimes can't give patients the individual attention and time that we'd like to. Pray for this hiring process, for wisdom. We will interview one of the applicants this Monday, in 2 days.

Building

2011-08-15T07:58:00.003-05:00

We're so glad to announce that our ophthalmology resident, Elisee, and his family have at long last moved in to their new home! Many people gave generously for this duplex to be built, and it is at last furnished and occupied. Thank you so much!

The upper level is for one of the general surgery residents and his family, as well as a small guest house apartment, and the lower level is for Elisee and his family. Our friends the Thelanders and Chaes did a lot of work to purchase furnishings to be shipped out to Bongolo from the USA so that it will be a comfortable place for these residents to live and learn. Both Elisee and the general surgery resident, Simplice, will be living at Bongolo at least through 2017.

This is the view of the duplex on our mission station, on the hill above Bongolo hospital

Another view of the same duplex

Well, another building project that we've been recently involved in is for our local Gabonese church, Moutongo. Our church is located about 10-15 minutes from where Eric and I live and has an attendance of about 50 people on a Sunday. However, the little building where we meet is on private property that is on loan to the church. So our congregation has recently purchased some land so we can build our own building, with room for expansion in the future.

Having a church building in Gabon is useful because during the rainy season, it rains so hard that it's impossible to have a meeting outdoors. And otherwise, people's houses are too small for many people to be able to get together at once. The Gabonese enjoy worshipping and singing together. It will also be nice to have a separate room for the children to gather for Sunday school.

Here are Patrice (a local evangelist), Eric and Esther, and our pastor, Andre at the construction site

A group of volunteers from the States who came partly to help us start the construction of our church

Along with building comes finances! Here Eric is working at our dining room table with our pastor, Andre, and Elisee (who also goes to our church often) to help keep track of Moutongo's finances.

Finally, here is a picture I can't remember if we've already shared (our internet has been very slow lately, or I'd look it up!). This is our current team at Field Forum, the name of our annual staff retreat. The picture is taken at a hotel called Les Sirenes in a town called Lambarene, a 5-6 hour drive from Bongolo hospital, where the conference was held.

For all the pictures, if you want to see them in a bigger format, just click on a picture, and it will show a larger view of the picture. Happy viewing!

"Long time no see"

2011-07-24T14:08:00.000-05:00

Greetings from Gabon!
We're really sorry that it's been so long since we've made a post! Our days are just flying by. But here are some updates.... :)

First, a few pictures of our little sweetheart Esther. Our daily life....

Yes, I'm awake!

Working out on my mat!

Off on a walk!

Wendy and Esther went to a baby shower for Samuel, one of the general surgery resident's children. Samuel is 6 weeks old here and Esther is 3 months old. Hello world!

The whole family

Esther and Mommy

We still have bugs - these are about 4 inches each.

We had a wonderful visit by Dr. Robert Trent and his family. They were at Bongolo for about a week and blessed us with their help at the eye clinic, bringing supplies, teaching Elisee (our ophthalmology resident, on the left), and even hosting a women's tea for all those on the station. They're like family and it was hard to see them go!

Who's got joy?
This is Esther at the beginning of her first plane ride, an international flight from Chicago to Frankfurt. (Well, I suppose she did fly from Oklahoma City to Chicago first.) She did great on the flights. She's two months old here.

How Wendy celebrated her birthday, on the beach for a couple of hours in Libreville, the capital city of Gabon.

This is a family with 5 children, no father present, and a mother who has been crippled by polio. She walks on her hands on the dirt because she has no wheel chair. We brought her some clothing and supplies for herself and the children. She lives very near to Bongolo Hospital. One of our missionary friends is going to try to repair the crude wheelchair that she was given several years before.

Big announcement....The eyeglass-making equipment finally made it to Bongolo Hospital a few weeks ago, thanks to AMB (Aviation Medicale de Bongolo), a local flying organization partnering with Bongolo Hospital through Air Calvary and our fellow missionary Steve Straw! We're very excited to get this eyeglasses equipment up and running, and plan to install it in a week, after we get back from a local conference.

The airplane and our local runway

Strange things happen on the mission field....The airplane battery was dead and we had to jump-start the plane using two cars! (This issue has since been resolved.)

The same airplane that brought the eye equipment down to Bongolo was our ride back to the capital city of Libreville to renew our resident permits. This was Esther's first ride on a small aircraft!

This is Rachael Thompson, a missionary who has been helping us out tremendously by spending 2 hours every weekday caring for Esther. This has allowed both Eric and Wendy to get more work done with the bookkeeping and eye clinic tasks. (Incidentally, Rachael grew up here in Gabon as a missionary kid herself, so she can relate well to our little one.) Many folks have asked how the transition back to Gabon has been, having Esther with us now. Life will never be the same, in all sorts of ways! She's a wonderful baby and has a smile to light up this world. She has been about half-and-half in sleeping through the night or waking up once during the night. She's now 3-1/2 months old. It is difficult to care for her well and to do our work well at the same time, but both activities are good and God-given, so we're just trying to enjoy each day as it comes.

Here is Esther again on her first small airplane, content in Daddy's lap.

Esther and her mommy

An Esther Easter (and much more)

2011-04-28T11:04:00.000-05:00

Here's another version of "The Esther Files". This edition is called "An Esther Easter", but that's only a small part of it. But before we begin, we'll give you a quick update. Wendy continues to get better. Her blood pressure remains normal and she is now down from two to one blood pressure medicines. Both Wendy and Esther had appointments with their doctors, and both seem to be doing quite well.

And now, on with the show!

Mom and Dad let me start ninja classes once I reached two (weeks) - bring on the bad guys!

Life is good!

One day I would like to sing like Grandma Summersett...

I heard the space shuttle is taking off soon - I'm ready!

How embarassing! Mom and Dad better not show this at my wedding!

As you know, I normally live in Gabon. According to Mom, the weather here gets crisp. This is how Mom and Dad dressed me for a walk when it got down to the upper 60s - brrrr.

And now we come to an Esther Easter. Here Dad decided to color some Esther eggs. First pink..

Then polka dots....

And don't forget yellow..

I wonder if I will have wings when I get out of my cocoon.

Mommy had some friends over to meet me.

I'm still waiting for the call from NASA - Astronaut Esther, ready for duty, sir!

Here I am, a Gabonese Girl

Thanks for coming - have a good week!

A few more photos

2011-04-19T02:46:00.000-05:00

Here's a few more pictures of our wonderful family.

Grandma Summersett is a great comfort in difficult times...

What a wonderful visit we had from Grandma and Grandpa Hofman...

And here's the happy family, now 3 instead of 2.

This was a picture seen much this past weekend - Grandpa Hofman rocking little Esther.

God has provided abundantly for us in our family!

life with Esther - end of 1st week

2011-04-17T17:25:00.000-05:00

Here's another set of Esther photos for your enjoyment. But before we begin, here's a quick updated on how we're doing. Wendy was released from the hospital last Monday as expected. Her blood pressure was still quite high, so she was put on a heavy dose of blood pressure medicine. This has helped a lot, and her blood pressure is much closer to normal now - thank the Lord! We have spent this past week trying to get sleep amidst trying to keep Esther awake during feedings and trying to get her to sleep during the night-time breaks.

And now on with the show!!

We are very proud of how smart our daughter is - when asked how old she was, this was her response. She was actually 5 days old in this picture - but not bad for a girl in her first week out of the womb, huh???

The picture of contentment...

I love being with Mommy!

The picture of discontent ... this is also how things look to Daddy after very little sleep...

Esther, forgetting that she is a human, reverts to the instincts of a baby bird...

Everyone who loves spending time with Grandma, please raise your hand...

There's no better place than being in Mommy's arms...

Who's hungry?

How has life as a Hofman been so far?

In spite of all the sleep loss and dirty diapers, we are truly thankful for our daughter!

More pictures!

2011-04-09T20:58:00.000-05:00

Here's some more photos to enjoy:

There's so many exciting things to see - wow, this world God has created is awesome!

It's nice to be all bundled up and warm....

Do you see any resemblance?

Grandma and Grandpa came for a visit...

Mom takes such good care of me!!

Enough pictures already!!

She's Here!!!

2011-04-08T18:22:00.002-05:00

It's been a LONG time since we've updated our blog - sorry about that! We've been in the US for the past 5 weeks or so, and it's been a great time with family and friends! Of course, the reason we came back to the US was for the delivery of our first baby. Here's a picture of Wendy on April 5th.

And just a few days later, the mysterious thing growing in her belly appeared. Let us introduce you to Esther Ruth Hofman. She was born on April 8th at 8:25 am. She is 7 lbs 21 oz and 21 inches long.

Here's the new mommy with little Esther, and this is what happened.... We showed up for a regularly scheduled office prenatal visit yesterday, 10 days before the due date, and because of swelling in Wendy's ankles and elevated blood pressure, she was sent to the hospital for some labs. There we discovered that she had an uncommon form of pre-eclampsia called HELLP syndrome (1/500 pregnancies) and needed to be hospitalized right away.
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Wendy was started on an IV medication called magnesium to prevent the development of seizures, which can happen in this condition. Induction is the treatment for HELLP syndrome, so Pitocin was started. The pain of contractions would have caused Wendy's already-elevated blood pressure (180/105) to further rise, so the OBGYN recommended starting an epidural right away and that is what we did. This can be a serious, life-threatening condition but our faithful God was with us every step of the way! It was by His hand that we decided to have the baby in the US, which is wonderful because we may not have been able to appropriately diagnose and treat this syndrome in Gabon.
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The vaginal birth went well, after 9 hours of labor. There were a few small hiccups: the OBGYN had to use forceps to rotate the baby's head just before she emerged; there was meconium present; Wendy and the baby both had a temperature of 100 deg F (9 hours after her water breaking); and Esther had some mild difficulty breathing, requiring CPAP and a brief stay of about 2 hours in the NICU.
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Right after the birth, however, it got even rougher. Wendy had an extreme amount of pain from a burgeoning blood clot (hematoma) and the doctors had to evacuate the blood with a secondary procedure. Her hemoglobin fell to 8.0. During this time, her blood pressure fell to 90/30 and she went unconscious, then as the doctors treated her blood pressure, she was in and out of awareness. However, the procedure was successful, she is no longer in pain, and she is now on the road to recovery. And she thinks her little girl is very pretty - I have to agree.

And here's the new daddy with Esther. She's looking for some food - like daddy like daughter. :)

We see God's hand in all this not only in having delivered in the United States and having access to great medical care, but also in the fact that Wendy's HELLP syndrome began precipitously right at the end of a routine prenatal appointment. If this timing hadn't been perfect, because she had minimal symptoms, she might have begun seizing at home without warning. Praise the Lord for his work in our lives...and THANK YOU so much for your prayers for this time.

We'll try to put updates here on the blog as we have them - please forgive us if we don't get to emails/calls very quickly. We're new at this, and it may take us a while to get things figured out. But we're very very happy!!

The Hospital is Hoppin'

2011-02-18T02:40:00.008-06:00

We had a landmark event happen at the hospital this last week. Ever since Eric and I arrived at Bongolo over a year and a half ago, we have been showering, washing our dishes, washing our clothes, and caring for patients (even surgical patients) with unfiltered water straight out of the local river. Even after the water was filtered in our kitchen at home, there were still brown flecks in all the ice cubes and you just tried not to look while drinking your beverage. The water was often a little brown in the bathroom sink (we used filtered water for brushing our teeth), and our clothes never smelled fresh but rather moldy.
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But....trumpets please! We have been visited by the "water team," a group of 4 men from a church in Cleveland (sent by God, we know!) who volunteered their time to come to Bongolo and install a water filtration system! This system is commercial quality, quiet, filters the water to beyond drinkable U.S. standards, adds chlorine to disinfect our pipes, produces copious amounts of clean water, and takes hardly any electricity to run.
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Here is our rescue team right here:

And here is part of the system itself:

And here are a number of our missionary teammates and three of the water team fellows, giving us a tour of the new filtration system on Valentine's Day:

Here I am, drinking my first filtered water right out of the new system:

We'll have to wait about a month before actually drinking out of the tap at home or at the hospital, because the tiny amounts of chlorine in the system need time to disinfect all our pipes. But meanwhile, we are already enjoying just watching the clean water come out of the taps - no more brown! Sometimes now I go into our laundry room just to experience how great our clothes smell now as they're hanging to dry :) . Our ice cubes are clear, our toilets are cleaner, and my old fear that our new baby will get sick from swallowing water during bathing (after we get back to Bongolo in June) is gone! And our patients are going to be very excited that they no longer have to buy bottled water to drink at the hospital. I already feel better as I scrub my hands before performing surgery. Praise the Lord for all He has done, for the water team, and for our missionary teammates who have helped organize the whole endeavor!

Speaking of surgery....it's been awhile since we've shared a patient story, but they're still happening all around us every day. Sometimes we're too busy treating illness to hear the patient's personal stories, but really that's where the healing is taking place as God works through our care to mend people's hearts.

Here is a picture of Isabelle (seated) and her older sister. Isabelle is 49 years old, and has been bilaterally blind (light perception only) from cataracts for two years. She and her sister come from a village in the far northeast of Gabon, where Isabelle has been going to a local Christian and Missionary Alliance church for years. They have been praying faithfully for her eyesight to be restored for quite some time, and have finally come up with the $320 US dollars needed for the two of them to make the trip to Bongolo for the surgery. (The surgery itself is only $70 US.) How long was the trip? A total of 3 days one-way. That's a long voyage when you can't see your hand in front of your face.

This is Isabelle the day after her surgery. She was very excited to see again. I asked her how many children she has, and she has 5 kids from ages 10-27. I mentioned that the 10 year-old will have grown a lot since she last saw him and she nodded solemnly. She also has 4 grandchildren....who now have a grandmother who can see them and help care for them much more than before. It's neat to think of her returning to her village, with sight restored!
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Here is another patient from this week, who has also been bilaterally blind to the level of light perception for a long time. He has had an infection or inflammation in both eyes in the past, and from our exam it was very difficult to tell if he would see or not after the cataract operation. So we told him that we weren't sure how much his vision would improve after the surgery, but that we wanted to give it a try.

This is the day after surgery, when the patch was removed. Initially, he was in shock:

Then he began to realize what had happened to him and that he really could see! He started praising God right there in the clinic.

And just kept right on praising God in his patient room with his wife :) .

I don't have a picture of one of the other patients from this week, but my staff was very touched by another patient, who, when the patch was removed after surgery, simply started weeping.

Finally, I want to mention that Dr. Elisee's ophthalmology residency continues to progress well. He has now done 40-45 complete cataract surgeries himself, as well as parts of many other cataract surgeries and other sorts of operations. He sees patients in clinic, takes written exams, follows a textbook reading schedule, attends a PAACS Bible study (PAACS is the general surgery residency group), and gives presentations. Two to three times a year, he gives a presentation in front of the entire hospital staff, and this week he gave a "grand rounds" presentation on the effects of diabetes on the eye. Here is a photo of him presenting:

I was amused to see our sweet nurses all concentrating intently on Elisee's presentation, looking like quite the tough audience! But Elisee wasn't phased :) .

A Roommate Come and Gone

2011-01-30T12:00:00.005-06:00

It seems like not that long ago that our roommate, Annelise Olson, arrived at Bongolo. Annelise, like us, is part of the Samaritan's Purse Post Residency Program. She is a general surgeon ultimately headed for Angola, but while she was waiting to get her visa, she came here to Bongolo to help out. Much giggling could be heard in the kitchen that first night of her arrival, and this was an indication of things to come. Any time Wendy and Annelise were in the same room, giggles were bound to follow.
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We didn't know how long we would have Annelise here as our roommate, but we often joked about calling in to the Angolan embassy to slow down the visa process (so we could have her here longer.) But those folks at Samaritan's Purse were just too persistent, and earlier this month, we said goodbye to our roommate, and she headed off with her 5 suitcases, along with part of our hearts. We're so thankful to know that this life is just a time to meet a bunch of people, and once we get to heaven, we will have unlimited amounts of time to get to know them and hang out.
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We have lots of good memories from our time with Annelise. There's the wonderful smells of fresh baked bread that often wafted from the kitchen. And the fun we had in making cutout Christmas cookies - the misfit cookies included a snake, a bird-man, a giant, and a headless angel! And then there was Annelise's constant search for snakes (she loves them) - unfortunately for her (but fortunately for us) she never found any. And there was her always cheerful and adventurous spirit, which even got Eric to go caving for his first time in the caves under Bongolo Hospital. Here's a couple of pictures from the event.
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Here's Lisa (another missionary) and Annelise, getting geared up for the event:

During the caving event - we went through some pretty tight spots!

After the event - we were a mess and we literally jumped in the river to clean off!

Life was never dull at "Chez SP", as Annelise liked to call our house. Annelise is now in Kenya, and will soon be in Angola, where I'm sure many more adventures await her!

What in the world is THAT???

2011-01-22T14:10:00.005-06:00

I've had a series of unsettling buggy-type (critter-ish?) encounters lately. Just now, for example, I had taken a sip of water from a glass and subconsciously felt the urge to lick my lips. I found a tiny crumb of something in my mouth and becoming suddenly suspicious of it, spit it out on my hand. What is that tiny writhing thing? An ant! Ants come in all shapes and sizes here in Gabon, and you just never know where you'll find one - even in your mouth. Yuck!

Then last night, sometime in the middle of the night and out of a sound sleep, without warning I felt something on my chest. Thinking it was a sheet, I sleepily brushed it away - but felt something slimy wiggling away across my shoulder and up my neck! I yelled out, more from outrage than fear (but a little of both), sat bolt upright and turned on the light. The culprit was nowhere to be found, fortunately or unfortunately. I think it was likely a gecko, one of those harmless and ubiquitous inhabitants decorating our white walls (though I'm not entirely sure). I'd rather it have been a gecko than something else, as I generally kind of like geckos... especially the tiny miniature ones are quite cute. But not in the middle of the night! After this, I think we will not have our bed touching the wall at night while we sleep....That will also avoid another pitfall we've already experienced: gecko poop on our pillow. Yuck!

Yesterday it was so hot in the middle of the day that I took a shower because it was the only way to adequately cool off, since we don't have air conditioning. Just as I was stepping into the shower, 2 inches from my face I noticed a spider suspended in midair. It wasn't a big one (sometimes they are big here), but it had built quite the mansion for itself since my last shower the previous evening and there was a big cobweb to clean up. I don't remember if it was the same shower day or not - sometimes they all run together in my mind - but in a recent shower, I counted 11 tiny flies perched mostly inside the shower, and a few just outside. I killed them all, never suspecting that Gabon was bringing out the viscious side of me. Yuck!

This is not a complete rendering of the buggy tales of the last 24 hours - I've also had a few itchy bites from the no-see-em's (tiny flying insects), cleaned a spiderweb with its spider from a lamp, pulled bugs out of cups and killed ants with insecticide, unsuccessfully tried to kill a spider suspended from the ceiling in our bedroom, watched our kitties hunt a tiny gecko on our screened-in porch, and walked gingerly around the back side of our house for fear of seeing a snake (we found a 5-foot empty snake skin there a month ago and have yet to find the snake himself, though there's a hole leading under our house right there - here is the skin just exactly where we found it, next to the hole).

All this in the last day (or maybe two). Ecology is alive and well here in the jungle, and feels itself quite at home inside our house and in every nook and cranny of our lives here.

Bible Study

2011-01-14T05:13:00.002-06:00

As we've posted on other days, Eric and I attend a very small church in the nearby village called Moutongo. There are about 15-30 adults there on a Sunday, and with kids the totals are more like 40-50 people a week. A few months ago, our little group was still called an "annex" of the bigger church in town that had started it 3 years ago. But it has just been promoted and now is called a "church" and we have started actually paying our pastor a salary :) .

Eric and I aren't the only missionaries to go there - things fluctuate, but there is another missionary couple or two that often goes to Moutongo as well. But we are far outnumbered by the Africans, and play a very small supportive role in general as the pastor and other leaders are capable of good organization and teaching. Infrequently, we help by giving a sermon, acting as treasurer, helping in Sunday school, or leading the service as emcee.

One of the changes that the pastor's wife, Emma, wanted to make during this time of transition is to help the women of the church build better relationships with each other and with God. So this Wednesday, we had our first "small group" for a women's Bible study. The teachers will rotate, but I took the first week.

This was the first time I've lead a small group Bible study in French, and I haven't done it in English in quite awhile either. But it was a very encouraging experience. There were about 12 women there. We started with a name-game where you stand in a circle and throw a balloon around as you say the first name of the intended catcher of the balloon. The ladies giggled and had a great time, and I wasn't the only one to learn some names, which made me happy :) .

The theme for our studies for the first few weeks or months will be "relationships," and this week was "Having a Relationship with God." We talked about whether God wants a relationship with us and if so, what kind of relationship. Then we discussed what can keep us from having a relationship with Him, and finally we talked about why Jesus came as a man to die for us and what he accomplished by that.

What I liked most was seeing these ladies look for answers for themselves in the Bible. One of the weaknesses in the church that I see here is that people take a speaker's word for something when they should also know the scriptures for themselves as well, to test whether they're being told the truth. As the women read passages in Genesis, Revelation, Romans, Philippians, John and other books on Wednesday, it was a joy for me to see them re-establish the firmness of their foundation in Christ and the reason for their hope.

At the end of the study, we discussed salvation at length - how to pray so God will forgive our sins and begin to lead our lives. We all prayed together, and one lady said she had never prayed for God to save her and come into her life before. What a joy it was to see this woman become a sister in God's family!

After the study, I found out that a few of the women had been Christians for a number of years and had done Bible studies a long time ago, others had prayed to receive Jesus a few years ago but had never been in a Bible study, this lady (above) was brand new in her faith, and there are perhaps some others who haven't made this decision yet. We prayed for one another's needs at the end, and I think we had a great beginning to learning something more about relationship, both through experiencing it and through seeing God's example of how to love.

Christmas

2011-01-03T04:21:00.005-06:00

Well, starting few weeks before Christmas....
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Imagine our surprise when, walking down the hall of our homechurch in Minnesota (Wooddale), we look up and see a photo of me, larger than life! Wooddale is tackling a multi-faceted approach to outreach, and this was one of their examples of medical outreach overseas. (Eric and I took very few photos while we were in the states this fall, unfortunately, but we couldn't pass this one up! :) Plus, now Eric has proof that I'm getting a big head. :) )

We did many other activities while at home for those 6 weeks, too. We started off in Omaha with Eric's parents and family for a couple of weeks while I studied for my ophthalmology oral boards exam. Then we travelled to San Francisco for the exam itself and to see some friends and family (the Trents, the Peppers, Chris Lin, and my cousin Becky). We had a good time sightseeing together. The exam was stressful but we (me especially) just tried to rest in God's presence and walk through it, whatever the outcome. Next we flew to Boise, ID and drove on to Ontario, OR to visit my grandparents for a special visit of several days - the first time we had seen them in a couple of years.
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Then we flew to Oklahoma City, where my parents and brother Matt and family are now living, and two days later began another mini-travel tour of the southeast US. We flew first to Miami, where we had a full day of training on the optical workshop equipment that Wooddale helped us to purchase for Bongolo's eye clinic. Then we spent a few days with Eric's brother Lance and family in Fort Walton Beach in Florida's panhandle. Then we flew briefly back to OKC to pick up a rental car and drive to my sister April's home in Conway, Arkansas. We stayed there for a few days before we all caravaned back to OKC to spend Thanksgiving with my parents - and then had an early Christmas celebration together as well.
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What excuse did Eric and I have for all this travel?? Well, the main reason for the trip was my exam, and we recently got the news....I passed! Praise God. In some ways, this was the culmination of all of my medical training over the last 10 years, so it is a great relief to be done. Another reason for the trip was going to Miami to learn to make eyeglasses for the Gabonese. This will be a great source of affordable glasses for our patients and we can't wait for the equipment to arrive sometime in February (we hope). It's currently stuck in the capital city, 350 miles away, because we're awaiting an airplane that can bring it down while avoiding the rough roads. Finally, this trip was a key time for us to spend some time with family (and a few friends) before the birth of our first child....We hear travel is never the same again afterward! :)
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Christmas itself....

After arriving back here in Gabon, we jumped back into life here. Our friend Meladee brought back from the states a lot of decorations for our little church here in Gabon, called "Moutongo." Together with a group of ladies from the church, and Eric (who took the photo), we decorated for several hours. It was a good time of fellowship and service, and helped the ladies and the church to feel proud of our small group of believers.

The hospital put on a fun time of giving gifts to the children of our hospital workers, remembering the three wise men's gifts to the baby Jesus. The nurses and other workers at our hospital are nearly entirely Gabonese, and they aren't paid a lot because we are a mission hospital and try to serve the poor (who can't pay much for hospital services). So the national workers at our hospital really are missionaries too, and it is a joy to be able to give them back something for their own children at this time of year.

Another child who received a different sort of gift this Christmas is Joseph, pictured above. Many of you may remember "the little girl with the big eyes" from a previous blog entry of ours last year. Well, Joseph is an 11-month old baby who has the same disease: congenital glaucoma (high eye pressure). And he also has the huge eyes, though you can't see them here because the eyelids are closed.
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This picture was taken at the beginning of his first surgery a couple of weeks ago, for the right eye. Because of the difficulty and need for reoperation on the other child, the little girl, this time I decided to try to perform one of the surgeries that is usually done in the states for babies with this disease: a suture trabeculotomy. This surgery can be incredibly difficult because of the anatomy, and I spent over an hour searching for a tiny structure in the eye that would let me complete this surgery - without success. So for that eye he ended up with the same surgery we would do on adults, a trabeculectomy.
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There had been a handful of people praying for this surgery, but for the other eye, we decided to involve our entire prayer team. This last week we did the left eye, and lo and behold, I found the structure almost immediately and was able to complete the surgery as it would have been done in the states. And actually, the pressure in the right eye is still good as well. The next day he was easily opening both eyes, and the cloudiness of those large eyes was already much clearer. Merry Christmas, Joseph!

We're Finally Back!!

2010-12-18T05:00:00.004-06:00

Well, it's been a LONG time since we put in a blog entry - sorry about the extended time of silence! The majority of the time during our absence was spent in the US. We went to the US for Wendy to take her oral Board of Ophthalmology exam (which she passed - yay, no more studying!!) We also had chances to see family and friends and connect with a few churches.

We are now back in Gabon for a few months. A few months???? Yep, we're headed back to the US in late February for the birth of our first baby, which we think will be a girl!! The due date is April 18th, and we plan to be in the US until early June.

So, those are the big pieces of news for the moment. Oh, and one other big piece of news is that just one week from today is the celebration of the birth of Jesus - Christmas!! May you experience the love and joy of knowing Jesus as you celebrate this year.

With much love, we sign off for the moment.
Eric and Wendy

Update on Michael

2010-10-05T10:14:00.003-05:00

I just wanted to let you all know how Michael is doing today. It's 5 days since his cataract surgery, and I saw him briefly today. He is seeing 6/18 (20/60), which is several lines better already than the day after surgery! And the gel that had come forward from the back of his eye is back in place all by itself - some of you must have been praying :) . Praise the Lord.

I asked Michael what he most enjoyed about this last weekend. He said right off the bat, "Oh, being able to see! My favorite thing is just being able to shower and bathe myself by myself. I can be clean now, whenever I want, and I can walk with my crutches to and from the shower all by myself. Seeing my plate while eating is wonderful, too. Before surgery, I would eat with my fingers to try to avoid dropping food all over the place since I couldn't see it - and sometimes it did anyway. But now I'm eating again with a fork and spoon," he said with a grin. And I have to say, I couldn't smell the urine at all this time!

I hope he isn't walking to and from the shower unaccompanied very often - he's not very steady, though I'm glad he's enjoying it :) . Hopefully he'll have these other problems worked on soon.

We did Michael's second eye the day before leaving for the states, and the next day he was seeing excellently with that eye as well - I think 20/30. He was very happy.

Desperate for Surgery

2010-09-30T08:50:00.010-05:00

This morning I had the pleasure of meeting a 61-year-old man named Michael. Michael has been blind in both eyes to the level of being only able to tell light from dark. He first drew my attention because of a bad smell radiating from his direction. My nurses told me that he has been suffering from urinary incontinence (unable to hold his urine), and when I talked to the patient about it, he told me this story....

Eleven years ago, he had an accident that left him incontinent and made it difficult for him to walk - his legs are emaciated and weak, but can briefly support some of his weight. Michael comes from a village in the far north of Gabon, in a corner of the country that is near Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon. Because of his physical isolation, he had no way to get to medical care. He said that most Africans are fatalists and don't believe anything can be done about their problems - but he believes in God, believes Jesus died for his sins, and held on to the hope that he would be healed someday.

Two years ago, Michael had finally collected the money to travel the two days to come to the eye clinic at Bongolo for the first time. Unfortunately, he came in late 2008 when there was no eye surgeon here. That day, he could have at least begun a medical evaluation to see if something could help his incontinence or help him to walk, but he told me matter-of-factly, "I thought that it would be pointless to treat the urine problem before getting my eyes fixed, so I left and planned to come back later. First things first. First the eyes, then the urine problem, then I'll work on walking."

Michael has now been bilaterally blind for six years. Again he made the long two-day journey to come to Bongolo, his son helping him during the trip. We did cataract surgery on his right eye this morning, and tomorrow we will take the patch off and see how well he sees. The picture above was taken just before surgery. Before taking the picture, I told him to smile and think about Jesus and about hopefully being able to see tomorrow.

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Update on Michael the day after surgery:

After removing the eye patch, Michael opened his eyes and saw again for the first time in 6 years! He was delighted to be able to see the exam chair he was trying to get to, and had a big smile on his face with much thanksgiving.

He saw down to the level of the third line on the eye chart (about 20/100) the day after surgery. He will see even better after we do a laser procedure for him in a month to remove some scar tissue left behind by the very mature cataract he had.

Because the cataract was so advanced, some of the support structures for the lens had naturally begun to disintegrate and so a small amount of gel from the back of the eye also came forward into the front part of the eye. Often this does not impede clear vision and can be left in place, but sometimes it needs to be removed - we'll watch him to see how this goes over the next few days and weeks.

Meanwhile, we will look at our packed schedule and see if there is any way we can remove the cataract from his other eye before he has to head home in a month! When patients here come from as far away as he does, often they cannot come back for a followup appointment in a month because of the travel expense, so instead they have to stay at the hospital or nearby as they wait for their one-month appointment.

A Few August Happenings

2010-09-26T09:47:00.003-05:00

Since it's nearing the end of September, we figured we should put up a few last photos from August.

The first photo is from Eric's birthday - August 14. His day was filled with food (surprise, surprise)! Wendy started him off with a real treat. Here she is, showing off her handiwork:

She went all out this year - she made something that one can usually only find at IHOP - stuffed french toast! It was french toast, stuffed with a cream cheese mixture, then topped with apple topping, powdered sugar, and dream whip - plus a side of sausage! A picture of the wonderful concoction is shown below.

Doesn't that just make your mouth water??? For lunch, we had Reuben sandwiches, and then for dinner, it was a trip to the local restaurant for a nice dinner with several other missionaries.

Then, the next day, we headed up to Libreville for our annual field forum. It is a week-long retreat for the missionaries here - it's a time of rest, worship, teaching, and hanging out with the other missionaries. It was a really nice time, and there was plenty of good food! Here's a picture of most of the folks that were there:

Looks like a pretty nice crew, huh? We're really thankful for this wonderful family of missionaries that God has provided!

Vacation by the Sea

2010-09-17T23:51:00.007-05:00

When one is in the rainforests of Gabon, where does one go on vacation? There are not many options - no Holiday Inn's, no amusement parks, no outlet malls. But thanks to one of the missionary families here in Gabon, there is a place we can go - Panga guest house! A nice, secluded cabin within walking distance of the ocean. It takes a good chunk of the day to get there from the hospital, driving over bone-jarring roads, but it was well worth the journey.

Come along, and we'll show you what we saw. First, a few photos of our road along the way.

We drove on some pretty isolated roads...

But we also drove on some major Gabonese multi-lane highways...

And eventually, we made it to our final destination - Panga guest house. It may not look like much, but it was a huge step above camping. There was running water (which came from rain water that was captured in large containers), electricity (provided by solar panels), and our favorite - a large screened in porch. And we can't forget to mention - food!!

Here's the view from the guest house down to the ocean - pretty amazing, huh?

Every day, we would go down to the ocean. But first, we had to pass through the deep, dark forest. What do you think - is it safe to go in here???

We gathered up all of our courage and entered. Once we got in to the forest, we saw it wasn't all that bad after all. This could easily have been a trail in a Minnesota park. Although one day, we did see a large ape run across one of these paths - yikes!!!

Once we made it through the small patch of forest - a 2 minute walk - we came out to the beach. It was miles and miles of isolated, beautiful sandy beach. It was our own private get away. Every day, we came down to relax, watch the waves, read, look for shells, and nap. One day, we even had a camp fire and roasted hot dogs...

We tried our hand at boogie boarding. Bay Watch, look out! Here come the Hofmans!

And we did a lot of walking. About an hour's walk from our normal spot was this pretty river that fed into the ocean.

But we weren't the only ones that walked on this beach. Here are what we were told were walking trees. Apparently they actually move up to 5 feet every year! This brought back visions of Tree Beard and the walking trees in Lord of the Rings. Looking at this picture, you can almost imagine them walking across the sand.

But no trip to the beach would be complete without a beach babe. Isn't she cute??

Baby on Board

2010-09-11T11:33:00.004-05:00

If you haven't yet heard the news, Wendy is in need of some new clothes. The first item we need to get is a shirt that says "Baby on Board"! If you can't read the word shown on the picture, it says "Pregnant"! We just found out a few weeks ago, and we are very excited. The due date is April 18th, 2011, so we're still pretty early on in the process. For the moment, we are enjoying our uninterrupted sleep, date nights every night, and being able to leave the house at a moments notice. We know that will all change dramatically after the baby comes.

There are many plans that we will have to think about in the coming months, but for now, we are just enjoying the moment. God says to not worry about the future, and that He will provide. I'm sure that will be especially hard for us as expecting parents, but we will do our best. He also says that children are a blessing, and we are very thankful for this amazing blessing. Kitties look out! In a few short months, you'll be competing with a new little creature for our attention!

Medical Surprise - and Sadness

2010-08-27T14:34:00.005-05:00

Today I saw the result of an ancient cataract surgery technique, called
"couching," that was first practiced in India around 600 BC.

I always wondered why they included this piece of history in my ophthalmology textbooks, but now I see that history is alive and well. Couching is when a practitioner pierces the eye with a needle, dislodging the white opaque cataractous lens and pushing it into the back of the eye (the vitreous). The opaque lens is no longer in the visual axis, so the patient can see again - sort of. But the patient needs strong glasses afterward to see anything, and the risk of complications leading to permanent loss of the eye afterward is high - from infection, retinal detachment, or inflammation leading to glaucoma (high eye pressure).

My patient today was in Point Noir in Congo Brazzaville recently, where he met a practitioner who said he could do cataract surgery without any surgical instruments or operating room. This sounded good to my patient, who underwent the couching surgery. However, over time afterward he had eye pain and worsening blindness. Today when he presented at our hospital in Gabon, he was blind to the level of only being able to tell light from dark. His eye pressure was very elevated at 48 (normal is 10-21), his optic nerve was near-completely destroyed, and he had inflammation in the eye with new pathologic blood vessels growing on his iris, the colored part of the eye. When I first examined him, I didn't know the history and the back of the eye was barely visible because of a small pupil. I thought I saw a mass back there, and was instantly concerned about a cancer, before getting the history and realizing that the "mass" was actually his entire lens that was dislocated into the back of the eye.

Sadly, there is little we can offer this man at this point except pain relief through medicine or surgery. It brings home the urgent need for eye care (and education) in Africa when we see that people are desperate enough to trust a charlatan to perform couching on them. Pray for more workers, and for Africa itself to begin to develop the ability to care for its people.

Odd Happenings at the Clinic

2010-08-10T11:10:00.003-05:00

I'm not sure if you'll find the same things to be odd that I find to be odd, but here are some of my recently odd experiences at the eye clinic, and some nice ones too....

1. This patient below has leprosy. I took these photos today as we were preparing to take out the cataract of his left eye (in the background is the eye clinic OR). It's not everyday in the US you see a patient with leprosy (it's not often here either, but more than in the states). I need to look up the systemic treatment for leprosy and make sure what he has already received is adequate....I doubt that will be on my oral boards in November though! This patient has also been bilaterally blind for 5 years from cataracts.

Patients with leprosy lose sensation in their extremities, so because of the lack of pain, they hurt themselves without meaning to, and don't pay attention to their wounds. As a result, after years of injury, they lose digits from their fingers and toes....By the way, "The Gift of Pain," by Dr. Paul Brand, was an influential book in my life if you're interested in learning more about leprosy and how God knows that sometimes we need pain in our lives for our good.
2. The following gentleman ("Dave") had some really bad news the first day he came to the eye clinic - his blind right eye had an invasive cancer, almost certainly squamous cell carcinoma, and had to be removed, which we did. On top of that, this cancer often happens to people with HIV, so we did an HIV test and it was positive...we had to give him that news too. So the day after we did his second surgery, removing the light-perception level cataract of his left eye, the third piece of news was quite a surprise to him - he could see! He looked around him with joyful incredulity written all over his face, gesticulating with both hands as he saw for the first time in years; actually coincidentally it was also 5 years for him that he hadn't seen, just like the first man above.

It's not often that you take out one eye from someone (potentially saving his life) and also restore the vision from dark to light in the other. It's a humbling experience to have that much influence over the course of someone else's life.

At the end of this visit, he said that he had heard of Jesus before, but now just in that moment, he was realizing that Jesus healed him and that he may want Him to be more a part of his life in the future.

3. Ok, so this next event is not so odd. But maybe it's odd that it's so normal to me now. This is part of the line-up of surgical patients on a normal surgery day here. I've been doing 8 surgeries a day, 3 days a week, with my Gabonese team of nurses, nurses' aide, and resident, but have just this week cut down some to 4-5 cases a day so I can have some more time to study for my board exam....This was a normal morning.
4. There have been a lot of little things that have struck me lately....
- I finished a cataract surgery by flashlight the other day because the electricity went off toward the end of the case
- a chemical we were using to resterilize some instruments was causing some adverse effects (chlorhexidine doesn't rinse out of plastic cannulas well!), so we started boiling some of our instruments to sterilize them. At first I started doing this at home....
-but then but as that wasn't very convenient, one of my nurses, Jean Paul, bought a camp stove in town and now we have open flame in our OR daily - that's a little weird! (But don't worry, there are no smoke detectors to worry about...)

-other things that struck me about operating in the jungle: I have had to learn what to do with flies crawling on my sterile field during an operation. I have tried blowing on them (doesn't work because I'm wearing a mask and it just makes me hyperventilate :) ), drowning them in iodine (works better but doesn't immobilize them right away), and finally having my nurse fumigate the OR with insecticide in the middle of a case (not ideal!). I'm also the main person who finds army ants and something the Gabonese call a "scorpion" (but looks more like a strange worm) in the bathroom and kills them with insecticide (maybe no one else is bothered by them??).

5. I have some odd joys too....This baby one year old boy had bilateral opaque white cataracts, and I took them both out in the same day; the parents were glad, and in the following days and weeks were delighted to watch him start walking. -This baby is too cute not to put in here, and she's active as all get-out, but despite that she has congenital glaucoma and the bilateral surgery to lower her eye pressure was only minimally successful. It's tragic that there is no better treatment available to her here in Gabon.

6. Finally, on the lighthearted and non-eye-clinic side....it's odd and wonderful that God has given me a horse to ride here in Gabon. Here is the Malian fellow who takes care of this pony. He's currently out of town so it's been awhile since I've been able to ride, but another missionary found a bunch of Black Stallion books for me and that's kept me pretty happy :) .

Really Real??

2010-07-05T12:15:00.004-05:00

Lately, my mind has been mulling over something I heard in a series called the Truth Project put out by Focus on the Family. One of the questions that was asked in that series has stuck with me, and I often ponder over it. The question was "Do you really believe that what you believe is really real?" Quite a question, huh? The speaker claimed that if Christians could truly answer yes to this question, they would change the world. And at the very least, their lives would be radically different than those of non-Christians.
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So, what sorts of things come to mind as you think about this question? For me, I first think about my belief that God created the heavens and the earth. If I really believed this, then I would realize how powerful God is - much more powerful than anyone or anything on this earth, including Arnold Schwarzenegger! He put the stars in place - stars much bigger than our own sun! And when it comes to inventions, Thomas Edison has nothing on God. Before Edison even considered the light bulb, God said "Let there be light" - and that light has been working since the creation of the world, without a single power outage! And even though Shakespeare has created many great works of literature, the book that God wrote (the Bible) has sold countless more copies and been read by countless more readers.
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If I had the chance to spend some time with any of these three guys, I would rearrange my schedule to make it happen. According to my description of God above, He blows these guys out of the water, but I can't remember the last time I rearranged my schedule to spend some time with Him. It seems that He just gets my time when it is convenient for me. It kind of makes me wonder if I really believe my own description of God.
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And I claim to believe that we are all sinners, and that we are all doomed to hell unless we believe that Jesus paid for those sins with His death. That means that every person I meet will either be spending eternity in heaven or in hell. And then the Bible says "how can someone believe if they have not heard, and how can they hear if someone has not told them?" This means that humans are to play a part in helping people get to heaven. If I really believed that telling people about Jesus may help them to avoid the agony and suffering awaiting them in hell, would I not do it more often?
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My mouth says that I believe one thing, but my actions often say something else. What is the better indicator of what I truly believe - my words or my actions?
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Many other things that I profess to believe run through my mind as I ponder this question. But instead of going on further, I ask you to ponder with me. Do you really believe that what you believe is really real? What do not only your words, but your actions, say about what you really believe?

A Momentous Occasion

2010-06-26T05:02:00.006-05:00

The day before yesterday (Thursday June 24th) started as just about any normal day at the Bongolo Eye Clinic would start. After the morning devotional together with the hospital staff, the eye clinic staff arrived at 8am. We're currently up to a staff of 7 people besides myself:

- Dr. Elisee Baruwa, from the Congo DRC, ophthalmology resident
- Jean Paul, senior nurse
- Edouard, nurse
- Marius, nurse
- Matthieu, nurse
- Oscar, nurses' aide
- Marie Louise, janitor

We all filed through the doors into the clinic and began the day's work. We saw postop patients from the previous day's surgeries, then while consultations were taking place in the clinic, we began our surgeries in the attached OR. After I'd finished the fourth cataract surgery, it was time for Dr. Elisee to come in from the clinic to begin his cataract cases. Here are some of the instruments we use for this surgery:

Elisee's patient was escorted to the operating table and the anesthesia given. Before the operation, the patient saw only the difference between light and dark in the eye scheduled to be operated on - he couldn't discern any movement or form with it at all.

Elisee took his place at the head of the bed, began with a prayer, and started the surgery with me watching from the side observer scope of our microscope. Each step went well - the opening of the conjunctiva, the construction of the precisely formed tunnel incision, the paracentesis, filling the eye with viscoelastic, opening the capsule around the lens...lately Elisee has been ending there, but this time he was ready for the next step and he continued...lifting and extracting the opaque white lens (cataract), cleaning the remnants of the cataract, and finally inserting the new clear artificial lens. When he was done, the whole operating team let out a spontaneous cheer - this was Elisee's first entire MSICS cataract extraction!

Here's a picture of Elisee, grinning after the surgery, and putting his name down as chief surgeon on the operatory note for this case:

At the end of the afternoon, Jean Paul went to a local store and bought soft drinks for us all to share, and we had a party right there in the clinic, to celebrate a momentous occasion:

(Marius was taking the photo, so is missing from this picture.)

The next day (yesterday) in the morning, we took the patches off of the patients who had been operated on. Then the visual acuities were measured - Elisee's patient saw 20/40 already! Here he is examining his patient:

The patient was really happy, and shook Elisee's hand with joy as we took their pictures:

In some way, I almost feel like this patient is some kind of grandchild of mine, because my student restored his sight.

The patient's only question was when can we operate on his other eye :) . Praise God for His continued sustenance and direction as we continue our work here at Bongolo.

Church Involvement

2010-06-13T10:29:00.004-05:00

Since we have gotten back from the States from Wendy's written board exam, it has been so nice to have a little extra time to get more involved with our church. Wendy will have to start studying again soon (for the oral board exam, which is at the beginning of November), but we are savoring this little respite from studying! If you are wondering what we have been doing to get more involved in our church, you have come to the right place! Here is a picture of our church.

Our first activity took place a little over a month ago. It was an evangelistic outreach to the neighborhood surrounding the church. During the week of the outreach, the church had nightly meetings designed to help prepare us for the outreach. This included teaching about God's call for us to be witnesses, along with some role-playing showing do's and don't's when going door-to-door sharing the Gospel - it was a very interesting cultural experience. Most of the stuff was the same as in the US - things such as don't talk too much, be a good listener, don't yawn and look bored while the person is talking, etc. The one interesting thing was that we were told not to make too much eye contact - exactly the opposite of what we would do in the US!

Friday evening, we started at the church with some singing and a short word of encouragement from the pastor. Then when we were all ready to go door-to-door, a big downpour started (imagine a rainstorm in the rainforest!). So, we stayed in the church and sang and prayed. But after an hour, it was still raining hard, so we decided that God must have other plans.

The next night we had planned to show an evangelistic movie (imagine a drive-in movie without the cars or popcorn), along with the worship team singing some songs and the pastor sharing a message. Unlike the previous evening, this evening it was beautiful outside - God's wonderful timing! It was a big success, and 21 people came forward to accept Jesus, along with many others coming forward to request prayers.

Our next foray into church participation was when Eric gave the sermon in church. And he even gave it in French! To make sure that he was understood, Eric wrote out his sermon ahead of time and had the pastor make corrections in grammar/wording to make sure that the message would be understandable. Thanks to this preparation and much prayer, Eric was not very nervous, he spoke clearly and slowly, and the congregation seemed to follow the message quite well.

So, what was the topic of Eric's sermon, you might be asking yourself. He decided that since this was his first sermon, he wouldn't tackle anything too difficult - he meerly talked about why God allows suffering - why bad things happen to "good" people. Eric is not a very theologically deep guy, so he stuck with what he knew - personal experience. He first shared about suffering in his own life - the deaths of his mom and brother, both Christians and both deaths due to cancer.

He then talked about three instances of suffering in the Bible. The first (Acts 4:32-5:11) talked about two people who were put to death because of lies they told. This story showed suffering which came as a result of sin in someone's life. The second passage (2 Corinthians 12:7-10) showed God allowing suffering in the life of Paul in order to strengthen his character and deepen his dependance on God. And the third (John 9:1-11) was about a blind man that Jesus healed. Jesus told his disciples that this man's blindness was not due to his sin or the sin of his parents. Jesus said that the suffering was allowed that the glory of God might be displayed. So, these stories showed that suffering is sometimes due to sin in our lives, but not always! Sometimes it is allowed for our character development or so that glory may be given to God.

The third activity was that Wendy helped to plan and put on a baby shower for the pastor's wife. So, after church one Sunday, all the men were sent away while the women and children ate cake and popcorn, played games, talked about God's gift of children, and made a lot of noise. In fact, they made so much noise that several women from the neighborhood came by to find out what was happening, and they decided to join in on the fun. So, in addition to having a lot of fun, the baby shower served as a good opportunity to show God's love to these ladies! It is great how God uses our every-day activities to spread His love!

Pygmies

2010-05-24T05:23:00.005-05:00

Imagine that you have been told all your life that you are a second-class human. You are the poorest of the poor in a small village in rural Africa, and your family has always been poor....and always will be, you think. You are good at disappearing into the forest if unknown intruders enter your village, and you hunt well. But your first day at school, you are taunted so severely by the other children that you return home with your head hanging and refuse to return. What did they call you?

"Pygmy."

Racism exists in Africa, regarding the pygmies, although it is not evident in everyday life because they so effectively hide themselves from the rest of society that there is little interaction. This identity of shame is so deeply a part of pygmies that they struggle to make eye contact with anyone not of their tribe. Here is one girl who has red hair instead of black because of malnourishment as a result of poverty.

Our hospital administrator's wife, Jackie (a Gabonese lady), has had a heart to reach out and minister to this people group. Because Jackie has known some pygmies for years, they don't flee when she approaches. I had the opportunity to go with her on her latest trip a week or two ago. (Unfortunately, Eric fell ill with a fever and rash and stayed home to rest.) Here is a picture of Jackie.

We came with Jackie's gift of words that would have made Jesus smile, I think. Jackie gave them a mini-sermonette and pointed to her skin (black) and their skin (also black). "What's the difference?" she asked them. "Do you think God made a mistake when he made me from my tribe, or you as a pygmy, or the missionaries here as Americans? No, He made you exactly how He wanted you to be. And He is very pleased with you! You should be proud to be who you are."

We also came with material gifts of clothing, shoes, hats, cooking oil, frozen turkey wings, rice, and toy animals for the kids. And Dr. Keir (a general surgeon) and I saw some patients there as well, as the pygmies are too poor to afford the transportation to get to Bongolo hospital (1 1/2 hours away). Below is where I did eye consultations in the first of two villages that day.

The pygmies are on average shorter than a Gabonese person who is not a pygmy, but it seems like they are a little taller now than from stories we've heard from 75 years ago here (Beyond the Mist is a book that tells the story of Don Fairley, who first started Bongolo in the 1930's, and it shows pictures of very short pygmies).

They have also begun to wear clothing similar to that of other Gabonese, which helps their social standing somewhat. Before, they wore only loinclothes. No one knows how many pygmies there are today in Gabon, because they really do melt into the forest when alarmed by strangers.

The children were happy with their gifts!

The Kitties Strike Back (aka Death Comes to the Hofman Household)

2010-05-18T10:16:00.005-05:00

It was an exciting time to be a missionary at Bongolo! We had just gotten word that the contents of the most recent container had made it through the port and customs (which can take weeks), and they were headed down to Bongolo on a couple of trucks! The long wait was finally over, and soon, we'd be receiving gifts that our families had sent us, along with a number of other items that we had ordered on line. Even though it was the middle of spring, "Christmastime is Here" could be heard being sung at the Hofman household, and we seriously considered breaking out the Charlie Brown Christmas show. Soon, we would be enjoying M&Ms, Malt-o-Meal, chips that are actually crisp, Swiss chocolate, and an exercise machine to burn off all the aforementioned items! Ah, life was good.
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But then, in the middle of a long day of auditing, we received news that would make an accountant want to throw down his favorite calculator - one of the trucks had rolled over on the muddy roads! It had been raining steadily the whole day, so we knew there were some definite dangers. And this is a picture of the truck.

Much of the contents had spilled out on the ground, and many boxes were dented and muddy. Thank the Lord, no one was hurt. But what would become of our treasured stuff? We had a nice pot of chili brewing in anticipation of the arrival of our Fritos!! But all we could do was pray for the best. And what did God do? Just as we were sitting down for dinner, we got a call saying that a few of the boxes had arrived. We left our dinner and went down, and low and behold, one of the boxes contained our Fritos. God is just too good to us!

Later that evening, thanks to the efforts of Paul (a fellow missionary) and many of the station workers, the rest of our boxes arrived. And thanks to the wonderful packing job of our parents and others, nothing major was lost.

With joy in our hearts and a skip in our steps, we opened our boxes, oohed and aahed over the contents, and started putting things away. I (Eric) was wrestling with the tape on one of the boxes when I heard a shriek come from the pantry. Thinking it was merely Wendy's shriek of happiness over the Lindt Mint chocolate, I continued the unpacking. But when Wendy appeared, it was obvious that chocolate had not been the cause of the scream. Instead, it was cockroaches! According to Wendy, she had counted more than 20 in our food pantry (with many more likely in hiding)!

But instead of panic, we thought things through rationally. We decided to just put the stuff in the kitchen overnight (instead of in the pantry). Wendy used up an entire can of insecticide spraying the pantry, we closed the pantry door, and then we gave our warrior kitties access to the kitchen overnight (since the pantry door has a big enough space at the bottom for even Gabon-sized roaches to make it through). If you wonder why we call them warrior kitties, you will soon find out. Here are our little warriors, at the ready for anything that might come through the pantry door (they even guarded our detergent!)

So, with the kitties standing guard, we went to bed feeling safe and secure. Getting up the next morning, we wondered what we would find. Little did we know that what awaited us was a battlefield, strewn with bodies. Here are but a few of the casualties.

Our kitties don't mess around when they have a house to protect!Needless to say, we were very happy with our little guys.

And our kitties were quite warn out. As a reward, we allowed them to stay inside all day and rest, and for lunch we opened two cans of tuna and gave them all the juice from the cans (they LOVE that stuff!)

After this, things calmed down for a little while here at Chez Hofman. But life in the jungle never stays calm for long. One morning soon thereafter, I came out to feed the kitties, and what did I see in our screened in porch but a bat!! Pretty scary-looking, huh?

And where, you might ask, were the warrior kitties during all this? They were living up to their name, chasing that bat all over the porch. At times they got quite close to catching him. But the ability to fly proved just a little too much, and try as they may, they could never quite get him. We think the kitties must have chased him down from the attic. It was obvious that the bat had had quite a fright - it was shaking like a leaf! So, we didn't have the heart to hurt him. I decided to try to direct him out the door with a tennis racket.

But to no avail. If you look very closely in this picture taken by Wendy, photographer extraordinaire, you can see that we got him very close to the open door, but he flew right by and stayed in the porch. In the picture, he's about halfway up the left-hand side of the open door.

We left the screen door open all morning, hoping he would find his way out eventually, but when we came back for lunch, he was still there. Both he and the kitties were exhausted, the kitties sprawled on the floor, and the bat sleeping from the ceiling. So, Wendy called on Joanna, another missionary, and we borrowed her butterfly net. The next thing you know, Wendy had captured the bat, and the excitement was over for the day.

After studying the bat up close in the net for a few minutes, it was time for the release. We figured he would get away as quickly as possible. But when we released him, where did he go? Right under the awning of our house (where there is access to our attic!) Some people (or in this case, bats) never learn!

And to top it all off, when we told the story to the gal that helps us clean the house, she asked what we did with the bat. When we told her we let it go, she was quite disappointed. She said that they are quite tasty, and she requested that the next time we catch a bat, we save it for her! Bonne appetite!

Bongolo Hospital Photo

2010-05-06T10:26:00.003-05:00

Hi all! I just wanted to share with you the best photo we have of Bongolo hospital from the air! It was taken from the Air Calvary plane just a couple of months ago. The eye clinic and its associated patient rooms are the three buildings the farthest toward the bottom of the photo, and the road to the right of the eye clinic leads toward our house, which would be below the bottom of the photo (but which is actually up a substantial hill).

Eye Clinic Happenings etc

2010-04-28T13:00:00.015-05:00

Our transition back to Gabon after having been in the states for a month is made easier by stories like that of this lady, Mama Souzane, and her daughter. A full 8 years ago, due to a cataract, Mama Souzane gradually lost vision in her left eye to the level of only being able to tell light from dark. Then 4 years ago, she lost vision to the same level in the right eye. So for 4 whole years, she has had to have others help her in every aspect of life and taking care of oneself due to being blind.
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Last week as part of our ministry at Bongolo to show Jesus' love to the people of Gabon, we removed the cataract in her right eye. She was very happy, and I think her daughter is relieved too!

We will likely remove the cataract in her other eye in the future. However, our surgical schedule is full for the next whole year! At least she will have one eye to see with while she waits.

I don't have a picture of Papa Isaac, but here is a picture of a similiar cataract I removed from another patient (this is a big one actually!). It was encouraging to see Isaac on Wednesday, as he was a routine followup....We've been here now long enough to see some long-term results!
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When Isaac came in to the eye clinic originally, he could see only hand motions with either eye. That means he couldn't count fingers from any distance, or of course see any letters on a vision chart. (Try squinting your eyes enough to have difficulty in seeing one finger right in front of you, or your hand moving.) We removed the problematic cataract from the first eye 10 months ago, and from the second eye 5 months ago. And this week, he is still seeing 20/20 with both eyes!

Dr. Elisee, our ophthalmology surgical resident from the Congo, is progressing excellently. He is now entering his 7th month of residency with me. So far, he has performed eviscerations (removing blind and painful eyes), done YAG laser procedures, and has even done one entire cataract surgery on his own! He regularly performs the first third of cataract surgeries for me, and we will continue to keep extending the number of steps he performs each time until he can do the entire surgery without too much stress or risk. He also sees clinic patients, gives presentations regularly, and takes exams. Way to go, Elisee!
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We are also very happy to report that construction on Elisee's family's apartment has begun! Praise God for all the donations that have come in, and thank you for being a part of this. Check out the beginning of construction....

We are also so thankful for the visit by our friends, Dr. Mike and Anita, and also our friend Henri! They took over the eye clinic while we were in the states for my boards exam, and it was a great comfort and joy to know that the clinic was in such good hands while we were gone.

Here's a picture of the eye clinic staff with Mike and Anita in front of our house....(Henri and our cleaning staff lady are missing.) Elisee is the one wearing the white coat.
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For those of you interested in a slightly graphic patient photo and story...please see the end of this blog entry. Otherwise, the following is a recent home-life event here in the jungle of Gabon.
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The expats here usually buy bread from the local town baker. However, for several weeks the baker stopped making and delivering our bread because he was "out of flour." (The store down the street sells flour, but never mind that.) The bigger problem, however, was when his oven broke shortly thereafter. So we have not been able to buy bread for the last couple of months, and we don't know if he will ever fix his oven. This has necessitated some baking at home.

There weren't too many surprises involved in that first endeavor, except that after buying flour in town, we realized we did have to sift it. Can you see the many small bugs left in the sifter? We just found this sifter in our house here, and are thankful for whichever missionaries left it for us to find! It worked great, and to my knowledge, not one bug was found in the bread itself.

Here is the story to accompany the final photos here. I first saw this lady my first week or two here in Gabon, last June. Her right eye was slightly protruding but not badly and it wasn't affecting her vision, so I sent her home without an intervention. We don't have a CT scanner here, and in general I am not an orbital surgeon, so we pursue "conservative measures" whenever possible and try to do more good than harm.

However, she came back a few months ago, looking like the first picture below - significantly more severe. In talking with the eye nurses (pictured above), I found out that she actually comes to the eye clinic about twice a year for the past 10 years looking like this, and the eye nurses put a huge 22G needle right above her eye to drain out a thick brownish liquid and this resolves the problem.

Never having seen this abnormality before, I was skeptical but allowed the nurse to proceed as usual, and this is what happened - see the before, during, and after photos below. Never doubt a good nurse when they're sure of themselves! He removed about 15-20cc of gel-like fluid and the patient was very happy.

I think this diagnosis is a frontoethmoidal mucocele, for those who are interested. It would be possible to do an orbital surgery to remove this cyst, but without a CT scanner and not knowing how much bone is intact between the cyst and the brain, I would be quite reluctant to do this. So we'll likely see this patient back again in another few months to repeat the same procedure.

Viscoelastic Panic!

2010-04-20T15:26:00.002-05:00

Well, I've never been in this situation before, but due to a combination of our geographic isolation in the jungle of Gabon as well as the ash over Europe and various schedule changes, we have a small crisis in the eye clinic.

Viscoelastic is a clear gel that is necessary for doing cataract and glaucoma surgeries....and we're about to run out next week.

So, yes, this is an unabashed plea for help! If you know what viscoelastic is and would like to get some for our clinic in the US and ship it to Gabon in order to help us continue operating, please email us at eric_hofman@hotmail.com (there's an underscore in that address). We will send you the various shipping options to choose from in order to get it here from the US.

Otherwise, please pray with us! Thanks!

Visit to the States

2010-04-18T11:04:00.003-05:00

Here you have it - the long awaited account of our time in the States!

Unfortunately, as it turns out, we don't have many pictures from our time in the States - I guess we were too busy marvelling over the amount of items available at Wallmart and the number of restaurant options to remember to pull out our camera.

When we finally arrived in Omaha, the first thing we saw on our way to the baggage claim was Eric's parents, holding up signs with our names on it. It was a good thing they did this, because they may not have recognized us, now that we have become so africanized! Actually, other than Eric having lost 20 lbs due to having giardia, we looked pretty much the same. And Eric's parents made it their mission to remedy the weight issue by feeding us non-stop! From our first meal of BLT's (crispy bacon, fresh lettuce and tomatoes - yum!!), to having dessert after every meal (including breakfast!), we ate quite well, and by the time we left, Eric was well on his way to his normal weight.

We must not forget the main reason we were back in the States - Wendy's exam. During the first two weeks, Wendy spent the majority of her non-meal time studying. She was very dilligent, and we hope to receive good news when the results for the exam come out in late May. While Wendy was studying, Eric spent time with his family, going to movies, getting some shopping done, but also sifting through emails.

After Wendy's exam, we had one free day with Eric's family before leaving for our next destination. To celebrate Wendy being done, we went out to a nice Italian restaurant, went to a movie, went to the zoo, and Eric's parents treated us to a shopping spree (for Christmas and birthday presents).

Then we were off to California for a quick trip to see some friends who have been big supporters of the eye clinic in Gabon. We had a great (but short) time with them. One of the mornings, Wendy went off for a ladies time of shopping and to get a hair cut while Eric did something more manly - high speed go carts! Thankfully, that ended without injury, neither to Eric nor his go cart.

Our trip to CA felt like a whirlwind, but it was nice to see so many folks! Then the next destination was OK City to see Wendy's family. There, we were met at the airport by Wendy's parents, with fresh baked chocolate chip cookies! This warm welcome was only a foreshadowing of the nice time to come. We enjoyed many a tasty meal, and much time with family. We played tennis, went to movies, and went for a hike in the mountains of OK. We even got a chance to color Easter eggs with all the nieces and nephews, and go to the Easter church service with the whole family.

But sad to say, this all came to an end. We had a hard time saying goodbye to everyone, but it just reminds of how blessed we are to have such a loving and fun family.

A few quick impressions of America after being gone for so long:
- What amazing variety of restaurants are available! We ate like crazy and still never made it to all the places we wanted to go to.
- Things are so convenient - everything is fast, and customer service is wonderful!
- 3D movies?! Just how long have we been gone anyway??
- What a luxury to be able to bathe and flush the toilet with drinkable water! Once again I could sing in the shower without worries of getting parasites!
- High speed internet - what will they think of next??
- God bless dairy farmers! Dairy is in abundant supply in the US, and we savored every glass of milk, spoonful of sour cream, and dollup of whipped cream (and don't forget the ice cream!)
- The roads are so smooth and people can drive so fast!!! The next time you are slowed down due to construction, thank the Lord for it. If it wasn't for that construction, you'd be driving slow all the time (because of bad roads).
- English is great!! It's such a nice feeling to be able to walk up to someone and know without a doubt that we'll be able to make ourselves understood.
- It's so nice to have family in the same time zone, or even the same room!

God bless you, America - land that we love! May we never again take you for granted, and may God protect you from the many attacks the devil throws your way.

Last Day in the US of A

2010-04-08T23:26:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone - we're so sorry we have not put up a post recently. We've been in the States for the past month, and we've been too busy resting, eating (Eric gained 20 lbs!!), studying (Wendy finished off her studying and took her exam on March 23rd - results come in late May), and visiting with family. We've really enjoyed our time here!

Tonight is our last night here. Tomorrow (Friday) morning, we'll be showing up to the airport at 7:30 am for a 9:19 departure, and we'll be getting into Libreville, Gabon on Saturday evening at around 6:40 pm. It's hard to believe our time in the States has come to an end. But we thank the Lord for all of the good times he gave us with family. We'll be sure to update you more later about the highlights of our trip (such as drinking water straight from the tap and drinking gallon after gallon of skim milk). But we just wanted to let you know we're still alive and kicking. Please pray for safe travels and for rest on the planes. Thanks! And happy Easter (a little late)!

On The Road Again

2010-03-06T15:47:00.000-06:00

Eric and Wendy Hofman, world travelers extraordinaire, are at it again, traversing the globe, leaving no stone unturned and no dessert untasted in their path. Here is an excerpt from their travel journal:

March 6th: We now find ourselves in Libreville, the capital of Gabon, staying at a guesthouse run by our good friends, Steve and Alace. No one goes home hungry after a stay with the Straws, and this weekend is no exception. Last night, after enjoying a delicious salad with grilled chicken (we don't get much lettuce here in Gabon, so salad is quite a treat!), the Straws treated us to a dessert extravaganza at La Genoise. We had ice cream and cookies, and played a wacky game of Mad Libs, which included a story of “amoebas dancing glaringly”.

Today, we plan to go to a nice beach in Libreville, where Wendy will continue her studies, while the rest of us relax, read, and play on the beach. Hopefully the change in scenery will be good for Wendy, who has been studying like crazy for her Board exam, which will be taking place March 23rd in Omaha.

We're scheduled to arrive in Omaha on March 10th, and it's forecasted to have a high of 47, with possible snow. 47 sounds pretty warm for March in Omaha, but I'm sure it will feel quite frigid to us. Perhaps a pair of long underwear will be in order! It sure will be nice to see our families again. It's been over a year since we were last home.

Today marks our 1 year mark for being in Africa. We arrived at Cotonou, Benin on March 6, 2009 - my how quickly the time goes. In this past year Wendy has performed over 500 eye surgeries, Eric has made thousands of entries into QuickBooks, and we’ve gotten a little taste of what life is like in Africa. And we hope that through it all, many have been brought into a closer relationship with God, the author and creator of all life.

What will the next year bring? Only God can answer that one. But we can be sure that it will be something that He will use for good, and we can be certain that we are well loved by God. And this is a fact that is more satisfying than a bowl of chocolate ice cream and more fascinating than a troop of dancing amoebas!

Jungle Love

2010-02-15T11:30:00.008-06:00

When Valentine's Day comes, and you find yourself in the jungles of Africa, what can you do to celebrate? Well, you kind of make do with what is available.

First, Eric wanted to give Wendy a valentine card. But what can he do? There's not a Hallmark shop in site? So, he did the next best thing. He made his own. Being in the rainforest, there are many trees that he could have carved a heart and their initials into - but that has been done so many times before - it's just not very original. He needed something unique, something that would tell his wonderful wife that she is not just the run of the mill wife, but that she is something special.

And so he found this - a pothole in the shape of a heart. It just doesn't get more romantic than that! It says "My love for you is stronger than concrete. It has been forged by the weather of time. It is no man-made love. Instead, it's something that came directly from the hand of God."

Then for dinner, we joined another couple (who happened to be celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary) at the new restaurant in town called Ditchi. It's actually quite a nice place - complete with air conditioning! We both tried the new item on the menu - Moroccan couscous with chicken - quite tasty. And we wore our matching outfits that we had made for our anniversary.

And to finish off the evening, we sat down to enjoy an episode of Star Trek, with Wendy sitting in her neck traction device and Eric in his rocker recliner. Jean Luc Picard - there's not many names as romantic as that! Pictured here is a reenactment of this viewing, but faces have been changed to protect the innocent.

But given that it's Valentine's Day, we should not forget the author and creator of love - God! I Corinthians 13 talks about love, but we know from other passages that God is love, so we have come up with this new rendition of the Love Chapter (using the NIV).

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not God, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not God, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not God, I gain nothing.
God is patient, God is kind. He does not envy, He does not boast, He is not proud. He is not rude, He is not self-seeking, He is not easily angered, He keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. He always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. God never fails.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

In honor of President's Day, we also tried to find a pot hole the shape of Abraham Lincoln, but to no avail. Sorry - maybe next year! :)

The Number 3 and the Letter V

2010-02-07T14:14:00.012-06:00

For the Sesame Street generation, this blog is brought to you by the letter V and the number 3.

The first V is for Visitor. We had our first visitor from the States come out to see us this past week - yay!! Her name is Lisa, and she also has the distinction of being our only visitor during our time in Switzerland - she really gets around!!

We had a great time with Lisa, and were very encouraged by her visit. While she was here, we went to a couple of the local restaurants, had a cooking lesson from Mariam (our househelper), went to the river to catch some little fish (which we brought home to provide some hunting practice for the kitties, which they love), and played games. But most of all, we just enjoyed spending time together, showing Lisa what it's like to live here. She was a little hesitant about showering and washing clothes in river water, which is what comes out of our pipes (and drinking filtered water that was still a little brown), but she was a good sport about it all.

And she was a huge help to Wendy in the eye clinic! She started to take an inventory of the eye clinic supplies, but then realized that she needed to do some organizing first, which kept her busier than she had bargained for! She even roped Eric into coming down to help her on a Saturday morning! But the supplies are now well organized and counted, and Wendy has a good set-up for keeping track of how many supplies she uses going forward - thanks Lisa!!

Now on to the second V - Veterinarian. Can any of you guess what this is referring to? If you guessed horses, that was a good try (given Wendy's love of horses), but sorry - that's not it. But if you guessed the neutering of a cat, you win the prize! Wendy (along with her expertly trained team, which includes 2 fellow missionaries serving as scrub nurse and anesthesiologist), neutered our sweet little Johnny on Saturday morning.

Wendy was a little nervous operating on a member of the family, but the surgery went well. Johnny was a little out of sorts Saturday afternoon and evening, walking around like a drunken sailor, and getting knocked over by Pokey, who wanted to play. You can see from this picture that he was a little out of it. Or perhaps, he was just reverting to his childhood.

At times, Pokey was very sweet, hanging out with her sick brother to keep him company during his recovery.

But by Sunday he was up to his normal antics, crying for food at any and every opportunity (milking his operation for all it was worth - he probably learned this from Eric), and planning covert attacks on Pokey as a little payback for her knock-downs on Saturday.

With the stellar success of the surgery, Wendy is longingly looking forward to the day when she can hand off the eye clinic to Elisee, at which point she can start her veterinary practice in earnest.

And for the third and final V - Vegetables!!! Or more accurately, I should say tomatoes!! (OK - perhaps tomatoes are technically a fruit, but "fruit" doesn't start with a "V", and since the Vikings didn't make it to the Super Bowl, I had to come up with a "V" somehow!) Our tomatoes are still doing quite well, and we've been enjoying fresh tomato slices on our sandwiches (or even just plain) for the last couple of weeks. Yum!!! Who would have thought that fresh vegetables could taste so good!

Breaking News!!

2010-01-24T10:09:00.009-06:00

This weekend, we had some breaking news - Eric broke his little toe!! And to add a little fun to the blog, we'll see if you can guess how it happened - via multiple choice:

How did Eric break his toe?
A. In the process of trying to protect a gecko from being eaten by a very large spider, Eric kicked the wall, breaking his toe while the spider ran off to safety.
B. Sick of Wendy studying all the time, Eric kicked a stack of her study books, breaking his toe in the process.
C. Imagining himself to be Michael Chang, Eric tried to run down an amazing shot by Keir in tennis, tripped over his own foot, and broke his toe.
D. Not looking where he was going, Eric kicked the leg of a chair while walking by it.
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We'll start by eliminating the incorrect answers.

This weekend, Eric heard a little shriek come from the bathroom. This is not all that uncommon - it happens whenever Wendy sees a bug of some sort, especially one in the bathroom. When Eric went into the bathroom to see what was going on, Wendy pointed up to the wall. A large spider was there lurking. It was probably as big as the palm of Eric's hand (Wendy's note: Eric has a BIG palm!). Then we saw a little gecko run by on another part of the wall. The spider was definitely bigger than the gecko, and we feared a bit for his safety. But thankfully, the gecko wisely kept its distance, so there was no need to try to save him. So Eric did not break his toe protecting a gecko.

With Wendy's exam coming up very quickly (we leave the first part of March to go back to the States), Wendy has been studying A LOT. At times, Eric gets quite jealous of all the attention that her study books get (attention that rightly belongs to him, from his point of view)! So, he often dreams about various ways of getting rid of those nasty books - throwing them over the cliff, using them as kindling in our fireplace, pouring syrup on them and then letting the ants devour them, or simply giving them a kick. But knowing how important this exam is to Wendy, Eric has resisted all of these temptations, and so he did not break his toe in that way.

While we are very thankful for the blessing of having a tennis court here in the jungle, the lines on the tennis court were in sad shape. This past week, Eric and Lisa (another missionary here) repainted the lines, and now it looks quite good. So, Eric and Keir (a general surgeon here) were testing out the new lines. The lines worked quite well, but Keir's shots were so good that perhaps not even Michael Chang could have reached them (let alone Eric, even in his dreams). Eric's pride took quite a beating on the tennis court, but the court had no adverse affect on his toe.

So, this leaves the last answer - the correct one. Similar to Eric's story about how his cell phone stopped a bullet and saved his life, he may try to tell you some fantastic story about the breaking of his toe. But don't believe a word of it! He simply broke it because he was not paying attention to where he was going.

But it hasn't been all bad. Because Eric broke his toe, Wendy has been giving him a lot more attention. Eric has finally found a way to defeat those study books of Wendy's!!!

Gardening in Gabon

2010-01-18T07:42:00.009-06:00

When we initially came to Gabon, we were licking our lips, thinking of all the fresh produce that we were going to be able to grow here. I mean, with Gabon being in the rainforest, constantly warm and humid, you would think that it would be like living in a huge greenhouse! And many times, with sweat dripping off our brows, that's exactly what it feels like.

Some things really grow well here. Weeds grow great! Those dads that enjoy mowing the grass would think they were in heaven, being able to mow multiple times a week. And the pocketbooks of bamboo sellers would be overflowing.

But normal garden vegetables (such as lettuce, carrots, green beans, etc), just don't do that well. Either they get flooded with the many rains, or they get eaten by the many bugs. Here we see a section of earth where we planted zucchini, snap peas, and radishes. They've all been cleared out because they just didn't want to grow. All that's left are a couple flowering plants that we put there so it wasn't completely empty - and a few tomato plants, which we'll get to in a moment. We did manage to grow a couple zucchinis, but even those were half-eaten by maggots.

But we did find one garden item that thrives in this environment - tomatoes!!! These plants were started from seed, and they're bigger than any tomato plants I've ever seen! If we put tall enough stakes up, I bet they could grow to be even taller than me!! Here's Wendy working on staking up some of those great big tomatoes!

And we can't complain. There are a few other things that have grown for us or others on the mission station.

There's corn....

There's peanuts - imagine that - I never dreamed that I could grow my own peanuts!!

And there's trees bearing many coconuts and avocados. Look at those red tomatoes - yum!!

There's also bananas, mangos, oranges, pineapples, and a few others that grow during certain times of the year. Ok, ok - so maybe things do grow well here - just not the things we planted!!! But we sure are thankful for those tomatoes - Wendy's already dreaming of the different salads she'll be able to make, not to mention guacamole with fresh avocadoes and tomatoes!!

The Holidays

2010-01-07T09:14:00.012-06:00

(Note: Special edition blog entry, written by a combination of Eric and Wendy.....)

The holidays have now come and gone, and here we find ourselves looking down the road of another year. But before we get too far down that road, we need to tell you about how the past year ended!

To start off, we had some visitors over the holidays! Chris L (an ophthalmologist and also one of the big supporters of the eye clinic) and Shawn, a friend of his skilled in construction, spent a week and a half with us. We had them over for dinner a few times, we celebrated Christmas and New Years with them, and we even got in a game of tennis. Their visit was a huge blessing. This was not only due to the gifts they brought (mmmm....beef jerky and chocolate), and the trunk-loads of supplies for the eye clinic, but they also brought with them much encouragement for both of us, and much teaching/training time for Wendy and Elisee in the eye clinic.

We've had a number of "firsts" this last couple of weeks! The first of the firsts is....thanks to our new Bongolo airplane, "Air Calvary," (see below) our YAG/SLT laser finally arrived for the eye clinic! This might sound like technical gobbledygook, but it actually is something very good. This is the laser that many of you, our friends and family, helped us to buy! Thank you so much!

The YAG component of the laser will allow restoration of sight to people who have had cataract surgery but who later developed scar tissue that had again blurred the vision. It restores clear sight and ensures that the benefit from the cataract surgery is not lost! And the SLT component of the laser is a treatment that is given to a patient to lower their eye pressure and help slow the progression of vision loss from glaucoma (a disease that is rampant here).

Here is our first patient to receive a YAG: his name is Samuel. Samuel gladly gave us permission to share his picture with you all. When I did his cataract surgery last month, he was the first patient I've had who insisted on praying for his own operation (usually one of the nurses or surgeons prays) - and he did this while lying on the operating table with his head covered with a sterile drape and his eye propped open. He must have prayed for a solid 3-4 minutes (in a local African dialect I didn't understand). He went from blind in that eye to seeing 20/20 within a week. Great result!

But why the YAG? ...the other eye had had cataract surgery elsewhere and had already developed scar tissue that gave him blurry vision. I have to tell you that Samuel is a "retired" evangelist. He wasn't happy with seeing with just one eye because, he said probably 10 times, "I have to read my Bible to share the gospel." So here we are (above) with the YAG, restoring the vision in his other eye too. He was delighted! Merry Christmas :) .

Other "firsts" for the eye clinic lately: we did our first two phacoemulsification surgeries, thanks to Dr. Chris' help! This also gave us vitrectomy capability! And we implanted several Express shunts! And we got a new slit lamp! I'm afraid I'll just say that much technical jargon for my ophthalmology friends - but for the rest of you, just know that these things are good for our patients. This is likely the only YAG/SLT in all of Gabon. Both of the patients who had the phaco surgeries are seeing 20/20 or better.

Back to daily life....Also during this time, we had another arrival - our friend Eric was back from school on Christmas break. We had the pleasure of also having him over a couple times for dinner, going to his house to enjoy an authentic African meal for New Years, watching a soccer match together, and marveling at his skill in opening coconuts! In the time it normally takes me to open one coconut, our friend Eric opened 7!! Sadly, he is once again back at school, but we sent him home with a care package full of goodies including peanut butter, bug spray, and an assortment of spices to add to his normal daily meal of rice.

In addition to having visitors, we also had a whole list of events that have occurred in the past couple weeks:

Dec 23rd: About 15 members of our little church were invited to sing in front of the big church here at the hospital - we sang Silent Night (in French), ironically while the not-so-silent storms raged outside.

Dec 24th: After work, all of the missionaries (18 of us, including kids) celebrated the birthday of one of the missionaries by going out to eat at the new restaurant in town. We ended up eating in shifts (because we kind of overwhelmed the restaurant with our numbers), but fun was had by all. Afterwards, we all went over to a couple's house for cookies (12 different kinds!!), Christmas carols, and a couple special visitors (Santa and Mrs. Claus!!!)

Dec 25th: In the morning, Wendy and I enjoyed a quiet time of listening to Christmas music and opening presents (see a picture of all of our loot!). Then we went to church, and afterwards, we had a big pot luck with the other missionaries, followed by Christmas caroling in the rain! That was a first for me, but Wendy said she had caroled in the rain many a time in Seattle. Oh, and one of Wendy's favorites - we made Christmas bread!! Mom, do you think we let the dough rise enough???? :)

Middle of the next week: The plane, the plane!! It has arrived. Bongolo Hospital now has a plane that is available for transporting people to/from Libreville. A trip that used to take 8-10 hours over rough/bumpy roads can now be made in less than 2 hours! What a blessing! The pilot is expecting to make the trip about once a week, with additional trips as the need arises. It's thanks to this smooth service by Air Calvary that we were able to receive our YAG/SLT laser. Otherwise the bumpy roads may have been disastrous to the optics in this expensive laser.

New Years Eve: In honor of being in Africa, the home of many elephants, we attended the 3rd annual White Elephant gift exchange. We were told that the gift should be roughly $5 in value, and we were told - NO JUNK. But who defines junk anyway? One man's junk is another man's treasure. What types of gifts does one find at a white elephant party in the jungle? The most popular items were beef jerky, home-made cookies, and ranch dressing. Wendy ended up with a horse poster and some coffee (which we have since traded for peanut butter) and I got chocolate sauce, BBQ sauce, and Heinz catsup - bring on the fries!!

And last, but not least, Wendy, with the aid of a couple missionaries, neutered one of the mission cats (a final "first" for the last two weeks!). All went well, and the cat is now up and about. (To protect patient privacy, we have refrained from including any photos here.) This surgery was a warm-up for when she neuters our cat Johnny in another month. I tell ya - Wendy is one talented gal!!

The Weekend Before Christmas

2009-12-19T06:02:00.003-06:00

'Twas the weekend before Christmas, when all through the trees,
Every insect was biting, from no see-ums to flees!
The stockings were pulled up to ward off attacks
'Cause mosquitoes are hungry - they're wanting a snack.
The Hofmans were sweating, hoping for relief
They dreamt of cool waters, of sand and of reef
Eric in shorts and T-shirt, and Wendy in scrubs
She sat down to study - her wise chin she rubs.
.
When out in the forest there arose such a clatter
We jumped from our seats to find out the matter
Away to the window we flew in a jiffy
Flung open the knockos to see what was iffy
.
The wetness of grass due to new fallen rain,
(It rains in Gabon, again and again)
created a water park just right for our kittens
who ran and who jumped, swatting moths with their mittens.
.
A little young gecko was happy to see this
For cats loved to chase him, and rarely did they miss,
More rapid than eagles, their paws were like lightening
And for a young gecko, there's nothing more frightening!
.
"It's only the kittens" we said to each other
"Havoc created by sister and brother
But we can't complain, having them in our house,
For if they weren't here, it'd be rats or a mouse!"
.
With crisis averted, we got back to our studies
And my mind drifted back home to our buddies.
It's Christmas already, but our families are distant
Tears tried to consume me, but I was resistant.
.
Our loved ones are not here - we miss them, 'tis true
But we have each other - and the mission crew!
They're brothers and sisters, they're nephews and nieces
That God has provided, and don't forget Jesus!
.
He departed heaven and came down to Earth
As a little baby - so humble a birth!
He paid for our sins by His death on the cross
Our works cannot save us; without Him, we're lost!
.
What are we to do, with this great a gift?
We share it with others, and His name we lift
He's opened our eyes and given us light
Praise Jesus this Christmas, and to all a good night!
.
Here's a picture of the "mission crew" at a Christmas cookie party. They are a wonderful group of folks, and we've really been blessed by them!!

At work a few days ago

2009-12-14T07:51:00.002-06:00

I love what I do here, and at times it's more apparent to me than usual. For instance....every time this little girl Esther (on the right) sees me at the eye clinic, she runs headlong toward me with her arms outstretched and a big smile on her face, wanting to be picked up. She's a 4 yr old child who can't stand still more than 2 seconds (I was going to say 5 seconds, but that would be too long!). But she is very sweet and shows all her affection with her whole body rather than speaking much. I've removed cataracts from both of her eyes now. When she arrived, she was only able to see well enough to count fingers, and now she is able to see several lines on the eye chart with both eyes and is more precocious than ever.

The boy on the left, Erwin, is just as winsome as Esther. They're not related to each other, but when I saw them sitting together, I just had to snap this picture. When Erwin first arrived, his bilateral cataracts were so dense that he could only tell the difference between light and dark. He was very demure and compliant as his mother led him by the hand. After his first surgery, it was a delight to watch him over the next few days as his curiousity slowly awakened and he began wanting to see and investigate everything around him. He seemed to be everywhere, exploring on his own now, and I saw him almost every day somewhere around the clinic and inpatient ward. It was great when he started waving to me from afar.

A day or two after this photo was taken of these two kids above, with this great story, a third child was brought in by his parents with a much sadder situation. We have big ups and downs here....This family had to travel 3 days to get to our hospital. The boy was only 6 months old and he had a very large tumor growing behind his right eye and into the right side of his head that had only been first noticed a month ago - likely a retinoblastoma. In this blog, I wrote about another little girl with a similar situation who came in 3-4 months ago; same tumor. Like her, this little boy's tumor was too advanced to save his life. We offered to give him pain medication in an attempt at hospice care over the last week or two of his life, but the family decided to leave the next day. May the Lord comfort and walk with them through this terrible time. Hospice care is something that doesn't exist here and is really missed at times like this.

As you've likely read down below, I'm doing more studying for my boards exam now, so Eric is doing more of the blog entries and you'll get to hear more about what our non-medical lives are like here for the next few months. But every now and then I'll try to put in a word or two for our patients :) .

"French" Toast

2009-12-06T09:51:00.002-06:00

God can speak in many ways. To some, He speaks through dreams and visions; to others, He speaks through the words of friends and mentors; and to all of us, He speaks through His Word - the Bible. But yesterday morning, we sat down to breakfast, and this is what we saw. What do you see when you look at this picture? It looks a lot like Africa to us!! Maybe this is just a little confirmation that we are in the right place. I wonder if we're the only couple that God has ever spoken to through French toast! You can't say that God doesn't have a sense of humor. :) We will never look at our breakfast the same way again.

By the way, the chocolate chip was placed there afterwards by Wendy to mark where we are at - Gabon! Bon appetite!

Celebrations!!

2009-11-30T08:33:00.004-06:00

This past week, we had a couple of celebrations, and we figured it might be nice for you to hear how we celebrated.

First was our anniversary. You might be saying "Wait - they've already celebrated their anniversary! They spent time at beaches on both the east AND the west coast of Africa - isn't that enough??" Well, according to Wendy (and probably to all wives!), one must recognize the actual day of the anniversary, no matter what else one has already done to celebrate. So, for our anniversary, we got all spiffed up (Wendy in a dress given to her by one of her patients and Eric in his standard button down shirt), we borrowed a car from one of our fellow missionaries, and we went to the new restaraunt in town. The menu turned out to be pretty much the same - chicken, fish, or omeletes, with the choice of fries, plantains, rice, and spaghetti. Other types of meat were also on the menu (beef, porcupine, antelope), but since it was our first time at the restaurant, we played it safe and ordered chicken.

But the perks at this place included - table cloths, air conditioning, peanuts served as an appetizer (which was much appreciated since we were both hungry), hot food, catsup for the fries, and the ability to order soft drinks (instead of having to bring your own). Then, in true American style, we ate in less than an hour, paid the bill, left a "large" tip - about $2 (to the delight of the store owner, since it's not customary to leave tips here) and then went home to watch a movie. Quite a nice evening. :)

Then comes Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving isn't celebrated here in Gabon, but as a small way to recognize the day, we had canned turkey and stove top stuffing in a caserole along with mashed potatoes and gravy and cornbread muffins (quite good), and we watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. Then on Friday, most of the missionaries got together for a pot luck, and we had turkey and all the fixings (including three different types of pumpkin dessert - but Eric's favorite was the pecan pie bars!) We then hung out and just enjoyed each other's company. We even went Turkey carolling to a couple houses of missionaries that weren't able to come to the meal! Someone had also taped a football game, but we never got around to watching it. Oh well - watching anything other than Nebraska football on the day after Thanksgiving would just be a disappointment.

And what do most American's do the weekend of Thanksgiving? Well, ok, they shop, but here in the rainforest, there's not much shopping to do (and if you get to the store at 5:00 am, all you're going to get is a few funny looks). But Americans also put up their Christmas decorations!. So on Saturday, with Amy Grant singing Christmas carols in the background, we put up the small Christmas tree and lights that we brought.

It's kind of weird celebrating Thanksgiving and getting ready for Christmas in the heat of the rainforest and being away from family, but we're doing the best we can to get in the spirit of the season! Happy Thanksgiving!!

Wendy's Wild World of Wisdom

2009-11-26T03:40:00.008-06:00

With less than 4 months left before Wendy's board exam, she has embarked on an ambitious quest to gain wisdom. She has insituted a very rigorous study schedule. Her goal is to study 400 hours between now and the exam! This works out to 22 hours a week outside of work - 2 hours a day each weekday, and 5 hours a day on the weekend (with a little more on Monday, her administrative day).

Here we see Wendy in her many different modes of study. As you can see here, she is at times accompanied by helpers who seek to keep her company in her times of work.

These helpers can be found working in all sorts of positions.

Other times, the helpers are found sleeping on the job.

But often, they are found to be attentive, and more than willing to jump in and help.

Perhaps this one is a little TOO willing!!

Unfortunately, this studying isn't always as fun as it appears in these pictures, so please pray for Wendy over the next few months. Pray that God would give her energy, the ability to focus and understand what she studies, and times of good rest.

Nothing Much To Say

2009-11-16T09:15:00.009-06:00

What does one do when it's his turn to do a blog entry, but he has nothing much to say??? He puts up random silly pictures!!

Ah, it doesn't get much cuter than this! :)

Milk anyone?
Now this guy is equipped to eat!!

How many chickens can you see here? And wait - are those still alive???

Speaking of chicken, I'm hungry!!

How did Wendy ever convince me to climb the Eiffel Tower?? I guess that's what love does to you!

Just chillin in the palace.

After the palace, it's time for a ride on my noble steed - but is the steed as noble as his rider??

Eric's true identity is finally revealed - we always knew there was something special about him!

Jedis of a different sort battle it out.

Chocolate fondue - mmmm....

Wendy didn't fully trust her sunscreen, so she took some additional measures to get protection from the sun. I think she's too late - sunstroke has made her delirious.

I think this person is beyond helping!

Ah - nothing beats flapjacks during a chilly morning of camping.

Except maybe riding a horse!!

Look at those muscles!!

Pictured here - the next John Travolta with his leading lady.

It doesn't get much funnier than that!!

The one who created laughter also went through much sorrow for our sake.

And there is none like Him

All praise to the one who created the heavens, the earth, and laughter. :)

A Different Kind of Wedding

2009-11-09T07:57:00.006-06:00

Last weekend, Eric and I and two other westerners were honored to be the only non-family members to be invited to the traditional wedding ceremony for a nurse who works at the eye clinic. This was a great cultural experience and a pleasure to be part of this time in this couple’s lives.
We were in a nearby village inside a small, dimly lit room with plastic chairs arm-to-arm all around the outside of the room, with the clean dirt floor left clear in the center of the ring of chairs. People’s heads could be seen peeking in from the few windows, backlit by the sun. The ceremony traditionally takes place at the bride’s family’s house and primarily involves the giving of the dowry. No one was smiling. Normally the father of the groom and the uncle of the bride do the bartering as the groom’s family offers the dowry (the “bride price”) to the bride’s family.
The dowry included items such as lengths of cloth, machetes, liquor, live animals (goats), pipes, pots, lanterns, and cash. Items were often brought in pairs and had deeper symbolic significance – for example, lanterns light the way for the couple’s new life together, and machetes mean work and provision. These items were brought one by one and laid on a rug on the floor in the middle of the room.
The ceremony took place in Nzebi, a local language here, so we didn’t understand most of the exchange, but there were some intense emotions as items were offered by the groom’s family and rejected by the bride’s family as being insufficient. They played bartering word-games with one another that were more than half serious, we think. In the end, after the piles of goods grew considerably in the middle of the floor, the price was accepted and the two patriarchs embraced with joy. Later I asked the groom if it had been more costly than he expected. “Oh, it was a little more than we had thought,” he said, with a small smile – but with a twinkle in his eye and a spring in his step.
At the small gathering after the wedding, a truckbed full of gifts of thanksgiving (plantains with live chickens attached) was also presented from the bride’s family to the groom’s family. As the dowry will be distributed among the bride’s family, so this gift will be distributed among the groom’s family.
Marriage here is often a long process. At the beginning is the “presentation,” where the man officially declares his wish to marry the woman. This also involves the giving of gifts to the woman’s family. After this, the couple is considered to be engaged. Then there is the traditional ceremony, as described above. However, in the eyes of the state, the traditional marriage has no legal significance. So there is also a civil ceremony which can be several hours long. Finally, couples who are Christians often want to have a ceremony at the church – this can be as short as a blessing during a regular Sunday service, but often they want a white wedding dress, wedding cake, and a dinner for the guests afterward. All of this is expensive, and sometimes these 4 parts of the marriage process take years or even decades to complete, as the couple saves and saves money.
On an unrelated note, here are some of the promised pictures of our new ophthalmology resident, Dr. Elisee. A couple of days before we left for our conference in Kenya, Dr. Elisee arrived and we welcomed him at the hospital with a “white coat ceremony.” At our hospital, this is where the doctor is given the rights and responsibilities inherent to practicing as a Christian physician at our hospital. The hospital administrator, chief surgeon, chief of staff, and myself welcomed him and he officially began his residency on October 8th, 2009.

The last photo is a picutre of the eye clinic staff with their new addition.

3 Years Already!!

2009-11-04T08:31:00.020-06:00

At the end of this month, a big day is coming up for us - our 3rd anniversary! It's hard to believe, but we've already been married for almost 3 years! How do missionaries in Africa celebrate their anniversary? Go to the local restaurant and order a special cut of bush meat? Spend the afternoon canoeing on a river inhabited by crocodiles and snakes? Admire an amazing sunset while having a contest to see who can get the most bug bites in a span of 15 minutes?

These all sound great, but Eric would have been no match for Wendy's sweet blood in the bug bite contest, so we decided instead to go to the beach. Two beaches, in fact. One beach on the west coast of Africa, and the other on the east coast. I'm hoping that Jesus comes back before next November, because I think going to heaven will be the only thing that could top this year's anniversary trip!

We started off our celebration at Pointe Denis, a beautiful spot just off the coast of Libreville. We stayed one night at a nice hotel. It was the middle of the week, so we were the only guests at the hotel (and I think on the whole beach!!). When we opened the door to our hotel, a beautiful flower bouquet was awaiting the beautiful bride. The hotel had everything! A nice restaurant with a candlelight dinner, air conditioning in the room (which worked once they turned on the electricity - it had been turned off since we were at the beach and were the only guests), and even a friendly dog that would accompany you during your walks on the beach. Talk about service!

As an added bonus to the west-coast portion of our trip, we spent a few days in Libreville, and enjoyed some great food and good conversation with our fellow missionaries - the Straws, the Brokopps, and Sangoye. I don't remember the name of the Italian restaurant we ate at, but the ice cream was out of this world!!

Then we headed to the airport for part 2 of our celebration - a trip to Kenya! Our first stop was Nairobi, where we had the chance to get together with a few other Samaritan's Purse folks and see some wild animals. We went to a giraffe park, where you could actually feed the giraffes! (Ok, so these were probably a little tamer than the average giraffe.) The tounge is actually much longer than it appears here. Some people even fed them with their mouths - that was a little more adventure than the Hofmans were looking for! So, we just stuck to feeding them by hand.

Then, the next morning, we went on a half-day safari at the Nairobi game park. Here, we saw animals that actually were wild, and these included zebras, wildebeests, water buffalo, a leopard (or at least a white lump in the distance that the driver said was a leopard), more giraffes, ostriches, monkeys, and more! If I were to list them all, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Ok, maybe that's an exaggeration, but we saw A LOT of animals. But our personal favorite was one that we actually managed to capture - it was called an "Irene", and she was quite wild!

Then we headed to Malindi, Kenya - a beautiful town on the eastern coast of Africa for the real reason for our trip - a Samaritan's Purse leaders conference. It was a 4-day retreat, and we enjoyed wonderful speakers, worship times, fellowship with other missionaries, and of course, great food! We are so thankful for the support that Samaritan's Purse has given us during our time overseas so far!

We had initially planned to go back to Gabon the day after the conference, but because of a flight change, we were forced to stay an additional 3 days at the resort in Malindi. What a burden!! But, being good missionaries, we were flexible and dealt with the delay with a positive attitude. :)

We used the additional time there to continue celebrating our anniversary. We laid by the beach, went snorkeling, jumped in the waves, went kayaking, swam at the pool, ate pizza in our room while watching movies, and once again enjoyed the air conditioning. It's amazing how good it feels to sleep in air conditioning after not having it for a while! Oh, and I can't forget Wendy's favorite part - we rode a camel!! Wendy seemed quite comfortable on the camel, but Eric rode one like he was a king! Or maybe he's just very weird! :) But I guess we already knew that.

And we leave you with a final shot - a view from our hotel room in Kenya. Ah, what a wonderful way to celebrate such a wonderful marriage.

Finally Here!

2009-10-11T12:09:00.003-05:00

We have great news - Dr. Elisee Baruwa, Bongolo Hospital's first ophthalmology resident, has arrived! He arrived this last Monday evening and got settled into his home the following day, then had a welcoming ceremony with the hospital workers on Wednesday morning and began work. We will post some pictures sometime in the next few weeks.

Dr. Baruwa is from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he attended medical school and worked as a generalist for the last few years. His wife Micheline and 3-week old baby daughter Ruth will be joining him at Bongolo tomorrow. He speaks French but is able to read some English. Wendy is getting used to speaking twice as much French in the average day as she's used to, teaching everything as it comes up. He's an avid reader and is excited about what God will do during these next 3 years of residency, and then with his following 5 years of commitment at Bongolo hospital.

Thank you for all your prayers for their family's travels! They are currently in temporary housing, and as soon as we are able to raise the $40,000 to build him an on-campus apartment, they will move into their permanent home. Please email us if you'd like to donate for this.

Church Life here in Gabon

2009-10-04T09:27:00.007-05:00

Many of you may be wondering (and some have already asked) what our church life is like here in Gabon. To tell the truth, that has been one thing that has really been in flux. There are 3 local churches that we've visited a handful of times, along with a few others that we've visited once. And we've had church at Chez Hofman 4-5 times as well (with just 2 members in the congregation, unless you count the cats), listening to a sermon on tape, and singing praise songs, featuring the talented Wendy Hofman and guitar, with Eric Hofman playing the supporting (yet important) role of page turner and song selector.

But as much fun has church at home can be, we know that it is really important for us to become a part of a community of believers. We need to find a church where we can attend regularly, receive encouragement, listen to solid teaching, and have an opportunity to use our talents to help fellow believers in their walk with God.

The church that we attended this morning is one of the front-runners. It is small (around 40 people in attendance), relatively new, and close (a 10 minute drive from the hospital). One of the other missionary couples currently attends this church, and they provide us with a way to get there and serve as instant friends at the church. The lack of a sound system at this church makes understanding the sermon and songs (in French) much more doable, and the pastor and congregation seem very genuine and welcoming. And just today, one of the women asked Wendy if she would be willing to help start up a Sunday School for the kids. Please pray that God would give us wisdom in deciding on a church to attend regularly.

In addition to church on Sunday mornings, we have other regular opportunities to strengthen our relationship with God and others. Every Wednesday evening, the missionaries here at the hospital get together to pray for each other and to talk about how things are going, both personally and work-wise. We have also started getting together every Friday at noon to pray together with the other missionaries.

But that's not all!! Four mornings a week, there are devotions at the hospital (from 7:30 - 8:00). This is open to all hospital workers, and while it is in French (which can make it difficult at times to really understand what is being shared), it is a good opportunity to worship and learn alongside our fellow Gabonese hospital workers (who are also our brothers and sisters in Christ). We both also have prayer/accountability partners that we get together with on a regular basis for prayers, which is really an encouragement to both of us.

So, even though we don't have church quite like what we had in the States, we still are finding ways to connect with God and others. God has made it clear - it is not good for man (or woman) to be alone (such as in this picture - isn't it a bit sad?) We are meant to live this life in community - and we are so thankful that He is providing for this need in so many different ways for us here in Gabon!

A Few More Happenings

2009-09-27T08:12:00.013-05:00

Given that it's been kind of a long time since our last post, I'm going to do a second post the same day!

Last weekend, Eric and I visited a Gabonese church that is just a couple of kilometers from the border of the Congo (Congo Brazzaville). Here are some of the cute kids there.
After the service, we decided to walk to the Congo. Here is one of the ladies we met along the way. She was happy to have her picture taken when we asked her permission, and delighted when we showed it to her afterward!
These are some of the other folks that walked with us to the border.
We finally made it to the border, a river that separates Gabon and the Congo.

The village where the church was located had just had both wells break that week, so the people were carting water from the river. This lady was very thankful for Eric's muscles.
At our house, we do have running water but to drink it, it must go through the water filter you see in the background (the white containers). The water itself is pumped by an electric pump straight into our house and to the rest of the mission/hospital, so we bathe etc in straight river water. To make ice, pour the filtered water from the bottles to the ice trays and place in the freezer.

Just wanted to report that I pulled another loa loa worm out of a fellow's eye last week.
And finally...our kittens, Pokey and Johnny, are taking after their older role-model, Gentil, in conquering the Eric-mountain (see our older post with the picture of our borrowed cat Gentil doing the same thing!). They're growing up!

Testimonies

2009-09-27T07:06:00.006-05:00

At the eye clinic here at Bongolo hospital, God's free gift of complete forgiveness (through faith in Jesus Christ's substitutionary atonement) is most often shared by national Gabonese pastors, in the mornings before clinic begins. But at times, I ask patients about where they are at with Jesus too.

Last week I asked Papa Joseph, "Do you know Jesus?" When he said yes, I asked, "What has Jesus done for you?" This being an open-ended question, I often get a wide variety of responses.

Papa Joseph began by saying, "The night I arrived here 5 weeks ago, I encountered Jesus." He went on to say that in 2007 before coming here, his vision had been decreasing and his eyes were very uncomfortable, but the doctor he went to see in Libreville (the capital city) had told him that surgery was not possible. He was given eye drops, but they cost 30,000 CFA (about US $60) per bottle. The daughter that supports him and his wife had been paying for these medications, but they had been a real strain on her financially. This heavy price had been difficult for him and his wife to see as their daughter sacrificed for them.

They finally decided to come to Bongolo hospital, a 12-14 hour taxi ride away over bad roads. Transportation round trip for him and his wife cost 80,000 CFA (US $160), but seeing as how this would be the cost of just 2-1/2 months of medications, they decided it was worth it. Since arriving, Papa Joseph has had a trabeculectomy in one eye to reduce his eye pressure in order to halt his vision loss from glaucoma. Now 5 weeks after that surgery, his eye pressure is down to 14, well controlled, with no additional pressure-lowering eyedrops needed.

A few weeks later, Papa Joseph had surgery on both upper eyelids for trachoma, a blinding illness caused by poor sanitary conditions in developing countries. This disease had caused his eyelashes to be continuously scratching his eyes with every blink for years and years. Now he is free of this discomfort and his cornea is no longer being scarred worse every day.

"I knew Jesus before coming here, but I have really encountered him here in a new way," he said, his eyes shining and a big smile on his face. He said that he has seen Jesus at work in his life, answering his prayers and at work in his life personally. God brought them to Bongolo hospital, God established Bongolo hospital and provided all its nurses and physicians and equipment, and that has been an encouragement to him and his family in their relationship with God. Please pray for Papa Joseph's trabeculectomy surgery in his other eye, scheduled for December.

Another patient, Papa Eric, also shared his story with me last week. (In Gabon, the title "Papa" is a term of respect, like "Mr.") Papa Eric had come in to the eye clinic two weeks before in excruciating pain, holding his head in his hands and rocking back and forth. Like Papa Joseph, Papa Eric also had glaucoma, but in the painful left eye, his eye pressure was a whopping 73. The left eye had also been stone-cold blind for several years and would never see again, so we removed his left eye the same day, relieving his terrible pain.

A couple of weeks after his surgery, I asked Papa Eric the same two questions as I'd asked Papa Joseph. Papa Eric responded, "In the past, my wife already knew Jesus and went to church regulary, but I didn't go often, and to tell the truth I didn't pray often either. I didn't really know Jesus. But since coming here I've discovered that Jesus is not dead. He is not dead!" He shook his head emphatically. "I gave my life to Jesus about 2 weeks ago for the first time, here at the hospital," he said with a huge smile on his face. "Now my wife and child and I pray together, every night." He made a motion to hold his wife's hand and bow his head.

Papa Eric will have a trabeculectomy to lower the pressure in his remaining right eye on Tuesday Sept 29th, so please pray for that surgery. I've also had to tell him that he is not safe to drive due to the damage that glaucoma has already done to his right eye. Please pray for this new believer, for his growth in the Lord and for God to provide for their needs as a family.

A French African worship song is playing in my head right now: "L'eternite....l'eternite....Ou va-tu la passer?" This translates to, "Eternity...eternity...Where will you spend it?"

A Year of Unemployment

2009-09-16T10:19:00.004-05:00

A little over a week ago was our field forum - a retreat of sorts where all of our organization's missionaries serving in Gabon get together to pray, relax, talk about their ministries, and most importantly (at least as far as my stomach is concerned), eat great food!! We had a really nice, relaxing time. We cranked up the A/C in our room (and were freezing every morning), took afternoon naps, played volleyball, and enjoyed getting to know our fellow missionaries better. And all this during the potentially stressful time of elections here in Gabon. Thankfully, they were relatively peaceful - now we are awaiting the inauguration, which will take place in the next few weeks. We're hoping that occurs peacefully as well.

At the retreat, we each got a chance to reflect on where we have been this past year, and what we see for the future year. As I reflected on this past year, a lot has happened. It's hard to believe that a year ago today was my (Eric's) last day of work. That means that I've been unemployed (thankfully voluntarily) for one whole year. There's a lot that we miss about being in the US amongst our family and friends.

But it has been quite the eventful year. In the past year, I quit my job, we sold our condo and stuff, moved to Switzerland, stayed there 5 months, learning French (and learning about stinky cheese and the world's best chocolate), lived in a boat off the coast of Benin for a few months, were separated for a month (which will hopefully NEVER happen again), and then have lived in the rainforest of Africa for the past 4 months! So I can say that for the most part, unemployment has treated me quite well this year! I guess I can't say that our lives are boring (except, of course, when we were trying to memorize how to conjugate all of those French verbs, which I'm still struggling with, by the way)!

Even though we'll be living in the rainforest of Africa, this next year may actually be a little calmer than the past one. Other than a trip to Kenya for a Samaritan's Purse conference in October, and two trips to the US next year (one in March and the other in November) for Wendy's board exams, we'll be pretty much staying put here in Gabon. Our lives will be consumed by fighting off bugs, trying to stay dry and cool, and figuring out how to do our jobs better (for me - keeping track of the finances of the mission and hospital; for Wendy - figuring out how to run an eye clinic and train a resident). But hopefully they'll be even more consumed by strengthening our relationships with each other, our fellow missionaries, and with God. Through all of this, our ulitmate goal is to get to know God better and to help introduce Him to others. What has more lasting value than that?? Seems like a good enough reason for me to be unemployed for another year - sign me up!!!

A Tale of Two Kitties

2009-09-07T13:29:00.011-05:00

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness ... normally when one hears these words, one thinks of Charles Dickens.

But not this time!

For Wendy, it was the best of times - one of the missionary gals stopped by our place a couple weeks ago with a surprise - two

baby kitties!! Wendy immediately fell in love with them, and was playing mommy with them, feeding them from an eye dropper.

But it was the worst of times for others, including Gentil (the cat we have been watching) - she does not like the kitties one bit! They steal our attention (and they also try to steal her food!) And for these kitties, it was the worst of times because Momma (Wendy) decided they needed a bath - why are moms always making kids take baths??

The age of wisdom? These kitties were very wise. Their piece of wisdom - after having a bath, find a friend to snuggle up to in order to try to stay warm.

And the age of foolishness? When one is hungry, it can drive one to a little foolishness.

A favorite spot for the kitties is next to the exhaust of the freezer, where warm air comes out.

And it’s a great spot to get in some good playing, too!

I almost forgot to mention their names! One is a girl, who we've named Pokey (short for Pocahontas), because she is quite adventurous. The other is a boy, so we've named him Johnny. We named him this because he often follows Pokey around on her adventures, just like Pocahontas leading John Smith around in America!

These kitties have really been a blessing, especially for Wendy, who has been in desperate need of a distraction when things are tough at the eye clinic. They are just another example of God's amazing provision of just what we need at just the right time.

Grief and Hope

2009-08-22T07:26:00.007-05:00

These last 2 weeks I feel like I've seen a lot of grief pass through our doors at the eye clinic. This is a little 15 month old girl with an eye tumor called retinoblastoma. She's just crying here because she's in the doctor's office, but when she's outside, she plays and eats and sleeps like a normal kid, and doesn't seem to be in pain. Unfortunately, this tumor is already so large that it is surely already metastasized to other parts of her body and is also in her brain. One of the hardest things in her case is that her mother is dead and her father is unknown, so her aunt brought her in....If this tumor had been found earlier, her life might have been spared. As it is, she will likely only live another 2-3 months.

In deciding whether to operate to remove the bulk of the tumor, I prayed, and talked with 4 different physicians with experience in this surgery. It's called an exenteration, and calls for removing the affected eye and all the tissue around and behind the eye, all the way back and down to bare bone. It's a huge, disfiguring operation with a high risk of lots of blood loss and possibly death, and it would not prolong her lifespan because of the metastases that already exist. So we decided not to operate, and I hope it was the right decision. We prayed with the child's aunt before they left, and despite our sure hope of eternity, it was very hard to give them this news and send them on their way.

Yesterday in clinic I had two separate patients break into tears in the afternoon. The first one was an older lady who can only see a little bit of motion in her left eye, due to a mature cataract. Her other eye is better but already quite blurry from cataract, too. When she was told that our operating schedule is full until April 2010, she burst into tears and would not be consoled. Her daughter understood that cataracts aren't a medical emergency and that there are a lot of people in line ahead of her, but the patient explained that her husband died recently and life has just been so hard lately, and she travelled 2 days to get here....I ended up adding her on as an extra case 2 weeks from now, as my heart just couldn't take it.

The other patient was a father around 40 years old who has permanently lost all vision in his left eye due to glaucoma, an increase of the pressure inside the eye. That eye causes him a lot of pain, and the other eye is starting to have the same problem and needs surgery. He also travelled far to get here, and his responsibilities with his family make it hard for him to commit to taking care of the right eye, but if he doesn't he'll lose that one too.

We've already written about lots of patients who are overjoyed...yesterday, for instance, a couple of patients were radiantly happy after their cataract surgeries and told me repeatedly that we were going to have LOTS of people start coming here from Libreville, the capital (I didn't know whether to laugh with them or cry at this declaration)....But these are some of the stories of grief we hear too.
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This week God has encouraged me from the book of Romans in the Bible, chapter 15, verses 5-6 and 13:

"Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus, so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ....Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."

I needed to hear every word in those verses. They told me that God was there for me, to give me perseverance, encouragement, unity with other believers, joy, and the peace that comes from restful confidence in Him - even when I feel inadequate and regardless of circumstances. God is there for us, for all these things, and so we have hope in every situation because of his unchanging character.

Back to the Books

2009-08-17T08:41:00.008-05:00

While Wendy is off, saving people's eyes and and restoring people's sight, you may ask yourself "what does Eric do all day? Nap in hammocks? Chase away monkeys with his machette to keep them from taking what's left of their food order?" The answer to both of these is no - there are too many bugs to make lying in a hammock all that pleasant, and we have yet to see a monkey, although we did have a few rats in our pantry, which are hopefully now gone. :)

So what do I (Eric) do with my time? Well, the largest portion of my time is spent hitting the books. Yes, that does include a little bit of French study (I try to put in about an hour a day, if I'm able). But the larger portion of my time is spent on a different kind of books - the financial books for the hospital and the mission.

What does this entail, you might ask? Well, for the hospital bookkeeping, most of the hard work is done by a gal named Christine. She, along with two other ladies, collect all of the payments from the hospital patients and pay many of the bills. Christine also tallies up everything at the end of the month and enters it into the computer. Where my help comes in is when Christine has questions about how to use the computer or questions about what accounts to put various expenses/credits. I serve as an advisor of sorts. And Christine serves as my French advisor (since all of our work is done in French, and I'm often stumbling through my words, trying to communicate various things.) But she is very gracious and patient.

The other part of my job is to keep track of all of the accounts for the mission. This involves all of the missionaries' support and personal accounts, along with the mission bank account, many ministry accounts, and other various things. So I keep track of any money related to activities of missionaries - both money coming in (such as donations from supporters, grants from the government, and deposits of personal funds), and money going out (such as paying for ministry-related activities, upkeep of cars, and getting money to pay for dinner at the Barack Obama Cafe in town).

So, here's how it works. Let's say someone wants to give money to one of our missionaries. First, the donor sends the money to the Christian & Missionary Alliance (C&MA) headquarters (the C&MA is the orginization that runs the mission), and includes a note, saying which missionary it is for. This money is then deposited into a bank account in the US. (Each month, I receive a statement showing all the donations made for the month.) I then enter the donation into the computer, placing the money into a subaccount with the missionary's name on it. Then we also have a bank account here in Gabon, since most places here don't take US Dollars - it's Central African Francs. We only keep a portion of the total money in the Gabonese bank, for saftey reasons. Whenever the balance in our account here in Gabon gets too low, we transfer some funds from our US bank account.

Now, to complicate things a bit, there aren't ATMs for the missionaries to get cash. But the hospital recieves a lot of cash from patients. So, instead of depositing that cash in the hospital bank account (also a Gabonese bank account), the mission usually takes that cash, and then we transfer the money electronically from the mission account to the hospital account. That way, missionaries have access to cash, and the hospital doesn't have to make continuous trips to the bank (the nearest of which is 2.5 hours away) to deposit money.

There's more to tell, but I'm guessing you're probably needing a hammock of your own after reading this, so I will stop. I had expected to manage the mission books just for the first three months, but the person who I was filling in for has been pulled off onto other work, so I will be continuing this work for the forseeable future. In addition, I've also agreed to spend about 1/5 of my time helping out with administrative tasks related to the general surgery residency program here at the hospital. And, eventually I'll also be spending a few hours a week helping to train some of the hospital workers on how to use the computer.

So, there you have it. No hammocks for me. But the mission bookkeeping tends to be pretty solitary work, so I'm always happy when Wendy comes home and I have someone to talk to. And she's happy that she can finally talk to someone in English!!

The little girl with the big eyes

2009-08-06T11:11:00.005-05:00

Looking at this little girl, I wasn't sure just how this operation was going to go. I mean, put a sharp knife in these eyes, really?

She's the one I asked for prayer for last week....She's 13 months old and has congenital glaucoma, so her eye pressure is too high and without an operation she will soon be completely, pitch-dark blind in both eyes. However, even with an operation she is likely to reach this state in a matter of years anyway - it's just a very difficult condition to treat.

Thank you so much for your prayers. In the states, I would probably only see this disease this advanced a few times in my life, and if I did, I would refer the patient to a glaucoma specialist/pediatric ophthalmologist for surgery. If for some reason I didn't refer, I would have done some other surgery than what I did here for this little one (like trabeculotomy), but here we don't have the equipment needed to do these specialized surgeries, so I did the same surgery I do here for adults: trabeculectomy (although for her, unlike for adults, I did both eyes at the same time because of undergoing general anesthesia in these conditions).

Above, this is yesterday and we're starting anesthesia for her. The surgery itself was interesting for me - remarkable for the amazing stretching of thin tissues, the resiliency of a child, the delicateness of the design. And praying and operating really go quite well together! God's hand was evident at each step, but especially at critical times. She pulled through well.

Here she is, all patched up at the end of surgery. Unfortunately we don't have eye shields that are the right size for children, but these work fine! :)

Today, postoperative day 1, we took the patches off, but being a typical 13-mo old, she wasn't very interested in having her eyes examined. I got as far as seeing that her eyes looked like they are in a safe condition (the anterior chamber is formed), and had to be content with that for now. I'll probably have to do an exam under anesthesia to measure the pressure sometime in the near future. Here she is with her mother, being restrained as we did the exam.

Menagerie of Stories

2009-07-31T15:34:00.011-05:00

Well, I'm writing in the blog a little late tonight because I'm a little jittery after having been first spooked by a cockroach the size of a small mouse, then having scared a rat out of our pantry, which fled through one of the numerous holes in our roof and into our attic. Eric doesn't seem to be very phased by our "visitors," as he continues to call them, but they're not my favorite! They make my skin crawl....

In fact, instead of thinking about rats at this moment, Eric is currently working on tracking down the items missing from our annual food order from the states, which arrived today! It was pretty fun to get home from work today and find all sorts of goodies in boxes in the kitchen. Food in Gabon tends to be on the expensive side, and a lot of things aren't available this far out in the jungle, so it just works out better to order food once a year. The food order comes by ship to Libreville, then gets trucked down to the hospital. It's a strange thing to make a yearly "shopping list" from an Excel spreadsheet inventory of 55,000 items, but fun when the packages arrive.

This little tyke is 13 months old and has congenital glaucoma. The pressure in the eyes is too high, which causes blindness, corneal clouding, and stretches the flexible tissues in a child's eye and causes them to enlarge. I saw this little girl a couple of days ago and she is scheduled for surgery this Wednesday, 5 days from now. The plan is to do a trabeculectomy for both eyes, which is a surgery to reduce the eye pressure. She will be asleep for the operation (under ketamine). She was very cute and clearly used each eye to grab for objects, showing that she still has some potential for vision. Please pray for her surgery and visual outcome. It may be a long surgery, which is a long time for her to be under anesthesia, and I've never done this kind of surgery before on a child.

Following up on another little girl that I've written about before, here she is about 6 weeks after her surgery for a ruptured globe/corneal laceration and cataract surgery. It's nice to have her come in so happy, and even a little glad to see me, I like to think :) . She's doing very well and was able to recognize small objects with that left eye when I saw her this week. In another 2 months we'll start removing her sutures.

No, this is not a war-torn land. This is our back yard. To improve general safety/visibility around our house, and to decrease the risk of snakes and bugs, some of the jungle was cut back. After it dried (several weeks later), a Gabonese fellow hired by the hospital stacked it in piles and burned it yesterday. For better or worse, that's how land is usually cleared here. There's not any risk of fires spreading because we are living in a rain forest and the vegetation is just too moist, even during the dry season. Burning actually makes the soil better for planting, so we plan to use this land to plant a vegetable garden. If we just left it alone, it would grow back in what seems like no time at all. One of the benefits of this experience was finding pineapple growing on our land.

This morning at devotions at the hospital, the pastor announced that 24 patients made decisions for Christ this week, including patients from all hospital departments. This is pretty average around here, and is why Eric and I are in Gabon. The gift of sight is valuable, but the gift of eternal life and a savior who loves you is worth far more.

The conclusion of the matter about our rat tonight is that the brave warrior cat we're taking care of, Gentil, is going to spend the night in the attic. We'll see if she has any success! Doesn't she look ferocious?

Distinguished Visitors

2009-07-17T06:03:00.015-05:00

When you live in Africa, you never know what type of visitors might show up at your house. They come in all shapes and sizes - some small, and some quite big. And some of them are unwelcome guests, and we do our best to chase them away (or kill them, if it doesn't create too big of a mess).

Before I go much further (and risk being reported by you to the police), I should tell you that the visitors I'm referring to are of the non-human kind. There are many of these visitors here in the jungles of Africa, and we'll start with the smallest and work our way up.

The first of the visitors that have entered our house are so small that they've been given the name "no-see-ums". They are small enough to get through screens, and when they bite you, it leaves a nice little red circle. Here is a picture of Wendy’s arm with many of their bites - they seem to like Wendy especially well. To combat these little guys, Wendy uses bug spray liberally, and we have sprayed our screens with something called Permethrin, a substance so toxic that it caused the tip of Eric's finger to go numb for over a month! But at least it does a good job of keeping away the no-see-ums (for the most part)!

The next smallest in our group of visitors is a group that likes to come in large numbers. These are the ants! They come in numerous different varieties, and if you want to see them, all you have to do is leave some food out on the counter overnight, and you'll have more ants than you can shake a stick at. Here is a video of some ants that decided to visit our kitchen.

Thankfully Dr Dave Thompson came to the rescue and scared them all away with a gallon of his bug spray (yes, the missionaries here buy it by the gallon!)

The next on our list of special visitors are spiders. We have not seen many of them lately - possibly because they have learned that if they are seen by Wendy, they will be either chased or squashed (or both)! We have been told that the flat, non-hairy spiders are good spiders (because they eat other bugs), but Wendy has not bought into that idea too much yet.

And we can't forget the cockroaches. Wow, are they big and fast here! About the only time we can catch them is if they are already dead or if they somehow get turned over on their backs, legs flailing everywhere. Here's a picture of a spider and a dead cockroach. (The picture just does not do the size of these guys justice!) I tried to convince Wendy that the spider killed the cockroach, and therefore should be left alone, but she was skeptical.

This brings us to one of the cuter visitors in our place - geckos. These guys come in all sizes (from really tiny to the size of a small cat! – but thankfully the bigger ones mainly stay outside). We have been told that these should be very welcome guests because they eat bugs. The same is true of spiders, but I guess the cuteness of the geckos (and their quickness) serves to protect them in this household.

Last, but not least, is a creature a little more well known to most Americans – it’s a cat named Gentil (which means “kind, nice” in French). She has been a fun addition to our place, and we are told she keeps down the rodent population, which is why rats/mice are not part of this list! She normally gets fed twice a day, but she is ready to eat at any moment, and she has found that if she meows persistently enough and pathetically enough, she can generally get Eric (the softy of us two) to give her a little snack. Gentil is the cat of another missionary who is currently on home assignment, and so we will be saying good-bye to her when her owner comes back in November. That will be a sad day for the Hofmans.

A few other visitors that we’ve had include a snake, a tiny scorpion, and a few quite large millipedes. Any human visitors that want to come join the party are more than welcome! If this blog makes you think twice about visiting, it’s actually not as bad as it sounds, and we promise to help make your room a private one (free from all other visitors). :)

A Great Team

2009-07-11T06:02:00.009-05:00

Just for future reference, a week and a half is too short for a visit to Bongolo! We had the most encouraging visit from a group from Redding, California this last week, and it was tough to see them go. So for our readers, plan at least 3 weeks when you come!

The group was the Trent family (an ophthalmologist, his wife, and their 3 kids ages 8-16) and their friend and coworker Fred, who all came out to make my (Wendy's) life easier at the eye clinic, and to help us get started in our life and ministry in Gabon. They brought lots of medical supplies, did cataract and glaucoma surgeries, spent many hours organizing the eye clinic equipment and medications, and in the process they even discovered that we had things we didn't know we had - items that had been tucked away in various cupboards in the distant past.

We spent many fun evenings together - one of their favorite sayings is that "at Bongolo, there's a party every night!" And we did have a LOT of fun!! You can see from these pictures that together, we had the capacity to be wacky enough to attract some attention. (That golf cart was actually driven that way, over rough roads - that was not a pose!) We also had good meaningful conversations, vacation Bible school for the missionary kids, dreamed together about the future of the eye ministry here, and spent time in praise and worship of our Lord, who has given us so many good gifts.

A great sequel to their visit (which the team doesn't even know about yet) occurred two days after they left. A 9-year-old boy came in who had lost his left eye to an infection or trauma when he was 2 years old. His left eye was phthisical (shrunken) and couldn't be saved anymore, but what we did have to offer was an eye from an artificial eye set that the visiting team had found during their organizing! Artificial eyes don't see, but socially he will be much more accepted by his community in the future, which will help a lot with friends at school, employment, having a family, etc.

When the boy first tried on an eye and saw himself in a mirror, he was speechless and started to cry. We weren't sure if it was because the eye was uncomfortable, or if he was so shocked that he was overcome. We gave him a smaller eye to be sure it was comfortable, but then he seemed to be afraid that it would fall out if he made any sudden movements, so we tried to get him to play and run around a little instead of walking around so stiffly.

He went home that night but the eye actually did fall out, so he and his mom were back the next morning, wanting to try on the first eye again....But that day (yesterday) there was a significant difference: the boy was smiling, laughing, and moving easily - he even looked eagerly into the box of artificial eyes to find his new one. We put the new larger eye in and he was still smiling and said it didn't hurt, and he liked seeing himself in the mirror; we figure it turned out that he just needed some time to adjust. After all, it's a big change!

If the Trents and Fred hadn't come, I would have simply turned this child away, and 6 months later when I'd found the artificial eyes I would have been sad that we hadn't known they were there earlier. What great timing God has, and how perfectly He schedules our every encounter.

I have to use this opportunity to ask any more ophthalmologists out there to also come and visit us here in Gabon - especially to teach the African resident who will be arriving at Bongolo Hospital this September. He will be doing a 3-year ophthalmology residency, but as of this moment, I am his only preceptor and he is the only resident. It would be great to see him being taught by multiple ophthalmologists with skills in various areas during his training! Please pray with us that this happens.

Marching in the Parade of Life

2009-07-07T09:03:00.009-05:00

Ah, the 4th of July....it brings forth many images to my mind - the Star Spangled Banner (the US Flag), fireworks, smoke rising from a grill, and home made ice cream dripping from children's chins. But these are things that one finds in the US. What can one expect from a 4th of July in the middle of the forest in Gabon??? Much the same, thanks to Joanna, one of the missionaries here, organizing a 4th of July celebration for all of us American missionaries. We grilled out - hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken (does anything smell better than barbequed chicken - I think not!) And everything was to be red, white, and blue - clothes, food, and whatever else you can think of. My (Eric's) shoes here are quite patriotic - but Wendy's - I guess you can call that red, and very silly at that!!

And what is the 4th of July without a parade? It was complete with a flag bearer (Eric), music (Wendy on the flute playing Yankee Doodle Dandy), floats, people throwing candy, and spectators (although the people in the parade probably outnumbered the spectators!). It was much more fun than those parade I used to have to march in during high school band! If you'd like to see the parade, it's on You-Tube! The link is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CazIOPAXYas
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Being in this parade made me think of another parade I had been in - a long, long time ago. Back when I was just a pup. When I was maybe 3 or 4, I had the honor of riding on my grandpa's tractor in the Imperial, Nebraska parade! It was quite a thrill! Here they are - my grandparents - aren't they cute?! This picture was taken last year - at that point they had been married for more than 67 years!
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Well, sadly for us, my grandpa died a few weeks ago. It's hard for me to fathom that he's gone - it may not truly sink in until the next time I'm in the western Nebraska, and he's not there. He was quite a guy. He had only an 8th grade education, and yet he was far from stupid. He built his own house, converted a pickup truck into a camper, could fix just about anything mechanical, and made the best pancakes this side of heaven. And he brought up his children to know and love Jesus. And not only children, but grandchildren, and great-grandchildren - that's quite a legacy!

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I am proud to have had such a wonderful grandpa, and I can't wait to get to heaven so that I can hear all of the stories of the lives that he touched during his time here on Earth.

Stories from the Jungle

2009-06-28T10:11:00.005-05:00

There are so many short stories that could be told....The first one is about one of the first men I did cataract surgery on at Bongolo Hospital in Gabon. Apologies if you are squeamish about pictures of eyes! He was bilaterally blind because of cataracts and came to have his right eye operated on. Unfortunately, he had something else wrong with that eye - something that wriggled - a worm! Loa loa, a tropical disease, is very prevalent here. So instead of removing the cataract from that eye, I removed it from the left eye instead and took out the worm from the right eye a few days later. Several days after that, I removed the cataract from his right eye as well. He is now seeing well in both eyes, and is less one worm! If you look carefully, under the conjunctiva medially you can see the sinuous, thin whitish form of the worm (about 1.5 cm long). It wiggled quite visibly and fairly quickly - to remove it, I had to pinch it and hold it in place so it didn't escape too quickly before I could remove it.

A few days later, a 4 year-old girl (I have a picture of her, but will have to load it later) was fighting with her older 6 year-old sister over a mirror, and somehow it broke and a fragment was jabbed into the 4 year-old's left eye. It lacerated the cornea centrally, breaking into the eye itself and causing a cataract. We did ketamine anesthesia for her and I sutured up the cornea, then prayed as I removed the cataract behind the cloudy cornea. It is amazing how the Lord continues to do small miracles in the operating room here. I never would have performed pediatric cataract surgeries in the states, and here we did it with minimal anesthesia and in the setting of a ruptured globe. Praise the Lord, and thank you for your prayers! I told the mother how the Lord had his hand on her daughter during the surgery, and she was very thankful as well.

Here are 3 of the 4 nurses that work with me in the eye department, along with the assistant head attached and working on our operating microscope! This microscope part was donated to Bongolo Hospital by Mercy Ships and will be essential after the arrival of the ophthalmology resident I'll start teaching in September. The eye nurses have been great to work with and have been very patient with me as I swim in French all day long, struggling sometimes with the African accent, among other problems....

Medical events aren't the only stories that have come our way. We mentioned in our last update that our house was broken into the same day that I first arrived, a few weeks ago, but we haven't yet related the events that followed. To start with, the screens on our porch had been slit, a significant amount of food (from our yearly shipment) had been stolen, there were holes poked through the ceiling into the attic, and a huge mess in the kitchen had been cleaned up by our amazing team of fellow missionaries on the station. The same day, the hospital administrator's wife (they are Gabonese) was walking in the jungle below our home, praying (for us?), when she looked up and saw a child with a box of belongings on his head, carrying them away from our house.
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She immediately caught up with the child, and by the next morning the "detective squad," comprised by fellow missionaries and Gabonese coworkers, had apprehended all 4 of the young culprits. As it turned out, the oldest one was 11 years old and not taller than Eric's elbows. The parents of these children were mortified, and brought them to apologize to us in the morning. The four small African children stood in front of us in a line, with their eyes cast downward. Each child was sternly told to look us in the eyes and repeat, "it was your food that I ate and your house that I vandalized." Then they were asked to kneel and repeat the same phrase. They did so, struggling to look at us.
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By the time the third child knelt, looking up at us, I was in tears and so were most of the surrounding adults. I was glad Eric was there beside me. With all four of the kids kneeling in front of us, I knelt down with them and asked them if they had wronged us and if they had sinned against God. They assented, nodding. I told them I had sinned often too, and I asked them how they could be forgiven. Silence. I told them that Eric and I forgave them, but how could they be forgiven by God? Did they know who loved them so much that he had payed the price for all their sins, so they could be free? One brave child said it was Jesus. Did they know what he had done for them? The child responded that he had died for us. I told them that was right, and he had died for them and for Eric and I too, and that the only way to forgiveness was to ask Jesus to be their own savior and to forgive them....What a way to start at Bongolo.
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The other good thing to come out of this is that these children are going to receive a lot of good adult attention over these next few months, which is what they need. Please pray that God would grant them eyes to see and ears to hear the good news.

God's Answers to Life's Trials

2009-06-12T08:01:00.001-05:00

We hope you’ve had a great couple of weeks! Our past two weeks have been quite eventful – some good, some bad. But God has brought us through it all. Here’s a brief list of what’s been going on:

Trial: Wendy’s flight from Benin to Gabon was cancelled (without them telling her).
God’s Response: She was able to get on the flight the next day. Also, she got an additional day with friends on Mercy Ships. Eric survived by taking deep breaths and passed the time playing Hearts on the computer and shopping for ant poison.

Trial: On our way from Libreville (the capital of Gabon) to the hospital, we got a call telling us that our house was broken into, a lot of food was taken, and the kitchen was a mess.
God’s Response: The missionary team at the hospital pitched in, cleaned up the mess, and fixed the screen that was torn by the intruders. Also, one of the couples had us over for dinner.

Trial: After dinner that same night, we came back to our house and found that it had been broken into again!
God’s Response: The missionary team (along with a few Gabonese) fixed the screen again, stayed in the house overnight (while we stayed in a guest house), found the culprits (4 kids ages 7-11, so don’t be too worried) by 8:00 AM the next morning, had the locks in the house changed and a few unnecessary doors screwed shut, found someone to help clean up the new mess, had us over for lunch and dinner that day, and recovered some of the lost goods (including half of our Swiss chocolate that we had so diligently saved, along with some granola bars, Pringles, and chocolate syrup – Root beer and Combos were also among the items taken - those kids have good taste!). Luke and Sarah Thelander (two missionary children) also very sweetly gave us a bag of their candy to help make up for our loss.

Trial: The bugs of Gabon realized just how sweet Wendy is, and she got a ton of bites (and was very itchy).
God’s Response: Anti-itch cream and antibiotics from a couple of the missionaries – within a few days, the itching was much decreased.

Trial: Eric’s grandpa died unexpectedly. :(
God’s Response: A very loving and supportive missionary community. Please pray for Eric’s grandma especially, as she has just started her recovery from a broken hip, and now has to deal with losing her husband of more than 65 years as well.

Trial: A snake decided to pay us a visit in our house.
God’s Response: Right at the moment the snake was discovered, Pastor Serge (the hospital administrator) arrived at our house, saw the snake, went and found a stick, came back, and killed the snake. Talk about God’s provision!! When asked if the snake was dangerous, Pastor Serge said no. “So, he’s not poisonous?” Wendy asked. “No, he is poisonous, but it would be difficult for him to kill you.” I’m glad that snake is out of our house, even if he is “not dangerous”!

Trial: The President of Gabon (who had been president for over 40 years) died. :(
God’s Response: A peaceful first week after his death. Please continue to pray – elections are supposed to be held in about 45 days – pray for a peaceful transition.

Trial: Wendy got very sick once again.
God’s Response: A fellow missionary coming over at 10:00 PM to give her a shot (since she wasn’t keeping medicines down), and an understanding group of coworkers and patients at the eye clinic when she didn’t show up the following day. She’s still in the recovery stage, so please keep her in your prayers.

Trial: It’s 2:00 pm, and Wendy’s not home for lunch yet!
God’s Response: A package of Combos left unscathed by the kids to tide Eric over until she gets home!!

As you can see, we’ve had our share of trials this past couple of weeks. But God has had an answer for every one of them. And your prayers are a big part of that. Please continue to lift us up in your prayers – we need them!!!

Love,
Eric and Wendy

How Do You Spell Relief?? W-E-N-D-Y

2009-05-31T08:51:00.006-05:00

My head hurts, my eyes ache, and my appetite is gone. I break out in sweat for no apparent reason. I wake up early each morning for no apparent reason. "You're living in the rainforest of Africa where it's HOT - what do you expect??" you might say to me.

This is true, but there is something even greater plaguing me. I have been in a desert for what seems to be years, with only brief moments of refreshment each evening. But even these moments are not entirely sweet - they are broken, tatterred, incomplete. I am separated from my Wendy!! And my only time of connection with her is in the evenings over the phone - but using skype to call Mercy Ships (where the phone connection isn't all that great to begin with) can at times be more frustrating than refreshing!

I try to get by each day, filling my time with tasks that I hope will help me forget. I try to gain contentment from these tasks, but somehow, they just don't measure up. Ordinarily, a fresh, clean load of laundry is my pride and joy, but when there is no one to show off my handiwork to, no one to appreciate my hard work, it's just not the same. A recently cleaned shirt just does not smell as sweet unless you have someone to smell it. Because of my tears (and also the high humidity here in Gabon), these towels have little hope of drying today.

But not all hope is lost. My desert is coming to an end, and my dessert is soon to come! My cupcake, my angel(food), the apple (crisp) of my eye (with ice cream) is coming to Gabon tomorrow!! And I can't wait. It's been a long, long month apart, but the time has finally come to an end.

My dear wife Wendy will be arriving at the Libreville International airport at 4:10 PM, Monday, June 1st, and that flight can't come too soon for me. Mercy Ships, I thank you for the great training that you've given Wendy these past few months, but you've had her long enough! It's time for me to have her back!

So, Monday evening, we will begin our life together here in Gabon. We'll spend our first few days in Libreville, the capital, and then it's on to Bongolo Hospital! It's something we've been preparing for and looking forward to for a long time. God has provided in big ways and in small throughout our journey thus far, and I'm sure He has great things in store for the future (which already include a rocker-recliner and a ping pong table in our home in Gabon)!

Thank you for faithfully praying for us during our time apart! Now that we are soon to be back together, please pray that God would mold us into a couple that effectively brings honor to the name of Jesus!

Feeling Better at Last

2009-05-24T05:21:00.007-05:00

I'm looking a lot happier in this picture than I was really feeling...! This was two weeks ago, when I had what seemed like the twin of the swine flu, if not the real thing - fever, headache, muscle aches, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea for 4 days.
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Eric had already left for Gabon, so I was "alone" in my cabin in our ship off the coast of Benin, Africa. It was miserable, but at the same time I was aware that I was being loved in a remarkable way by all the people who came to take care of me. I just left my door unlocked, and friends and nursing staff would come in at any hour of the day or night to check on me, knowing that I had little strength to get up to let them in. It seemed like whenever I wasn't sleeping, someone was there. I wasn't even tempted to be lonely that week. Above is when a friendly nurse on call was giving me intravenous fluids because of dehydration. Doctor turned patient!
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Once feeling better, I seemed to recover fairly quickly and two days later even went swimming briefly at a local hotel. But that night I came down with a fever again, this time higher than before, with severe chills and sweats, a painful headache and deep productive cough. Thankfully no further gastrointestinal symptoms. But I was still weak from having been sick the previous week, and this time I couldn't sleep because of the fevers up to 102.9 F. The crew physician tested me twice for malaria, but it was negative and after some other tests, we decided I'd just managed to catch both viruses floating around the ship in a matter of a week.
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The first two days I didn't call my friends to come check on me again because I felt like after the last illness, I was abusing our friendship and also didn't want them to get sick. But I was beginning to despair and felt like the whole continent of Africa was taunting me, testing my resolve to be here at all. And I was also going on many days of missing work, feeling discouraged at not accomplishing what I had thought God wanted me to do here.
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I finally called my friends and was soundly rebuked for not calling earlier :) . I was reminded that we're the body of Christ, and we look forward to opportunities to love one another. Nobody is an "island" who never cries (for those Simon & Garfunkel fans). And this friend repeated that our identity in Christ is not dependent on our productivity. God's love for us is extravagant, abundant - and so was the love that I received from the hands and feet and heart of His Bride these last 2 weeks. After four days, the fever abated and I was on the road to recovery.
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Photo taken here, in an outdoor museum of Benin history the day before I fell ill:

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." - Jesus, John 13:34-35

"For I was...sick, and you visited Me....Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me." -Jesus, Matthew 25:35-40

Bongolo Bound!

2009-05-05T15:43:00.005-05:00

As I (Eric) write this, I am sitting in our screened in porch in Gabon (our new home for the next few years), watching the cutest little gecko climb the screen. I’ve been here for a few days now, and he’s the only creature I’ve seen in the house (except for some ants and a few small spiders, which I won’t dwell on for Wendy’s sake).

My trip to “Earth’s Last Eden” (Gabon) was fairly uneventful. I left the Africa Mercy on Tuesday, April 28th, with a nice group of friends standing at the gangway/dock to see me off. Wendy and Tim (a friend of ours) were able to accompany me on my trip to the airport. After a teary goodbye, everything at the airport went smoothly. I had 4 check-in bags along with a back pack, and I was a bit worried about whether there would be any hassle due to the excess baggage. But I had nothing to fear. They allowed all of the extra weight, and even gave me a discount on the extra bag charge since I worked with Mercy Ships!

The flight from Benin to Gabon was smooth, and we had a quick stopover in Cameroon (which was quite beautiful from the airplane). I spent the next few days in Libreville (the capital of Gabon), relaxing, filling out some paperwork, and enjoying the two missionary families that manage the guest house. They took me on an outing to one of the main grocery stores so I could see what was available in the main city (which is an 8-10 hour drive from the hospital we’re going to work at). Occasionally people from the hospital will drive to Libreville, and if we’re nice, we can ask them to bring a few things back for us. I’ve asked for over 40 lbs of frozen hamburger and frozen chicken breasts, along with some cheese – just a little light snack food. :)

Unlike our previous visit to Gabon, which involved a cancelled flight and a 10 hour drive over bumpy roads, my trip from Libreville to the hospital was uneventful. My flight from Libreville to the closest public airport to the hospital was basically on time, and then the 2 ½ hour car ride was actually fairly smooth – the roads have been much improved (although they’re still not paved). It was a little like a dream driving up to the hospital after so much time of preparation. I had visions of our previous trip here, and I was finding it hard to believe that we would be actually living here for the next two years.

And when I got here, I was welcomed by a number of the missionaries. They had decorated our house, and they had arranged for all of the stuff we had shipped to be waiting for us in the house. You wouldn’t believe the amount of food in our pantry from our food order!!! You would think I moved into a small grocery store! And speaking of food, I’ve been invited over for dinner every night since I’ve gotten here. I’ve been taken such good care of. This string of invites will end this coming weekend, when I will actually have to learn to feed myself for a change. Hopefully I’ll survive until Wendy comes in early June!!!

The past couple of days I have spent working on learning the books of the hospital (and trying to forget how much I miss my wife). It’ll be a challenge the first few months of bookkeeping, trying to keep everything straight, but I’m sure God (and my fellow missionaries) will help to see me through. And I’ve also gotten advice from a few folks on living here. Nathan, the 10 year old son of one of the local pastors, advised me to wear plenty of bug spray and to buy a machete (for the snakes)! Not the most comforting of advice!

Life here should be quite exciting, but the most exciting part of it is that we will be involved in sharing the love of Jesus with many who don’t know Him – definitely something worth fending off a few snakes and spiders. :)

Dancing

2009-04-25T04:19:00.008-05:00

Every Friday morning now, we (the eye medical team) do 80-100 YAG lasers at the warehouse/Hospitality Center - a building on shore about 5 minutes from the ship. These lasers are done for all cataract patients 6 weeks after surgery. This prevents them from losing vision again months or years later, due to opacification (clouding) of the capsule behind their new lens after the ship and the lasers are long gone and inaccessible to the patients.

Each week we go do these lasers, it's an adventure - the atmosphere is so different from the sterile, blue/white, cool operating room on the ship. Instead, there is heat and noise and crowds....and always singing and drums. The singing and African rhythms pounded out on the "tam-tams" are the background ambiance for the quiet "zap-zap-zap" of the laser shots we are performing inside the tent (the tent pictured in the photo above). Last week, Kim (a fellow coworker/friend) beckoned me (Wendy) outside the tent. As I stepped out and peered around the corner where the patients were gathered and singing, I saw 3-4 small frail elderly ladies spontaneously stand up and start dancing, turning, with their arms out, in the middle of the crowd. Just for sheer joy.

The patients also share testimonies with one another about what their experience has been like with the ship. Yesterday, one of the eye nurses translated a testimony from Fon into French for me so I could enjoy it. He said that the woman who spoke came from a village in Togo. She said that there were many people in her family who were blind, "everyone was blind." She herself had been blind for 2 years. She is a believer in Jesus, and during these 2 years, she was constantly praying that God would restore her eyesight. She was certain that He would do this for her. When she heard that Mercy Ships had arrived in Cotonou, Benin, she quickly made plans to come. She signed up and soon received cataract surgery, and the day after surgery when the eye patch was removed, she could see again. She gave glory to God for answering her prayers. The women pictured here are different ladies (I think) - but the same joy.

A Sailor's Life For Me

2009-04-19T05:25:00.005-05:00

This morning, I (Eric) woke up thinking about our journey so far. Did we really spend 5 months studying French in Switzerland? Have we indeed been living on a boat for over a month?? Are most of our worldly possessions actually currently located in a house in the middle of an African rain forest??? Did I really help Billy Graham with a question he had about spreadsheets???? Ok, that last one was only a dream (my dreams aren't your normal dreams!), but these days, it's hard for us to separate dream from reality.

So, with only one week left for me on the ship, Wendy and I figured it would be good to write down a list of what life is like here on the ship (so in case my sanity comes into question in the future, I can look back to our blog to see what we've really been up to).

You know you're living on the Africa Mercy off the coast of Benin when...

- you thank God each day for the wonderful meals He provides at the cafeteria morning, noon, and night, and ask Him to provide strength and courage for the day when you will no longer be on the ship and you will once again have to cook and wash dishes for yourself

- the cabin down the hall has enough occupants to field a baseball team (there are cabins that house 6, 8, and even 10 people!) - thankfully we have a couple's cabin, which means it's just us two in the cabin!
- signs are posted encouraging one to face adversity with Christ-like attitudes, and then they go on to announce the rationing of toilet paper due to a shortage on the ship
- you find yourself, along with 100 fellow crew members, waiting excitedly on the top deck for the highlight of the week to begin - the ship, which has been docked in the same location for months, is moving 500 meters to the other side of the port to get 700 tons of fuel
- you wake up the next morning disoriented because the view outside the window is different than usual - then you remember that the ship is still getting fuel
- more than half the people you meet are dressed in blue Mercy Ships scrubs, and since your position is not medical, you wear your Smurf T-shirt to feel more part of the team
- you sit down to have lunch, and you find 5 different nationalities represented at your table
- you anxiously await the arrival of the next container from the US - it is rumored to contain toilet paper and Chips Ahoy cookies!
- you hear the sound of jets flying overhead, but then you realize it is just kids riding their tricycles on the deck above you
- the words "aft", "bow", "port", and "arrr maytee" become an integral part of your conversation - you find yourself either sleepy or a bit nauseated (due to the rocking motion of the boat)
- if you are like Wendy, you can often be found standing in front of fans and air conditioning vents throughout the ship
- if you want a good workout and a sauna treatment at the same time, you visit the workout room on deck 2

- you can get a really good strawberry-type milkshake if you order a white chocolate raspberry frapaccino without the coffee at the Starbucks cafe on Deck 5
- when you wake up from yet another strange dream, you're not sure if it caused by the malaria medicine you are taking or the fish you had for dinner
- you rush down to breakfast on Wednesday morning, hoping you are not too late to get pancakes

Bon voyage!!!

Eyes for Christ Aboard the Africa Mercy

2009-04-10T14:11:00.015-05:00

"I will never close my eyes again," he said dramatically, after his eye patches were removed this morning. Such was the statement from a 7 year old boy that had cataract surgery done yesterday. (A different but similar boy is pictured above; the 7 year old was about this size too, though.) I (Wendy) and Kevin, a visiting ophthalmologist, each operated on one of the boy's eyes yesterday. When the child said these words today, it was in a native language that had to be translated to another language, Fon, which was translated to French, and finally to English....But we think that is in fact what he said. He did have a pretty big smile on his face to corroborate this, although I think he was also enjoying the attention of the people all around him :) . He will have some degree of amblyopia (permanent poor vision) because he did not have this surgery done at an earlier age, but we hope he will still reap permanent benefits from the surgery. Bilateral congenital cataracts like this in a child can be caused by hereditary disease, infection, metabolic disorders, and sometimes we just don't know why....

An estimated 25,920 people here in Benin are blind from cataracts (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10906974), the vast majority being older adults. Mercy Ships' goal is to do 3,000 cataract surgeries (among other types of general and ophthalmic surgery) during their 11 months here in port in Cotonou, Benin. As a result, the idea is to do 25 cataract surgeries per day, 4 days a week. So far, the only problem with this is the overwhelming need.... The first level of screening of patients that is performed is done by the eye field unit team, who also sees patients 4 days a week. But...they are seeing 500-700 patients a day (!). And with only 3-4 people trained in eyes, plus 5-10 translators, this is a difficult task indeed. They have been signing up 60-90 patients per day for cataract surgery. This picture above was taken on a normal day for them.

On a more personal level, I've just passed over 100 cataract surgeries in this first month on board the ship! (To be exact, the 7 year old boy above was #101.) I'm very content with this cataract surgery technique that I'm learning here (the manual small incision extracapsular cataract surgery, or MSICS technique), and am so thankful to God for providing me with this training opportunity at just the right time in our lives. ("For such a time as this," as Esther said.... What is impossible with man is possible with God, down to His perfect timing.) It has also been rewarding to be involved in training four local ophthalmologists in this technique, and to see their enthusiasm - "this will be so good for Africa," one said, with a big grin. And I couldn't be learning from anyone better than my fellowship mentor, Dr. Glenn Strauss.

So what is Eric doing, you might ask? Well, for the first week he was in the thick of organizing the transport of patients from an off-site secondary screening building to the ship for their surgeries. Walking patients up and down the long gangway gave him a working understanding of just how blind these patients really are. But after this process became more automated, he has been making crew members' days by revamping spreadsheets. He has also been helping with supplies management for the various eye clinics, which I hope will be good experience that he can share with me when we do this ourselves in Gabon in the near future. It's hard to believe, but Eric leaves for Gabon in just 2-1/2 weeks! He has to leave a month before me, due to an urgent need for his help with the budget of the hospital.

We hope this good Friday finds you blessed with a deeper relationship with Jesus....this Jesus who chose to die on a cross to pay the full price for the sins of all who will receive him, who was sent by God to "preach the gospel to the poor....And [proclaim] recovery of sight to the blind." (Luke 4:18)

Update on the hospital strike in Gabon

2009-04-10T14:03:00.002-05:00

They're still on strike. Please see the following article for a full report.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=83861

An Exercise in Patience

2009-03-26T16:24:00.003-05:00

In America, someone who is sitting idle is generally seen as wasting time. We want to look busy and feel busy at all times, and if there is any down time, we fidget nervously, looking for something to occupy our attention while we wait. This is why magazines and newspapers are so popular at checkout lines. It would be a shame if someone had to sit in line for more than a few seconds without something constructive to do!

Well, here on Mercy Ships, while Wendy has been kept quite busy with surgeries, I (Eric) have had a few positions which included much waiting. My first week, I spent helping patients get from the clinic (which is on land a few miles from where the ship is docked) to the ship for their surgery, and then helping them get back to the clinic after their surgery. This task involved a lot of sitting and waiting. I would get to the clinic first thing in the morning, and I would spend my first hour waiting while patients had their pre-surgery examination. Then, once a van load was ready, I would help load them on the van, ride with them to the ship, help them get off the van, up the gangway, and to the eye room. Then I would go back with the van to get the next load.

Then I would wait some more - wait for patients to get done with their surgery. When they were done, I would help lead them from the eye room, off the ship, and on to the van to take them back to the clinic. Throughout all of this transporting of patients, there was a lot of down-time. But I wasn't the only one waiting - the patients also had to wait. While they sat patiently, snoozing, humming, or chatting with a neighbor, I figitted and fretted, looking for things to keep me busy.

At the end of the week, I mentioned to my supervisor that I had a lot of down time, and that I wondered if I could shift to a position on the ship where I would be kept more busy. My supervisor kindly agreed, and I was relieved. Finally I would feel useful. But this week has come, and I am on the ship, anxious to help people with various computer things, but not much work is coming my way. Perhaps God had a hand in this.

When I told some of the translators (from Benin) of my change in role, they asked why I was changing, and I said it was because I was spending a lot of time waiting. Their response surprised me a bit. They said ,"You were fulfilling an important role. You were helping the patients get to and from the ship." They didn't see any issue in having down time in the work day. It was just part of the job. As I reflected on this, I noticed that there were a number of important roles which involved a lot of waiting - the drivers shuttling patients back and forth from the ship; the security guards who stood at the gangway, directing traffic and responding to questions; the translators as they waited for their next task - all of these are very important and needed roles.

People here are totally unfased by having to wait. It's us from the West who are focused on efficiency and productivity. There is definitely a place for these, but I think God has used these past couple of weeks to teach me that I am not to derive my sense of self worth from how productive I am. He can get things done just fine without me. At times, instead of being busy, God wants us to sit back, be quiet, and wait. What I need to do is to seek to honor God in whatever position He has put me, which includes honoring Him in the manner that I wait during down time.

Disclaimer: We serve with Mercy Ships. Everything here, however, is our personal opinion and is not read or approved before it is posted. Opinions, conclusions and other information expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of Mercy Ships.

General update on our trip

2009-03-26T16:18:00.002-05:00

Dear family and friends,

Now that we've survived in Africa for a full three weeks, we figured it is time to send out an update! At various times, both of us have had the thought "are you crazy - do you really want to spend two years in the rainforest of Africa?" go through our heads. Well, to be honest, those thoughts still run through our heads at times, but being in Africa, seeing patients sing and dance when they can see for the first time after surgery, and knowing that God wants us to share the hope that He provides with those we encounter – these things help us to know that yes, we will in fact be in Africa for at least 2 more years (God willing).

In our last update, we left off in the middle of our French language learning in Switzerland. The fun thing about this life is that each day always ends with "To be continued...." The next day holds new adventures and experiences yet to be discovered, a thought that is especially important for those who are going through tough times. God's mercies are new every morning, and that's something we can count on.

The end of February marked the end of our official language learning. Our time in Switzerland was a huge blessing to us, and we now have a good foundation in French (in addition to a number of new friends) as a result of it. To celebrate, we took our "final exam" - a 5 night vacation in Paris. It wasn't quite as much of an exam as we expected (many people spoke English), but it was a great time, nonetheless (as far as Eric was concerned, the English made it even better!). Our favorite part was seeing the Eiffel Tower - it truly is beautiful - but we also enjoyed going to museums (the Louvre and the Musee D'Orsay) and touring some castles. One highlight was being able to share about Jesus with our castle tour guide. He is a seeker, and we gave him many things to think about - we pray that he will continue his quest for truth.

Then we went back to Neuchatel in Switzerland, said a few last goodbyes (which included eating a few last goodbye meals!), packed up our stuff, and started our journey to Africa. God provided well for us along the way, including providing a friend to take us to the train station at 5:00 am, allowing us to have an overweight bag on the airline for free, and allowing all of our bags to make it with us to Benin. Thank you so much for your prayers for us during that time.

We were on the ship off the coast of Benin only one night when Eric (deemed a "problem child" by the Mercy Ships logistics coordinators!) had to head back to the airport to make his trip to Dakar, Senegal to receive accounting training for his role in Gabon. Thankfully, we survived the week apart (due in part to being able to use a Vonage phone in Senegal to make nightly phone calls to the “Africa Mercy,” our ship).

We have now been together in Benin for two weeks, and things are going quite well. The first week or two of performing surgeries was somewhat difficult for Wendy, as it is always uncomfortable to step out into learning something new, and she was returning to medicine after having been away from it for 9 months. But Wendy is getting better at her surgical technique every day, has done 57 sight-restoring cataract operations (in addition to other kinds of eye surgeries), and she is already starting to train 4 Benin ophthalmologists in this same procedure, in French, twice a week. Eric is helping out with various roles, which have included: helping blind patients to get to and from the boat, helping to fix/improve spreadsheets and databases for the ship, and learning how to patiently wait when things seem to take FOREVER! (That's a skill we will need more and more as time goes on here in Africa.) Our hope is that through all these practical acts of love, the name of Jesus will be lifted up and more people will come to trust in him for salvation and daily joy.

Eric will be on the ship in Benin until April 28, when he will be heading to Gabon to get some additional training on budget work. Wendy will remain on the ship in Benin to finish up her cataract fellowship on Mercy Ships for one more month. She will be flying to Gabon on June 1. Then starts our long-awaited time in Gabon - our initial commitment is to work there for two years.

People here in Africa face many physical struggles - unemployment, scarcity of resources, illness, and lack of access to healthcare, to name a few. But during these economic times, people in the US are facing many struggles of their own. It's times like this in which it's especially important to remember that tangible things (such as money, health, and possessions) are only temporary, but things that are unseen (such as faith, hope, love) are eternal, and hence are much more worthy of our strivings.

We love you dearly and are so thankful to have you in our lives.

Eric and Wendy

Our last Sunday at our church in Switzerland

2009-02-23T13:00:00.014-06:00

Yesterday was our last Sunday at La Rochette, our church here in Switzerland. It was a day mixed with tears and laughter. But overall, goodbyes are much easier when it involves Christians because we know the goodbye is not forever, even if we never see each other again on this earth.

Because it was our last Sunday, we were allowed to say a few words to the congregation, and believe it or not, we spoke them in French!! And something even more amazing - they actually understood us!! Here is the speech we gave - first in French, and then translated into English.

Eric's part:
Guten morgen, meinen Damen und Herren. Buenos Días??? Buongiorno????.....Non, je voulais parler en français - désolé! Bonjour! Nous sommes Eric et Wendy Hofman, et nous serons missionaries en Afrique. Aujourd'hui est notre dernier dimanche ici à La Rochette. Le temp a vite passé!

Dans Marc 9:37, Jésus a dit,"Celui qui accueille en mon nom un de ces petits enfants, c'est moi-même qu'il accueille, et celui qui m'accueille, ce n'est pas moi qu'il accueille, mais celui qui m'a envoyé." Quand nous sommes arrivés, nous étions comme des petits enfants avec la langue et la culture, mais vous nous avez accueillis. De cette manière, vous avez accueilli Dieu.

Il y a cinq mois, je ne pouvais pas parler en français et pendant notre premiere présentation, Wendy a dit que j'allais travailler avec le boucher! Mais maintenant je peux parler dans le passé, le présent , et le futur, et nous savons que je ne vais pas travailler avec le boucher, mais avec le budget (les finances) de l'hôpital au Gabon! Seulement une petite différence.

Grâce à vous, notre progrès dans la langue est bien allé. Et grâce à vous, nous avons très bien mangé! Merci pour votre patience, pour votre encouragement, et pour toutes vos invitations à manger - j'en ai l'eau à la bouche penser rien qu'en pensant à tous les repas!

Mais sérieusement, chaque fois que nous parlerons en français avec quelqu'un en Afrique, vous serez avec nous, et nous pourrons mieux aider les gens grâce à votre aide. Merci beaucoup beaucoup!

Wendy's part:
Nous travaillons avec une organisation qui s'appelle "Samaritan's Purse." Le nom est une référence à l'histoire du bon Samaritan dans la Bible.

Notre but dans la vie est de glorifier Jésus. Une façon d'honorer quelqu'un est de l'imiter. Quand Jésus était la, il a enseigné les gens a propos de Dieu, et il a guéri les malades; nous aimerions faire les même choses.

Apres notre départ de Neuchâtel, au début nous travaillerons pendant trois mois sur un bateau qui s'appelle "The Africa Mercy," un grand bateau-hôpital avec l'organisation "Mercy Ships." Je suis ophtalmologue (médecin des yeux), et là bas je vais apprendre une nouvelle technique pour enlever des cataractes. Eric va essuyer le pont du bateau, peler des pommes de terre, et faire des choses comme ça..... Non, en fait, il va s'occuper des finances du bateau.

Ensuite, nous travaillerons dans un hôpital dans la forêt tropical du Gabon. En Afrique rural, il y a seulement 1 ophtalmologue pour 10 millions de personnes. J'espere que pendant nos 2 ans (au moins) là-bas, je peux faire beaucoup d'opérations pour les aveugles, mais aussi enseigner à un médecin africain comment faire des opérations des yeux.

Avec l'aide de Dieu, nous aiderons l'hôpital et l'eglise gabonaise a guérir les malades et à leur enseigner l'Evangile. Et surtout nous voudrions glorifier Jésus. Merci.

Eric's part (English):
Guten morgen, meinen Damen und Herren. Buenos Días??? Buongiorno????.....No, I wanted to speak in French - sorry about that! Good day! We are Eric and Wendy Hofman, and we will be missionaries in Africa. Today is our last Sunday here at La Rochette. The time has passed quickly!

In Mark 9:37, Jesus said,"Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but Him who sent me." When we came, we were like little children with the language and the culture, but you received/welcomed us. In this manner, you received/welcomed God.

Five months ago, I was not able to speak French, and during our first presentation (to the church), Wendy said that I was going to be working with the butcher! But now, I am able to speak in the past, the present, and the future, and we know that I will not be working with the butcher, but with the budget (the finances) of the hospital in Gabon. Only a small difference. (In French, the word butcher and budget are pretty close in pronunciation.)

Thanks to you, our progress in the language has gone well. And thanks to you, we have eaten very well! Thanks for your patience, for your encouragement, and for all of your invitations to eat - my mouth is watering just thinking about all of the meals!

But seriously, each time that we will talk in French with someone in Africa, you will be with us, and we will be able to better help people thanks to your help. Thank you so very much!

Wendy's part (English):
We work with an organization that is called "Samaritan's Purse." The name is a reference to the story of the Good Samaritan in the Bible.

Our goal in life is to bring honor/glory to Jesus. One way to honor someone is to imitate that person. When Jesus was here, He taught people about God, and He healed the sick; we would like to do the same things.

After we leave Neuchatel, we will first work for 3 months on a ship called "The Africa Mercy," a large hospital ship with the organization "Mercy Ships." I am an ophthalmologist (eye doctor), and there (on the ship) I will learn a new technique for removing cataracts. Eric will swab the deck of the ship, peel potatoes, and do things like that....No, actually, he will help with the finances of the ship.

After this, we will work at a hospital in the rain forest of Gabon. In rural Africa, there is only 1 ophthalmologist for every 10 million people! I hope that during our 2 years (at least) there, I can perform many operations for the blind, but also train an African doctor on how to do eye surgeries.

With God's help, we will help the hospital and the Gabonese church to heal the sick and teach the Gospel. And overall, we would like to glorify Jesus. Thanks.

Seeing the Sites - Part 2, Venice

2009-02-17T13:10:00.006-06:00

So you say, "What are those crazy missionaries up to now? Venice? Do they ever study?? What about French?"

Well, not that particular weekend. But we have come to know very clearly the meaning of the expression "J'ai un fromage dans la tete." Literally, that is "I have a cheese in my head," but it actually means, "My brain is fried."

I think we've made definite progress in French - a few nights ago, I woke myself up speaking two words in French distinctly out loud, and Eric has been the subject of much praise lately. But while we try to speak until 5pm Mon-Fri only in French to one another, by 4:55pm each day we are ready to be done with that! (However, I no longer use the afternoons for sleeping in the hopes of avoiding those hours of French, so things must be getting better. :) )

Anyway, we have been blessed to be able to use this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a little of Europe during our time here, and recently we took a weekend to travel by train to Venice. It was about an 8-hour train ride, and we found a modest hotel to stay in near the train station.

Venice is a town that you can (surprisingly) see all of on foot, but the main streets are generally at least somewhat crowded with foot traffic, so if you want to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time, you take the vaporetti, the boat buses. They hold about 80-100 people and are about $30 for a 2 day pass, whereas if you want to be privately catered to in one of those sleek black gondolas, it's more like $65 for 20 minutes. Needless to say, we opted for the vaporetti - we might have gone for the gondolas out of sheer romance, but actually it's kind of cold now, in the middle of the winter. Our last day it even snowed!

Nonetheless, we had a great time and enjoyed visiting San Marco Square, with the Basilica and the Doge's Palace. We even went to an opera one evening....I thought my mom would be heartbroken if we had the opportunity to see "The Barber of Seville" in Venice and didn't take it. :) It was really a neat experience, as it wasn't held in a standard theater at all, but in an old palace with an audience of only about 35 or so. Each time a new scene started, the audience all stood up and walked to a different room. The performers interacted with the audience, once dusting Eric's head and once putting an old-fashioned white wig on him. (We wish we had a picture of that!)

The food was good, too...ah, Italian ice cream!

In our spare time, when we're not galavanting around Venice or studying French, these last 2 weeks I've been spending about 3-4 hours a day on email. Most of this time is with the intention of equipping the eye clinic to be functional by the time I arrive in Gabon in June 2009 (Eric will get there 1 month earlier, in May). With financial restrictions and difficulty in transporting needed medications and other equipment, as well as lack of workers and difficulty in communication/lack of email, this has been quite a challenge. Nothing in my formal education has prepared me for the administrative challenges that this work will entail, but I am thankful that I have many willing and wise advisors, and a powerful and good God who is able to use even my weaknesses to accomplish amazing things. I've also had the opportunity to spend some time with a French-speaking ophthalmologist in his office, which has been helpful for acquiring medical French; thanks to many who have prayed for this opportunity!

While I've been hacking through my email, Eric has been mainly studying French, but he has also been working on our US taxes, coordinating our luggage for the trip to Benin and later to Gabon, and cooking dinner (lately - we alternate on that task). But I generally restrict him to 1 frozen pizza per week.

Health care strikes in Gabon

2009-02-17T12:54:00.005-06:00

Please check out the following link for recent developments in Gabon. This article helps us, at least, to understand the medical climate we'll be entering in another 3-4 months.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090206/hl_afp/gabonsocialhealthstrike_20090206170213

As a result, Bongolo Hospital has been very busy lately....

Seeing the sites

2009-02-07T08:47:00.014-06:00

Only 3 weeks left of language school for us, and then we're off to Africa!! It's hard to believe how quickly the time has flown. A few weeks ago, we realized how short our time is, and so we decided to make a few last minute trips around Europe to take advantage of our time here. And these trips were not without a little adventure!

For those of you who want to skip the stories and just see the pictures, please click on the link underneath "Our online photo album", which on the right side of this page. Then, on the right side of the screen, you will see two pictures labeled "Skiing in Grindlewald" and "Venice". Click on the picture you would like to see, and it will take you to our collection of pictures. In the upper right hand corner, you will see the word "Slideshow" - if you click on this, it will take you through a slide show of all the pictures. To see the labels for each picture, click on "Show info" in the upper right hand corner of the slide show. Otherwise, you can just look at the pictures shown in our photo album, but they are all mixed up and out of order. :)

Ok - now on to the stories!! Our first trip was to Grindlewald to do a little skiing in the Alps. Our plan was to leave early in the morning, ski all day, and then return late in the evening. It started off a little rocky for us. We wanted to catch the 6:13 train from near our place so we could make the 6:30 train from Neuchatel to Grindlewald. We got to the train stop in time, but 6:15 passed, and then 6:20, but no train. We decided that the train just decided not to come that hour, so we hurried up to the bus stop - our backup plan. We didn't end up making the 6:30 train, as scheduled, but thankfully another one left at 7:00. But this may have been ordained by God. Because of the delay, we had the chance to share the gospel with a guy who was also waiting for the train with us. He didn't accept Jesus, but hopefully he is one step closer, thanks to the train not coming.

When we finally made it to the train station in Neuchatel, two missionary friends of ours (Rachel and Mandi) we patiently waiting for us. They were going with us to Grindlewald (to site see, but not ski). They were very understanding, which is impressive, given that we asked them to get up so early and then being late ourselves!

The train ride to Grindlewald was uneventful. It was a nice time to just sit back, relax, enjoy the views, and chat with our friends. When we got to Grindlewald, we got off the train, and our first stop was the Winter Festival area. This was the weekend of the winter festival, and there were people making very large snow sculptures. You can see some pictures of them in our photo album (mentioned above). They were impressive, but something bigger was calling us - skiing in the Alps!!! So we quickly made our way to the ski rental shop and got our skis and boots.

Then we took the train again up to Kleinescheidig (doesn't sound French, does it? It's German for small "scheidig" - whatever that is!) This was the hub of much of the skiing. After puzzling over the map showing a maze of different lifts and ski slopes, we asked someone, and they directed us to an area that had some supposedly "easy" trails. But I don't know if I consider a trail to be "easy" when it is narrow and if you accidentally veer off the trail, you fall down a cliff to your death!! (Ok, maybe not death, but at least a bunch of broken bones.) Needless to say, I (Eric) slowly made my way down this not so steep slope trembling a bit in my recently rented boots.

After surviving the run (the first miracle of the day), Wendy decided it would be wise to find a wider run so that I could get more comfortable with my skis. This helped immensely, and we enjoyed the next few hours of skiing, making our way down numerous runs, which are definitely a bit more difficult than ones in the US. We stopped and had a late lunch, and then decided to try to make one more long run before things shut down for the day.

So, our first task was to find our way to the top of the mountain. This was not an easy task, but after asking many people, we finally found our way to a remote lift. It seemed a bit strange, but there was practically no one by this lift. Instead of being a chair lift, it was a sort of T bar that you put behind your legs, and it pulls you up the hill. Wendy got on one side and I got on the other. The T bar was a bit unsteady, but we figured that if we were careful, we could handle it. All was fine until we approached an extremely steep slope (maybe a 75 degree angle or so!). As we went up, we found that we were basically hanging from this rope, with only a T bar being between us and a fall of 50 feet! We breathed a sigh of relief at the top of that slope, when another equally steep slope loomed ahead. We both did our best to hold on, with Wendy shouting "keep your legs straight, keep your legs straight!!!" the whole way up. The picture to the right is the look I gave Wendy, saying "I'm moments from death here - please be quiet and let me concentrate!"

Praise be to God, we made it to the top alive! This picture shows us a bit wearied (notice my wrinkled brow) but happy nonetheless. Now we had a nice, long, leisurely slope ahead of us. Or so we thought. Day was turning to dusk, and the clouds were coming down upon us. We started down the slope, but realized very quickly that the slope seemed quite steep. Wendy looked over, and found that we were on a black slope (meaning extremely difficult), instead of the medium we had wanted to be on. Wendy went to check a slope over to the side while I looked down the slope we were on, wondering if I would die in the land of chocolate. When she didn't return after several minutes, I went over to check on her. I found her, and apparently she had been calling me to come, but I hadn't heard a thing.

So, there we were, on the medium slope. Wendy called the gals we had come with to tell them we might be a little late for dinner. In fun, I screamed for help in the background, thinking it would be a funny joke. All is well - or so we thought. As we looked down this slope, we realized that we had no idea where the actual path was. Poles, which are supposed to mark the path, seemed to be spaced randomly about the mountainside. And clouds made it almost impossible to make out the contours of the snow.

As we contemplated what our next step was, someone came up from behind us. He noticed that we were a little confused and came over to help. Unfortunately, he didn't know English or French - only Swiss German, which was uncomprehensible to us. Eventually he pointed to himself, pointed to us, and then pointed down the mountain, meaning "Follow me - I'll show you the way". For the next hour (yes, I said hour!), we skied behind this fellow. He maneuvered around many difficult spots and checked back every few seconds to make sure we were ok. It was obvious he knew this mountain like the back of his hand, and with all the forks in the path we came across, he knew exactly where to go. Near the bottom of the mountain, he pointed us off in one direction, communicating that he was going in the other direction. And then he skied off into the distance.

Was he an ordinary person, or was he an angel sent by God? We will never know in this life. All we know is that without his help, it would have taken us hours to get down (if we would have made it at all!) Praise God for getting us out of the messes that we often get ourselves into! We eventually met up again with our friends, who had picked out a very nice restaurant for us to eat in, where were able to sit back, enjoy the recounting of their day, and rest assured that we had survived another day.

I guess I've rattled on long enough - we'll have to wait until the next blog to tell you about Venice. But the pictures are all up and labeled for Venice, so feel free to check those out right away. :) May you look to God to provide in the adventures you face this week.