Tambukeni Mwane 2

Subject: Tambukeni mwane (Greetings)!
Date: 01-Apr-00 at 00:05
From: Luampa Hospital, 1106104

written 31 March 00
Thank you to those who have written. As stated before, mail may be sent to luampahospital@compuserve.com with "Sidney Wu" in the subject line. Also, if at all possible, please do not include attachments or a copy of my own letter to you in your mailings; this increases satellite phone transmission costs. Thanks!

Hello, Everyone!

Praise the Lord for this past week! God's really been helping me to get quite a bit more accustomed to life out here. I've been able to learn a bit (a tiny bit) more of the predominant native language Mbunda, a lot more about the prevalent tropical diseases & their treatment, & also quite a bit abt. the lives of medical missionaries. Thank you so much for your prayers.

Indeed it's only been ~1.5 weeks since I arrived here, & of course I'm being stretched in various ways. Some of you may know that I felt quite overwhelmed just days ago -- to the point of strongly wanting inside to go home, even -- so I really thank God for His help. I'm thankful also that I've been allowed more responsibility (I'm covering 6 beds in the female/pediatric ward), as I asked for it. Pls. pray for God's continued guidance, wisdom, compassion, humility, & strength as I'm in line for even more responsibility (eg: taking call, helping to cover more beds). I can get quite flustered when I feel I'm in over my head. Praise the Lord there's always help when I need it.

Anyway, the past week has been quite the experience, as you can imagine. I thought I might report some of the more interesting stories & thoughts running through my head.

I might as well tell you the sad-but-all-too-true one 1st. Just 2 days ago, we had just started rounds on the female/pediatric ward when we went into one of the smaller rooms to see a newly arrived patient, a 15-day-old child, as cute as a button. On exam we noted that he was grunting & mildly cyanotic (bluish @ the lips). He was in respiratory distress. We ordered the oxygen-concentrator be brought, & since he was getting cold, we had his mother get onto the bed to cuddle him as his incubator. Not 5 minutes later, as we put on the O2 & started broad spectrum antibiotics, his heart stopped beating, & he was dead. Needless to say, his mother was bawling hysterically, & my eyes began to water @ the scene. How many high-powered interventions (pulse-oximeter, cardiac monitoring, endotracheal intubation, mechanical ventilation, heating lamps, chest radiology, etc. etc.) would have been put to use had we been in a richer country!!! Yes the needs are so great. Please pray for several things: comfort & care for the baby's family, increase non-technology-dependent physical diagnosis skills among workers here (incl. myself), right economic prioritization of health care & education by local & international governments, & that God would move more of His people to
help relieve some of the gross regional disparity in health care. As yet I too am uncertain of where God wants me in the future.

The following stories aren't quite so heartbreaking...
Falaulo is a 4y/o boy who has the cutest big grin; we grin @ each other each time we see each other. I'm tickled to know at least one child who isn't scared of my non-African face getting close to him to look into his ears or listen to his lungs & heart. He's been with us a little >1wk, admitted for the beginnings of Kwashiorkor (protein malnutrition) & malaria. His weight & spirits have picked up quite a bit already, so he'll prob'ly go home in the next few days. It's too bad that
pediatricians have to say goodbye to thier patients when they're finally well enough to smile & play. Praise the Lord, though; he's well. The afternoon of the day that 1st infant died, I was given the chance to tour the area called "Civalio" behind the hospital. It's a small, compact village, of sorts, for patients too well to be admitted yet too sick to be too far from the hospital. (Transportation around here is mainly by foot; there are no paved roads within 30km of us.) As we toured Civalio, one toddler saw me, pointed, & and started saying loudly while smiling &
following us, "Muna yo musweu! Muna yo musweu!" People were laughing at his words, so I asked my guides, who were also laughing, what the kid said. They translated the Lozi words as, "White man! Look at the white man!" I laughed aloud it was so funny; I'd never been called a "white man" before! Anyways, it was later clarified to me that the words translated "white man" actually refers to any non-black person. It reminded me of how most any culture can be pretty self-centered, whether
it be merely naivete, malicious prejudice, or both, for eg: "colored" vs. "non-colored" in early to mid-20th century US, or /Zhongguo/ vs. /waiguo/, the Mandarin Chinese words for "China" and any other country (literally "Central country" & "outer country," respectively). I guess it's true I'm much paler-skinned than most here.

One last interesting thing that I'll share with you was quite a surprising blessing. Since not too long ago I was learning Spanish @ LLU, now as I'm trying to learn Mbunda & am having a hard time communicating, I find myself blurting out Spanish when I'm trying to get something across to a patient (you might have had this experience with languages). Of course I feel silly when I realize what I've done. Anyway, believe it or not, the Spanish I've learned has come to good use even here in Zambia! Some patients here are actually native to neighboring Angola, which was colonized by Portugal, so some patients speak some Portuguese, which has some similarity to Spanish. Some words (eg: "suficiente," "fiebre") are close enough to allow some communication! It amazes me to think how God prepares His people for what they go through. I even think abt. past experiences in Mexico & China, without which I prob'ly would not have been ready to see what I see here. God knows exactly what He's doing with us, doesn't He?

I pray this letter finds each of you well. Thank you so much for your much-needed prayers. I've almost finished going througha workbook called "Experiencing God: Knowing & Doing the Will of God," which lately has been helping me realize the necessity of involvement in the lives of fellow believers..... If you haven't already, please let me know how I may also pray for you.

"Yeeeeeeeehaaaaaawwww!!!" [a strickly AMERICAN expreshun fer y'all back home, seein' how sevr'l missionaries 'round these parts talk funny -- British, Kiwi (New Zealander), Canadian, & Australian English can vary quite a bit from "Standard American"!] God is good!

Your Brother in Zambia,
Sid/Steve

Tito: thanks again for the snowboarding trip; it was a lot of fun. I'm glad all of us made it down safely.

Aunt Sandy: I dunno about "having to" go through all of this. I also feel it's pretty hard sometimes. I even talked to some missionary couples, who also recognize that it's also a sacrifice made on the part of one's family, not just the missionaries themselves.....

Dr. Elder: Praise the Lord for the recovery! I pray also that you'll heed some of your kids' (& Derek's) admonitions to take things slowly. Thanks so much for your writing...

Anneta: Wowsers; it really seems like S's family is going through a lot. Please know that I'm keeping you & the situation close in my prayers.

David: will be praying for the English group & your surgery call. You're doing it @ the VA, right? I did it there, & call wasn't too bad, although it's still intern-dependent.

Johnny: you'd LOVE the photography opportunities here!!! They say that "There's no sky like the African sky," & it's true. Somehow it seems much BIGGER and THICKER with the cloud formations. Also, I've seen some wildlife that's pretty cool...