July 2012: We were happy to welcome on July 2, Rick and Sue Hahn and their granddaughter Jordan. They came to spend 6 months with us and help in training our ministers, minister wives and local churches. Jordan was kept busy doing computer records at the hospital and being everyone’s secretary.

We had a Saturday to celebrate our long serving employees at the hospital. This year we went to Chinhoyi Caves—3 hours away

with 25 of us to celebrate. We e x p l o r e d t h e caves and then had a dinner at the hotel. I was honored for 30 years of service along with one other and we had 25 years, 20 years, 15 years, and 10 year and 5 year employees.

As soon as they arrived I made the decision to fly home to the US for further medical care. I had been having fevers and severe fatigue for 6 months and no answers as to why. I left on 20th of July and flew home to Santa

Rosa where Dr. James Palleschi, my urologist arranged for me to be seen by some specialists. I spent the next 2 months seeing doctors, having lab tests, CT scans, gallbladder scans, seeing 4 different doctors and 2 surgeries. I stayed with my Zimbabwean sister, Sylvia Majoni-Brown a nurse in Santa Rosa. She went with me to all my appointments and was a big help with transport. We had lots of laughs seeing how much patients go through!

CHIDAMOYOCHRISTIANHOSPITAL

Kathy A. McCarty, R.N.July-December 2012

Group of staff and their spouses at Chinhoyi Caves

All the long service awards

Administration team with Rick and Suein Chinhoyi Caves

Awards banquet

Happy New Year 2013

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The one thing they decided is I had a non-functioning gallbladder and they removed that. The liver biopsy showed I have cirrhosis and the cause of my fever was never figured out but after 8 months I woke up one day and it was gone and I suddenly felt much better! Amazing! Thank you for all your prayers and thoughts and so many people helped with donations for my tests and the doctors, surgeons and hospital gave me totally free care! God provided for everything!

Although I didn’t feel very well for most of the time home I was able to visit with a few people and get some shopping in! It was nice to be home in the summer when the weather was warmer and longer evenings! I even got in a trip to Pac Bell Park to see the Giants before they clinched the pennant for the National League and eventually the World Series!

August 2012: While I was home in the US work continued at Chidamoyo and we finally got the Pediatric extension open and functioning as well as the new nurses’ station/recovery room. The room has helped make our work easier at the hospital and no more floor beds for Pediatric patients!

Watching the Giants at 0200 each morning for 4 games sweep of the World Series

New Peds wardRick and Sue helping to get new

Peds extention ready to open

We also received a brand new tractor from our UK Trust donors which was a welcomed relief to us. We use this to pull firewood to the hospital to cook with (when there is no electricity), bring barrels of water to us when we are not having enough water, and we can even plow our hospital fields with it! We were all so excited as we have never had a new tractor and it is working so well!

September 2012: I flew home (Zimbabwe) and arrived on the 24th of September in Harare. On the 25th

I celebrated my birthday at a dinner with friends. Then on the 26th of September, Rick, Sue, Jordan, Dr. Cheryl Kellert, Gladys (my American friend who lives in Juliasdale) and I flew to Cape Town, South Africa to spend a week celebrating Gladys 75th birthday and

New recovery room openedNew Nurses Station andRecovery Room building

Stephanie and Judy workingin our Out-Patient Clinic

New tractor

Kathy, Gladys and Jordancelebrating their birthdays

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my 58th and Jordan’s 18th! We stayed in a wonderful B&B that we have used before and rented a van for all 6 of us to fit in with all our stuff.

We travelled all over, hit the malls, movies, restaurants (lots of fish eating), went up Table Mountain, went to Robbins Island, and went to Cape Point where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet. We had a lot of fun and enjoyed all we did.

September 2012: We flew back on the 3rd of October meeting up with Sylvia Brown and her husband Chuck in Joburg for our flight back to Harare. They had just flown in from the US to visit her family for 2 months. We left for Chidamoyo and she left for Gweru from the airport.

When we got home a container had arrived from the US, so Rick and Sue got busy unloading it. We were so happy to receive new uniforms for our women. Joanne Minnis and her team made 200 uniforms which was a big help to us—thank you ladies. We will find more work for you soon-ha!

Rick and Sue spent time sorting and bringing the medical equipment to the hospital for us to sort. They also organized tools and other things that came. We were thankful they were here to do that for us.

I built another rondoval (round house with grass roof) on my property to house guests and it was finally finished and Jordan moved in and started decorating it. We made it the Zebra room with that as the theme and had fun finding a lot of zebra print things to go in. It has 2 twin beds ready for guests, so come on over!

On October 11th Sylvia and her husband Chuck, joined us after visiting with her family. Sylvia and Sue went to work sorting used clothing that came in the container and in past containers. This was several weeks job and the containers were so hot to work in during October!

October 14th and 15th we were joined by Laura of

Cascade Designs and Jesse of PATH from Seattle, WA. Cascade has developed a machine to use table salt and water to make bleach for disinfection. They brought the prototype for us to use and set up in the 2 days they were with us. We are so happy with this as it saves

Cheryl, Jordan, Sue, Gladys andRick in Cape Town

Kathy, Sue, Jordan and Rickat Cape of Good Hope

Celebrating birthdays inCape Town restaurant

New Rondoval

Sue and Sylvia sorting used clothing from containers

Laura and Jessie delivering our bleach making machine

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us a lot of money and transport. So each week I make bleach in between seeing patients! Takes about 20 minutes to make 2 liters!

Then on the 20th of October we lost our electricity for 12 days straight! We all got pretty grumpy before it was over. Trying to keep food and cook for 7 or more people was a big challenge! October being our hottest month and no fans at work or when we slept was also hard on all of us. We spent a lot of time sitting in the swimming pool after dinner and before bed to cool off so we could sleep! We really celebrated when it came back. Of course it only stayed on for 48 hours and then went off for 4 days! It has been that way since. We are so thankful when it is on! We can’t seem to have rain somewhere in our area without a pole or wires being knocked out and we haven’t even had much rain yet!

On October 30th we were set to welcome Stephanie and John Woodman, alumni 3 times before. Stephanie is an OR nurse and they recently retired to Panama from Maine. They brought with them American friends from Panama, Jim and Judy Eaton. Judy was an ER nurse for years in Omaha, Nebraska, and Jim worked as an engineer for the Army as a civilian. They flew from Panama to Washington, DC, and arrived just as storm Sandy hit the east coast. They got stuck there for a couple of days until planes were able to fly again and they arrived November 1st! They were happy to be out of the cold weather and into the HOT.

November 2012: On November 4th we all left early in the morning—11 of us for Rhino Camp in Kariba for a 3 night, 4 day safari. We had an adventure! We took 2 cars and 1 broke down on the way. We sent for another car from Chidamoyo while one went on. We finally all got there and then took the boats an hour down the lake to be greeted by a herd of elephants eating by the dock!

On Monday the 5th of November, Denise Bloomqvist, a nursing student from Finland joined us. She had flown into Harare the day before and our driver brought her up to Kariba to catch the boat to come to us. She was here for a 6 week elective with us. She found us on Google!

We had a wonderful time and saw a lot of animals, including a rhino. Sylvia and Major and Rick and Jordan went fishing and caught us some fish we had for breakfast our last day there and more they brought home! On the way home the boat

I was riding in had problems with the fuel line so the other boat took most of our group ahead and then came back for Jim, John and I. It was so hot

we jumped into Lake Kariba and swam. We hoped there were no crocs out in the middle, and we survived!

After Sylvia and Sue sorted all the clothes, we were able to get our 10 ministers and their families together in mid-November and give their families clothing for the coming year. This is such a blessing to them as clothing is so expensive here and not as good of quality as American clothes. They are so thankful for this. They make so little money they really can’t afford to buy clothes.

Battery back up being installedat my house

Denise, our Finnishnursing student

Sylvia and her fish caughtat Rhino Camp

Ministers wives getting clothing for their families4

John and Jim spent their time here putting in shelves and the nurse’s desk in our new recovery room/nurses station. They had to battle with no electricity for their “power” tools and walls that weren’t quite even! We didn’t want to make it easy for them! They also fixed a desk

and counted pills for us.

J u d y a n d Stephanie helped with some of the medical work, went out for Immunization and ART clinics and counted pills!

On the 15th of November we said goodbye to Sylvia and Chuck who left to spend a few more days with her family before a week’s trip with our other visitors. On the 25th Stephanie and John and Jim

and Judy met up with them to fly and spend 3 nights on safari at The Hide and 4 nights at Victoria Falls Hotel. Then they each headed for home. We are thankful for their time here and their hard work! We hope to see them again soon!

On the 16th of November we decided to celebrate our Thanksgiving. Since it is not a holiday here we can choose any day in November when to celebrate. We had 9 Americans, 9 Zimbabweans and 1 Finish to celebrate with us. We had each of the Americans make a dish. My forwarding agent blessed us by sticking in yams, green bean casserole fixing and pumpkin

pie filling and stuffing boxes in the container—so we had traditional American food with 6 pies! We had 3 University of Zimbabwe m e d i c a l s t u d e n t s w h o c e l e b r a t e d t h e i r f i r s t Thanksgiving with us and went back 3 times to fill their plates. Their comment at the end of the meal was “we love America!”

December 2012: As we moved into December the Christmas decorations and tree were put up. The heat continued and it was the worst November on record for heat and no rain! We had a 24 hour day of prayer at our church and hospital here on November 27th—and we had 2 days of rain that week. Gladys’s church in Juliasdale (east of Harare) joined us too. Since then we have received great rainfall and have caught up!

Jordan Smetzer left on the 29th of November to fly back to the US and start college in January in Eugene, OR. We wish her well in her future studies. We are thankful for her work here.

Rick and Sue Hahn left on the 16th of December and we thank them for their hard work here and for

Jim finishing up shelves for storeroom in Nurses

station

Jim and John planning the shelving unit setup for the

Nurses station

Stephanie, John and Judy count-ing pills for outreach clinics

Sylvia and Chuck Brown

Thanksgiving dinner Thanksgiving dinner feast

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their support of our work even when they are away from us. We wish them well as they continue their retirement and go back to a new granny unit in their daughter’s house. They were so excited to see it!

Our Christmas activities went well. We had movies, drama, caroling, and a Christmas party for our staff with gifts for all of food items and T-shirts and hats that had come in the container. We had church and tea afterwards on Christmas morning. I hosted a brunch for 11 people. We had to start an hour late because we had such heavy rain we couldn’t get the people to my house and the food out to the outside tsaka (dining room) in the heavy down pour. We were thankful for the rain and the coolness of the rain. We always enjoy our Christmas activities here and don’t want to miss them.

Rick and Sue farewell from hospital

Michael Mereki with cousins, Christine and Nancy, and sister, Carol Christmas caroling in hospital wards

Caroling and giving sweets at Dr. Kabanzi’s house Christmas drama by youth

Staff Christmas lunch

Major as Father Christmas

for staff party6

Christmas morning service in the rain!

Patients having tea for ChristmasMereki family Christmas Day

Christmas dinner at my house

Staff getting their bags of groceries for Christmas Christmas Eve, opening presents at my house

Me opening Christmas present

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Check out our Website:www.chidamoyo.org

Kathy A. McCarty, R.N.Chidamoyo Christian Hospital

P.O. Box 330Karoi, Zimbabwe, Africa

E-mail:sistermakate@gmail.com

Blogspot:chidamoyohospitalinzimbabwe.

blogspot.comSkype:

kathy.ann.mccartyU.S. Address:

Gene & Sue BecksteadChidamoyo Christian Hospital

P.O. Box 714Sebastopol, CA 95473-0714

Non Profit Org.U.S. Postage Paid

Knoxville, TNPermit #374

Mission Services2004 E. Magnolia Ave.Knoxville, TN 37917

Return Service Requested

Tax deductible gifts may be sent to:Chidamoyo Christian Hospital, P.O. Box 714, Sebastopol, CA 95473-0714

Please keep up to date by following our blog. More pictures, more news and more fun:www.chidamoyohospitalinzimbabwe.blogspot.com

Email: Phone numbers: Kathy McCarty -- sistermakate@gmail.com Kathy -- 011263772416270 Major Mereki -- mufundisimajor@gmail.com Major -- 011263772348309

You can text us! We are 10 hours ahead of PST and 7 hours from EST (take 1 hour off for Daylight Savings Time)

On December 26th I was sadden to learn of my oldest sister, Carol Fish, death due to lung Cancer. I was able to visit with her in September before she was even sick. She was diagnosed in November and went very quickly. It was hard to deal with this from afar but glad her family was there with help from hospice to make a difficult situation better.

Thank you to all our supporters and friends. We pray you had a great Christmas and that 2013 will be a great year for all of you. Thank you for those who pray for our work, drop us emails of encouragements, send cards and collect supplies for us. You make all the difference to our work here!

In 2013 we are due for 2 elections, one for a new constitution and one for President and Members of Parliament. As of writing we do not know when this will happen. They only need to announce 90 days in advance the date. We first thought it would be March and now they are talking end of June or September. Everything is up in the air. Please remember us and pray for free and fair elections with safety for all.

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