November 2014 Kathy A. McCarty, R.N.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING,MERRY CHRISTMAS and a

VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR 2015

Left to right: Becky and Dave Altman; Ben and Karen Pennington;Cathy, Bart, and Jennifer Holdener; Kathy; Gene and Sue Beckstead;

Sylvia Brown; Patience Mereki. Sitting: Major Mereki and Gladys Jongeling.

This newsletter is long overdue and is now a year-end cap of a very busy year. It has been very hard to keep up with newsletters this year, but please check out our blog which is kept up-to-date throughout the year. Our blog also includes many more pictures.

www.chidamoyohospitalinzimbabwe.blogspot.com

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January 2014: In January Major Mereki and his family and I flew to Phuket, Thailand, for a holiday. His wife Patience, son Michael, who was 20, and daughter Carolyn, who was 16, and I had a wonderful 7 days in Phuket on the beach and then Bangkok for 3 days, and then on to Dubai for 4 days before coming home. We enjoyed so much our time away and our time together as a family.

Thailand and Dubai

We also welcomed four medical students from Ohio State University for 3 weeks. They were a lot of fun and had a good experience here.

We said good bye to Dr. Shield Kajese and his wife No-kuthabla as Shield went to do a residency program in An-ethesia in Harare. After being with us for 3 years it was hard to say good-bye.

We also had a pre-med student from Sacramento, Scott Erwin who was with us for a month helping us at the hos-pital. We hope he is able to get into medical school next year.

February 2014: We had 2 more medical students from Ohio State here. We also had new Laboratory machines that had been donated by Rotary International from Sebastopol,CA, installed and put to work. A brand new Full Blood Count

machine and an electrolyte machine were installed in a new and remodeled labora-tory. We are so thankful for our many donors that help us each and everyday.

We were happy to also to get air conditioners in our Labo-ratory and Theater which helps to keep us and our ma-chines cool!

Scott ErwinMed student from OSU help-

ing Dr. Kellert in surgery.

New lab machines presented by Rotary.Air conditioners being installed.

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March 2014: Visitors from our UK Trust in London, Mike and Gilly Withers, joined us for 2 weeks of help with us. They have helped us so

many times here and raising money for us in the UK. It was great to have them here.

Larry and Cheri Gail and Dr. Derek and Jo Tanen-guchi and their friend Pat were here to help us in our work. Larry and Cheri run Friends of Chi-damoyo organization in Seattle, WA, which helps to raise a lot of money for projects for us. They got to see first hand the solar back-up they provid-ed for the hospital put into action! They brought

their 12th man flag with them to rub in that the Seahawks defeat-ed the 49ers in the playoffs!

Jeff Dunbar from Santa Rosa joined us for a few days to talk about electronic medical records and our Continuing Education program with Dr. Gude in Se-bastopol, CA.

We were very sad at the end of March to lose Dr. Cheryl Kellert who had worked with us for 2 1/2 years. She has moved to Bozeman, Montana, and settled in there. We miss her and her expertise.

April 2014: During Eas-ter week we welcomed Linda, Mercy, Elsa and Brandon from Adventure Church Natomas in Sacramento, CA. They were put to work at the hospital and help-ing with the children’s program for our 4 day Easter meeting.

We were happy to welcome Dr. Nura Isala to work with us in place of Dr. Kajese, after he finished his residency. Nura worked with us in 2008 when he was a third year medical stu-dent and the University in Harare closed for 7 months. We were happy to welcome him back as a full doctor to work with us.

May 2014: Major turned the big 5-0 and we celebrated with a fishing trip to Kariba. It was a

Mike and Gillian Withers with our Administration.

Group from Seattle in March.

Larry and Cheri Gail from Friends

of Chidamoyo.

Pat, Cheri (from Seattle) and Kathy relaxing at Rhino Camp Kariba.

Group from Adventure Church Natomas.

Natomas group helping with the kids during the Easter conference.

Major’s 50th. Enjoying Kariba for Major’s birthday.

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great time. His son Michael also turned 21 the same month.

We were happy to welcome Dr. Dale Erickson for a weekend visit to Chidamoyo, with 2 doctors working in Harare from Stanford Medical School. He was the first doctor at Chidamoyo from 1968-1970. He and his wife were helping to teach at the medical school in Harare.

We also welcomed the Zimbabwe Christian College seniors for their AIDS counseling weekend and learning to be hospital chaplains. We

have done this program for 22 years and have helped many of these future ministers and Chris-tian leaders in dealing with their churches and medical problems they may face with them.

We were happy when a return visitor, Megan Parker Ninneman, a physician assistant from Florida, came for a few days visit on her way home from a conference in Zambia. Her expertise in TB was a big help to us.

We were thrilled to receive an almost new diesel Ford Ranger truck from the EU. We were so shocked to get this donation and it is something we really needed. We are so thankful we were considered for this.

June 2014: Dr. Jim Palleschi, a urolo-gist from Santa Rosa and his medical as-sistant, Victoria came for 2 weeks and did many surgeries for us and helped in teach-ing our doctors to do surgeries. This was his 3rd trip with us and we were thrilled he has chosen to come every year for 3 years to help us in this important way. Our patients and doctors definitely ben-efitted from his time here. He already has planned for next year.

July 2014: Emily Hutchins from Seattle came to be with us for a month and helped in the hospital. She is hoping to pursue a career as a Physician Assistant. We wish her well in her future studies and hope her time here helps her in her future schooling.

We received money from the government to start the rebuilding of the hospital after our terrible fire in November last year, when we lost our kitchen, laundry, and drug storeroom. We have continued to work slowly as the money is released to try and get it completed. It continues on!

Michael Mereki went off to University in Midrand, South Africa, to study business law. Major and Patience and Emily took him down. On the way back we met in Bulawayo

Dr. Dale Erickson and the twovisiting doctors with Kathy.

Megan arriving at Chidamoyo.

New Ranger truck.

Dr. Palleschi and Victoria with Major. Dr. Palleschi at work in surgery.

Emily Hutchinsat work.

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for the Scottish wedding-renewal of Tribute and Thembi Nyoni at a castle there. They returned to their home near London.

August 2014: We were happy to welcome back frequent visitors John and Stephanie Woodman with their 15 year old granddaugh-ter. Stephanie helped organize our theater and John built some shelves for us. We so appreci-ate their helpful attitude and great support of our work here over the years.

In mid August Dr. Michelle Withers and Dr. Sonia Twigg joined us for 2 weeks. Michelle, whose parents Mike and Gilly run our UK Trust, first came here as a medical student from London in the 90’s and has been back several times, but it had been 14 years since her last visit. Michelle and Sonia are doctors in Alice Springs, Aus-tralia. Michelle is a consultant in the ER department.

My Zimbabwe sister, Sylvia Majoni-Brown from Santa Rosa, CA, and my forwarding agents Gene and Sue Beckstead arrived the last

week of August to be with us for 5 weeks. We put them to work moving Major’s office at the hospital to another room, sorting out containers and cooking for more visitors that came during their time with us.

We enjoyed a day in Kariba to celebrate our long service awards for the hospital employ-ees and had time to walk the Kariba Dam wall and have a lunch and ceremony at a hotel and ended the day with a cruise on the Lake.

Michael’s school in SA. Scottish wedding in Bulawayo.Major and wife, Patience, with

Emily at the wedding.

Stephanie Woodmansorting instruments.

John Woodman and his granddaughter, Zoe, at work.

Dr. Michelle Withers and Dr. Sonia Trigg

Boat cruise for staff on Kariba.Long service awards for staff.

September 2014: Tom, Nicki, Jus-tin and Noah came for a visit to our schools program for Zimbabwe Rural Schools Program from the UK. They checked up on 4 schools they are help-ing develop. We also had a visit from Mr. Kundiona and Dr. Kajese who came to do surgeries for us and teach our doctors. We are thankful for them spending their days off to come and help us. Nokuthaba Kajese came as our theater nurse. It was great to have them back. They returned in October and hope to come every 6-8 weeks to help us.

In mid-September my college friend from Nurs-ing school, Cathy Holdener, and her husband Bart and their adult daughter Jennifer came for a visit. We graduated from nursing school 37 years ago and started our first jobs together in nursing at Sutter Memorial Hospital in Sacra-mento, CA. She still works there. They came to help me celebrate my 60th birthday!

We started with 8 of us go-ing off for 3 nights in Victoria Falls and 3 nights at The Hide in Hwange Game Park. After a quick 24 hours at Chidam-oyo we joined other friends for a week trip on a houseboat on Lake Kariba and the party continued! Fourteen of us en-joyed a relaxing time seeing

game and f i s h i n g and just t a l k i n g and eating a lot. What a great celebration I had.

Everyone left the last week of September and I was alone for a few days before our next visitor arrived.

Mr. Kundiona and Dr. Kajese coming to help out.

Tom, Justin, Nicki, Noah and Major.

The Holdeners at Vic Falls.

Kathy and Cathy at Vic Falls.

Group at The Hide in Hwange Park.

Game viewing off the boat in Lake Kariba.

Fishing off the boat. Watching an elephant off the boat.

Gen and Major on the boat watch-

ing an elephant.6

We started our chicken project to help provide eggs for sale and use at the hospital. We received 100 chickens through the support of the Friends of Chidamoyo. By October we were getting 3-4 crates of eggs a day. We are thankful for this money making project for the hospital.

We had 5th (final) year medical students from University of Zimbabwe here for 3 1/2 weeks. We enjoyed Tracy, Wendy, and Julia and hopefully they learned a lot. They enjoyed cooking and we en-joyed giving them some American dessert recipes to cook.

October 2014: We were joined for 2 months by a nurse from New Zealand, Amy Heather. She arrived just in time to help with a 2 week campaign of HIV counseling and testing. They were seeing over 800 people a day to test for HIV and some days she didn’t get home until 9 p.m.! We were so thankful for her help.

We had third year University of Zimbabwe medical students here for 3 1/2 weeks. Jona-than, Tendai, Innocent, and Tongai were a lot of fun and worked hard with us. Jonathan was here for 2 months last year when he spent his vacation time with us to learn more

clinical work.

The end of October we were joined by Dr. Bill and Kayleen Holloman from Tucson, AZ, here to help for 3 weeks. We are thankful for their time with us.

My rural home at Batanai is about to finish and we are plan-ning a weekend church meeting to officially be welcomed into the community. We are also

planning to spend Christmas holidays there this year and invite friends to come.

As you can see, 2014 has been a busy year with lots of visitors and work at the hospital. We are so thankful for all the support we continually get to help run the hospital. There has been a big recession that hit here this year in Zimbabwe and it has meant less support for our hospital from the government. We are so thankful for all of you who help to keep us in business, helping many people from throughout Zimbabwe get quality medical care. Thank you. Our reputation is because of you. Through donations of medical equipment and supplies from our containers that come to financial support, we are so thankful to all of you!

We want to wish all of you wonderful holiday timesand all the best for a great 2015.

Thank you for your continued support and help in so many ways.

Keep in touch in 2015!

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Amy Heather

Dr. Bill Holloman at work. Kayleen Holloman busy with paperwork.

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

P.O. Box 330Karoi, Zimbabwe, Africa

E-mail:sistermakate@gmail.com

Blogspot:chidamoyohospitalinzimbabwe.

blogspot.com

Skype:kathy.ann.mccarty

U.S. Address:Gene & Sue Beckstead

Chidamoyo Christian HospitalP.O. Box 714

Sebastopol, CA 95473-0714

Email:

sistermakate@gmail.com--Kathymufundisimajor@gmail.com--Major

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Phone:

+263772416270--Kathy+263772348309-Major

Remember get up to date news on the blog!

www.chidamoyohospitalinzimbabwe.blogspot.com

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

Check out our Website:www.chidamoyo.org

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