THE GIFT OF BEDNETS FOR HOSPITAL MUUNGANO RESURRECTION

This will be a story of pictures... ...a story that was very fun for me!!! Many of you at St. Anne remember the fund raising last year during Lent when you saw the youth showing just how creative they can be. In the end, those Bednet Funds were used to buy 3000 bednets. I worked with Roger, the director of Health Services for Caritas Goma and together we came up with a plan to cover nearly every last bed in the hospitals and dispensaries of the Diocese of Goma. Well that was wonderful, but low and behold after covering all their health facilities with BEDNETS we remained with 1500 nets left over. Then it was very easy to decide to use those in the maternal / child clinics to dispense for pregnant women who are in a high risk group facing the scourge of Malaria. In the photo above you see Sister Francis who is the director of Hospital MUUNGANO Resurrection in a very poor neighborhood of Goma. She stands beside the pickup that is the only means of transportation they have for their facility. We had arrived at the warehouse to pick up over 800 bednets which would be distributed to 8 facilities in and near Goma. Each bag contains 50 bednets and of course carrying them on your head is the way much work gets done here in DRC. To the left you see the pickup filled with 300 hundred nets...near to 1/2 of our load for the day. Our photo at the end of filling the pickup with the chauffer, Sister Francis, KASOLE (manager of the warehouse, and the staff who toted all those bags on his head). We were feeling good for the job we were undertaking for the day!

Then we took off with our load and deposited all but three bags at Caritas Goma before continuing on our way to arrive out in the far neighborhood of NYABUSHONGO

The women and children who greeted us sang for many minutes and I had to join in the clapping, singing, and dancing!!! These are the women and children who are tended the NUTRITION PROGRAM for children who are suffering malnutrition.

The wonderful joy for MUUNGANO RESURRECTION HOSPITAL is that they have a reputation for helping the sickest of the malnourished and many come from long distances to arrive at their facility. These three young ones are evidence of the good results of daily good food.

This walk way takes patients up to the hospital wing and clinic exam rooms from the nutrition centerat the bottom end of the walk way.

These are some of the beds in the nutrition center that will be covered with BEDNETS.

This is Sister Francis sitting by her desk in her office as we visited about the hospital she tends. It was built just two years ago and the patients are able to pay some fees. Of course it is never enough for the hospital to make BIG PROGRESS but they manage to get by and with gifts like the BEDNETS...they get by even much better!!!

This woman stirs one of the huge cooking pots she tends in the kitchen for the NUTRITION PROGRAM. As in most places they cook on a wood or charcoal stove.

The ward for the sickest of the malnourished infants and children is here. There were some children who even had feeding tubes in to give them feeding directly into their stomachs. They are all so appreciative of the BEDNETS; they clapped with joy upon hearing of your gift.

No hospital can run without a good complement of nurses and these are some of the day shift who we met on my tour of the facility.

The lab technician just wanted to be shy and let me see the lab where the technical work takes place.

They are happy to have an electric microscope, but the centrifuge is still a hand crank model.

What a nice color the beautiful blue fridge is. Looks like a great big oversized cooler and so it is made of just those kind of materials to conserve the cold. It is run using a gas powered motor as too often the electricity fails and then prescious medicine is quickly lost.

This is a receptionist who really knows her job; she made me and the children who followed us feel most welcome. This is a woman with a warm heart and love for children!

MUUNGANO RESURRECTION HOSPITAL is staffed with two full time doctors. This woman is one of the two; we caught her at her desk hard at work...paperwork never ends.

She took her medical training at a school here in GOMA. They work days, but are also on call on the nights. She was tired the day we visited her.

This pharmacy seems to have a pretty good stock, as it goes here in Goma. I was impressed with the cleanliness and organization of this hospital I visited. And I was so happy to be able to distribute the prescious cargo of BEDNETS.

Every hospital that has received is sending you such a huge and heartfelt THANK YOU!!! I hope you can feel the words of blessings sent to you from across the ocean, they are real!

I close sending my love in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Peace be with you, Jackie