The proverbial three score and ten that the Bible talks about has been reached today. I’m still in good health and have been busy here in Chad, Africa and plan to be here for the next 5 years. I used to think 70 was old but your prospective changes with time and it definitely is not old. I can still do most of what I could do 40 years ago although I need to be doing more physical exercise to keep in better shape. Sometimes one thinks about what they have accomplished in life. Of course I hope there is still lots of life remaining. It is easy to get on the treadmill of life doing the daily work and chores and not taking enough time to “smell the roses” and enjoy your friends and family. One may someday wish they had spent more time with someone; but very unlikely to wish that one had worked later a few more times. The amount of money one has is not as important as the relationships with our family and friends and especially our relationship with our Lord.
The people here in Chad cultivate relationships a lot better than Americans even though they have almost no hard assets. They always take time to greet and find out how the other person is doing. The extended family system perhaps can prevent one from getting ahead but they have plenty of relationships. Almost everyone is very poor so all are the same. Are we fullfulling the Great Commission that Jesus gave us to tell everyone the good news of salvation that He has provided for us if we will accept and do what He tells us? Do we show our love in our relationships?
The past two nights I have watched the stars in the middle of the night and could see the familiar Orion, the Pliadeas, Artaurus and the Milky Way that appear straight over head here but would be in the southern sky at home. We don’t have the light pollution here that is in the USA.
I celebrated today by getting up at 2:00 am for an OB to remove a dead baby's head that was stuck. The baby had come breech. Then at 5:00 am we had a C-section for a CPD (failure to progress), but a nice living baby. Then after all the rounds, I did a hernioraphy, then excision of a very large bunch of masses from the perineum and perirectal area. I think they were huge lymphogranulomata vererum (sp?) which weighed almost a pound. Tonight about 11:00 pm we had another shoulder presentation OB which required a C-section and the baby is living. We had another imperforate anus yesterday. The end of the rectum was about an inch up inside the newborn baby. We opened the anus (where it should be) and probed and finally found the rectum and brought it down and opened it and sutured it to the anus opening. We recently had a colon-colic intussisseption with transverse colon going inside the spleenic flexure down almost to sigmoid and had been that way a few days. Had to resect the spleenic flexure and part of the descending colon and then reanastamose the colon. He has done well post op. Also last week we had a very large fibroid uterus that weighed over 5 lbs. We have done over 65 procedures since Olen and Danae left on annual leave Oct 28 so have been busy.
We still don’t have the containers with construction materials, so continue to pray for them to be released. It has been promised that they will be freed this week. We will see. This has had a big ripple effect in that various groups have had to change their schedules or cancel. Our container is still sitting in Moundou but possibly can come here next week.
We are to have a French doctor Nov 18 – 29. He has been here before but not while we were here. We are to have a neurosurgeon here from Germany Nov 27 – Dec 18. He wants to experience mission medicine and heard that Bere Adventist Hospital in Chad is the place to do that. So we will have some help part of the time that Olen and Danae are on annual leave.
It is not supposed to rain in November but we had about ½ inch Nov 6 but the hot sun is drying things rapidly. Any garden has to be watered in this sandy soil. I don’t think it has been over 95 yet but has been about 90 in the house.
We hear that Lyol and Zane want “to go home” and “why are we here” and they have been told they are on vacation in America. Of course we miss them also.
We love each one of you but have to respond via email as it is almost impossible to get facebook to download on our very slow and intermittent internet.
Love, Rollin and Dolores
Emails: drbland@sbclobal.net and dfbland@gmail.com
