Florence Nightengales of Africa: From Earthquake to Outbreak

The past three days here in Tanzania have been eventful to say the least.  On Wednesday a team of medical professionals from the US arrived to help host an expanded services clinic at the medical center here. The plan was to hold the clinic from Thursday to Saturday from 9-5 and help with acutemedical needs but also focus on whole person care.

We saw many different cases and got to pray with several people.  There were also brothers and sisters added to the kingdom as a few prayed to receive Christ!  It was a challenging few days as we all learned the culture and how different medical care is here in Africa and it was very rewarding.
We also faced a few unexpected bumps along the way. 

The first day of the clinic one of our team members became sick after lunch.  She left the clinic and went back to City of Hope to rest.  When everyone else arrived home that evening we found that she had gotten much worse. As Stephanie was giving her a shot of Phenergan we felt the building shake! This was alarming and we were all very confused as to what was happening.  I personally thought a tractor hit the building but I suppose it was an earthquake.  That is still up for debate.  As she became worse an IV was started and we gave her some fluids because she was severely dehydrated. Stephanie and I decided to stay up at the mission house with her through the night, but we did not realize by morning we would be running our own ER.

Through the course of the night, almost hour by hour, more people on the team became sick with
similiar symptoms. By morning a total of eleven people had been up most of the night with
vomiting and diarrhea.  Stephanie and I stayed up the entire night running around the mission's
guest house with shots of Phenergan.  By morning buckets were in short supply and the bathrooms had waiting lines.

At the clinic the next day more people had come than the first.  Even though our team was cut nearly in half we also were able to see more of them.  Stephanie and I struggled to make it to lunch and then came back to sleep because we had been up 36+ hours.

Thankfully the whole team is on the mend now.  Many peole feel back to normal and most of us are leaving to go on Safari tomorrow morning.  It was a crazy time but God carriend us through all of it.

Being here has been such a blessing.  We see things that break our hearts but we know we
serve a God who loves the world and is working to bring healing and restoration.
-Written by Brittany