Day 6 - 28/07/10

The medical mission was held in a place called Adeiso today, very near the crusade ground. Again there were some very needy people. We got through 240 people today, probably a record so far. Generally, we try to see mothers with children first and Fiona does a great job of controlling the crowd and keeping things orderly.
There are never a lot of men. Pastor Love talked to some locals who said the men get up early to go to work in the fields and come back at noon to rest for a couple of hours before leaving again.
Apart from all the malaria, eye problems and waist pains, there were a lot of respiratory tract infections. Special cases today were Graves disease (bulging out thyroid gland and eyes), a diabetic woman with early peripheral neuropathy and retinopathy, and a little child with hydrocephalus. This is when the fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord is obstructed and can't circulate freely, making the poor child's head swell up to twice the size. The sad part is that it could easily be fixed surgically with a shunt to reroute the drainage, but that we can't do anything about it here ourselves.

The locals are very friendly. I played football with them yesterday, but quickly ran out of puff in this climate. In Adeiso today too, everyone asks if they "can be your friend". Then they ask for your contact details.

They've also been teaching me more Twi today, such as "Obruni" (white man/woman), "beebeeni" (black man/woman), "Eh tee sei" (how are you), "e-yeh" (fine).

The construction team said today was even hotter than yesterday, then already the hottest. That makes today the hottest-est. They made good progress on the roof.

The crusade service tonight included Mark Whitcombe's moving testimony, Dr Ola's about how his life was miraculously preserved twice, Claire's account of how she became convicted of sin and Faith Purkis' testimony which started off in similar conditions to the ones we see all around us now.
Sometimes I have been guilty of writing off the OT as something that wasn't applicable now. But Dr.Morris got up and pointed these people here to the hygiene and food laws in Leviticus. It had never occurred to me before how practical that part of the bible suddenly becomes in a third world country.
Of course there was lots of dancing, worship and handkerchief waving again. In the middle of the tent you could see the dust starting to fly up. At one point, pastor Odai invited all the singers from among the missionaries and "the choir from Peniel" to come up and sing. When ten of us got on the small wooden stage, it decided enough was enough and gave way under our feet. I knew those frusli bars were a bad idea. No one got hurt or anything and we sang "Lord I lift your name on high" and "You are good (we worship You)" led by Jesse.
It can be difficult to keep the attention of the crowd, especially the children, when speaking after all that dancing. So there's a need to keep the messages punchy and to the point. Matt Reid was preaching and did a good job of making the gospel as concise as possible. There was an altar call with even more people coming forward than yesterday and then a call for prayer for healing where we all helped pastor Odai and his staff pray for individuals. At the end he arranged bibles for people who didn't have one and quite a number wanted to be baptized on Sunday too. There were also 15 voodoo converts who will burn their voodoo relics today.

Word of the day: "The Worminator" aka Jill. She goes around and gives all the children toffee sweets with deworming tablets before they see the doctors.

Conjugation of the day: "To be" in Twi.
Me ye - I am
Woo ye - you are
Onnu ye - he/she is
Yay ye - we are
Moo ye - you are (plural)
Wom ye - they are