Hello everyone,

I trust the summer months have been kind to you and the weather in Washington has allowed for some serious fun in the sun. Here in Malawi this has been the coldest winter on record. As you know, the rains were sporadic and late so it appears the weather pattern is changing. There has been a bit of talk about it in the news and the government has sponsored many platforms for scientists and whatnots to speak about how Malawi can react to the climate change. For me, all I know is, it was cold as in triple blanket time. At least there was no snow; ha!

So it has been a while since I have written to tell you the goings on here. From the emails I have received it would appear that a lot of you there have had an interesting time of it; some good and some bad. Our prayers continue to be with you all in the good and the bad. We have been quite busy for the last couple of months. We are now fully moved onto the African Bible College campus. Becky is the acting administrator of the clinic as well as clinical director. She still works a couple of days at Partners in Hope but her duties here are commanding most of her time. She has been able to go out on several village clinic trips and has really enjoyed that. If given the chance I bet she would do that most everyday and to top it off she is really good at it. Becky had a pretty severe bout with being sick but has almost fully recovered. She gets some twangs in her stomach but can’t determine the root cause yet. The picture above is showing Becky at what she does best; taking care of sick babies. This one is a brand new baby whose mom died during childbirth. Becky didn’t know if the child was going to make it but to date is still kicking and wetting his diapers so go Matao!!

Becky is also the person in charge of bookings at the ABC lodge and drafted me to run the finance and personnel aspect and Iris to make sure the place is kept clean for guests. We enjoy it but now know what it is like to be on the receiving end of teams coming to Malawi for a few weeks; yikers. I now have a whole new appreciation for what permanent missionaries lament about. Seeing that we are the product of a short term team we love to host them and talk Malawi but as Paul Harvey used to say, we now know “the rest of the story”.

The new school year has started and Iris is teaching full time at the Academy. She was tapped to revamp and redo the school’s curriculum and did a great job at it. A new head master has arrived and was able to pick up her work and walk in easy peasy to his job so kudos to Iris for her hard work over the break.

Ryan and Kimmy have settled nicely into campus life. They are making lots of new friends of different nationalities and have relaxed a lot since Chilinde. They are both getting well on in schools and are making both their parents proud of them. They are also enjoying church a bit better now since we seem to have found a place where we accept going (can anything really replace AC3….I think not).

Since arriving on campus my duties have mushroomed considerably. Besides security, teaching, and the lodge I now am partnered with the new business manager to investigate, revamp, and turn the clinic around both procedurally and financially. I was also handed the clinics rather large accounts receivables to start collecting. So the days are now filled with charts and graphs and meetings and blah blah blah.

JDS and E3 are moving along really well. Sam and Jay are as busy as ever and are doing really great running and expanding both JDS and E3. When a large medical team came to the lodge to stay we were able to team them up with E3 and take them to Gusu for two days of medical clinics. I was able to witness a hand being saved and was able to take a brand new bay that had measles and malaria to the closest private hospital for treatment. We got the opportunity to pay for the baby’s stay and treatment but that is what we are here for and the reason E3 exists so that was a win for the good guys. It is the little successes that keep us going.

And speaking of Gusu the teacher housing is done!!! Now, if the government will fulfill their end of the bargain, school should be in session in another month. The kids in Gusu can finally, after years of waiting and hoping, go to school locally and safely. Hot diggity dog!!!! AC3 rocks!!!!

The treadle pump program is still humming along and producing food. The goat pen has been started and should be complete right about now so the new goat herd is right around the corner. We will have a mixture of milk and meat goats. In a nutshell, Gusu is starting to really see some benefits from the partnership with AC3 and E3. And by the way, Chief Gusu sends his regards and thanks to everyone. Hey!!! If any of you get a chance can you get together as a church and take a huge picture and send it addressed to him? He would just totally love it.

And how would you get it here? Well, Becky and Kimmy will be arriving for a two week visit the first of September. I know, you all wish it was me but they will just have to do. Becky has missed all of you so much and wants to see you so bad that she is actually flying for the very first time by herself (well, Kimmy is along but you get my drift). She is conquering some serious fear just to see you all so try to shake some time loose to give her a shout or drop by to say hi. And to top it off, she and Kim both will be celebrating their birthdays there without Ry or I and Becky turns 40!!!!!!!!! What idiot booked that ticket I wonder?

But back to E3 and another success story for you. Recently someone donated a bit of cash for E3 to use in microfinance. As some of you are aware, several months ago we put on a small business seminar for thirty pastors and their wives. Well, one of the wives put together a small business plan to sell popcorn and the business plan called for almost the exact amount of the donation. So I would like for you to meet and put her on your prayer wall Mary Maguaza. Mary is a registered pastor with the Free Methodist Church in Malawi and is finishing her certificate at the Free Methodist Pastors School. With the cash loan and some utensils donated by a departed doctor, Mary should be able to buy and transport enough popcorn for sale to provide school fees for her children and better nutrition for the family. This will not be easy for her and there are many pitfalls but with prayer and follow up support from E3 we all hope and pray that she will be one of the long term successes.

So hopefully you can see that even what we would consider a small amount of help can be a life changer for someone here. Sometimes what we do here consists of a long and tedious process but the people here are starting to see the benefits of that work. I know I don’t do a good job of keeping all of you at home up to speed regularly enough but I just beg your mercy on that. With your prayer and continued support we can continue to be here making a difference in the lives of the people who live here. We count ourselves among the privileged few who ever have the opportunity to see and be involved in this kind of work and extend our humblest and most appreciative thanks to those of you who make this all possible.

I would also like to take a second and send out a special thanks on my behalf to those who wrote and prayed for me after my last message. At that time I was having spiritual, mental, and physical issues. The mental is not a surprise to most of my friends but that is for another time. Seriously though, that was a most difficult time. I can tell you that I immediately started to feel the effects of your prayers. Since then the Bible has become clear again, devotions normal again, and spiritually I have just been in a better place and I want to say again thank you. Mentally I am still as crazy as ever though. Physically my body has taken a bit of a beating though. I just came off a bout of Malaria and just before that I got what Becky had and was out for a week on that one. But hey, any day one is above ground is a good day. So thanks again for your prayers as I will never tire of saying thank you. There are times when one knows the prayers are there and then there are those special times when one can physically feel them and I felt it.

So there you have it. I wish you could all experience daily life here. An email can’t possible sum up or describe the comings and goings but I hope you get a small sense of life half a world away. We miss you all very much. Oh hey, a couple of prayer requests. Mark and Deb Holland, Peter and Tina Tang and a couple of friends from Becky’s work are visiting us in Sept and Oct. Pray that they have a safe trip and have a good experience here. Becky and Kimmy will be flying back here with them so that should be fun for everyone. You can pray for the new school year that Iris gets on well and the kids make it through yet another year. Pray for Sam and Malla as Malla left her work and is looking for another Job. Pray that we can turn the ABC clinic around and put it back on path. Pray for my dad as he heals from surgery and my mom as she keeps the home fires burning. And pray for me that I have learned my lessons of the past and work with a measured amount of grace and humility as tough decisions are made that I will be a part of at the clinic. And please pray that God will shine through our lives here and that our words and actions are a reflection of the grace found in us through Him and that those in need will find salvation in the one who saved us.

Love you all ever so much,

David Becky Ryan Kimmy and Iris

Your missionaries to Malawi

Pictures from the village clinics

This is Danielle. She is another nurse here from America helping out for the summer at the Crisis Nursery.

This is our very basic but well functioning lab. We do malaria smears and other much needed tests for the villagers.

The next three pics are of the clinic I just helped at yesterday. This one has had the nicest facilities so far. We usually are not able to spread out the medications like this. It made dispensing much faster!

Pretty good considering we are out in the middle of nowhere!

The counter we dispense from.

Me in front of the pharmacy stock. We actually have a really good selection of medications available. About 1/2 are donated from the states!

These are from the village clinic that I did with Ministry of Hope last week. The first picture is of the pharmacy area. We usually just empty the big bins and use them as tables for dispensing the medications. The second one is the line up of people waiting to have their vital signs taken and then see the clinical officer.

See how the bins also double as tables.

This day we saw 280 patients. They started lining up at 4am to be seen. We did not finish seeing patients until 3:30pm that day.

I am waiting for my friends who were with me to send me their pictures too. I will post those on facebook when they arrive so be on the lookout for those. I hope this gives you a good idea about how much room is available for improving healthcare here in Malawi. Most of these people would have to walk about 12 miles to get to the nearest healthcare facility. And then when they get there they frequently find that the facility does not have the medications they need. That's why these clinics are so needed and so well attended by the villagers. We take so much for granted in the US!

Becky

Village Clinics

So, ever since I first visited Malawi I have wanted to do village clinics. 85% of the people here live away from the city and in the village which means access to healthcare is a challenge. In Gusu (the village where E3 is working) it is about 12 miles to the closest health clinic. The last time we were out there a small child less than a year old was very sick. The mom was suspecting malaria but 12 miles is along way to walk carrying a sick child. Her other option would have been to hire a bike to give her a ride on the back, holding the child. Thankfully we were able to drive her into the health clinic so that the child could get the proper treatment.

So....the last two Thursdays I have been lucky enough to go out with Ministry of Hope to do mobile clinics with them. They are working in 4 villages where they have set up feeding centers. For those of you who have been here before imagine the place where they feed the kids at Yossa. Each feeding center has a building with a roof and 1/2 height walls and a maize mill.

I really wish I had some good pics to post but I was so busy the whole time we were at the clinics that I didn't manage to get any really good pics. I will try to get some the next time we go out.

The first week we were able to see 200 patients and this last thursday we saw 220 patients. First we weigh everyone, take their temp and other vital signs. Then they get sent to see the clinical officer (this week we had 2). From the clinical officers exam they either get sent over to the lab area for simple tests like malaria screening, urinanalysis etc... or they come to the pharmacy to get their medicine. The last two weeks I have been the pharmacy. We bring lots of medications in huge bins. Then we set them up kind of like tables and dispense the medicine from there. They have me do the pharmacy since I have been working in the country long enough to be familiar with the medicines, plus I can speak enough chichewa to tell them how to take most medications. It takes 2-3 people working in the pharmacy just under 6 hours to fill 220 prescriptions, just in case you were wondering.

We are able to move people thru so quickly because of all the workers that come along each week. We have 1-2 clinical officers, 1 malawian nurse, 1-3 american nurses, 2-3 med students, 1 lab tech and then other people who are here from the US for the summer to help out with the weights, temps, recording things etc....

It is really impressive to see how well the system works on such little resources. I was totally excited to be able to go out and actually use my nursing skills in the community and I am hoping to make it a regular part of my schedule here. It is a nice change of pace from working in the clinics here in the city. The only downside.....the pit toilets. But so far we have survived those! I will really try to get some good pics to post so you can really see how it looks.

Thank you to all of those back home who are supporting us as we are here in Malawi! It is because of you all that I get a chance to something as rewarding as this!

Becky

The patients just keep rolling in.....

So officially here in Malawi it is "winter" which usually means the end of malaria season. But for some reason we are still seeing alot of malaria patients coming in very sick and being admitted for IV Quinine. Some of them have already been on anti - malarials and just don't get better. Others get really sick right from the beginning.

At the start of today we had 0 patients in our inpatient unit as we had discharged them all over the weekend. By the time I knocked off at 6:30 pm we had 9 more patients.

While a nurse and I were trying to start an IV in a 1 year old who had really bad pnuemonia we got called down the hall by another child's parent because the kid was seizing. Thankfully our covering doctor was still there. We gave rectal Valium which seemed to stop the seizure but then the only way to arouse him was by a sternal rub and even then all he did was move his arm. It is hard to say whether the seizure was caused by the high fever or by cerebral malaria since his malaria count came back at 4+ which is the highest it can go. We will pray that he has a full recovery but only time will tell.

Unfortunatley we were not able to get the IV in the other child with pnuemonia so we ended up giving his meds IM and keeping him on nebs and O2 overnight. If he still needs a line in the morning we will have one of the clinical officers put in an internal jugular.

Two of our patients that we admitted have cancer which is a bad thing to have here in Malawi. There is no oncologist here in Lilongwe and the best we can offer someone with cancer is to either go 4 hours away to Blantyre or to fly out to South Africa. Neither one is very feasible when you are in alot of pain with limited financial resources. One of the guys we have been treating since January just with morphine for the pain. Every month or so he comes in for and increase in the dose. We have nothing else that we can offer to treat him so it is very sad. The other guy came into with probable prostate CA. His bladder was so distended that when I cathed him I got out almost 2 liters of urine. I don't know how he was even walking around like that. Once he is stabilized we will refer him out for treatment.

The rest of the patients were malaria patients. Usually treatment is straight forward. IV Quninine x 3 doses 12 hours apart and then discharge home as long as they have no fever.

I thought maybe you would like a glimpse of what it is sometimes like at our ABC clinic. And those were just the ones that got admitted. We saw many more as outpatients in the clinic who were treated and sent home. Days like today are very busy but are also the most rewarding.....

Becky

A Very Busy Week!

Well this past week has officially left us exhausted!

On Monday the academy had their final house competition which was basically a huge field day/track and field meet! Not exactly the best day for "winter" to blow in to Lilongwe. Yes it was actually cold (in the 40's ) with drizzly rain and wind and by 5:30 pm we had to end the event prematurely due to the weather! I have to admit.... I was actually freezing and couldn't wait to get home. I was actually missing my hottub!

On Wednesday I met a really cool nurse that is here with her husband for the summer. She wanted to come to Partners in Hope with me so I had told her I would pick her up after dropping the kids at school. Unfortunatly the guy that gave me directions to her guest house said to turn after the Peoples market instead of before the Peoples market. So after driving around unpaved dirt roads for about 45 minutes I totally happened to find her guest house just by chance. We had a great day at Partners and I was able to help her and her husband find a place to house sit while they are here. For some reason traffic was horrible that night and I managed to get home just in time for the power to go out! Dinner that night....PB and J!

Thursday night was astronomy night for Kimmy's 4th grade class. We made it home just in time to grab some quick dinner and head back to the school. Ryan took his telescope and helped the kids see some of the planets. The kids had a blast because their teacher had a huge bonfire built and they got to make s'mores. It was really dark since it was a new moon so lots of stars were visible. Later that night we went to the concert finale for the college bands and choirs. There were so many people that they were spilling out onto the front lawn. It was great to see and hear but made for a very late night considering that we are up at 5am most mornings.

This was the last week of classes for African Bible College where David teaches a business class, so after the final papers were turned in on Tuesday him and Sam (he co-teaches with David) were left with a huge pile of papers to grade before graduation. Their class was supposed to be limited to 30 students but being the only business class offered there was high demand and they ended up with 62 students in their class.

Friday after a meeting for the clinic at ABC I spent the majority of the day helping 3 other ladies from the campus and a handful of college kids decorate the hotel for the senior banquet. We had to blow up 120 + balloons to hang in bouquets from the ceiling (helium not available), banners to hang, tables to decorate etc.... Then it was back to ABC to pick up the kids from school. I am not usually that forgetful but I actually got half way home before I realized that I had left Linda ( the girl we transport to and from school) at the college so I had to turn around and go back to get her. Then Ryan had a friend spending the night so we had to go to to his house to get his stuff which officially got me home with about 1/2 and hour to get all dressed up for the banquet! For everyone who knows us you know that dressing up isn't exactly in our comfort zone but dressed up we were!

Saturday we had to be at the golf course by 8am to set up rental tents which took us until 1pm because we managed to get a nail in one of our tires and had to get it fixed! Then we ran home, showered and headed back out to college graduation at African Bible College. David could have walked as a professor but decided he didn't want to. It took 3 1/2 hours to graduate 42 students. There were lots of speeches by people like the US ambassador, and religious advisor to the president. After graduation we had to go take down one of our tents and then reset it up at a new location! I managed to get out of that since Ryan was home waiting for dinner!

Today David, Sam and Jay headed to South Africa for some business stuff. They are actually driving so we are praying for their safety! They will be in Johannesberg until Friday....when the World Cup starts. After having lunch with some friends from church and tearing down all the tents from yesterday I am heading to bed early so that we can start all over again in the morning!

I thought life would move at a slower pace here but we have managed to keep ourselves very busy. Thankfully the kids are out of school in 1 1/2 weeks and we will be moving closer to town very soon!

We are still waiting to file our fostering paperwork. Hopefully next Monday will be the day that we can get that done. Also still no word on when Gift's police case will close. I am possibly going to go on a village mission with Ministry of Hope Crisis Nursery (the one where Gift is) on Thursday so I will let you know how that goes!

Thanks to all our friends and family who have been praying for us and supporting us ......we appreciate it more than you know!

Love Becky

Miracles Do Happen!

Yesterday was a great day for the Epperson family! We finally got our TEP reciepts. This doesn't actually mean that we have them in our hands but we did recieve a letter saying that they had been approved and could we please pay them a boat load of money for this great honor of recieving our TEP's! No really this is a great thing. Now if and when we are stopped by the police for routine checks we have official papers saying we are here legally in the country.

Plus.....now we can really start the process for fostering to adopt. I don't really know what that all entails but I am hoping that we can at least start doing weekend visits with Gift while we sort out the requirements for adopting here. Please pray that this process will be as smooth as it can be in a country where adoption proceedings are ambiguous at best. The TEP's are only the first miracle that will need to happen in order for us to adopt Gift. We will now start working with the crisis nursery and our social worker here to get things going. The last I heard from the manager of the crisis nursery was that Gift is still considered a "police case" since he was abandoned. She is trying to light a fire under them to get the case closed so that he becomes "free" for adoption. It is hard to have patience in this but I know that God has a perfect plan for Gift and if that plan is for him to become part of our family then he will work all of this out in his perfect time!

I hope to visit him tomorrow so I will try to take some new pics and post them here. He is starting to walk and is getting close to what must be his 1st birthday!

Becky

Road Trip!

In all the times that I have been in Malawi I had not as yet been to Blantyre. But that has now changed. On Monday of this past week we took a road trip to Blantyre.... to have an MRI. On the trip down to Blantyre I was thinking to myself how much different it is to get an MRI here as opposed to at home.

So firstly, instead of hopping in my car and driving a short distance to a medical facility to have the scan done our whole family packed overnight bags and 7 of us plus a baby (not ours) piled into our truck and set off on a 4 hour journey down a two lane road that was full of pot holes. Incidently, I learned something new. If it is safe to pass the car in front of you they will turn on their left blinker. If it is not safe to pass the will turn on their right blinker. Thankfully we arrived safely even though it was already dark outside, had dinner at a friends house and then spent the night in a guest house.

Tuesday morning we were up early to check things out before the MRI was scheduled. We got to visit a store called GAME. Imagine KMart minus the clothes. There was also a mini mall with a cinema in it. I will post the pictures from outside the cinema since it is closed on Tuesdays in my next blog since they are on my phone camera and I cant upload them right now.

We then called the Dr. to get directions to office since our appt. wasn't until 2pm. He of course said "Hey, I am at Queens Hospital right now. Why don't you just pop on over and we will get it done now." It is about 10am. So thinking that this is our lucky day we drive the 1/2 mile to the hospital and park.

We then proceed to walk around aimlessly for about 1/2 an hour trying to find the right building to be at. Many people gave us directions....none of them too accurate. Finally at about 10:40 we find the place and go in to find a waiting room full of people including a guy on a stretcher. This is already looking bad to me. I give the receptionist my name at which point she gives me a blank look and says..." You called to make an appointment? You don't need an appt. However you can see we are very busy so you should leave and come back later."

So I ask her multiple times if we can come back at 2 for our previously SCHEDULED appt. She says " Well maybe if you come back sometime after 2 we can squeeze you in." It is making no difference to her that I have a nice referral letter on fancy letter head from the orthopedic surgeon. I politely told her we would be back at 2pm and offered her my phone number. She said that it wasn't nessecary.

So we all pile back in the truck....and go shopping for TShirt manufacturers which is a whole different blog story. At 1pm we are done with our shopping and decide to go to the radiologists office to make sure we can be seen at the hospital later. There he adds a polite little note to my referral letter kindly asking them to get Ryan seen on Wed. Thankfully that was a mistake and he meant to say to do the scan on Tuesday. So we again pile back into the truck and drive back to the hospital where we were able to get the scan since it was right after lunch hour. (on our way out of the office there was a guy on a vent in a hospital bed waiting to be scanned. I couldn't see much though because they made me be a guardian for Ryan during the scan so I couldn't have my glasses on).

We then grabbed some late lunch and headed back to Lilongwe. It was dark on our way home and we were driving about 100km/hr and more than once we came up suddenly on a semi truck driving along without any lights on! Thankfully we made it home without any incidences!

I am glad to report that the emailed results did make it to the orthopedic surgeon and we will follow up with him next week here in Lilongwe.

So much is different about the healthcare system than back at home but I am certainly thankful that there is at least 1 MRI machine in this country!

We are going back to visit Blantyre over a 3 day weekend next Friday. I will be sure and take some good pictures and let you know how that trip goes.

Becky