Hi Folks!

This past Tuesday we were at Mater Dei Hospital doing cataract surgery and had a wonderful day, especially when one of the surgical patients Steve was seeing for a post op brought him a cake. She shared how thankful she was that she could now see, how thankful she was for him and that she had made him a homemade chocolate cake. We told her to thank The Lord, that it is God who heals and restores eyesight. She responded by saying “oh, I did thank God, but I cannot make God a cake!”

On Wednesday our team drove close to three hours from Bulawayo to a rural area called Chino. The roads are rough due to the rain and we had to dodge many potholes – Steve is achieving his PhD,or pot hole dodger! We went alongside the local Baptist church outreach program. Pastor Chris, from the church, went out the day before and showed the Jesus Film to the many who had walked for several miles to see the eye doctor. We saw 220 patients while there, gave out lots of eyeglasses and shared the gospel of Christ. One lady was so excited when she received her glasses she couldn’t stop dancing! Another young boy, who was near-sighted, received a pair of glasses and he can now see the blackboard in school!

Our mornings often start early, while it is still dark, and we must use the headlights as we begin the drive. A few days ago one of the missionary ladies who went with us forgot to turn off her headlights and her battery died! No one had jumper cables or a strong tow rope, so they had to use some African ingenuity and ended up transferring the battery from a running car into dead car to crank it up – it was quite a sight!

We picked up three more people at the airport Friday afternoon who are from Minnesota and here to work with Steve. Now with a team of eight (including 3 from Wynnbrook and 3 from Minnesota), we headed to see an amazing Bible and agricultural college on a friend’s farm in Matopos. The one hour drive was rough maneuvering and dodging large potholes again as well as cows and donkeys. We came upon a small, low lying bridge with water flowing over it but had been assured by folks on the farm that it was safe to cross; we quickly saw that the water was deeper than we were told! Soon after attempting to cross the lead car became stuck and we unsuccessfully attempted to reverse the car out.

Steve ran 1.5 miles to the family farm to find a tractor while others drove the remaining vehicle back to the college and collected five young men to assist in pushing the truck out of the water. One hour later, with eleven people in total pushing in knee deep water, we managed to back the truck onto dry land! What an adventure for all, especially our newest friends who had joined us just a few hours before! The sun began to set and we headed back towards Bulawayo.

Thank you all for your prayers – what a God we serve!

More to come soon!