Tonga!

Monday, November 18th,

We had a meeting today with the Minister of Health. He didn’t actually come, he is out of the country, but we met with people from his office. We also met with the head administrator and surgeon from the hospital and the head physical therapist. It was a meeting about the wheelchair shipment that will be arriving in Tonga later this week. We needed to work out some of the problems that we have seen in giving out this last shipment, so that we don’t have the same problems with this next one. The people in Tonga have a hard time keeping records but we found out today that the records for wheelchairs are way to complicated. Hopefully with this next training things will be simplified. It was a good meeting. We learned a lot and now we should all be on the same page when the shipment arrives.

Alan has been working to finish up the painting at the pharmacy and I have been putting the closing ceremony together. At the same time I am trying to find 16 people to attend the wheelchair training and find all of the supplies that they will need to do the training. In the midst of all that, the call came to tell us that they will be putting the platform on the stand in Lavengatonga TODAY!!! On days like this I wonder how we are going to get everything done and be everywhere we need to be. Somehow, with the Lord’s help, everything comes together. We are living these next 3 weeks, one day at a time and praying that we have the stamina to see it all done.

Our FHE tonight was done by the Alands. They are serving their second mission. They talked about their first mission to Russia. They served in Siberia. As we looked at the pictures they showed, we were shocked. The city they served in was a step up from where we were in Ukraine. I always thought that Siberia was like outer darkness but this city was very modern with lots of stores and shops. The experiences that they had were very similar to what we had. Hearing them talk about their mission made us homesick for the people we love in Ukraine. It was a good night.