Our 8th Anniversary Fishing Trip

This is Peter with his 4.5kg, 30in "corvina" in Portuguese, not sure of exact name in English but is some kind of sea trout!

This is Shelley with her 5kg, 35.5in Tuna!

Meghan, our niece also caught fish - plenty big for her!

The tuna steaks!

Meghan cleaning her catch!


As always beautiful sunsets!!

Mundindi Special Report!

Special Report on Project Mundindi

Greetings from windy, dusty southwestern Angola! We are ready for the rains to come and it seems it could be any day now! The Jacaranda trees have been in bloom for a few weeks now and the old timers say that the blooms foretell of the coming rains! Of course, history is in their favor too as generally it starts raining in late September, or early October!

We are getting well under way with the foundational steps of our community health project in the area surrounding the Evangelical Medical Center of Lubango(CEML).
We have limited ourselves to just one “small” community, called Campa, - 41 houses and about 325 people – to begin with and then we will repeat the same steps in other communities including the actual community called Mundindi. There are 5-6 communities all within 5 km’s from the hospital, all anxious to have us come and work with them! So far we have just done an age and gender population survey of 100 percent of the houses in the Campa community and today we started with the actual public health survey. We plan to randomly select and survey about 30% of each community’s population to get our baseline data prior to starting our interventions! Pray for us as we also are ambassadors for Christ in these communities and want His Love to Shine to all these people more than anything else! Pray our team would work well together and show love to one another! Below are some pictures -

Maria and her youngest child
Angelina - expecting her second and painting the community doors!
The Team!

Surveying! Hoping to have an impact on these young lives!

Year in Review - Part III(Jan 07-June 07)

It's been awhile already since the last update - so will try to get the rest of the year we've been here covered!

Here are some photos around Lubango, our home base.

Every Thursday we go to a rural clinic, called Rio de Huila, where we help out with the maternity clinic. We usually see about 35 women 2 hours! Visits are a lot shorter when you can't speak their language, and you have an assembly-line style clinic with three stations! Still it is great to be serving pregnant women again!
Here are some of the ladies who are waiting to be seen.


Here is Rebecca, a pre-med student from Saskatchewan, measuring a lady's fundal height

Here I am filling out records - not quite as fun, but certainly necessary.

This is Hamilton, a pre-med student from Ontario getting ready to listen to the baby!

Rita is the lady in the orange labcoat registering and giving out vitamins
Rosa, one of the clinic nurses taking a BP

Now this is at CEML, the new hospital in Lubango where we are based. This is the maternity room! Privacy is not a requirement!! So far we haven't had two deliveries at the same time but Florinda, the main midwife is ready! I'll have to remember to take her picture and introduce her at the next update!
The labor beds are behind curtains in the same room as the delivery/examining tables.

And in another corner of the same room we have prenatal/GYN visits so it is a busy room!


These little girls are the first twins I got to deliver and one was breech so was also my first breech delivery! God was awesome and provided my Dad with years and years of experience to be by my side for the whole labor and delivery calming and reassuring me. Of course I didn't tell my patient it was my first twins and breech! Praise God all went well and the girls are doing great. They still hadn't decided on names when I last saw them.

This is my Dad, Bob Foster, with the twins!

Mom, Amelia, is in the center, Dad, Nelito, behind and friend Elena, on the left.

I'm so sorry this photo is turned wrong and I can't find the way to rotate it, but this baby was my first "home" birth. The mom, Joaquina, works for one of the missionaries here and delivered at their home. Of course at 3:30a.m. but also praise God all went well!!!

The little guy was named Pedrito Joao or Peter John after Peter - Peter's first god-son here in Angola. Peter was a wonderful assistant with the birth.
We are just getting started with a new ministry we will call Project Mundindi. Mundindi is the name of the area surrounding the CEML and is where we will be starting a community health program. The two young ladies in this photo are Maria and Angelina and they have been brought to us to train to be village birth attendants for their area. The gentleman on the left is Pastor Moises(moses). He is the pastor for the CEML hospital and is wonderful and full of wisdom. The other two gentlemen are Sobas or chiefs of the villages.

The Sobas and the Pastor again.

Maria and her youngest.

Another big event was the dedication of the Cavango Clinic in May! We had spent three months there last year when we first arrived - see blog entry 1 - so it was a delight to be there for the dedication. My parents Bob and Belva Foster both came and were flown in by MAF so as to not have to deal with the bad roads. Steve Foster is below with Pastors and leadership awaiting the plane's arrival.

Mom and Dad greeting the crowds.

Cutting the ribbon of the clinic!

This picture says it all!

Year in Review Part II (Sept -Dec 2006)

While waiting for our work visas we had to renew our visitors visas every three months which came due in September - also just in time for our 7th anniversary. We headed south to Namibia and spent a couple of days at a place called Onguma near Etosha National Park in Namibia. We did receive new visitors visas and so returned to Angola within the week! Praise!

A hidden lionessDining area at Onguma
Wildlife at Chudob - a waterhole - in Etosha
A picnic lunch in Etosha

Lubango, Angola, the site for the Evangelical Medical Center. A beautiful city and famous along with Rio de Janeiro and Lisbon for having a Cristo Rei(Christ the King) statue.

The Emergency Room entrance of the Evangelical Medical Center of Lubango. In Portuguese it is the Centro Evangelica de Medicina de Lubango or CEML. We arrived back from Namibia with our renewed visas two weeks before CEML was to open and spent those two weeks cleaning, sorting and arranging items in preparation for opening. We would never really have been ready so eventually THE day - October 16th, 2006 - arrived and we are still trying to catch up and be ready!
The Operating Room block. The delivery room entrance is the last door on the left.
CEML's first patient!

The crowd on opening day!
Registration
Adolfo, the main lab technician

Me(Shelley), Angelina and Amy a pre-med student from Canada

The staff on opening day.
Dr Steve Foster - the medical director of CEML

The next big event after the opening of the CEML was the arrival of our container of all our "worldly" possessions including our vehicle. Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of our vehicle in the container, but all the rest of the stuff was packed behind this "wall"

Offloading the container from the truck. Fortunately we had already removed the vehicle so it wasn't quite so nervewracking to see just one cable lifting the container!

Our freshly removed Jeep in front of our house!

In case any of you were worried that all we do is work, work, work these next few photos will help you understand that there is plenty to do for fun here too! Angola has something for every type of adventurer or relaxer! Below is our little Jeep trying to keep up with the "big boys".
We did not get stuck!

Beautiful mountains....

stunning views where the central plateau drops 5000 feet to the coastal plain....


any rock climbers or hang gliders out there?!

Then there is the deserted beach and literally you are in a desert!
but the fish don't know that!

You do have to bring everything that you need including fresh water and fire wood!!!
Peter is still the reigning pancake king - even at the beach!
And the sunsets never fail to disappoint if you prefer the quieter form of relaxation!

November brings Thanksgiving for Americans even in Angola! We went to the Tchincombe Ranch, run by Shelley's brother and sister-in-law, Stirling and Donna Foster. This is their house, quite literally in the middle of nowhere - but a very restful oasis!

Stirling and Donna Foster
Thanksgiving Dinner! We even had turkey and pumpkin pie!

Stirling and Donna left in December for several months of visiting friends in the US and Canada so they left their furry children with us to look after. Maddy is the Jack Russell and Ebba is the German Shepherd. They have fit into our family very well and we will miss them when Stir and Donna come back to claim them!

Robert and Beth Riviello - doctors at the CEML for the past nine months - lived with us and also bonded well with all the pets! We all miss them!


December found us heading to Namibia to renew our visas again as the three months had expired. It was also the highlight of the year to have our daughter, Jasper, come to visit! We went quad biking in the dunes on the Namib Desert in Namibia while we waited for our visas to come through.

Warm hugs!








A chilly picnic in Swakopmund, Namibia.

Ruacana Falls - the border of Namibia and Angola - our visas came thru just in time to get back to Angola for Christmas. Thanks again for praying for us!