Back Flying Again!

After three weeks of being grounded, we're back flying tomorrow morning (Wednesday). I will be in a meeting at the Ministry of Health all day to be trained on the country wide decentralization of health care plan, but our specialist eye/dental care team will be flying to one of the health clinics. I thank God for answered prayers - patients will get the care they need, our staff will be able to get back to the clinics and out for a break, and we can all do our jobs again. Thanks for praying!

Matsaile Ministry

It's been a long three weeks of no LFDS flying. Same thing as before where the Lesotho gov't is failing to pay the flight bill to MAF and we are grounded. In spite of that, through some special gift money, we flew up to Matsaile on Tuesday to hold the biweekly medical clinic. I was really happy to be sitting in the back seat watching Kelly have the controls to fly under the careful eye of MAF pilot Danny Hulls. Enroute to Matsaile we picked up another missionary who is heading to another part of the mountains to meet a village chief in order to begin the work of ministering to herd boys. Two stops later we were at Matsaile airstrip. Wewere met at the airstrip by Justin and Korby. We gathered up our medical and repair supplies and headed to Matsaile village.

This visit was two fold - to do the clinic and to fix Korby and Justin's HF radio antennae. Strongwinds had broken some fasteners and the lower half of the folded dipole had fallen down. Danny is a pilot/mechanic and offered to help fix it with Justin's help. While they worked on that Kelly, Korby, Thabang headed over to the building to prepare for the clinic. With the help of Ntate Tsupane and a couple of the village health workers, we get the place set up, unpack the medications, and then have a word of prayer before seeing patients. I like to pray for those gathered and

then pray with each patient as I examine and treat them. As we were setting things up, we were surprised to meet a

lady that had come from Thaba Tseka (about 5-6 hours walk) to do voluntary HIV testing for any patient desiring it. I was glad to find out that only 1 of 15 tested were positive for HIV.(the country wide prevalence is around 23%)

Thabang and I saw the patients while Korby and Kelly dispensed the medications. It was not quite as busy as I had hoped (saw 46 patients) but I think that people were not expecting us as they knew of the problems in paying

the bill.

After finishing the clinic we had some time to sit and talk with the guys and have prayer together. We were thankful to be able to complete the tasks we had come to do. We then carried the medical and repair supplies back to the airstrip to prepare to fly back to Maseru. We were soon airborne heading home. 50 minutes later we were on the ground and heading to the house.

Please continue to pray that the bill will get paid so we can resume normal flights. We have staff that need to get back to the mountain clinics and others that need a break. We have three successfully treated patients who were discharged from the hospital here in Maseru but can't get back home till the flights resume. And pray for our LFDS staff as we are discouraged.

Daily by His grace...