Well, its been a pretty busy month for us in Malawi. Thankfully, the clinic has slowed down a little bit over the past two weeks as we move away from malaria season. However, we had a couple of good rains several weeks ago which have kept the mosquitoes around for a little longer. It has gotten to be a little cooler in the mornings which is nice as well. We are continuing to settle in at the clinic and over the past four to six weeks we have truly felt at home in the clinic. The wonderful clinic staff has continued to support us and has welcomed us as part of their small family. Two weeks ago, I was able to lead one of the morning devotionals that we have twice a week with the clinic staff. Then after I finished the devotional with the staff, I was able to go out into the waiting from and share as well with the patients and their families (with a translator’s help).
We have also been able to give many clinical presentations to the team on topics such as malaria, asthma, pneumonia, and bronchiolitis. We are amazed at how much we are learning everyday and the staff are eager as well to learn about various medical topics. This last weekend, we led a training on both Saturday and Sunday. We trained all the nurses and clinicians on basic life support as well as some advanced life support skills. Everyone had a lot of fun (pics are below) and learned a lot as well. It just shows that they are willing to go the extra mile in order to better serve our patients. We look forward to continuing to work on providing high quality care to our community in which we serve.
One of the reasons that we trained all the healthcare providers this past weekend is because this Wednesday, our operating rooms will be opened officially and there will be two gynecologic surgical procedures performed. These will be the first procedures ever done in these operating rooms and they will be the first patients that will stay overnight and be admitted to Child Legacy Hospital. So over the past several weeks, we have been working very hard with the entire CLI medical team to get everything ready and to make sure everything is in place to provide good, quality, and safe healthcare for our patients. This has been a challenge for the entire staff over the past several weeks, however, they have all really worked very hard in order to prepare for our first surgical patients. We all have been praying a lot this week and I would ask that you keep the patients and our team in your prayers also.
Speaking about prayer….One of the the reasons that I really love this team here is how much we pray together as a group and team. When we were going on our walk-through last week to prepare for the surgery, our anesthetist stopped the team and asked at what point prior to surgery do we pray for our patient as a team. We’ve both been in a lot of operating rooms in the US and we have never stopped before the procedure and prayed as a group for our patient. Again, it is just another way Child Legacy is different from other healthcare facilities and strives to not only take care of the physical but the spiritual health as well.
While we are in the US, thankfully due to wonderful technology, we will be able to stay connected to our family at Child Legacy and be able to work and prepare for opening Maternity and Neonatal care later this year.
Also, today is our anniversary. We have been married for eight years now and every year continues to be 
better and better and we are thankful to God for everything that he has blessed us with over the past 8 years. We look forward to the next eight years and all the wonderful times that we will have together.
Jenny and the baby are both getting bigger by the day. She is mostly feeling tired and uncomfortable and we are both looking forward to our baby girl being born. Jenny says she moves all the time and likes to “dance on my bladder.” I have felt a few strong jabs through her belly and can only image what it must be like on the inside. As we talked about in our last post, we will be coming back the the states soon since Jenny’s due date in late July keeps getting closer. Many have been asking about when and where we will be in the US when we go back. So first, we will be flying into Houston and will be in Houston from June 9th to the 16th. We will then be flying to St. Louis on June 16th and will be staying with Jenny’s parents. Jenny will deliver in St. Louis (due date July 30th) and then we will spend some time in St. Louis. However before we go back to Malawi (likely in late September), we will spend at least 3-4 weeks again in the Houston/Dallas area. It is hard to predict right now when that will be depending on when the baby is born but we will of course keep everyone posted.
Again, we continue to thank God for all of your support and encouragement. We will continue to need your support, prayers, and encouragement even more over the next couple of months. While we faced culture shock when we moved to Malawi, we will face a little bit of reverse culture shock as we travel and stay in the US. Of course, we will also become parents which will be awesome and rewarding but introduce new challenges as well. We will continue to update you with emails, Facebook, and through our blog.
-Jared and Jenny
