January 29, 2006

Dear Friends,

Greetings to all from Nkhoma. I would like to ask for your mercy in the writing department over these next several months, as we are overwhelmed with the numbers of patients on the children’s ward due to the famine and the annual peak in malaria cases during the rainy season. There are about 150 kids on the children’s ward now on a given day, and more yet to come. We are doing 20-30 blood transfusions per day, most of which on kids who wouldn’t make it otherwise: our usual indication for transfusion in this HIV-ridden environment is a hemoglobin below five and/or signs of significant heart failure.

We have just received a container from Europe containing a large supply of essential drugs and supplies—penicillin, quinine, vitamins, sterile gloves, sutures, to name just a very few items. We were so desperate for some of these items it was hard to open boxes for inventory without running down to the children’s ward with one thing after another. Many of your generous gifts to the hospital for medicines were a very significant part of this shipment, and we thank you with all our hearts.

Money sent to purchase food has also been providing three meals a day to the large numbers of malnourished patients on the ward and nutrition centers, including the “Ready to Use Food” product you heard about last year, now a clone called Plumpy Nuts. Without these it would be nearly impossible to discharge patients from the hospital, because many of their families have no food left at home.

Again, we thank you for enabling us to continue this journey. I believe you would be very gratified at what your support has accomplished. We really need your prayers over the next few months, for continued rains (doing well in most areas), our personal health and stamina, relief supplies for the famine, and resources to attack the root causes of the recurring cycle of hunger.

Love to all!

Barbara, Melia and Anna Nagy

The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 337