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	A letter from Martha Sommers in Malawi

	November 2003 Dear Friends and Family, Merry Christmas! Even if the date has passed, I hope the spirit continues. I am still at Embangweni on indefinite loan from Ekwendeni, until a permanent additional clinical officer or doctor can be found to join clinical officer Ishmael Nyrenda and doctor Dumisani Kamwana. It’s a time of many joys. Dumisani's wife and our former head nurse, Mary Kumwenda, finished her upgrading course of two years in South Africa and returns here tomorrow to join her husband and run our maternity ward. The staff is already discussing the annual Christmas drama and party. The station has a new minister, the Reverend Chimwemwe Mhango, (Chimwemwe means “joy” in Chitumbuka.) who is known for his ministry of music. Ten choirs from his previous church in Mzuzu came this past weekend to take part in the installation service. People were singing, dancing, and praying in the church for more than six hours. Everyone felt the time passed too quickly.

	A local boy displaying his catch of mice.		The seasons seem to have passed quickly from the cold (by Malawi standards, not Wisconsin standards) and windy days of June to the present steamy humidity as the rains approach. The children have gone from collecting snacks of mice, to cicada, to mangoes. The mice are the least appealing to me, but rarely cause health problems. Very rarely, one that has been poisoned is eaten. The mangoes, however, result in many, many child patients. Early on we see some stomachaches from eating too many unripe ones. This time we see what Dr. Poehlman termed “mango picker's disease” when he worked at Embangweni: children who fall out of trees when branches heavy with fruit break. Mainly broken limbs. We usually succeed in reducing the fractures and casting the limbs.

	There were weeks last month when we had nothing for pain relief besides injectable pethidine (demerol). No acetaminophen. No aspirin. No ibuprofen. We also had no X-ray films and no materials for casting or splinting. Our main problem was and continues to be funds. Thanks to many of your donations, we presently have the supplies to help these victims of “mango picker's disease.” It was disheartening to tell patients with obviously displaced fractures to make their way to the government hospital many kilometers away with make-do splints during these weeks of extreme shortages, as we also had no fuel to transport them by ambulance.

	Why is Embangweni so short of funds? Many reasons. Mainly we serve very poor patients who can only pay a small fraction of the costs. Donations have gone down over the last years and the needs have increased. Add to this that the hospital has lost its administrator to cryptococcal meningitis in February, the medical-officer-in-charge who had to return to Scotland in May for his son’s treatment, and the accountant who is ill and has had to end his service this month. The work continues. Our newest employee is Mrs. Kamanga as administrator. She was well respected in the same role at St. John’s hospital in Mzuzu before coming here. Pray as we persevere.				Mary with the baby Jesus, a sculpture at Mua Mission.

	Time does seem to pass quickly, so I wish to inform you now that I will be back in the from some time in July through December 2004 for mission interpretation. Let me know if you would like me to visit and talk at your church, and the dates that could work best so I can make a tentative plan. My present email is embangweni.hospital@super-hub.com. Merry Christmas! Martha The 2003 Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study, p. 48

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