I was on the move again. Marené dropped me at the bus station beside the Tambo International Airport where I was to take the LimeTime Scuttle to White River, in the Mpumalanga State just near Kruger National Park. While waiting I chatted to a group of Japanese tourists. One, whose English was very good had studied in Sydney she was surprised that I knew they were Japanese and not mistaken them for being Chinese. I told her it was because I knew other Japanese as well as Chinese and Korean friends. The mini bus which was taking me to White River eventually arrived and after waiting for the remaining two passengers who didn’t turn up, we left on time. There was only three of us, an Afrikaans gentlemen in the front, me in the middle and an African lady at the back. After finding out I was Australian the driver turned the radio station to the soccer – Australia verses Scotland. I’m
not a sports fan but of course was cheering the Aussies on, I was definitely praying when the Scots were in the lead with only two mins to go. Then the Aussies rose to the challenge and made the final goal just before the whistle! Yeah! Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi oi oi! We had done it with only seconds to go!
Once out of the city the countryside stretched to the horizon. We passed mostly farmland of grain crops and occasional small towns. The highway wasn’t as busy as I thought it might be. We passed through two toll gates on our way north and stopped at a services station for a ten minute break. The farm attached to the petrol station raised water buffalo and rhino which were grazing in the fields around the station. I would have liked to have been able to take some photos of the rhino but they were too far off for a good shot. 
The driver mentioned if I were to take the early LimeTime Shuttle back to Jo’burg the bus stopped here at 6am when the animals were being fed, that was the time to take a close up photo.
The next stop was Nelspruit where the other passengers disembarked and I jumped into the passenger seat to chat with the driver who had many stories to tell before helping me to unload at White River. My friend Yvonne arrived a little later and brought me to the African School of Mission (ASM) compound where she and the team live.
I first knew Yvonne from my time at the Armadale Family Church in Western Australia. She also visited me in Thailand, so now, after so many years of promising, it was my time to visit her. In December 1995, after returning from three and a half years in Thailand, I joined Yvonne in Katoomba, NSW for a missions course. Yvonne then went on to complete Midwifery, adding it to her other nursing degrees. 
She eventually found her way to ASM White River where she is part of an area health team. For many years ASM were involved in training auxiliary nurses, many of who are now working in city hospitals and clinics in their villages. Some have been employed by ASM to work in the ASM clinics where Yvonne is the Deputy Director of Nursing. Due to unforeseen circumstances they were unable to continue their training school but are still very much involved in community health. The ASM compound not only has a clinic here but a mobile clinic is taken to an outstations on Wednesdays.
Follow the link to read more about the work of ASM here in White River. Please also consider supporting the work here, not only with prayer but finance, as there is a great need for this work to continue. This link has more about Yvonne who I also recommend you prayerfully consider supporting.
I was totally blessed and honoured to be invited to join the team on their mobile clinic. We loaded up the trailer the day before so it would be ready for the next day. That morning we spent time in prayer before heading out the gate. On route we picked up the three local auxiliary nurses who had been trained and now also work at ASM and another health worker. When we reached the farm, tables were set up for treatment areas under the tin roofed shed which I’m told gets stifling hot in summer. This particular day although it was sunny it didn’t get unbearably hot as there was not only fans (and intermittent electricity with frequent surges during our time here) these was also a lovely cool breeze. The shed is used daily for a crèche and run by two women while the children’s mothers work at the farm. At one end of t
he shed was a small kitchen area where food was prepared for the children and teas and coffees for the workers. On the other side was a treatment room with a door for privacy.
Val also an Aussie was in charge of the family planning table, Jenny, the adults consulting table and Jacky, who arrived independently along with two other women who come to assist, was in charge of the paediatric table. Another long table held plastic tubs with the individual belongings of each child in the crèche. Each baby had two bottles one of milk and the other Rooibos tea. As a mothercraft nurse I was horrified with some of the practices which the trained staff had also tried to change without much luck. Children and babies wore twice as many clothes as necessary, baby’s milk was made up but not refrigerated which babies sipped on through the day. They were also given Rooibos tea which fortunately doesn’t have caffeine but it does have tannin. The other thing I noticed was that the babies were left on a raised beds to sleep or sit when awake. I was constantly checking that they weren’t too close to the edge or rolling off. A piece of cardboard was on the floor for some of the babies to
sit on, which was a lot safer in my eyes, even if the floor didn’t look very clean. Another thing I noticed was that there were no toys to stimulate the babies, not ever a simple rattle, and few for the older children. I looked around for some empty medicine containers to make rattles, like those I had made on the Cambodian medical mission, but was unable to find any suitable.
The older children and toddlers played outside on some simple play equipment, plastic table and chairs, bicycles and rubber play mats. Today there was a team visiting from England, who brought with them things to make bubbles, paints and paper for the older children to do finger painting. The day’s activates were greatly enjoyed especially the yogurt which was a special treat provided by the team.
I was also put to good use, applying my mothercraft skills to help the carers feed and settle tired babies. I met Linette, who helped Jacky with the children, she was very interested in what a mothercraft nurse does as her niece has a four week old baby diagnosed with reflux.
During our visit, a woman with a three day old baby came to Jacky at the Paeds table for some advice. This was her third child, the previous two had died not long after she had returned home from their delivery at the local hospital. Both babies had been buried without an autopsy so she was unable to tell us the cause of their deaths. Such a sad story which is not uncommon here where traditional medicine and witchcraft are common practice. Mother and baby were prayed for before being examined by Jacky and later Jenny. The baby looked well although like many newborns needed encouragement when feeding. He wore two jumpsuits and was swaddle in a large terry towelling blanket folded in half and wrapped around him twice. I held him, without the blanket, while mum was chatting to Val at the family planning table. As soon as she had finished she came back and rewrapped him. Pool little thing I was very concerned that he would overheat wrapped in so many layers.
Life at ASM begins early. I must admit most days I slept in till 7am before rolling out of bed. I keep saying I must start jogging again but it hasn’t happened. Weekdays Yvonne is off to the clinic by 8am always running late which is compensated with her regular late nights working overtime. At the moment between clinic duties, she is completing assignments and preparing for exams which are in November. She is often up late at night or wakes up after an 8pm nap to study till early hours of the morning. When the clinic is closed she disappears there so as not to be distracted. I try to keep out of her way when she studies at home (which is mostly when I’m asleep so that’s not hard). I don’t want to give her any excuse to distract her from her studies so I have taken on the house work and cooking which I always enjoy. There have been days when she or Jenny have needed to go into Nelspruit or into White River to do some shopping. During these times I am able to have a look around. Its times like these I get to hear of some of the local events and stories from the clinic and Yvonne and I catch up with things that have happened in our lives or reminisce of bygone days.
My first introduction to the tap water at ASM was the heavily sedimented water I was going to pour from a 5 litre bottle into the water filter. I first left it to settle overnight and was shocked by the dark muddy sludge at the bottom of the bottle. Yvonne said that was normal if it had rained heavily or the water supply was low. After flushing the water through the pipes a little it cleared so I used the muddy water for washing dishes and poured fresh clean water into the water purifier.
Yvonne is an avid animal lover, babysitting the staff pets and dogs when they are away. Of course the dogs remember her kindness and when they hear her car coming back from work rush over to welcome her home and of course receive their snacks. She also has a birdfeeder which hangs undercover of the carport. There are quite a few varieties of seed eating birds that come for a feed. Florescent blue kingfishers also come to visit, one has made a nest in the stone wall beside her carport. Here there are gaps between the stones used for runoff water. Yvonne told me that one year the baby was washed out and died after a heavy downfall.
Early each morning a troop of monkeys visit. They sit on the stonewall hoping for food scraps or jump amongst the branches of the trees. It is strictly forbidden to feed the monkeys or to encourage them as they are quite a nuisance raiding the bins if the lids aren’t secured with heavy stones. They can also be dangerous and have been known to attack dogs and people.
I have also met many of the residents and workers at ASM; Jenny is the Director of Nursing, Anne her sister, works in administration, Val who I mentioned is an RN midwife from Victoria, Shawn from Canada is the IT guy and who helped me link up to the ASM wifi network, and Reynette who kindly brought Yvonne and I a freshly baked apple pie, all live within the ASM compound. I’ve also met Henry and some of the other African workers who work on the grounds or at the clinic helping out; the auxiliary nurses Thelma, Victoria and Nomsa, and Phumla the clinic receptionist.
In my last blog I mentioned the challenges I was facing applying for a Nigerian visa. If you are wondering where I am up to with this application, the saga continues. Having contacted the support team re not being able to upload my card information, I eventually received a reply basically explaining 
how to do exactly what I had done with no solution to my problem. Hmmm where to now? When I logged back on to tried again, I noticed that there was a limit for the document size. Checking the size was less than required I tried again. One was correct the other, a PDF file, was way over. By the grace of God I had a program that can alter PDF files so I chopped it down to one page instead of five which now brought it under the required size. Both were finally accepted.
Unbeknown to me one document was already registered and one of my attempts to resubmit the documents I must have tried to upload them both again under ‘a new card, as I later received a message informing me: ‘This card is already in Pending state, please use another card’. Ok, thanks. Not long afte
r finally being able to upload all the documents I received an email stating: ‘You will receive an email upon approval/rejection of your application.’ Hallelujah! Progress! Now the wait. In the meanwhile I filled out the application for the Ugandan visa with plans to return to Jo’burg to pass them in early November. I also found out that if I applied in Uganda for a Nigerian visa it would cost half the amount and it seemed I could pay for it at the Nigerian High Commission in Kampala. Not knowing if I could believe this good news I contacted my friend at Wakisa Ministries to look into it for me.
Meanwhile back at my work station (Yvonne’s dining table), Saturday night just before I retired for the night I received a friend request on facebook from Julie who, with her husband, I’d met while staying with Rob in Cape Town. They were from Union Island and holidaying in South Africa. I was tired and had forgotten she was already a fb friend so accepted. Just as I was about to close the computer I hear a ping of someone messaging me. I see it is Julie, or I thought it was, I should have been warned as she was chatting to me in French, she knew I only spoke English but again I was tired and just laughed it off telling her to try English instead. I was then sent a message: “Just block my phone and the operator asked me to call my answering machine to have the unlocking code but the concern is that I have no other to do ok as you can call for I’ll give 
you the number for free ok” Julie, who’s second language is English could be excused for not using it correctly so I ignored the mistakes.
I told the person that calls from mobiles weren’t free but I could try. Then I am sent the number to call and I notice it has a Skype logo in front of it. I’m now becoming a bit suspicious and suggest that because they are online why not try to skype themselves to get the ‘unlocking code’. I also tell them I don’t have enough credit on my phone to call internationally. Then I receive a message saying “just continue my unlock I’ll call and I’ll explain everything Ok”
Now I wasn’t going to give them my number just in case they could send a virus to my phone or something just as disastrous! I then suggested they try to get in touch with Rob. By this time I was very suspicious so I also contacted Rob on What’sApp to ask if he had been contacted by Julie re their phone problem. He knew nothing about it. By this time the impersonator had given up on me. I immediately sent off an email to Julie to warn her I thought someone had copied her facebook profile and was impersonating her asking for help.
Thank God I felt a check in m
y spirit and didn’t fallen into their trap. Julie posted a warning to all her facebook friends and thanked me for bringing this matter to her attention. I reported the fraud to facebook and put a block on further messages from him before posting a waring on my facebook wall. I’m also making all my blog readers aware of such dirty practices. If you are asked to befriend someone you know check first that it really is that person either by email or phone. I really do thank the Lord for His protection.
Pictures: 1. Pink frangipani outside my window, ASM 2. Rhino at petrol station 3. Yvonne at work 4. ASM vehicle outside clinic 5. Morning devotions before clinic opens on the farm 6. Three days old cutie 7. Jackie with sick child 8. Babies and toddlers on the bed! 9. Children playing 10. Yogurt treat 11. Monkeys at Yvonne’s 12. Anne, Yvonne and Jenny 13. Legogote Hill taken from ASM compound 14. Legogote Hill 15. New Rhino’s at roundabout
Prayer & Praise Points:
Praise the Lord for His protection against fraudsters and thieves. Praise Him for continual watching over us in all areas of our lives.
Praise Him for the work being done here through ASM and their faithful workers. For Yvonne and all the years of dedication and love for the people here.
I praise the Lord for the opportunity to visit my Yvonne during this time and to be of assistance while she is studying. Please keep her in your prayers for the upcoming exams and that all her assignments will be in on time and she will receive good marks in both the assignments and exams.
Please continue to pray for me to know the Lord’s will regarding visiting Nigeria and Uganda. For His timing to visit both places, and any obstacles to be removed as I apply for the visas. May my applications be accepted and the visas go through smoothly.
Please pray for my safety while in South Africa both physically, online and for my few possessions.
Pray continue to believe the Lord for continual good health for my Mum.