What are we up to and why we are not updatng the website as often.

We have been busy in Mokanji for the past six months after moving here in June.  Charles has been busy with drilling water wells in the dry season and repairing and renovating various buildings in the missions compound in the dry season.

This year we have begun renovations on a house for the physicians assistant/nurse practitioner and their family who are expected in February 2012.  We cannot finish the hospital without qualified medical personnel on site permanently.

We are also renovating a building which will serve as short term team housing and another building which will become the "Hopes Rising Childrens Home"

Petra has been busy with medical issues from folks who walk up to the house in Mokanji.  This has included many burn cases from hot water or open cooking fires.  The hospital ship, Africa Mercy, was also in Sierra Leone this year and we were able to refer two teenagers with cleft palates to the ship for plastic surgery and a chance at a normal life.  Of course Petra is also making all sorts of contacts and friendships with the folks in the area.  She is hoping to be able to do more adult literacy classes in the coming months.

Here in Mokanji we have no city water or power and of course that means no high speed internet either.  Our home has pressurized water and solar power so we are able to have some conveniences from home like lights and showers.  Our internet however is a lot sketchier and comes through the cell phone network.  We have internet some days and other days we have none.  One the days we are lucky enough to have internet it's about what we had at home with dial-up at 56kps.  When we have none it could be for long periods of time for instance for half of November and all of December there was no internet at all available to us in Mokanji.