An old lady came to visit us this morning. She wanted us to help her get her leg repaired. Her left leg was seriously twisted and she walks with crutches. She said that 10 years ago she was in automobile accident and that both of her legs were broken. She said that at the time they fixed one of her legs but she did not have the money to fix the other one at the hospital so they just let it heal on its own. The knee cap was crushed and the leg healed twisted. The knee is still swelling and it is difficult for her to walk. She has found a doctor in Tamale that says he can do surgery and fix her leg which will entail re-breaking and who knows what else. It is just a shot in the dark as to whether he can really fix it. The doctor even told her that he could not guarantee that she would be able to walk on it or that he could fix it; he would have to wait until he was doing surgery to know. Excuse me that is not something that we want to put our hands into. The doctor is requesting a huge amount of money for the surgery and then she will have months of rehabilitation. While she was talking to us she kept holding her head complaining of a headache and dizziness. We asked her if she had high blood pressure, she said that she did but that she was not taking the medicine that the doctor prescribed for her high blood pressure. We told her that we were more worried about the high blood pressure than we were about her leg. Steve gave her money to go to the doctor and get another prescription for her blood pressure medicine.
This afternoon we went out to Kulkpeni to give Timothy Niligrini the shirt fabric that we bought yesterday and to take him the sewing machine that we replaced the belt on. He was very happy to have the sewing machine back because it will do decorative stitches and he wants to add some special touches to the shirt he is making for the church leaders and evangelists. We also gave him a sewing light that sticks to his sewing machine. The room he sews in is very dark and he cannot sew at night. He was very excited about the light.
On the way to Timothy’s we stopped at Red’s house and picked up the corn / soybean roaster. He is going to motorize it but he is having a hard time finding pulleys. The ladies are going to roast weaning mix tomorrow for the Child Center. We got the corn washed today and set out in the sun to dry.
This afternoon two of Papa Painter’s daughters stopped by for a visit. Papa Painter was one of our employees; he died years ago. One of his daughter’s lost her husband a year ago shortly after the birth of their little girl. Since the little girl has no father she thinks we should take care of the child. She would love for us to feed, clothe, and educate the child but there is no way we are going to take on that responsibility. Today she asked us to buy disposable diapers and clothes for the child. We gave both the women some baby clothes.
Please keep us and the work in your prayers.
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
