The Rev. D. B. MacLeod, the Rev. A. B. Ndebele and Mr Dick Vermeulen have been in Kenya from the 6th to the 21st of December. They have now travelled to Malawi, and will remain there until the 11th of January. The Rev. D. B. MacLeod will spend the remainder of his time overseas in Zimbabwe, leaving for Scotland D.V. on the 24th January. This is the hot season and also the rainy season. We hear that in Zimbabwe there has been very little rain, and it is sad to hear that already a number of cattle and goats have died, for lack of food and water.
Mr and Mrs Neil Murray have arrived home safely, and Neil has already been engaged in preaching. Marion Graham is also home in Inverness. The Dutch nurse, Miss Terlouw, is now in Zimbabwe, and she and Miss Zekveld, who is expected early in the year D.V., will spend some time in Bulawayo studying Sindebele.
David Ndlovu, sadly still unwell, and in and out of hospital in Bulawayo, has, with his men, built a large kitchen attached to Mbuma Hospital, by Government orders. It has been roofed, but a great deal still remains to be done. In the past, relatives usually accompanied the patients, bringing food and cooking utensils with them. The relatives looked after their own people, cooking out in the open, making use of the plentiful timber in the forest around them.
It is recounted of Dr Alison Dunbar’s visit to Mbuma Hospital in 1972, when she came to relieve Dr James Tallach for a period of months, that she went out at an early hour on her first morning on duty, to make a “ward round”, only to find, to her consternation, that every bed was empty! The patients were out in the yard enjoying the morning sunshine. In the evening, now feeling assured that she would find all the patients in bed, she found that all the relatives were either under the beds, or strewn across the floors. Those days are about to end. There will be an enrolling of kitchen staff, transport of food in the new Mission lorry on the long hundred miles from Bulawayo, in sunshine and storm, the supervision of the cooking, and of the food which goes to the patients. This will add to the burdens of the hardworking staff. One cannot help feeling that there was much to be said for the old homely way of doing things. There are 23 Nursing Aids, and two Medical Assistants, in addition to three European Sisters and Dr Hak.
A young man, Dickson Mhlanga, was appointed a Hospital Evangelist, under the instruction of the Rev. P. Mzamo, at the beginning of the year. Dickson was an untrained teacher in one of our out-schools for a number of years, and has been a member in the Mbuma congregation for some time. He reads the Scriptures to the patients and prays with them, seeking to lead them into the Truth, as he may be enabled. It reminds one of the proverb: “In the morning sow the seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand, for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that — .”
J. N.