This week, the last week of September, the arrival home in Edinburgh of Rev and Mrs D. B. MacLeod is anticipated with pleasure. In a letter to his congregation Mr MacLeod tells that while in Malawi he travelled long distances from place to place preaching at the weekends and holding classes during the week. He mentioned that on this occasion he was unable to visit Mozambique, but that four men had come to meet him. They spoke of the difficulties encountered by the returning refugees including a shortage of food as no crops had been planted the previous year, and this season they were experiencing a drought. “There is a whole field of opportunity here for work in the Lord’s Vineyard. May the Lord send forth labourers.” Mr MacLeod concludes.
Several Mission correspondents have referred to Miss Jessie Coote’s departure for Kenya on October 6th D.V. They speak of her valuable work at Mbuma over many years, and of how she will be missed.
At Mbuma they have moved into their new out-patient department. Miss Anne Zekveld says, “It is a four-roomed building with a wide hallway and with in-built brick benches in the hall. Three of the rooms are used as consulting rooms and the fourth is for small procedures such as stitching wounds, pulling teeth, applying casts to broken limbs, etc. It takes some getting used to but on the whole we are quite happy with it. There is much more privacy for speaking to patients especially when it comes to counselling AIDS patients and patients with similar diseases. The witch-doctors still have much power and, just last week, we had a woman abscond from her bed to consult her witch-doctor.
“Another problem we have in the hospital is a disease similar to plague, carried by rats. It has not been officially confirmed as ‘plague’, but all the symptoms are there and all but one of our patients have responded to treatment. The Government is very co-operative to any suggestion of plague and sends out men immediately to investigate and to spray the building with D.D.T.”
Friends who contributed to the goods contained in the huge container sent out to Zimbabwe by Mr Roderick Campbell, at Miss Marion Graham’s request, will be pleased to hear that the container has arrived safely and that no Customs have been levied; all in the kind providence of the Most High.
J.N.