November 3, 2015
by Fenton Rees
I (Fenton) am now in Paris, waiting for the 2nd flight back to Seattle. There was a hiccup with the Jetway when we landed, so we had to walk outside to a bus. The temp of about 50F felt so COLD, but it is so great to no longer be sticky.
During the last week, both Pat and I have thought that it seemed quite a bit hotter than when we arrived over 5 weeks ago. Although any temperature readings I have seen show that any increase in temp is probably no more than 5 degrees. What’s going on, are we getting soft in our old age?
The graph below explains everything. As you get above 80F and head towards body temperature, humidity takes on an increasingly important role as to how the temperature “feels”. That is captured in a “Heat Index”. So when we arrived in dry season it was probably no more than 80F in the day with a humidity of perhaps 70%;- and so it felt like no more than the low 80’s. Now in rainy season, with both rain and sun the max daytime temp is up to at least the mid 80’s and the humidity towards 90%, and so feels more like 100+ F. I’m outta here, but Pat has 5+ more weeks of this, so pray for her.
Not all U.S. foreign aid goes down a rat hole funding people who hate us or in some dictator’s Swiss bank account. Dr. Wendy of the eye clinic wrote for and obtained a grant from USAID for $500,000 for the new eye clinic! I think it was for the building itself, a 2 story, 12,000 square foot facility. So that’s some of your tax dollars doing something useful.
The meeting in Libreville that Dr. Keir (medical director) and I had with the Gabonese electrical construction company went both better and worse than expected. The day before he was operating, he thought he might have been exposed to HIV/Aids thru a cut in his glove from a sharp piece of bone. He started taking the prescribed drugs, but by the time we got to the meeting he was in sad shape from the side effects with nausea and sweat dripping off him. Once the meeting got going, he had to excuse himself twice do go hurl his cookies. During his absences, there I am with people who mostly only spoke French. Quite interesting. Fortunately drawings and schematics are relatively common regardless of language, plus my little French and one guy’s limited English and we did OK. So that was the worse than expected. The better than expected was that they were not as brain dead as we feared from what they had quoted back to the hospital on the plans given to them. Given the different standards they are used to using, the limitations on the materials they have to work with and one mistake on their part and what they had presented at least sort of made sense. Now we have to figure out how to get to what we want to be given the limitations they are faced with. So definitely are worthwhile meeting, and I think we can have them upgrade the “backbone” of the electrical distribution system so it will be good for the next 20 years.
And it was finally determined that while Keir’s finger did have a tiny cut, the integrity of the glove had not been compromised, so he doesn’t need to take the drugs for the month. So if you prayed, thanks.
While in Gabon, The Rushers and Pat and I have been going through the book of Hebrews. We were up to Chapter 11 (the "Hall of Faith") before I left. While the paraphrase “The Message” sometimes takes liberties I don’t like, I liked his (Peterson’s) version of the first verse or two:
"The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see. The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd."
The “what we can’t see” caught my attention, especially having spent so much time at the eye clinic. It’s great that Dr. Wendy and crew see somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 patients per year, and help many recover their sight. And of course we hope and pray that they also are taken from darkness to LIGHT, from the dominion of Satan to the Kingdom of God (Acts 27).
And that of course is what I CANNOT SEE, I cannot see what my hard work and sweat will amount to in the months and years ahead. A civil war or natural calamity could undo in an instant everything I’ve done here, (as happened to some work I did in Liberia many years ago). But is that my problem to worry about? I may have mentioned these two verses before;- Zech 4:6 and Zech 4:10 because I think they capture the issue here:
• Roughly “Don’t despise the day of small things”. (In the big scheme of things, my contribution is small).
• And “Not by might, not by power but by my Spirit says the Lord”.
Well that's about all for now.
Blessings,
Fenton