My Update /STMO Coming to Bongolo

(Photo of Tim, Amanda Kelly and their family)

I wanted to say a quick “hi” from Bongolo Hospital. I’ve been busy teaching Pathology in the Nursing School, doing hospital bookkeeping and assisting in doing Mission bookkeeping. There is plenty to keep me busy.
Please continue to pray that my old vehicle get fixed and then sold. The Isuzu Trooper is located in Libreville and Arnie Solvig is trying to find someone to fix it. He will then put it “on the market” for selling it.
I am enjoying driving my new Nissan Patrol vehicle. I bought it September 2nd and its two month temporary registration paper has just about expired. The government has not yet issued the permanent Title for the vehicle though. Please pray that the Title for my new car be issued and get from Libreville to me down at the hospital as soon as possible so that I will be able to continue driving with up-to-date papers. Thanks.
November 15-16 I will be helping with a weekend seminar at the Memba Chapel. Please pray for planning for that two day seminar. Pastor Guy Patrick will participate. He is the Pastor at the Lebamba church. The Memba Chapel is an annex of that church.
We have had many visitors at the hospital this month. Seven people from Florida left just this morning. Six other visitors are still here. The STMO is planning to set up a Center here at the hospital. STMO stands for Short Term Mission Office. Tim and Amanda Kelly and their three children should arrive at Bongolo about March 1st to head up a Center for receiving visitors to our hospital. One prayer request for the Kelly family is that their house sells before they move to Gabon.

The website for information about STMO is: http://www.cmalliance.org/serve/stmo/?/stmo.jsp.
The Kelly family has their own website at: http://stmogabon.org/index.html.

Well, I promised you that this would be a quick Update. Thanks so much for your support financially through your gifts to the Great Commission Fund. Thanks for your prayer support.

Halleluhia !

I just got word of some large donations to my Carolyn Thorson Vehicle Fund! When my old ISUZU TROOPER is sold, I will then have enough money to completely pay for the beautiful black NISSAN PATROL that is sitting in my garage! PRAISE THE LORD!

PRAISE the LORD:

For friends who have given money to my car fund during the past few years.

For friends who have prayed for my car fund during the past few years.

Thanks to everyone!

Pray:

That my old Isuzu Trooper be repaired quickly.

That when sold my Isuzu Trooper brings a good sale price.

PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW!

Travel, Seminar, Teaching!

October 14, 2008 Email Prayer Letter

It's been three weeks since I last wrote and you are probably wondering if I am still "Surviving" in Gabon, the theme of my last letter. I have been so very busy but now want to update you. Since I last wrote I caught up after my car buying trip to Libreville, then made another trip to Libreville for Field Leadership Team meetings, returned to Bongolo Hospital and immediately attended a three day seminar. That ended late Sunday yesterday.

This week I am getting caught up on many projects, besides working hard on preparing and teaching Pathology to the nursing students at the Bongolo Hospital. We still have 11 nursing students but Oscar continues to do poorly with his studies so may have to be let go at the end of the trimester. Either way, I am sure he needs your prayers. Please also pray for wisdom for us, the professors.

My new Nissan Patrol vehicle runs great! It has now been back to Libreville for its first “check up” with Nissan Company and it passed.My vehicle account is in debt. I still have my Isuzu Trooper to sell but the problem is that the Trooper is again having motor problems and needs repairs before it can be sold. Please pray that the car be repaired to the point that it can be sold, that it will bring in a good selling price and that I will receive additional gifts to my vehicle fund to make up the difference. I figure that after the old car sells, I will still need $5,000-$6,000 to break even. I want to sincerely thank those of you who have given and given towards my Nissan Vehicle. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks!

This past weekend we missionaries attended a seminar using the book “Beyond Your Best- Develop Your Relationships, Fulfill Your Destiny” by Thrall, McElarthn and McNicol. An attached photo will show us working hard at completing our in seminar assignments! This seminar was taught by Chris and Marcia Braun. Chris is the Africa Area Director for the Alliance missionaries.

Allan Ballard our field bookkeeper was also visiting Bongolo this past weekend. He lives and works in Dakar Senegal. He is our Gabon Bookkeeper and I am his Assistant. It was good to be able to chat face to face about some transition issues and bookkeeping.

I still attend church in Memba Chapel and sometimes do the teaching on Sunday morning. I am trying to get a Seminar together for Memba for mid November. The Gabonese like concentrated teaching times. Please pray that the Lord direct in this. I think the weekend will be November 16^th but this is not certain.

This evening we missionary women here at Bongolo will begin the Beth Moore Bible study on “Daniel”. It will be our first get together for this. We’ll be having Bible Study on Tuesday evenings. Please pray that the Lord use this study in our lives. Thanks.

You ask how I spend my spare time. I am active on www.SparkPeople.com , an online weight loss site. I’ve been able to lose about twenty pounds through the support I get on this free site. Ask me about it if you wish!

Thanks to all of you who give to the Great Commission Fund. That is the fund that supports me. We heard this weekend that so far the gifts to that fund are meeting budget. Praise the Lord that in times of financial crises, people are still giving to the Lord’s work.

Thanks so much for praying, giving, writing, and encouraging me.

Mangoes !

I have five huge mango trees in my back yard. The mangoes will be ripe at the end of October. There are thousands of mangoes on the trees this year! I am looking for mango recipes: mango pie, mango crisp, frozen mango, baked mango, etc. If anyone has a good mango recipe, please send it them to me. Thanks.

It's hard to get fresh fruit and veggies here. Lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers and cucumbers will only grow for a couple of months out the the year. Otherwise it is too wet here in the rain forest of Gabon. We're eating lots of veggies right now. Soon they will be gone and we will be back to canned or frozen veggies.

SURVIVING IN GABON !

Yes, I am SURVIVING in Gabon! For one thing, I had my physical exam this past week and had a good checkup. I have been SURVIVING Ovarian Cancer since June 2004!

I teach in the Bongolo Hospital Nursing School and I survived the first week and a half of teaching Pathology class. I’m not sure though if my students successfully SURVIVED their first exam which they took this afternoon. I still need to correct the exam.

Our hospital maintenance man Henri has given notice and will leave us in a couple of months. We have good news that a couple from the Midwest is interested in selling all and moving to Gabon to help us with our maintenance needs. Praise the Lord! Pray that they be able to sell their house. In the meantime, pray that we SURVIVE the time between Henri’s leaving and the arrival of this couple. Our station is huge with much electrical, plumping, building, telephone, yard-work problems that need overseeing.

The Memba Chapel is having problems SURVIVING. In a village of about 800 people, this chapel only has about 10-15 regular attendees on Sunday morning. The only other church in town did not survive. This one is struggling. They have no resident Pastor so I help out with teaching in Sundays. Pray for the believers in Memba, that they would not neglect getting together for Sunday worship time or the Memba Chapel might not SURVIVE. The church is not just a building, it is PEOPLE.

Yesterday a cargo boat sank at the Port in Libreville Gabon. We have expected a container of items that we shipped to Gabon and that ship with container was to have arrived about NOW. We were very grateful that the ship that sank was NOT the ship that has our container on board and “our ship” SURVIVED! Please pray though as now there is a delay in docking “our” ship, the one that has the container that we had shipped!

I am back to my theme of SURVIVING in GABON. I have been a missionary in Gabon for thirty one years, since 1977. Some things from my past that no longer exist or things that still exist and I continue to survive include: a gasoline powered wringer wash machine, two years without the electric turbine, using lamp light, Kerosene refrigerator, malaria twice, bad roads, car breakdowns without AAA, Congo Fever, no see-um bugs but they bite anyway, snakes, rats living under the stove, “outhouse” boards that gave way, jigger fleas, flashlights instead of street lights, 18 years of using a ferry boat to get to the main part of town, mail delivery taking up to three months, breaking a leg that needed surgery in our jungle hospital, using bug spray, asthma, hardly any stores in town, no restaurants (no Fast Food), many missionaries coming but then leaving, goodbyes, the life and death of three cats (I apparently have more lives then them), and I could go on and on!

How am I SURVIVING? Well, now I have 24 electricity (when it works), satellite TV, electric stove, wash machine and refrigerator, toaster, Magic Bullet, microwave, bread maker, bridge over the Louetsi River, a borrowed cat when the neighbor is on a trip, lots of shops in town, African restaurants (still no Fast Food), indoor plumbing (have always had that in my house), email, Internet, Vonage phone, a new NISSAN PATROL vehicle (my old one still needs to sell) and I could go on and on! I am blessed!

In June and July the TV series “Survivor Gabon: Earth’s Last Eden” was filmed in Gabon. The filming was not done near the hospital where I live. Some missionaries living in the capital city were able to meet some of the film crew. This TV series will have its two hour CBS Premier this Thursday evening, September 25, 2008. I have seen very few of the other Survivor series but this one, well, it’s from Gabon! What can I say? My brother will record at least the first one for me. It won’t be shown here until probably next year! I do not promote this TV series. I merely know that there are a lot of you who watch it and I want you to know that Gabon is where I live!

Click below for Previews of “Survivor Gabon: Earth’s Last Eden”. These links will tell you a lot about the country where I live, work and SURVIVE!

Survivor: Gabon Season17 Preview

“Survivor: Gabon Preview Part I”

Thanks to all of you who have prayed for me and have supported me financially for all these years. You are loved.

Joyfully Surviving in Gabon,

Carolyn

My New Nissan Patrol !

I am so excited to have a new vehicle to drive, a Nissan Patrol Van. My trip to Libreville went like this:

Monday: Drive ten hours over dirt and paved roads.
Tuesday: Shop at different Car dealerships. I was looking for a diesel, 4 wheel drive vehicle that would last me for the next six years, until my planned retirement.
Wednesday. Go with the Mission Business Agent to the Nissan dealership to pay for a Nissan Patrol. It is listed as a van but I always thought that vans had a sliding side door. I guess not. The only colors available were black and white. The only color available immediately, was black.
Thursday: Wait all day until 6pm when my new, already licensed van was delivered to the Mission.
Friday: Be driven to pick up the Insurance card for my Nissan and then go shopping for school and hospital paper supplies. In the afternoon I drove myself shopping at our "mall". It's mostly a grocery store.
Saturday: Also went shopping a bit, getting used to the new vehicle.
Sunday: Drive back home. Because I drove on Sunday there were no logging trucks on the road and hardly any traffic. None of the police checkpoints stopped me to look at my papers. The trip took only 9 hours.

Today, Monday, I ache all over. If you haven't driven on African roads, you may not know know what it's like to "grip" the steering wheel as you go over all the bumps and avoid the holes in the road. At least the road has recently been road graded. I always ache all over the day after taking that drive. A little Ibuprofen should take care of it for awhile.

I want you to know that I talk about "my new car" that it was not paid for by my personal account. People, some I know, some I don't know, have given money to the church for me to have this new car. I am very grateful. I also want you to know that I dove my old car to Libreville for selling. It did make it up there but then we found one major bolt had rattled off and it is now not drivable before it is first repaired. I have my new car just in time!! God is good!

Thanks to those who gave towards my car and to those who prayed for it!