David and Becki Thompson

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Prayer Letter/Ministry Update

ON CALL
(Dave & Becki Thompson are medical missionaries serving with The Alliance at the Bongolo Hospital in Gabon, central Africa)

Dear Friends
The wait is over! All of a sudden God is flooding us with answers to prayer. Last month, after five years of asking the government electrical company to move our transformer from across the river to the center of our campus, workmen suddenly arrived two weeks ago and moved it in two days. The voltage coming into the hospital jumped from 210 volts to 230.

Air Calvary has purchased a used Cessna 207 that is in the process of being rebuilt from the airframe up. The work is 90% completed, and in a few months they hope to fly it to Gabon to begin providing air service to the Bongolo Hospital. A Chinese road construction crew that is paving the main road from Lébamba to Ndende agreed to upgrade the airstrip for $20,000, and the Gabonese government donated the funds to the hospital. It actually cost the Chinese a third more than that, but after surgeon Keir Thelander performed an emergency colon resection on their boss, they decided to do the rest of the work for free, as a gift to the hospital and to the community.
TREE FALLS ON POWERLINES (again)
We’re still looking for a tree-cutter who can climb several giant trees threatening our houses and bring them down safely. Three weeks ago one of the dead trees we wrote about in our last letter came crashing down into the Thelander’s yard without warning in area where their children frequently play. It missed a yard worker by less than 10 feet and again brought down our power lines. We are surrounded by the rain forest and love the huge, beautiful trees. However, some that were just 30 feet high and on the edge of the yard when we came are now 100 tall and looming over our houses! If someone in your church can help us, please encourage them to contact our field office at gabonfd@gmail.com.
NEW LABORATORY OPENS
Last week our laboratory moved into spacious new quarters, after a year of construction. Thanks to the help of a Christian foundation and Rotary Club International, the new lab will have two CD4 counters, very expensive instruments used to monitor AIDS patients.
SUNDAY SCHOOL KIDS EARN BIBLES
A total of eight of Becki’s Sunday School kids have earned Bibles at the Mandji Church we started four years ago. Each child must memorize and perfectly recite 20 Bible verses before earning a Bible. The new converts in this chapel, the building itself, and the new Bibles we give out to these kids are the fruit of your prayers, your giving for our support through the Great Commission Fund of the Alliance, and your gifts for our work over the past two years. Thank you and Praise to our God!

Until Jesus Comes,
Dave & Becki Thompson

Update:
Dear Friends,

At 7:30 pm tonight I got a frantic call from one of our nurses with the alarming news that our hospital warehouse was on fire. Becki called around the station for others to come while I raced to the hospital. When I arrived, about 200 people (mostly the local youth group, which was meeting in the church next door) were screaming and running around, trying to get into the lock building to put it out. I could see the glow of flames through the windows. Since it was dark, I parked my car with the headlights on the door.

I grabbed the fire extinguisher from my car and ran to the steel door with my keys. When I cautiously opened the door, I could see flames reaching to the ceiling from behind a six foot high stack of boxes--our most recent medicine order. The ceiling was already on fire, along with about 10 boxes. At the center was a refrigerator that was burning like a torch. I sprayed it with my car extinguisher, but it ran out after about 10 seconds. About 10 young men from the youth group and hospital crowded in, and I shouted for some to bring buckets of water and the others to form a chain to drag our medicines out. In seconds we had boxes flying out the door and buckets of water flying in--half the time colliding! What pandemonium! Above it all I could hear women singing praises and prayers to God!

Next to the fire, I was soon elbowed aside by younger firefighters who threw the buckets of water on the fridge and through the burned out ceiling and up onto the burning rafters. Keir Thelander arrived and took charge of that effort, so I worked on getting most of the boxes around the fire out of the building. Then I went outside and discovered the fire was spreading to the waiting area roof of our new lab, which is right next door. I got some good throwers working on that one and in a few minutes we doused it. The water coming out of the hospital faucets seemed like a trickle, but after 30 minutes or so, Keir and his team gradually got the fire inside under control.

We may have lost 10 to 20 boxes of medicines and supplies and a refrigerator full of we're not sure what. The roof has a huge hole in it and there is extensive damage to the ceiling and rafters for about 1/3 of the building. But we could have lost the entire building, with over $200,000 of medicines and supplies in storage! We praise God that the youth group was there and that so many volunteers rushed to help. And nobody was burned or hurt.

Praise God with us for protecting these precious medicines and supplies and helping us to get it out. Please pray with us that God will help us replace what we lost, and repair our warehouse.

Praising our Great Lord and Protector
Dave & Becki Thompson

Prayer Requests/Answers to Prayer

REQUESTS FOR PRAYER

1. Pray that God will give us more opportunities to bless these Chinese workers and share with them the love of Jesus.
2. Pray for us as we develop programs to help the shopkeepers in Lébamba improve their businesses skills and befriend them.
3. Praise God for getting our transformer moved to the center of our campus, and for helping our team safely move our huge back-up generator on inadequate equipment.
4. Pray that God will send us someone skilled in cutting down the big trees threatening parts of our station.
5. Praise God for our new laboratory! Pray that God will help us hire or train additional lab techs, and an X-ray tech.
6. Pray that God will encourage at least 60% of Alliance people to give to the Great Commission Fund.

Gabon

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