All fingers and thumbs (counting down to Christmas)

( mid November to December) This is no doubt going to be a boring blog, few pictures just graphs, and the subject matter will  move between statistics and  pure maths, (or math for our  American readers). Words, incidentally, are not the only things that change between cultures, how you count with your fingers and thumbs also does. How do you do it? (Guardian Weekly 6/7/12) Starting with the fist closed or open? Little finger first or thumb? Most Western Europeans usually use closed fist and thumb as starting points. A local builder started palm open and counted from his little finger .  Mostly my Chadian colleagues prefer to use the calculators in their mobile phones, so perhaps the world is changing and these little cultural  differences will disappear.

 The title, all fingers and thumbs, is a bit strange  for a letter written by a couple of doctors who spend much of their lives doing surgery. Andreas dexterity was much in evidence as I assisted her at one o clock one morning as she rapidly did a caesarean section, her 3rd in 3 days after a fifteen day period when none were required. No fingers and thumbs but plenty of counting needed, checking the swabs before closing the operation and again the baby who  was the 56th so far in November. I risk being accused  of repeating myself, but here is an update of a graph from our September blog, the green line is a computer generated estimate for the future. In reality it looks like an underestimate with over 3 babies born each day so far, we may even reach a hundred.  We can be thankful for all the women and babies helped but it makes the unit very crowded busy place.

I don't know how my computer generated the rapidly rising  trend line. I have however recently learned that  Descartes, famous for 'I think therefore I am' was also the inventor of  analytical geometry, which uses algebra to describe geometry in graphs. Ruth and I have been getting to grips with this as she works through her homework. Maths is fine, and many Dads must try to recall their teen age education to help out.  But Maths from another angle and in a foreign language can be a bit challenging. I am usually alright and able to help  once I have understood the question. Running the hospital can be like that too.

What are we supposed to be doing? This question  has to be asked before we can decide whether we are doing it well. Planning is important and therefore 'I think therefore I am' may be practically useful as well as being a  profound piece of philosophy. We have been planning, budgets especially for the pharmacy, malnutrition programs, an X-ray dept ,a possible safe motherhood project and the recurrent problem of how to keep the hospital clean, with only one relative sleeping with each patient overnight.

 Plenty of planning  but surely what we do is more important in the real world, 'I do therefore I am' is an apt paradigm for modern  mission where we want to measure outcomes. We are seeing record numbers of patients, and having record receipts(but still remain financially dependent on outside aid for 20% of expenditure)  But despite this good news as the letters hit the page an alarm is ringing we follow a God whose name is ' I am what I am' not ' I am what I do'.

Back to the counting, we are in Advent waiting to celebrate the beginning of His greatest expression of this,  Jesus ,God with us. A highlight in our count down to the festivities will be a hospital nativity play and songs followed by the Jesus film on the 20th December. Pastor Djibrine is organising it we hope it will go well and that more people will come to understand the true importance of the baby in the manger. Jesus didn't set out to  change the world by building institutions , but he came as the servant of all, taking the way of love.(I Corinthians 13)  This should surely  be our ultimate plan and outcome measure, to become loving servants like Him. I sometimes feel that I am only just beginning.

Mark and Andrea

PS: Since the first part of this blog was written November has ended, we counted exactly 100 women in childbirth, so much for predictive graphs! There were 103 babies born, the first one pictured below is the first for Charlot and Sarah both of whom work as nurses here at GII,  there was one set of triplets, also pictured  and the hundredth mother had premature twins.  They sadly died shortly after birth which made for muted celebrations of the milestone. Individuals mean so much more than statistics both in their joy and their sadness.