Nazareth & Bethlehem, What's in a name?

Today, 23rd December, was the annual hospital Christmas party. Patients, guests and staff got together to hear about the message of Jesus, the baby born at Bethlehem with songs, readings and a nativity play. It went very well,  a couple of hundred people, the village chief , local imams, patients and visitors who especially seemed to enjoy the Nativity play that  went especially well and the refreshments afterwards.

Pastor asked me to say a few words at the beginning .What do you say at a fete like that?

Al salaam a leekum (Peace be with you)

We are here today for a Christmas party, to celebrate the birth of Jesus.  All of us here seek to follow the God of Abraham.  Jesus, as a Jew, was also part of the family of Abraham. You might know him as a prophet, I know him as something more. We may differ but we can all seek to learn more about him. Before we listen to the Gospel and watch the play I would like to share something with you.

I don’t speak much Arabic but to introduce our party I want to look at a couple of Arabic words with you. They are both place names which you will hear about in the Bible readings and play that will follow. The place names are Nazareth and Bethlehem.

Ana nassara ( note: a mildly derogatory name for a white European/American). I am not a nassara because my skin is white. I am not a nassara because I come from England. But I am proud to be a nassara because I am a disciple of the man who came from Nazareth, Jesus. That is the origin of the word nassara, from Nazareth.  It is where Jesus grew up, and it is where the first scene of our play will take place. I am proud to be a nassara a follower of the man from Nazareth.

 I heard an Arab speak earlier this year, he is also a nassara, a follower of Jesus. He would be quick to say that he doesn’t come from Nazareth but rather Bethlehem, his family home.  This is the town where Jesus was born.  The name Bethlehem is said to come from the old Hebrew, ‘ bêth lehem’ meaning house of bread. Jesus is known as the ‘bread of life’, which means that he is essential for everyday existence, I can’t live without him. So it seems right that he is born in a town named ‘house of bread’

Today most of the people who live in Bethlehem are not Jews but Arab so what does the name Bethlehem mean to them and you who are also Arab speaking? ‘Bêt laham’ House of meat. Bethlehem and the hills around was where the shepherds raised the lambs for use in sacrifice in the Jewish temple. So for Jesus, known as the ‘lamb of God’ who gave his life as a sacrifice to be born in Bethlehem is also right.

Which origin of the word is the real one? Surely it is that both the Arabic and Jewish forms can teach us something about God and his purposes. Jesus ‘bread of life born’ in the Hebrew ‘house of bread’ essential to sustain us each day and Jesus ‘lamb of God’ who gave his life for us born in the Arab 'house of meat'. This can be a lesson to us all as we share words together.

Today, dear guests, patients and colleagues, as we watch our play of the birth of Jesus and in the year ahead, I hope that we can learn more from each other about the ways of God.

Faces of Chad

Children are an important part of our work at Guinebor, under 5 mortality is amongst the highest in the world at 120/1000 children.  We are playing our role in improving this with a vaccination and under 5's growth clinic, started earlier this year, which has just enrolled its thousandth child. Preventing disease is best but we also have curative treatment for malaria, diarrhoeal illness, malnutrition and pneumonia. Sometimes I have the impression that these diseases are all that  paediatric medicine is about in Chad. Certainly these are the major problems and along with the other hospitals  and clinics in the city we are working to combat them.

So today is an unusual day, I did the  Saturday morning ward round and  there are 3 empty beds and more surprisingly none of the  5 children that are here have the usual diseases.

 In the first bed there is Ahmat, a  young boy who has not walked for a couple of months. He arrived a fortnight ago in a lot of pain unable to straighten his hip. He hadn't been to hospital before but had been with traditional healers. As our equipment isn't working h e was taken by ambulance to the city hospital to have an X-ray and some blood tests. His hip was dislocated and there were signs of infection in his pelvic bones.  There was little change with initial antibiotics and pain killers; he cried whenever we went near him.  After  manipulating and draining the hip in the operating theatre and applying traction he is making good progress and has started smiling. Another X-ray is needed and there is still a long way to go to get him walking again but he has turned a corner and is on the mend.

 In the next bed is Idriss he  has been with us for 2 months! He had an injection at a clinic which it got infected.  The infection spread from the abscess  and killed most of the skin on his buttock, down his thigh to below the knee. He spent a couple of days at the Mother and Child  hospital and then left to come to us. His  father said that nothing was being done. Once with us he had three trips to theatre to remove all the dead tissue, thankfully most of the muscles were exposed but unaffected. A first skin graft took well but only covered the lower  half of the wound. He has been up walking, at first with a frame and then unaided. He has just had his second skin graft and is stuck in bed for a few days. Another child transformed from fear and pain to smiles and laughter. His father came and thanked me the other day, and said that the reason they left the other hospital was because they wanted to amputate the whole leg. He is so happy and says they will stay a year if necessary to get his son healed. Thankfully it won't take that long.

The third is Djidda  an amazing young boy, he has shown such determination. He was admitted 10 days ago. A week before that his left leg was weak after a game of football, a couple of days later he couldn't walk and his left arm was contracted. Again 2 days later his face became weak and he lost the power of speech. He had been at the  Mother and child hospital and treated as an out patient with lab tests sent to exclude polio. When I saw him it was as if he had a stroke he was paralysed down one side,  semi conscious and agitated. What could it be? Blood tests were normal. I suggested a CT scan, but did say that although it might show me what the problem, a tumour or abscess perhaps, but that we may well not be able to offer a solution either here or elsewhere in Chad. There is no neurosurgeon in the country. The CT scans at the 2 government hospitals were broken so the father got a private scan at twice the price that I expected ($300, 2 months wages for our non medical staff). It was worth it, the scan report suggested a deep seated infection with small abscesses and swelling and the need for an urgent referral to a specialist centre.  A good report from the new ' Modern Hospital', unfortunately it is very expensive and doesn't treat pregnant women or children, but they did do our scan! Where did they expect us to send him? I thought it was probably too late to expect a good result but gave high dose steroids to bring down the swelling, and strong antibiotics. He was fully awake in 36 hours. On the ward round it should have been good news , but his mother wasn't there and he was awake, and crying.  Was he crying for his mum or because he realised his state and couldn't talk. I nearly cried too, and gave him a hug and said a silent prayer. Next day he tried to walk and was caught as he fell over, then he could walk and today he is even starting to talk. What can we say- Al hamdu lilah- Praise God! He still limps and his hand is clumsy but such progress and still improving, such courage and what a lovely, for the moment  lopsided, smile.

Moussa  is a 14 month old baby with his father and grandma. His mother died after he was born. About 6 months ago and accident when cooking scalded his leg and the result was a severe contracture with only his heel able to touch the floor.  He was operated a couple of weeks ago followed by a skin graft and is set to go home on Monday. His foot and ankle will now be free to move normally, and its time learn to walk. Dad smiles much more than grandma .

The last case is also unusual, Bechir has diabetes (maybe tropical African variant), a very high blood sugar, off the scale of our machine, and is surprisingly well but it does need to be  corrected by insulin. He was in hospital a few months ago and had 'decided' to stop taking his treatment. It must be difficult to live with chronic disease in Chad both financially, his family need to find about $12 a month ( about 1/2 a week's wage) to pay for his insulin and finding time to come for occasional tests.  He lives a long way from the hospital to the north. His stabilisation treatment can be free but what will happen long term?

As you can see we have 5 complicated cases at the moment, only the baby with the burn has a quick solution and even that will need follow up to make sure that the contracture doesn't it doesn't recur as he grows, but we hope and pray for healing for all of them. What's the chance of having 5 such cases on one small ward? I don't know. I do know that the chance of having 5 boys and no girls, is 1: 32. We normally have the same number of each, and normally have only  one unusual case with 7 more normal ones.

We give thanks to God  for what, with His help, we have been  able to do with our limited resources,  but also we give thanks  for the help from the other hospitals. It would be good to be able to do more tests and simple X rays here and we are trying to get our equipment working again  but we have no plans for a CT just yet!

( Both parents and children were happy and consented  to have their pictures and stories shared)

 

 

 

 

CHEAP OIL: Winners and losers



Chadian petrol station north of Ndjamena

Its Advent and time to enjoy eating one small square of chocolate every day. Our calendar arrived by post yesterday, Fair Trade, Christmas story ,Good news! But fair trade and development is bigger than chocolate, coffee and  a bit of  ethnic jewellery;  cheap oil is the big economic story and it seems that there will be winners and losers. As usual it will be the poor that will suffer, apparently no Good News for them this year ,but what can we do?

The Organisation of Petrol Exporting Countries( OPEC)  has met this week and has decided that it will not cut production in order to shore up the price of crude oil which have fallen dramatically $110 to $78 a barrel  (30%)  in the past 6 months, There is a surplus of oil in the world  market, the US production of comparatively cheap shale oil and start of commercial fracking along with decreased global demand due to the economic downturn have apparently decreased demand and hence the price has fallen.

Good News for the struggling oil importing  European economies , decreasing inflation, stimulating growth and employment.  Potentially  good news  for you at the petrol pumps in the UK. Have the prices gone down or are the distributors just making more money?  Winners and losers? The rich world gets some unexpected help to maintain the status quo but If we burn more fossil fuels  we increase the risks of global warming.  Sea levels may rise but that is clearly going to be more of a problem in  the UK than Chad , so why should I be concerned?   Cheap oil for the consumer comes at a cost for the producer hence the OPEC meeting of the oil producing nations.

Doba oil field and pipeline Chad

Super rich Saudi Arabia will apparently according to the BBC will be a short term loser.  The world's biggest oil exporter needs a price of $85per barrel   to break even, the current price is $78  but has a reserve fund  of $700 billion to absorb the temporary loss and was vocal in maintaining the current output. Why are they doing this?   The BBC and Guardian have various suggestions. To put pressure on the US fracking industry? To put pressure on the finances of Russia and Iran? To give a Christmas present to the UK ( I made that one up) Who knows?

Not all oil exporters  have the reserves of the middle eastern nations.  In Africa  Nigeria and Chad are heavily dependent on oil income. Chad's oil boom  since 2003 has led to a massive infrastructure programme, tarmac roads in the capital  for the first time, hospitals, prestige buildings, electricity generation plus distribution networks, and a massive increase in public centre staff and wages, nurse, doctors teachers and the military.  There is also an ambitious program to supply free health care for the first 24 hours for emergencies. Chad has difficulties with accounting for exactly how all the revenues are used but some good is coming from this windfall. A drop in 30% of the price of a barrel of crude oil will no doubt affect the amount of money in the government coffers which  rely overwhelmingly on oil.   As usual it is the poor that suffer most when times are hard.

Ndjamena skyline

As a rich  person and employer in Chad I will ,as you would expect,  be cushioned from any ill effects and may even benefit.  Prices will rise less fast for me  and wages for employees  will not rise so quickly for the hospital. Since the hospital opened we have had difficulty keeping  experienced staff as we cannot match the increasing salaries and benefits of the public sector. Also if the state hospitals cannot offer  free treatment reliably perhaps our hospital will  have more paying patients. What a sad world that we as a mission might benefit from others difficulty. We are not in competition, rather  we work alongside the public sector for the good of the people, We hope to partner more  the Ministry of Health  the suggestion of Chadian doctors is still on the table as is involvement in TB, HIV and malaria programs so we need to pray for a  vigorous and improving public sector financed by oil.

Perhaps driven by financial constraints above or perhaps simply to regulate public service better there have been attempts  to change working patterns and pay structures for teachers. This led to a teaching strike and the disaffected students protested leading to a day of significant rioting in the city with some reported deaths both of police and demonstrators.

Djermaya oil refinery Chad

Another source of frustration over the past 2 months has been a shortage of fuel at the pumps owing  to a period of maintenance at the Chadian national oil refinery that took longer than expected.  Prices have been pegged at the pumps  ( 60p a litre )and sales by the roadside outlawed to avoid people profiteering. Although there were the stockpiles the amount reaching the petrol stations has been rationed and this has led to long queues.

 

The hospital remains busy with a record number of births, an increased number of operations, a stable number of in patients but a sharp downturn in outpatient numbers from the middle of the month. Some of this will be due less malaria but  the decrease  is much more than last year so clearly there are other factors making people put off visits. Perhaps the two above play a  certain role. I hope those who chose to  stay away were not too sick, but on the whole people are not very  good at deciding.

What is clear that  these are complex situations  and how they are linked to cheap oil is difficult to say. But ultimately the rich will cope and might even benefit and as usual  it is the poor who will suffer.  I wonder what God thinks to our system of winners and losers?

'Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God.
 Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied'

Maranatha.

Mark and Andrea

PS: alternative Chadian petrol stations  presumably functioning elsewhere in the country. This is still a developing nation.

 

E=mc2

Albert Einstein is shown having written his famous formula on the blackboard correctly, something incidentally that  I fail to do in this blog.  But what does it mean?   I have a book on my shelf called 'Why does E=mc2 ? and why should we care.' I have read a third of it three times over the past couple of years, unfortunately each time it was the first third. So I am no expert, in fact I am hardly informed at all. But for all you Dr Who fans , and anyone else who is interested, I have good news ,time travel is possible. We all do it every day into the future one second at a time. Yes , it is also theoretically possible to move in to the future at different speeds, but one thing is sure E=mc2, we can never move faster than the speed of light and so we can never go back in time. Which means that we should be careful what we  say and do in the present ; a word spoken , an action taken now can never be  undone. If we cannot  move faster than the speed of light in order to put things right, correct our mistakes; we need Gods help to do it.  As we move into the future ,John,  tells us how to  get round the problem of our  past mistakes , we still need to make use of light.

 

'God is light ........... if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his son purifies us from all sin' 1 John 1 (5-7). This is more important than understanding  E=mc2 and Einsteins theory of relativity, although I  personally would like to do both. Perhaps one day.

Time travel is actually easier  for medical doctors than Time Lords.  Look at Ebola , as we watch  the unfolding tragedy in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea are we looking into our common future? Now as the epidemic has got out of hand and threatens to spread to the rest of the world new and major resources are being rightly deployed to try and limit the spread and find vaccines and treatments.  The future is before us, lets pray for solutions, and do our part to work for it too.

I have spoken with the local District Medical officer and we know  which phone numbers  to contact for transfer of possible cases  to an isolation unit. Sue White has organised our triage service to ask about foreign travel, in case of fever;  hand washing with dilute bleach for everyone that enters the hospital  as required by the Ministry of Health; and our local improvised personal protection equipment box (wellie boots, waterproof paper gowns, double gloves, hats , face masks and visors).  Noel Johnson bought a couple of no touch thermometers from the US. We have had some good advice from Eric Bafende who has had first hand experience of the epidemic in Macenta, Guinea.  At GII we are doing our bit but Chad would be so vulnerable to an epidemic, much more like Guinea which has an ongoing problem  than Nigeria, our neighbour, that successfully rose to the challenge and  was recently declared Ebola free after successfully containing 8 cases. Please pray ,medical time travel into the future is inevitable but we can all play our part to shape the destination.

 Incredibly medical time travel is also possible into the past. I was late home a couple of weeks ago having told Andrea that I would just quickly check if there was anything urgent in the Emergency room before our evening meal. I was gone some time, back 50 or more years, in the first bed was a child  with  diphtheria and in the second an old man with tetanus.

The poster comes from a campaign from the UK in the early 1960's, when I was born and immunised. There were a million cases of diphtheria in Europe in 1943 with 50 000 deaths, ask around your family you will find a parent or  grandparent who either had it or knows someone who did. Diphtheria pertusus and tetanus vaccination went nationwide in 1948, a priority project for the new NHS.  It is a rapid great success story,  50 cases in 1957 and here was only one reported case  of diphtheria in the UK in 2013. 

Not surprisingly I have never seen a case before but spotted the typical appearance on the tonsil of the first suspected  child who came in with a febrile fit and 'malaria' . He was immediately  isolated and started on penicillin. The next day a typical case with a bull neck and laryngeal obstruction came in which confirmed my suspicions and the district medical officer and the WHO were informed. We have had a further two cases since with one death. We have penicillin to treat the inflamed throat but there is no specific antitoxin in the country to combat the effects of the toxin on the heart and nervous system.  At least we have our vaccination programme for children started last  but as yet most of the population are not protected.

The old man with tetanus had a leg fracture with a small wound that had been treated elsewhere and was nearly healed. Despite this the tetanus spores had got in and he sadly died of respiratory insufficiency after 24 hours, a ventilator and intensive care bed is simply not affordable for most people in Chad. (a new private  hospital opened last year with such facilities but that is a new service  for the very rich). We have treated 3 adults  in 4 years and he was the first fatality. It is so much easier to vaccinate. Look at the experience in the USA over the last century, a five  thousand fold reduction in deaths. ( PS the scale is logarithmic)

So as we walk into the future, let us work and lobby ( both God and politicians)  so that all the citizens of the world can walk into the same future at the same speed ,  meeting its new  challenges together and not leaving some needlessly in the past

 Mark and Andrea

PS :      For further reading why not try

The great ideas that shaped the world - Pete Moore
Why does E=mc2 ( and why should we care) - Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw

The Bible  - Multiple authors, One source of inspiration

 

 

Time for tea

England , 4 o'clock in the afternoon and traditionally it's a moment to stop and relax . In the  1980's, as a medical student, I was introduced to a  euphemistic  'Mrs Brown' who was said to require attention, and so out patients stopped for 10 minutes and a cup of tea was shared. At the same time Test Cricket shows its quintessentially English origins,  the outcome of the Test match may be balanced on a knife edge, but it's time for tea. Apparently it's  an ancient tradition going back to the time of the Romans. Asterix the Gaul fought alongside the English against an invading Julius Caesar, and is mystified when his allies  take a tea break  mid afternoon/ battle with the Romans. Ten minutes later the revived  force of Celts trounce the legions, the magic potion this time being tea.

Such rituals and  traditions are probably on the wane, I prefer watching  football  and in Chad  I drink coffee in outpatients any time of day, even if it does make me sweat more. However even for me , there are some occasions on which only tea will do.  A cup of tea with fish and chips and Cornish cream tea. I realise the latter on the Isles of Scilly, just before coming back to Chad, I nearly made the mistake  of ordering a  scone with clotted cream to go with a botanically brewed ginger beer at the last moment I changed my mind and  ordered tea instead.

Over the course of our visits to churches this summer you may have experienced Chadian tea. Concentrated and not so much brewed as stewed and drunk without milk heavily sweetened in a small glass.  It's called 'Chahi' which is where I guess the word Char comes from in char lady, I think the Arabic tradition is probably older than ours. The picture shows gathering for tea on our veranda in Guinebor II. Local village leaders and imams had come to a meeting and it's usual to have a drink and share a snack of a small (unsweetened) donut. We were actually meeting back in June to discuss the next big phase in the development of the hospital. As you may know maternal mortality is a major health problem in Chad. About 1% of pregnant women die, over 100 times more than the UK. We are going to have a 3 year community outreach program sponsored by the Government of Guernesy  with meetings ( at which tea will be drunk) to encourage women  to attend for antenatal care and to deliver at the hospital. There will also be training for midwives, both our employees and others. Our services are already well used, and in order to meet the increased demand we will need  a new maternity centre. BMS have been fund raising for this and thank you to all of you who have already contributed. We have currently raised  £71000 towards the initial  building target of £100 000.  ( plans show an idea of what it might look like ) If you haven't done so already you could mull over the idea of helping whilst drinking a cup of tea, a  gift towards the building  could be a catalyst for changing the life story of young women  and families in Chad .

PS: Just before leaving the UK we were challenged to think again by some of the speakers at the Greenbelt festival, you missed out if you weren't there. However you do have the opportunity to be challenged on issues relating to mission and faith in the near future at next month's BMS  Catalyst live events in Sheffield and Reading. Perhaps you could go and let us know what we missed. http://www.bmscatalystlive.com/about/media/

Turning it up to 11.

A scale of 1-10 on the volume control for either a home sound system or for that matter the amplifier for an electric guitar would be normal, from 1 the quietest to full volume at 10. So what would happen if the scale was changed from 1-11?

Its' simple according to Nigel the guitarist in  Spinal Tap "It's one louder"  he  explained to a journalist  'These  (amps) go to eleven'  Is  this  just a bit of stupidity from the 1980's mockumentary of a heavy rock band? It may be but as a phrase It has entered the English language 'Turning it up to 11' has now come to mean taking something to an extreme, perhaps ridiculously so .

In a blog last month we wrote of 10 ways to know its' hot, the last , actually no 11, read 

 11) The cacti in the garden wilt ( I made that one up)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our rains have yet to begin properly, the hot and dry weather has returned but I haven't had time to water the garden and so look what happened to our young green spiky plant last week, perhaps it isn't a cactus after all. It is supposed to like the heat, but couldn't cope with the temperature cranked up to 11. It has now been restored with a single long watering. Life giving water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the hospital we have been busy of late, in March 101 babies were delivered, a new record; and over the first 5 months we have an extra 15%  deliveries on last year. In May we set a new record for the number of cases operated in a month ,70, and again there is an overall increase  so far this year of 8%. In reality the increase in workload for us is much more as last year we had an experienced nurse surgeon from Cameroon who did his own lists and shared operating out of hours. This  year Andrea and I have been covering extra on calls and also doing more surgery by day.

As we sit in the transit area at Addis Ababa airport on our way home to the UK, we can relax, reflect on the year,  and look forward to a break.


However we leave the hospital behind, Dr Isaac will be joined by Dr Mike from the US for the first month and they will have to work hard. There will be no surgery but still plenty to do, and with Malc (administrator) and Sue (nurse) still in the UK for health reasons there will be extra burdens that fall on them and our other BMS colleague Rebecca. In August Dr Isaac will be the only doctor and the hospital will have to offer a reduced service. Please pray for them and for all the staff of the hospital, that they feel that they are not being forced to work at intensity no 11.  

 

 

 

 

 

Heat of the moment

DUST,    'is it also linked to global warming and heat trapping ?'

This question appeared in the last blog, along with an off the cuff retort.

 Actually I didn't know the answer  and hadn't looked it up, hence the question mark . A friend wrote to me and in fact, although it is an atmospheric pollutant that definitely  does cause human disease,  that appears to be is the limit of its problem. It is more linked with global cooling than warming. The relative balance of  effects  reflection of sunlight  back into space and absorption of sunlight and warming comes down in balance of a small global cooling. Not a dramatic effect but certainly not a villain. The problem lies elsewhere  with greenhouse gasses CO2 etc. and not with atmospheric particles. Sorry for any confusion.

An interesting lesson to me, I'll be more careful not to make less than fully researched remarks, and won't use  question marks  to cover myself any more.

Mark

Dust in the wind

Is it dusty in Kansas, I always supposed it would be because of the words of this song title, a 1970's classic. But I don't know much about the geography ,of the  USA perhaps it is isn't dusty at all.  However I do know that Chad is probably the dustiest country on the planet, or at least the Bodélé depression to the North of us is,. It is in the  southern Sahara and is the lowest point in Chad and represents part of the old Mega lake Chad  ( 20 times bigger than today) that dried up thousands of years ago. It experiences  dust storms 100 days every year, and in season produces  an average 700 000 tonnes of dust a day.

We get dust storms  less often, but each year  before the rains the wind blows down from the north  we have dust storms the like of which you have never seen. You can see it coming as in the picture above, (Guinebor II 2009) a wall of dust hundreds of metre high rolling across the flat earth. A strange  silent vision of the calm before the storm and then the wind arrives blows, gusting snapping hard grown trees, twisting street lights, ripping of roofs making walls fall . We get people injured by flying sheet metal etc and there are sometimes deaths.  After  the strong winds pass  the dust rests in the air, the sky is an eerie orange and a fine silt gets into the houses and coats every surface. 

Occasionally you get Sahara dust in the UK with spectacular sunsets and a faint dusting on your car, other places get it harder, it made BBC news when a dust storm disrupted the Dubai air show it  and another  unusual storm  killed 4 people in Tehran earlier this month. Here  it doesn't  make the news its part of life.

All this dust can't be good for health, last year the BMJ informed me that arrival of Saharan dust has been linked to hospital admissions  in Italy due to respiratory disease, heart attacks and strokes, the first makes a lot of sense  to me, and you do see people riding motorbikes with surgical masks in Ndjamena, the other two  I don't fully understand the mechanism  but it is clear dust can't be good  for you. Is it also linked to global warming and heat trapping ?  Really something needs to be done!

 

 

NASA: Bodélé depression dust storm from space

Ndjamena is  just below Lake Chad

 

                            

 

But life is never that simple, the dust from the Bodélé depression is swept up into the atmosphere and it travels extraordinary distances. Each year 50 million tonnes of mineral rich dried diatoms  from the old lake bed are deposited on the Amazon  acting  as  fertiliser . This meets half of the Amazons annual requirement. The world's biggest rain forest is supported by the world's biggest dust bowl. Dust from the depression also fertilises the Atlantic ocean causing blooms of phytoplankton at the bottom of the food chain. An amazing interdependence and  something that at first seems to only  be a problem is actually  a vital part of the world ecosystem.

Back to the hauntingly sad song,

I closed my eyes,

Only for a moment ,and the moments gone,

All my dreams, pass before my eyes a curiosity,

Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind.

Same old song

 

Just a drop of water in an endless sea,

 

All we do crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see

Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind.

 

Don't hang on,

Nothing lasts forever but  the earth and sky

It slips away,

All your money won't another minute buy

Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind

 Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind

 ( lyrics  from  Dust in the wind, Kansas)

 

Life can be hard, at times we could all give up in despair.  'It's all meaningless', says the writer of Ecclesiastes,  'a chasing after the wind' . In human terms we are all insignificant on the world stage of 7 billion people , but perhaps with God's help our grain of dust can be of  some significance and benefit to someone , somewhere on this planet.

                                                                                 

                                               A nearly perfect dust print of a paper cut

                                                    Valentines card in Chadian dust

Come and hear about our grains of dust making a difference at Guinebor II as we return to the UK this summer on the following dates 

              Wakefield Baptist, (6 July 10:30 and 6:30)      

                St Leonards East Sussex(13 July 10:30)

          Hull, Cottingham Road (20 July 10:30)

          Louth, Eastgate Union (20 July pm)

          Macclesfield, All Saints  C of E  (27 July 9:30)

          Forest Gate, Woodgrange London(10 August 11:00)

Possibly Penzance Chapel Street Methodist(17 August) TBC 

              and Kettering Fuller  (24 August)  (TBC)