Month: July 2019

July/August/September are the months of the rainy season in the Sahel of Chad where we live and work.

Historically, there are fewer patients and our Caregivers Village is almost empty at this time of year. Not this year!

The hospital is full. Patients have to wait for beds. Surgeries are delayed.

Now that we have two surgeons, we could squeeze in a few more operations a week but the constraint is lack of beds.

Thus the Caregivers Village which was not even being used three years ago is also full, in respect to shelter.

Some residents are camping where there is no shelter, which is sad.

Just as we are praying for funds to add a hospital ward, we are now praying for funds to add more shelter to the Caregivers Village.

If the Lord leads you to contribute to these projects, please contact our mission or send your gift to:

Crossover Global
7520 Monticello Rd
Columbia, SC 29203 USA

Serving Jesus in Chad,
Bert and Debbie Oubre

We need more missionary housing. This is a good problem to have!

We expect four or five new long term families to move on campus over the next months and year. We also have more short termers planning to serve and many visitors. We need more housing.

In addition to adding a three bedroom house, we will remodel the building below which for years served as our sterilization center.

Good friends from SC supplied funds to remodel this building and converted it into two one-bedroom apartments. Another good friend, a SC architect, drew the building plans.

I will post another photo in five to six months. 

The first operation I did here at G2 about nine years ago was an amputation of a pretty little 8 y/o girl’s arm.

The family thought the girl had broken her arm and instead of bringing her to the hospital be treated they took her to a traditional healer (bone setter).

The splint they applied was too tight and the result was gangrene of the forearm and hand. We found no fracture, which seemed to make this already very sad case worse.

I hoped that this would be the last of such cases I would see but, unfortunately, little four-year-old Fatime (see photo) endured the same painful ordeal only to end up having an amputation here three days ago.

Of course, we try out best to educate parents and anyone else listening to avoid bone setters but there some connections of the charlatans with the spiritual world. Often our advice is not heeded.

We’ve been back in Chad at Hopital de GB2 for one week.

Below we’re praying at our daily prayer meeting at 6:45 am.

The staff of 85 starts their workday at 7 am. Attendance at morning prayer is voluntary.