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Ukraine
Mission Trip Daily Log |
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Greetings
to all, |
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The
group arrived on Friday at 2pm, unfortunately
our checked baggage did not arrive
until Saturday evening. But all is
well, we all have clothes to wear the
rest of our time here. |
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Lela
was very happy to see us (Rick Wood & me)
and was especially happy to see Dan
Standish, but really surprised
to see Judy Standish. She had
no idea that Judy was part of our group. |
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Dan
Standish |
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Judy
Standish |
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Our
goal was to try and visit the hospital
on Saturday, but Dr. Bayazitov was
away at a meeting in Kiev until Sunday
so we went to plan "B". |
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Plan "B" was
to go and visit the children of Internot
#4 at their summer camp. It was about
an hour ride and well worth the trip.
We caught up with the children at a
park. |
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Lela
hugging on the children |
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The
park is a War Memorial Park.
We had a good time looking
at the plane, tank, guns, and
especially the Submarine. (Pictured:
Rick Wood and Danny) |
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The
day ended with a late lunch at
Viktor's house where his wife
Diane fixed a feast. Everyone
enjoyed the meal very much. |
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The
last stop of the day was at House of
Hope. I am really impressed with
the work that has been done on this project
and it looks like the work is going to
be finished by the target date of September. |
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House
of Hope |
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That's
it for now. More to follow . . . |
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Danny
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Greetings
to all, |
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The
day started with all of us going to Temple
of Salvation Baptist Church this morning.
It was
the first Ukraine church I preached
at in 1998 when I made my first visit
here. They asked me if I would like
to share, and so I said "yes." I shared
a message from 2 Peter 1:1-11, with
the main focus being verses 5-7. It
was a little different sharing through
an intepreter. |
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Danny
preaching at Temple of Salvation Baptist
Church |
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The
children had a special program for the
church and it was great to be a part
of that. All
of them did a really good job. |
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I
sat there and thought about
my own grand-children and some
of the programs that they have
been in. |
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Very
proud parents took pictures
of their children and everyone
(except us) got the message.
We all just enjoyed seeing
the children. |
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Children's
special program |
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The
last event of the morning was a wedding.
In all my travels through the years
I have never attended a wedding in
a foreign country. |
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It
is very different from our own wedding
in a few ways. For example, the bride
and groom walk out together down
the isle. The parents are asked to
pray for their children, and the
couple wear their rings on their
right hand not the left. |
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All
in all it was a good morning of fellowship
with other believers. |
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day ended with a flurry of visitor's
to Lela's house to meet with us. Old
friends of Rick and new friends for me. |
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Today
is my son's birthday, Dan is 30 something.
He is a fine young man (almost getting
to be an older young man). Happy birthday
Dan. |
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| Danny |
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After
a good breakfast and devotions Rick, Dan,
and I headed to the hospital to meet with
Dr. Bayazitov. I had an extra Harvest
shirt so the three of us showed up at the
hospital with our Harvest International
logo shirts on in Red, White, and Blue
(Go USA). |
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Danny,
Rick, Dan |
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Dr.
Miriam Wheeler, who has been here in Odessa
for ten years, was our interpreter. We
were very happy to have someone who was a
medical person and could speak the language
to be able to ask the questions we needed
the answers to. She was extremely
valuable to have, and the communications
between Dr. Bayazitov, Rick, and her made
the day much easier. |
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Dr.
Bayazitov, Rick, Dr. Miriam Wheeler |
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Rick
spent several hours looking at all the equipment
and talking with some of the staff of the
hospital. |
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His
overall assessment of the equipment was
that it is all in very good condition
and it will only require a small amount
of time to convert some of the power
sources from 110v to 220v. |
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Ukrainian
Biomedical Tech & Rick |
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We
got a tour of the entire hospital and I
was amazed again as to how old some of
the equipment is. They are still
using 40 and 50 year old equipment to
do surgeries. |
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Dan
and Rick spent time talking with the
Ukraine doctors about how they do surgery. |
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Explaining
how
surgery is performed |
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As
the Lord would have it, this week is Medical
or Doctor Appreciation Week in Ukraine, so
there was a local news station (FoxNews Ukraine,
I think, just kidding) and they interviewed
me for their report due to the large donation
that we have sent. It
was very interesting and it gave me an opportunity
to tell them about how the Lord has blessed
us and why we do what we do. |
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Local
news station interviewing Danny |
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While
we (Dan, Rick, and I) were at the hospital
Judy Standish was at Lela's house wrapping
some gifts for the all of House of Hope
Staff members and friends. She
also traveled with Lela to the Internot to
take care of some things that Lela needed to
get done. |
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Judy
wrapping gifts |
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It
was a rather long day and I am very tired. That's
all for today. |
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Danny |
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What
an exciting time we had at the hospital
today. Rick was able to change
the power supply from 110v to 220v
on one of the ESU's and teach the
Ukrainian BioMedical Tech how to
do it. According
to Rick the Tech is very sharp and
won't have any problems in making the
switch on all the other equipment
we have sent. That has cut
our work load down quite a bit. Rick
brought the maintence manual for
the equipment and gave them to the
Tech. He was very grateful
and felt relieved that he now had
something he could look at to make
all the repairs. |
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Rick
working on power supply |
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As
soon as the ESU was converted, they
took it to the OR to be used in surgery. |
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ESU
equipment being used in surgery |
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We
were invited in to observe
the first surgery using the new ESU
and Suction Pump that we sent. Dr.
Bayazitov was overjoyed to be able
to perform surgery with this new
equipment. |
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Doctors?
or observers! (Danny, Dan, Rick) |
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After
finishing a surgery Dr. Bayazitov showed
me a light source that I gave him 3
years ago and wanted to know
if it could be converted to
220v. Rick said he would look
at it and see what he could. |
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Rick
opened the power source, looked around
a little and found a switch that
he changed from 110v to 220v. He
made the switch and everyone just
looked at him like he had just performed
a miracle. It was very humbling
to see the joy that something like
that brings to these physicians. I
am so grateful for the opportunity
to be a part of this project. |
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The
day ended with us being inivted back
on Thursday to observe some more
surgeries and to help train on how
to use the new Anesthesia Machines
that they have. We are looking
forward to doing that. |
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Danny |
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June
13 , 2007 (Wednesday) |
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Today
was our sightseeing day. I
gave Viktor a Harvest shirt and he
decided to wear it. We both
went to town in our shirts. |
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Danny
and Viktor sporting the Harvest shirts |
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We
traveled to downtown Odessa to see
some of the historical sights. We
enjoyed seeing the sea port on the
Black Sea where just about everything
that is imported comes. We were able
to do some shop-ping and buy some
gifts to take home for family and friends. |
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Seaport
on the Black Sea |
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Viktor
had scheduled a 3 PM meeting
with the direc-tor of FONTANKA,
which is an institution for boys
that has been closed for about
three years. |
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Meeting
with director of FONTANKA |
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There
is a move to open the institute
again but it is in need of major
repairs. |
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FONTANKA
Institute Building |
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We
ended the day with dinner at McDonalds
with Viktor and his family. We were
all happy to have "junk
food" which we haven't had for a
few days. |
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McDonald's
(ahh! home cookin!) |
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June
14 , 2007 (Thursday) |
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Today
we didn't get started until after noon
so Dan, Judy, and I went to the market
to get some things to bring home. We
walked for over an hour up and down row
after row of clothes, shoes, and many
other items but we were unable to find
that special thing that each of us was
looking for. We returned to Lela's
house and had some lunch and waited for
Dima to come get us. |
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At
2:30 pm Dima finally showed up to take
Rick, Dan, and me to the hospital to work
on some more equipment. When we
arrived we went to Dr. Bayazitov's office
to meet him. Dr. Bayazitov had
commented the day before how much he
liked the Harvest shirt, so Rick gave
him his. As we were walking to
his office I said, "I bet Dr. Bayazitov
has his shirt on." As soon
as we got to his office, there he was
with his shirt on. |
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Danny,
Dr. Bayazitov, Rick |
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From
his office we were taken right to the
OR room that was being prepared for
heart surgery. There seemed to
be a problem with the new Anesthesia
machine and the doctors could not
figure it out. |
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Rick
was able to fix the problem and
do a little training. |
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Explaining
problem with anesthesia machine |
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Within
30 minutes Rick was able to fix
the problem. |
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Rick
repairing anesthesia machine |
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Once
that was done we were invited to visit
the Intensive Care Unit. All
of us are shocked to see the lack of
any kind of life support equipment. The
ICU is a 30-bed ward with 3 old ventilators,
4 Pulse Oximeters, and NO monitors. The doctors
try their best to keep everyone alive. |
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ICU
Ward |
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Dr.
Bayazitov meets us again out-side
the ICU with what he says was the "old" Anesthesia
Machine. We
all had a good laugh and then he
tells us that he wants to use the
sledge hammer to destroy one of the
old Anesthesia Machines. |
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Dr.
Bayazitov/Anesthesia Machine? |
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The
picture below shows the old machine
with the new replacement. |
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Rick
& Dr. Bayazitov exhibiting Post-modern
& Pre-historic equipment! |
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Our
day ends with a planned surprise birthday
party and staff Pizza dinner. Lela
turns 82 on June 28, and the staff all
wanted to celebrate with her. It
would be the only chance they would have
because there is a team in Odessa until
the end of the month. |
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Lela's
Birthday Party! |
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The
day is over and we're going to bed. |
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For
over a week we have been planning a visit
with David Bentley from Gateway International,
a ministry that is helping Ukrainians
set up Crisis Pregnancy Centers. David
was headed to Kiev and would be passing
through Odessa so today was the only
opportunity to meet with him. We
drove for almost an hour to meet at McDonald's. It
was a very productive meeting and I hope
to be able to work with David once we
both get back to the U.S. |
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David,
Rick, Danny |
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After
lunch with David, Dima Bayazitov took
us for a short tour of the medical university
that he attends. He showed us a
very unusual place. It is a museum
of Anatomy. This
is not only a museum but a study hall
for medical students. It is full
of different organs, bones, and body
parts. It was interesting
but I wouldn't want to work there. |
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Museum
of Anatomy |
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We
also had an opportunity to visit the
Pediatric Cardiology Hospital for a few
minutes to see what some of their needs
were. Dr. Mariya Bayazitove is
the head of the hospital and gave us
a tour. We located a Heart Monitor
that was donated by Samaritan's Purse
and that I was able to bring with me
last year and asked about it's condition. It's
in great shape and doing a good service. We
also had an opportunity to see their
EKG machine. It's over 25 years
old and they only have one. |
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25-Year
old EKG Machine & new Heart Monitor |
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We
ended the day with a visit to the Odessa
Regional Hospital for one last look at
all the equipment and to answer a few
more questions. We shook hands
with the General Director of the Hospital,
hugged Dr. Bayazitov and off we went. |
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Tomorrow
is Saturday and we have many things to
do before we get ready to leave Odessa,
Ukraine. This is the last blog
for the trip. We will be traveling
over the next few days and will not have
Internet access until we are back in
the U.S. |
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This
has been a very rewarding trip for me
and I have learned a lot about medical
equipment. I am very pleased that
with the exception of one piece of equipment,
everything we shipped was appropriate
and is being used or will be used. God
has seen to it that this was a successful
project. Praise His Name! |
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