Day 1 – Nyameyehene Receives Health Care

DATE: 1st September 2018

Since today was the last day of our Medical Outreach program, our team was very excited to go and provide their services to the people of Bayerebon No.3 village and its surrounding villages. We prayed after we boarded the bus. As was the tradition, we cracked a few jokes among ourselves to ease the stress and fatigue from the previous days. We exited the Bibiani town and went past the police check point towards the junction that leads to the seven villages. The moment we left Bibiani, the phone network signal started decreasing town after town until eventually all the networks were out of service. We kept our bus alive with the fun we shared.

At our usual fuel station about 4 miles from the Bibiani township, the bus turns right and starts traveling on an untarred road with bumps and pot holes. This ‘rough road’ was smaller than the main Bibiani road, and once in a while, a small village would appear on either sides of the road. Whenever our bus occasionally went through a small village, the children would shout and run behind the bus, some barefooted, and wave at our bus. At some point, the road was filled with either thick forests or huge farm lands of cocoa, orange and plantain trees at the sides of the road.

From someone who doesn’t enjoy roller-coaster rides, the mountains gave me a headache. Soon, this thrilling trip became dark and scary as the condition of the road went from dusty pot holes to thick muddy roads with erosion caused by heavy rains. The bus wasn’t moving again… we were stuck! Our tires weren’t big enough to climb up the muddy hill. The driver tried hard to force the bus to climb and about ten men from our team even got down to push the bus, but the more they tried, the rear tires just rotated at one place.

Luckily for the team, the bus got stuck at the entrance of Nyameyehene village where we had done the medical outreach five days ago. Some men in the village noticed our struggle and joined our team members to push the bus. Sitting in the bus with the rest of the ladies, I could feel the bus moving sideways and we could all see smoke coming from the right rear tire, which indicated that the clutches were burning out and the tires were wearing off. The brakes were close to failing so at a point, all the passengers had to step out of the bus to enable the men pushing the bus redirect it onto a much solid ground. The men rocked and lifted the bus slightly while pushing it up the hill at the same time. Gradually, the bus kept moving until it finally got to the top of the hill.

Our adventurous journey quickly ended at Bayerebon No.3 village in about 45 minutes. As we got down from the bus and saw hundreds of patients already lined up to see our medical team, an exciting feeling came over us; one that made each and everyone of us rest-assured that God was in our midst guarding us on this trip. We had a brief devotion with the patients and commenced our mission for the day.

Heading back to our guest house, we were all so happy thinking about how many lives we had touched and how many people we were able to take care off.

We prayed and started our journey back. The sun was bright and encouraging, until 15 minutes in our journey, a few droplets of rain reappeared on the windscreen. As the driver wipes it off, we all realize the roads would be slightly bad, but with confidence, the team trusted God to take over the journey once more.

Once again, the bus struggled to go downhill at Nyameyehene village. The roads were worse than we left it in the morning. On one very steep slope, the bus was just moving sideways for about 20 minutes. After we finally got through that section, the bus traveled smoothly until we got to another point where it couldn’t go uphill because it had run out of diesel. God being so good, a motorcyclist soon came passing and offered to give the bus driver a ride to grab some diesel. While he was away, the team got out of the bus and engaged in fun games for about 30 minutes.

The driver finally came back and topped up the fuel. Our bus moved and praise be to God, we arrived at our guest house safely.

We want to thank all our faithful Partners who prayed with us throughout this outreach. Your prayers kept us going every day! God richly bless you all!