November in Gabon

 Good news! David is back and it’s all-you-can-eat mango season in Gabon. 

We were very sad to say an earthly goodbye to David’s father, Kirby, but David was grateful to be with him for a month before he died. We rejoice in the firm hope that he is now more alive than we can imagine in the arms of Jesus. Josie held down the fort with lots of support and was thankful for your prayers. 

While David was gone, we celebrated the graduation of our chief surgery resident, Abraham, who will be working in his home country of Guinea. While we are very proud of his achievement, we are also sad to say goodbye to him and his family. 

Our recent surgery graduate, Dr. Abraham Camara with his family.

The following week, we had a mission team retreat at a nice hotel with air-conditioning and a bigger pool. It was such a blessing to have a visiting pastoral team from the US lead us in worship (in English!) and provide wise teaching for the adults and kids. 

We have started the rainy season in Gabon; when the pouring rain on the metal roof is so loud that we can’t have a conversation inside. While fall colors and pumpkin spice are all over the US, red mud is the color of the season here.

Today the hospital had a very exciting visit from the interim president of Gabon, with Assistant Team Leader David as our mission team’s representative. We all found it amusing when saying goodbye, the president said in English, “see you next time!” 

David touring the hospital with "Son Excellence, Monsieur le Président de la Transition"

Each year “October Rose” is the month of women’s cancer screenings, which I, Josie, was happy to help facilitate along with the OB, other midwives and a new Gabonese intern doctor. After traveling around the US asking you to pray for Gabonese doctors to come to Bongolo Hospital, we are thankful for 3 medical students, 2 medical interns and a pharmacy intern who have arrived in the last month. There was a lot of work and some stress involved in housing them, which reminded me of the saying, “If you pray to God to move mountains, you’d better be willing to wake up next to a shovel.” I was convicted when I realized that we had prayed for these doctors (and had asked you to pray too!) and that I should be thankful instead of stressed. Of course, God had a plan and a place for each of them. Thank you for your prayers! 

We continue to see patients come and go through the hospital and pray that they will know God’s love through the care that they receive here. We try to remember the patients that we see go home healthy when the ones that don't survive stick out in our minds. We continue to trust God’s sovereignty even without understanding. 

Healthy sleeping baby

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Romans 15:13

Prayers:

• Pray for our Team Leader who recently lost her mother
• Pray for the medical students and interns as they are learning here
• Pray for the next PAACS surgery resident who arrives in December
• Pray for the co-op teacher who is greatly outnumbered

Praise:

• Praise God that we survived 6 weeks of David in the US and the rest of us in Gabon
• Praise for the arrival of Gabonese interns and medical students
• Praise God that all the recent travels of our mission team have gone well
• Praise God for a great team retreat

Thank you for partnering with us in the work at Bongolo Hospital! We are so grateful to all of you who have worked and sacrificed to help bring Christ-centered, compassionate and excellent healthcare to those most in need. 

With love,

David, Josie, Noa, Maria, Micah and Anica Skavdahl

If you would like to partner in our ministry financially please see the information below:

Online giving:

Christian Health Service Corps - Acceptiva

Via bank or personal check:

Make checks payable to: “Christian Health Service Corps” and write "Project 208” in the memo.

Mail to:  Christian Health Service Corps

PO Box 132 

Fruitvale, TX 75127

Bongolo Hospital Intro Tour

 Below is a link to some photos of Bongolo Hospital. We hope this gives you a small picture of where we are working...

https://photos.app.goo.gl/EJiFWJVzkDitcvNU6

Skavdahl Update December 28, 2021

Christmas Day at Bongolo church

We hope you had a wonderful Christmas! This was our first equatorial Christmas and instead of skiing or sledding we enjoyed the swimming pool. Of course the kids were excited to open presents and make sure every square inch of the living room floor was covered with wrapping paper. We are blessed to be surrounded by a loving community and enjoyed a children's program at the Bongolo church and Christmas dinner with our team on the mission station.

David has been quite occupied with work at the hospital and is learning many new skills to become an effective surgeon in this context. Josie has been spending time on the medicine ward and in the maternity ward. She is learning tropical medicine and the challenges of treating malaria, tuberculosis, HIV and sickle cell disease. She loves having the opportunity to take care of patients, though it can be overwhelming at times.

We are grateful for the work God is doing here and are excited to be a part of it. We truly must learn to rely on His strength as we face the challenges given to us and we appreciate all of your prayers in this. Christ’s words in Matthew ring especially true:

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (11:28-30).

We pray that you may find rest in Jesus Christ as we move into the new year. 

Best church family ever

 We arrived at the Bongolo Hospital Station on Sunday evening and have been unpacking boxes and putting together IKEA furniture since. Just before going to check out the pool yesterday, we noticed ants crawling out of box and decided to take care of it ASAP. It turned out to be the jackpot. So much love packed into ziplocks with every item. We will be feeling the love for a long time over here.

Ps- we did take the water guns to the pool and they were a blast

PPs- the ants only got one box of candy

Update November 2021: Our Home is in Heaven

 

Our Home is in Heaven

We hope this update finds you well and that you have started playing non-stop Christmas music in anticipation of the Advent season. After many transitions, we have arrived in Gabon where we hope to be serving for many years to come. As many of you know, the seed for this endeavor had been planted at least 17 years ago and the past 2 years have been full of serious logistical planning- including language training. It is a joy to watch the seeds which God planted in our hearts so long ago begin to take shape. We are excited to share the fruit of that with you in the coming years. 

We praise God that Josie had an uneventful surgery and has recovered very well. We are thankful for her surgical team who worked incredibly hard to give her the best possible care and took into consideration our desire to continue to Africa as soon as it was safely possible. We are also indebted to our community in Maine (that includes many of you reading this letter) who came together to support us during and after Josie’s surgery. It was incredibly encouraging to experience our community gather around us to provide meals, watch our children, deliver coffee and even offer up their homes for us. To say we were humbled by all of your care is an understatement. 

Noa, Maria, Micah and Anica are all doing well, although not having a strict rhythm over the last few months has not been easy for them. As a family we are looking forward to having a place to settle into again. A place where we can all gather around a dining room table and enjoy a meal together. A place we might call home. Of course as soon as I started thinking about this, I was convicted by my 8 year old daughter who was recently asked by one of our neighbors: “Where do you call home”? Noa responded “Our home is in heaven”. This certainly could be heard as a Christian cliche, but in Noa’s mind it is simply the reality she is living. It is also the reality God reveals in His Word. As Paul writes in II Corinthians 4:16-18: “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” Paul continues his encouragement in chapter 5 quite plainly writing our home is in heaven. It is a truth that I must continue to drive into my own heart as we continue in the work God has called us to. It can be easy to become discouraged amidst temporal setbacks such as cancelled visas, health issues, vehicle failures, etc.. But these are all momentary troubles in the reality of eternity. In fact, God promises these experiences are actually building our character and preparing us for eternity. It is a beautiful promise. 

Some items of prayer include:

Praise:

• Josie’s safe surgery and excellent recovery

• Safe travels from the United States to Gabon

• The opportunity to say good-byes to our friends and families in the U.S.

• God’s faithfulness as we have truly felt carried through this past few months

Prayer

• The transition for our children as they learn to live and go to school in Africa

• Our own transition as a family as David returns to full time work and Josie returns to part-time clinical work

• Josie and David as we continue learning the French language

• Forming relationships with the families and individuals at Bongolo

• Opportunities to live and share the gospel of Jesus with others

Again we thank you all for your support and are looking forward to sharing more updates as we begin working at Bongolo Hospital. Soli Deo Gloria!

Update August 2021

 We hope this finds you all doing well. We would like to provide a brief update and give you some idea of our plans ahead. On August 20th we finished language school in Switzerland (and celebrated 17 years of marriage). The past 8 months have been quite a journey. We feel incredibly fortunate to have acquired a solid foundation of the French language which we hope to build upon for the rest of our lives. We were of course sad to leave our community in Switzerland and the beautiful country itself. The kids recounted what they most enjoyed during our time there:

Noa: “chocolate, Swiss army knives and horse camp”

Maria: “the mountains, the hikes and Barry (the famous St. Bernard)”

Micah: “Motorcycles!”

Anica: “seeing my friends at daycare and the double decker train”

As many of you know, Josie’s mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer while we were living in Switzerland. Through this we learned that Josie herself is a carrier of the BRCA1 mutation which places her at a significantly increased risk of developing both breast and ovarian cancer. After prayer and careful consideration she has decided to move forward with risk reducing surgery which includes a mastectomy with reconstruction and a salpingectomy (fallopian tube removal). At some point in the next 10 years, she will plan to have her ovaries removed, but not before moving to Africa with 4 young children! David has coordinated with the surgeons he knows here in Maine and they have been very gracious to fit Josie into their schedules quickly. They have recommended at least a month of recovery, so this will postpone our departure to Gabon. Our hope is that doing this surgery now will prevent us from needing to leave Gabon after we are settled there. God has given us peace about this decision and we have been able to laugh about the irony of getting plastic surgery before going to the mission field (never did Josie imagine getting breast implants!). We appreciate your prayers so far and would really love them September 14 during surgery. David needs your prayers the most. He will take care of the kids while Josie is unable to lift, push, pull, or be very useful for about 3 weeks. Once Josie has recovered sufficiently we will head to South Dakota to repack our bags for Africa and then Idaho to visit family. God willing, we hope to be at Bongolo hospital sometime in mid to late October.  

Of course this is not a pill we wanted to swallow, but we trust that it is all part of our Father’s perfect plan and He is using it in ways we may not understand now, but will be clear later. We know the day will come when this broken creation “will be set free from its bondage and corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom 8:21). It is in this hope we can rest secure. Jesus Christ gave us his life and gave us his Spirit so that we might share that hope with the world and we are so thankful to have the opportunity to do that. 

Currently, we are staying in the lovely “studio chalet” of Aaron and Bevin Holmberg in Falmouth, Maine, so if you are local, playdates and meals would be greatly appreciated. Again we are grateful for your support and appreciate your prayer during this time. 

Praise

• A solid foundation of the French language
• Smooth travels back to the States
• Lodging for a longer than expected period of time in Maine

Prayer

• A safe surgery and smooth recovery for Josie
• Our children’s emotional health as we continue to face many transitions
• Retaining the French we have learned 
• Opportunities to share the gospel with others during this time of transition

Skavdahl Update June 2021

 From our apartment in Switzerland, there are many great paths to take a walk or run. We can go east to traverse vineyards and have an open view of Lake Neuchâtel, head west through a forest to a river gorge with its sculpted rock and crystal clear water, or descend to the (free!) public beach along the lake. It doesn’t seem like there is a bad choice. So too with the paths God has given us. We have many options, we don’t have to feel stuck on any one road, and He will meet us on all of them. The advantages of being a missionary include the adventure of travel, providing opportunities for our children to see the world differently and knowing we are fulfilling what God has called us to. A big disadvantage is being so far away from our friends and family, but I am trying to see this as part of the path God has us on.

This reality was made very clear to us over the past 2 months and April 1st was not a joke. That morning, my mom, Lorna (Vandenberg) Squyer, was supposed to be boarding a plane to visit us in Switzerland. She called from the airport to say some piece of documentation was missing and she was not allowed to board the plane. While this was very disappointing, it was clearly the providence of God, as mom then told us about a large mass growing in her abdomen. Initially, she had postponed surgery in order to visit us. After her trip to Switzerland was cancelled, she underwent surgery and what we had assumed to be cancer was removed almost entirely. Initially diagnosed as metastatic breast cancer, it was later determined to be ovarian cancer. Knowing that mom was alone in a hospital in Panama while I was in Switzerland was terrible. I ended up going to Panama and convinced mom to temporarily relocate to my sister's home in Idaho. I spent 6 weeks with mom between Panama and Idaho where she started chemotherapy, but David and the kids were still in Switzerland. Again, I felt torn between two places. I am now back in Switzerland, and we have plans to see mom again before we head to Africa, but this feeling of being stretched between multiple places and people has been the biggest challenge so far in our missionary career. I am so thankful for all of your prayers, support and encouragement. I am also very thankful for David (nominated for the dad of the year award) and his willingness to take on any challenge. I am thankful for the time with my mom and sister, and pray we have much more.

While I was gone, David and the kids visited a 1,000 yr old castle, went to the zoo in Zurich, went rock climbing and enjoyed many hikes. While they were happy to have me back, it sounds like they were able to survive. The other missionaries learning French here and folks from the local church helped watch the kids while David went for a run or grocery shopping, they brought meals over and were a helpful distraction. God has certainly provided a community for us here that we will be sad to leave, but grateful to consider part of our lives. One of the most beautiful things these last few months have taught us is the depth of love and unity brothers and sisters in Christ can have for one another. We have received much prayer, support and encouragement from our church family here in Switzerland and in the United States. It reinforces what Paul concludes in Ephesians 3:15-16: 

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. 

We have certainly felt "built up in love" and we pray it is a powerful witness to Christ in our community.

We have 8 weeks of language school left (yikes!- so much to learn) and lots of site-seeing we’d still like to do. David has discovered that the Tour de France will be as close as a 2 hour drive from us, so he’s plotting to get to see part of it in person. We have both been able to get Covid vaccines and travel restrictions are finally lifting. Restaurants in Switzerland only just opened June 15th, after over a year of being closed.
We will also be happy to head back to Maine and do a Midwest tour to visit as many people as possible before we head to Gabon in the fall.
Thank you so much for your financial support and prayers. We appreciate all of you!
We pray you all are doing well and staying healthy,
With love,
Josie (& David) Skavdahl