2016 trip in 5 months....whoa!

On November 21st, John drove supplies and equipment to Kansas to load on the shipping container that will be sent to New Day Orphanage. It was a lot of supplies and equipment! Big THANK YOU to John for making the long drive. Not only are supplies in all of these boxes, but equipment for our future clinic too! Garage doors for the clinic building, an industrial sewing machine (just like I use at work so I know how to thread it and run that thing...you have no idea how exciting this is as I'm not a seamstress at all), back up generator, and lots more. 

Speaking of the future clinic, construction should start early 2016! We are really excited that our 2017 trip will likely be in the new clinic! 

To explain the confusing-ness that shipping all of these supplies internationally results in---the shipping container that was sent out early 2015 did not arrive to New Day until after our May 2015 trip was over. So, we will have all of those supplies for our trip in 2016. The equipment and supplies in these pictures will probably not be there for our May 2016 trip, which means we'll use them in 2017. The equipment for the clinic will be used when construction starts...like the garage doors...when the container gets there. We have more supplies that we definitely need for our 2016 trip at Chris' house that will be packed in plastic tubs for extra baggage on our flights. Yikes!....it gets confusing sometimes. 

Our next trip will be the first 3 weeks of May 2016. We do not have plane tickets purchased yet but will be getting those soon. It's just 5 months away...and that will be here before we know it! I find myself again and again just in awe that God has given me this opportunity with Prosthetic Promises. I tell people often that I'm just excited to be part of His work. It's really incredible to see what responding to God's call has led to. 

Team Prosthetic Promises would so appreciate your prayers as we get closer to our next trip and continue with preparations. Thank you so much for your interest and support!

Raffle drawing

Today was the drawing for the raffle to raise money for New Day Orphanage to help with purchasing solar energy equipment. A huge THANK YOU!!! for all who donated and bought raffle tickets. Prosthetic Promises raised $13,745---all given to New Day Orphanage to help purchase the solar energy equipment. 

For accountability (and certainly not because I do well speaking on video), I had Jason video me doing the drawing. We used the sophisticated "mixing bowl" raffle drawing technique :)

New technology, new contacts and donations

Chris and I attended a national prosthetic and orthotic conference held in San Antonio earlier this month. #1, it was great to spend some time with Chris...we went to dinner a few nights too! We also attended lots of lectures and saw some awesome new technology. 

There are several things I'm excited about from the conference, but to just highlight a few...

We saw a new above knee socket design that will be incredibly helpful in fitting patients in Zambia. This socket design can be fit on the patient in one visit. Right now, we see patients for casting and then they have to come back for fitting. This is especially difficult for the patients who travel great distances or have lack of transportation. The Socket-less Socket will be awesome for us to use. The prosthetist who designed this, Jay Martin, did a seminar on the new socket design, and we were able to talk with him afterwards about us using this in Zambia. It was a truly awesome conversation with a fellow Christian to see how we can use his technology to help others in Zambia. 

The Socket-less Socket. www.martinbionics.com

Another new product is the AT prosthetic knee, which is waterproof and very durable. I was able to speak with the CEO of LegWorks, which is the company that makes this prosthetic knee. We had a great discussion about us using this knee in Zambia. They have tested this knee in 10 different countries in various conditions, so we know it will be super durable for the conditions our patients in Zambia encounter. 

AT knee. www.legworks.org

Also, I got to see lots of other practitioners I know at the conference, and it was great to visit and catch up with them. I talked about Prosthetic Promises with so many different people and found a few prosthetists who are interested in joining us for a future trip to Zambia! Several manufacturers of prosthetic components are making donations of parts for our upcoming trip. Yay!!!

We are definitely in planning mode right now for our upcoming Spring 2016 trip. Buying parts and supplies, purchasing doors and equipment for our future clinic to be shipped over to Zambia and overall just getting really excited! 

Backyard Benefit for Prosthetic Promises

I'm a little behind on reporting such exciting news, but I've been at a conference the past week (which is a whole other post to come soon). 

Hope Overturf, board member of Prosthetic Promises, instigated and helped organize a Backyard Benefit fundraiser for PPIHN to raise funds for our future multipurpose clinic. We are so thankful to Hope for starting this conversation, Dr. David and Geri Ann Webster, Dr. Dacen and Netsy DeLaPaz, and Dave and Marilyn White for organizing and hosting the wonderful event on October 3rd. Over $5,000 was raised for Prosthetic Promises' future clinic in Zambia, Africa. It is so awesome to see God's provisions and where He is leading PPIHN for His purpose. 

There were lots of items from Africa in the silent auction.

Me-"Let me take a pretty picture of you, Chris" 

Chris- "I don't take pretty pictures"

She is beautiful, and awesome, and I am so fortunate to call her friend, mentor and mission partner.

Live music for the evening.

We had a powerpoint going of patients we saw on our trips.

A beautiful evening with lots of people and visiting. We had the opportunity to meet so many new people.

The homes that the event was hosted at are gorgeous. I loved the outdoor lighting and backyard.

Over the Plate gourmet food truck served DELICIOUS tacos for dinner. Read more about Over the Plate here.

Again, we are so thankful to all who made this fundraising event possible. We are gearing up for Prosthetic Promises' trip for 2016. Stay tuned for preparation updates. 

Solar Energy

Prosthetic Promises loves New Day Orphanage. New Day Orphanage needs solar energy. SO...we want to help New Day get a solar energy system!

Prosthetic Promises partners with New Day Orphanage in Zambia to make our yearly trips happen. We stay at the orphanage, and they coordinate people in need of prosthetic services for us to see when we're there. If you haven't checked out their website, please do. New Day is wonderful! They have so much love for these kids. It's so awesome to witness what God is doing at this orphanage in rural Zambia. Please pray for the leaders and staff as they pour into the lives of these children, teaching them--loving them--showing them Christ. And as they impact the community around New Day Orphanage.

Scene

Back story: Lake Kariba is the world's largest man-made lake and reservoir by volume. The dam supplies hydropower for both Zambia and Zimbabwe. The water level of Lake Kariba is very low right now, which has resulted in Zambia curbing energy use to preserve water levels. Read more here. 

What does this mean?? This means New Day Orphanage is experiencing 8 hours a day without electricity. Electricity out this long makes food storage difficult in refrigerators and freezers, and makes it difficult for the water pump to fill the water towers, and means there's no lights on. This is a BIG impact.

Rainy season will start within the next month so the water level of Lake Kariba will be replenished, BUT electricity outages at New Day are common. We have experienced some of these power outages on our prosthetic trips with the power out for as little as 10 minutes to up to several hours. And that was just after the rainy season stopped. 

Solar energy will give New Day the ability to have back-up power for these electricity outages. The initial design will be to keep the basics going like freezers and refrigerators, the water pump and some lights. The design will have the availability to add more solar panels and battery storage later on as New Day continues to grow. This will also give our future clinic solar energy availability when the power goes out. 

The cost of the initial set up will be around $15,000. Prosthetic Promises is doing a raffle to help raise some of the funds needed for the solar energy system. Please contact me if you'd like to buy raffle tickets or donate towards this cause. katie.b.brinkley@gmail.com is my email.

The raffle drawing is November 21, 2015. This is a short time, but the solar energy system needs to be purchased before December in order to go on a shipping container scheduled to leave for New Day. 

This Brinkley is on a mission===> Let's get New Day Orphanage solar energy!!!

Prosthetic Promises Video #2

I completed another video compilation with the rest of the video segments from our May trip.

Zambia 2015 Video

I finally finished video #1 of our trip. This is a compilation of clips that I feel really illustrates what we do far better than just pictures can. A big thank you to Erin for taking most of the videos.