06 Nov Mamei Simbo Leaves Hospital After 9+ Weeks
Billy Simbo, bishop of Sierra Leone Conference, sent this update on his wife, Mamei, who has been hospitalized in Abington, Pa., for the past nine weeks.
I am happy to report to you that yesterday, Friday, November 5, Mamei was discharged from Abington Hospital to Brookside Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center in Roslyn, Pa. She has made enough progress with her medical care that the hospital deemed that what she now needed was support and rehabilitation, and she can get that outside of the hospital.
So after 9 weeks and four days, we left Abington Memorial Hospital at around 7:30 pm to transition to Brookside. This is a very nice long term-care facility that Mamei came to last year after her second knee surgery. Many of the staff remember her, and they have been to her room to renew acquaintances. We are happy to leave the hospital behind after such a long period of admission.
Mamei will have kidney dialysis three times a week for the foreseeable future. Her kidneys are not producing any waste, so dialysis must take place to get rid of toxins in her blood. Brookside has arranged for outpatient treatment. This means ambulance rides to the dialysis center 3 times weekly.
We are grateful to all of you who have been praying with us from the very beginning of this whole episode in our lives. We thank all of you who have supported us in various ways, letters, phone calls, email, and personal visits either at home or at the hospital It has been a blessing to have all of you as our base of support.
Please pray for the following specific items.
- That Mamei’s two significant bedsores will heal as quickly as possible without spreading.
- That Mamei would be given the strength and courage she needs to cooperate with the rehabilitation regimen, as she faces long period of rehabilitation for her knees and the lack of mobility in her left arm and leg. She has a very low pain threshold, but this is a time when she needs to be able to withstand pain related to doing the exercises required.
- Pray for the continued dialysis. It is a 2-3 hour process that usually leaves Mamei wiped out and tired. We are trusting that her kidneys will pick up after a while, but no one is giving any guarantees. The multiple myeloma does affect kidney functions.
- After family consultation and consultations with the Global Ministries Office and the Conference personnel in Sierra Leone. I have booked my return flight to Freetown for Monday, November 22, and will arrive on November 23. This will give me about two weeks before the start of our Bi-Annual Conference in Bo. I will be coming back in January after the installation service for the new bishop. Pray for added strength and grace to do the things I have to do back in Sierra Leone to end my term of service, especially with the 3 months absence from the field.
- Pray for the rest of the family who will have to step in and be by Mamei during the time of her stay here at Brookside.
- Pray for strength to pack up our personal effects. Mamei and I had planned to work on this between the time she would have normally come to Sierra Leone in November and when we would have returned to the US sometime in the Spring of 2011. Now all of those plans have changed and I have to wrap things up on my own.
Thank you for your willingness to take on our prayer support.
Mark Wilson (right), senior pastor of Fowlerville UB (Fowlerville, Mich.). 
Marilyn Reeck sent the following message on Wednesday, November 3. She and her husband, Roger, are missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators and part of the Global Ministries endorsed staff.
At The Well, we waited until the final Sunday in October to make a presentation to Pastor Josh Kesler (right). According to the presenting elder, Larry Lawrence, it was to make sure he was doing a good job all month! Of course that brought a few laughs. Pastor Josh said, “And they gave it to me anyways!”
Rachel E. Sanders (right), 93, wife of retired UB minister Willard Sanders, passed away Sunday, October 31, in Berne, Ind. She was a member of Hudson United Brethren Church (Hudson, Ind.). She and Willard were married in 1939.