5/3/2010 A New Vision Clinic is Born in Kibera

I had a fitful Sunday night’s sleep and was up every minute from 1am til 3am. I was not worried or concerned about our first day of mission work in Kibera, it was more like the excitement of a kid anticipating Christmas morning. I was secure in the knowledge that the Lord would use us in a mighty way, but my thoughts kept wandering to the new friends that we would make and the lives that we would touch through the Holy Spirit. The others all reported having the same experience.

As predicted, it was a very full day today in Kibera. We arrived at the church a little after 7am to begin configuring the sanctuary for the vision clinic. We got Thomas setup in a darkened room in the building that houses the Pastor’s office for performing eye exams using the autorefractor. We moved pews around to manage the traffic flow we anticipated. Pastor Dennis had a devotion for us just before we began work in earnest at 8am. We saw our first patient around 9am and had 437 people come through the clinic before we were through. 90 people got distance glasses, 26 also got reading glasses and 152 were fitted with reading glasses only. This seems like a much higher percentage of patients getting some kind of glasses than a normal clinic at an established site, maybe because of pent up demand and because those most in need of help might have shown up on the first day. 158 people didn’t get glasses or saw one of the three doctors and got medications or were referred for cataract surgeries, contact lenses or other services to outside sources. We have a budget for cataract surgeries that will pay for them at the rate of $60 to $75 at a Nairobi hospital. What a wonderful gift for a person with such troubles. Of course, only one eye at a time is done using traditional surgery, so a patient with cataracts in both eyes will need to return to one of our future clinics after they heal or find another way to get the other eye treated. Based on the history of the clinics at the slum in Kawangware, we may see as many as 1,000 to 1,200 people on Tuesday after word spreads throughout the community.

As with any operation involving lots of volunteers, there were a few speed bumps the first day and it did take a while to get things working well. We had a debriefing for the Pastor, the evangelists and the other workers at 5pm after we had shut down the clinic and cleaned up the church. I addressed the group and told them what a wonderful first day it had been and how the Lord had used them to reach many people. I had them all applaud for each other and it was very joyous. The constructive criticism involved 2 areas. At the start of the clinic, the evangelists began giving the Good News using the Evangicube to up to 20 people at a time. Some of the weakest and neediest people got pushed aside or were run past by younger late comers and there was, in hindsight, some unnecessary friction. This was resolved soon, but it took all day for myself and others to get the evangelists to understand that based on lots of experience, we know that we get far more people coming to Christ for the first time if groups are held to around 8 people. Just like our own TLC groups, when they get past a certain size, it becomes more uncomfortable to share the intimate details of one’s life. “What could be more personal than someone’s relationship to God?”, I asked. I would say they were still seeing groups of 12-15 people near the end of the day after all of our efforts to change this. The second stop for people coming to see us, the area where people waited under a large tent to register for the clinic, was at capacity most of the day, so there was no need to hurry with the evangelism, and I stressed that our main purpose for these clinics was not to provide free vision help, but was only a means to the end of growing the Kingdom of God. The Pastor jumped in and said he would see to it that the extra chairs would be removed from the 3 evangelism tents, making it impossible to see more than 10 people at a time. The second problem was that we were overwhelmed with more people needing reading glasses than we had anticipated and only Sharon and one volunteer, Esther, had been working that station. By the end of the day, we had a third volunteer, Jacqueline, who is in the music ministry of the church, trained and helping out. I’m sure things will go better tomorrow in this area. Pastor Dennis led a brief devotion and prayed over the workers to end the day.

We returned to our lodge and had a dinner of beef tips, rice and noodles, with pineapple for dessert. I told our chef about the clinic while arranging for what time dinner would be served and he said he has problems with his eyes. I told him I would make sure our driver gives him directions to the clinic and we expect to serve him sometime this week. I told our chef that no matter what he served, it would be delicious to us. We had worked straight through the day with no real breaks. The Pastor did buy 4 large loaves of bread, peanut butter and jelly and some chips after I mentioned we and the volunteers had already consumed a case of water but that we really needed to get the volunteers fed. We were able to stagger breaks of about 15 minutes for everyone and keep things moving. The Redeemer crew had snacks with them like granola bars which we really didn’t get time to eat hardly at all. I’m sure none of us drank enough water, it was warm by the end of the day and we are at altitude, so we need to make a conscious effort to take care of ourselves better. We waited until all the volunteers had been served then each took turns wolfing down a quick sandwich after the chips had run out. This was around 1:30pm. We did each get a soft drink of some kind with the sandwich.

After dinner, we finished our day by counting a tabulating the registration cards. It was a real blessing to have the team ready, willing and able to gladly help with this and we did some good reflecting on the day while we played “cards”. The Internet was down, so I am posting this at 2:38am and am headed back to bed until around 5:30, when we’ll all get up and do it again. What a blessing the first day of the clinic was to all involved, with many being served, new believers getting Bibles (no number available on that yet) and all of our faiths being strengthened by serving others and making friends with brothers and sisters in Christ in a faraway place. Thank you, Jesus!