Kawangware vision clinic is open for business!

We had a wonderful day from start to finish.  We had a hurried breakfast at 7am because we needed to be on the road at 7:20 to setup the rest of the clinic.  Our cook, Kennedy, made some good fried eggs with sausage and we had bread and fruit from a buffet.  There was hot milk, but no hot water, so I made my Nescafe with hot milk and it was actually quite good.  Our ride into the slum was uneventful, but it was fun to see the looks on Linda’s face as she saw new things and got a taste of a weekday rush hour in Nairobi.  It’s pretty much like a high speed video game, but you get used to it pretty quickly.  We had a nice surprise when we arrived at the church. Our old friend Pastor Zedekiah and his wife Karen were there to greet us.  They had an 8:30 commitment, so we could only visit for a minute or two.  We hope to see them again before the end of the clinic. 

We got all of our footlockers situated and other last minute details taken care of, had a morning devotion led by Pastor James and then got to work seeing our first patients.  We only had a few minor first day glitches which included getting the right lighting and technique down to work the autorefractors and the usual getting used to each job in the clinic.  With a small team, it was remarkable how smoothly things were running by noon, when we had seen about 180 people.  This was due to having seasoned volunteers like Barrack, Paul, Max, Frank and others with us again, the excellent work of Nuru (LHM in Kenya) and our driver Steven helping in many, many ways from crowd control to translating to anything else that needed doing.  By the time we ended the day, we had seen nearly 300 people, pretty respectable for a first day.  We had Max out in the neighborhood twice during the day with a megaphone.  Tomorrow we will have our driver Steven take him around a little larger area to drum up business for the vision clinic.  Word of mouth spreads quickly among the concentrated population in the slum and if our clinic holds true to form, the number of patients we will see will increase daily.

We went to Catherine’s mother’s for dinner tonight right after the clinic closed with the whole team including Steven.  Our friend Shara, who works with Catherine in the Nairobi LCMS Mission Office, was also there.  Mama, one of her best friends Margaret and Catherine's other brothers and sisters were there as well.  Not an empty seat or stomach in the house and lots of love and laughs.  Kenyans really know how to fellowship over a good meal.  It was a great night and we felt particularly honored to have been invited into Mama’s home.  Each day just gets better and better!

Well, it’s almost 10pm local time, I will sleep the sleep of the exhausted and we’ll get up and do it again tomorrow.  More to follow and some pictures soon since we will have 2 free nights in a row before a possible nice dinner, probably Thursday night, maybe at a new Brazilian steak house.  Thank you Lord for a day in which people came to know you and for letting us be your hands and feet.  Amen.