The idea for this blog came to me when I was searching for a better way to communicate about the various missional activities I'm involved with. During my November 2009 and March 2010 mission trips to Kenya, it became obvious that there had to be a less cumbersome solution for getting the word out to a large number of people. This blog is the result.
Just got these done at 5am before getting ready for another day! The pictues came in oddly ordered and are described in order at my Facebook page.
It was a much easier start to the day, thanks to the organizational skills of my whole team. We were smart in the way we put everything away for safekeeping overnight, grouped by each station of the clinic. On Monday, we had to open every footlocker and figure out what was in it, where it was going, etc while about 50 people were already inside of our building completely blocking everything we needed to do. I'm glad I took my blood pressure meds yesterday! As usual, we gathered together with the volunteers and had a brief devotion and sang together.
Yesterday, I made everybody form a Zebra before we did our afternoon end of the day devotion. I started this years ago when I noticed that even after a day of working together, we all separated into black and white when the group came together. I started grabbing people, alternating each of us and we all held hands and swayed together as we sang. Sometimes crazy Dave has a cool idea that works out, it's become one of my traditions and everybody was all smiles. It's a good icebreaker.
There were people waiting when we arrived at the clinic, but now that we have a little experience as a team and understand more due to the card counting and sorting exercise last night, things got off to a good start. We got up and running in record time and the whole day was a drip, drip, drip of people. Tressie had an idea for making the clinic flow better when she wasn't sleeping well overnight and it worked like a charm. We ended up seeing 428 patients and were not half as tired as at the end of the day Monday.
We had our "nice" team meal tonight after a shower. We met Catherine, her mother and our local missionaries Alison and Billie at Talisman, an upscale restaurant only blocks from Little Daughters. A good time was had by all and it was so good to see Mama, Catherine's mother. Ever since Mark's high school graduation in Missouri in 2012, when I was the driver back to Austin for the family, I have been dearly loved by her. What a blessing to have a second Mama, most of us only get one to a customer. My team knows I am 70 years old and Mama calls me her baby, so the question naturally came up how old Mama was the year I was born. She's 93, so the math works out fine!
It is a national holiday, Kenyan Independence Day, when they too were finally free from British rule. We expect to have either a great day (my preference) or not so good as people relax. I think we'll see more children than usual since they will be out of school. Time for bed, been a long day and need to get recharged before we do it again! Blessings everybody and thank you Jesus for a great day!
I got a good night's sleep Sunday with the exception of the loud dance club's persistent thumping bass coming into my room. They shut down around midnight and it was better after that until one bird was singing around 5. It was probably some kind of Weaver. Not too bad. We had breakfast and headed to the clinic a little late, since our footlockers full of supplies needed to be delivered by our van before it could pick us up. After several false starts at trying to make the layout of the clinic we had gone over as a team the night before, we got something that was workable if not ideal. There are always tweaks that need to bad at every one of these clinics that I've been involved with. I told the team on the bus on the way in that I had been thinking overnight and I came to the conclusion that every single one of us on the team is already a leader, both in their daily lives as Christian educators, coaches, business people or other vocations and I just knew that my job would be to coordinate things based on past experience. Every one of the team took ownership of everything they did and were joyful doing it. I've been so blessed this time to have a team which only gets better and better.
Once early morning hurdles were overcome, things began to run smoothly. This may be the best first day of a clinic I've ever had. By around 1:30, we had seen about 350 people. Even though it slowed down a bit, giving us a chance to have some rice, beans and cabbage that Catherine's sister had prepared for our team, I'm guessing that we ended up with around 450 patients for the day. Part of this was due to our having been gone since 2019, part was the good job the church did in advertising the clinic through posters and the rest was a God thing! We will be having dinner soon, at which time the team will help me count and classify the cards for statistics that the Kenyan government wants to see and I will have final figures before posting this.
I was interviewed by local media about what we are doing and why. I gave what I thought was a good explanation and they were happy after one take. Cool!
I worked a little bit in each of the stations of the clinic throughout the day, teaching and encouraging where I could. Some of the rest of the team worked in more than one area, which is good, because some jobs are mostly sitting and some stainding and it makes the day go when there is a bit of variety. Also, the goal is to get more and more involvement from the local church volunteers, to give them a sense of purpose and accomplishment. It's fun to see young people given some responsibility and watch them begin to shine.
I'm just back from dinner, we saw 410 people according to the registration cards we counted and our log book had 419 entries. Usually we see maybe 4 or 5 cards get away from us, but this is fine on a first day. The team learned a lot while counting the cards, it give you some insight into the other areas of the clinic and helps prepare them to work in different area during the week.
That's about it from here, need to get some sleep to get rested up to do it all over again. Word of mouth is our biggest friend and it wouldn't surprise me at all to see 800 or more people tomorrow. Wednesday is a question mark, it's a holiday and it could be very good or very dead. I've seen it both ways before. Regardless, we will do our best to serve those whom God brings us. Blessings everyone!
Everyone on the team received an email from Lufthansa at 3:30 this morning telling us our flight has been delayed 40 minutes. With a little less than a 3 hour layover in Frankfurt, I'm a little concerned about missing our connection if anything else happens, so prayers for travel mercies are welcome! Another email said the flight is nearly full and they're asking for volunteers to check their carry-on luggage. Mine is full of cameras, a laptop, lenses and all sorts of other stuff with batteries which can't be checked, so I hope I don't draw the short straw. Even if I kept my most fragile and valuable stuff under the seat in front of me, it would barely fit. As I said on my Facebook page, anyone who thinks international travel is glamorous has not done it. You just have to go with the flow.
The Austin team members will be driving down to Bush International Airport in Houston and hope to arrive at our terminal around noon. The others are taking a shuttle from College Station that willl arrive at 12:30. We'll make sure everybody has their assigned luggage for the team and themselves and then pray over our travels and the mission. Then we'll proceed through security and get some lunch. I'm hoping my next blog post will be after an uneventful trek through security. I'm currently waiting to be picked up, 5 of us are traveling in a pickup with about 15 pieces of luggage, it will probably look like the Beverly Hillbillies without Granny on the top! Blessings everybody!
About 3 weeks ago, Rob Gerlach, our Minister of Music, who also arranges for the lectors that do the Scripture readings in church, sent me an email and asked if I could serve on May 22nd. I said sure, what will the readings be? "They're from the Book of Acts and the final chapter of the Gospel of Matthew." At that moment, I realized a "God thing" was happening. We have been doing a chapter a week as a church in Matthew and I knew that the Great Commission would have to be part of the thrilling conclusion. It's the mission statement for our vision project, it's why we do what we do. Here it is:
As many of you know, I have a computer repair business, so some of today will be spent getting start of the month invoices out to our regular customers a little early with an explanation as to why they were not sent on the 1st of June. Any final checks that come in the mail will be deposited and I'll make sure that all bills that are due while I'm gone will be paid. I usually don't publicize that we're on a mission trip but wait for somebody to spill the beans online, since I don't want to signal that I am out of town. Since it's been three years since I was in Kenya, it's not a very well-kept secret this time. Don't worry, my house is being well looked after while I'm gone.
There is also laundry to do, last minute packing of my clothes and personal items in my suitcase and getting all of my camera gear and laptop into my carry-on, since that stuff is not leaving my sight! I'll be taking 2 camera bodies and 2 lenses with me. My new mirrorless Nikon Z6II and Sigma 150-600mm lens will be reserved for wildlife, while a more mundane wildlife camera, a Nikon D7500 and a Sigma 18-300 lens will be my walking around camera of choice for sight-seeing and for photography at the clinic, supplemented by my smartphone. The D7500 will be good for candid shots zooming across larger rooms, while the cell phone is great for posed shots of friends. I do still have a Nikon D500, a very capable wildlife camera, but it is bigger and heavier and has over 310,000 shots on it, while the D7500 has only about 30,000 and is good enough for the purposes I have for it.
And then there is the bag I need to pack as the team leader. It has everything from duct tape to BIC pens to the last of the inventory of distance glasses lenses that we still had here in the States. It is a conglomeration of items based on past experience and it never anticipates some of the unique situations we find ourselves in. Our checked bags are limited to 50 pounds and our carry-on can be 26 pounds. I try to err on the light side, since excess baggage fees are stiff. Some items, like batteries, can't be checked but must be in carry-on luggage or the personal item you are allowed on the plane that has to fit under the seat in front of you.
We are staking some suitcases with Redeemer T-shirts in them for Catherine's school and the rescue center, something I found out they were about to order and have printed. It feels good to have anticipated that need and the Lord is helping us fulfill it.
I've already notified the credit card companies of my travel. Visa and Mastercard are honored around the world, Discover not so much. I'll have enough cash for normal needs with me, credit cards are a safety net in case some large unforeseen need arises. Even after chip cards came into vogue, I got hacked once and a card was canceled while I was halfway around the world. I had one more card in reserve, but that was scary. Shortly after I paid for a team dinner in Nairobi, 4 different Auto Zones in Round Rock, TX, near where I live, each had a charge of $175 simultaneously. Luckily, the credit card company picked up on it right away, since they knew where I was and notified me via email. Unfortunately, they had to issue a new card with a new number, meaning I had to deal with changing a bunch of auto-pay accounts when I got back, since it was my business credit card. Ouch.
I'll be bringing a small travel Bible, since we do devotions at the beginning and end of each day at the clinic, and we also have a brief one at dinner before we discuss the way each team member saw God moving among us that day. Of course, I have a Bible app on my phone, but having a real one is a comfort, especially if I get called upon to say a few words in any public gathering during the week. We're usually pretty tired at the end of the day and I like to respect everyone's time, so most folks retreat to their rooms for the night right after we eat. An exception is the one night where we go out as a team for a nice dinner at a local restaurant.
I'll be writing more for the blog each day and hope to have a description of our travel and our experience going through security in Houston before we take off for Germany on Thursday. Many times, I also compose blog posts during the long flights, either on my phone or laptop and post them once we have Wi-Fi at an airport. I've also got a portable hotspot with 6 days credit on it from previous trips that works almost anywhere in the world on local cell networks. It's not blazing fast, but good enough for email or a blog post with a minimal number of pictures. Each day's worth of credit is a 24-hour day, so sometimes I'll start later in the evening one day. The nice thing is that it will still work early in the evening the next day, giving me in effect 2 days for spending one day's credit. Day passes were 5 for $40 when I last bought them in 2019, they've gone up to $10 per day or 5 for $45 if I need to reload. I'm interested to see if it will work near the Tanzanian border when we're on safari after the clinic.
I hope you like to learn of the intricate details of putting a trip like this together. It wouldn't be remotely possible without the expertise, love and care of our friend Catherine Wangari on the ground in Nairobi tying up every loose end. More to follow as time allows. Blessings everybody!
We are currently emailing back and forth and there may still be a phone call or two, but things are coalescing. Each team member gets two checked bags on our Lufthansa flights plus their carry-on. In the early days of our project, we would take maybe 60 footlockers with us for four or five churches, loaded up with clinic supplies, and we were required to take responsibility for two footlockers each, meaning we lived for 10 days out of our carry-ons. Easy for a man to do, not so much for the ladies! These days, we order the bulk of our supplies through local Kenyan businesses, boosting the local economy and meaning we get a little more luggage space for ourselves. Many of the things we used for the clinics came from China anyway, so they would go from there to America and then come with us to Kenya. Much easier just to cut out the middleman!
As always, we bring things for our missionaries that are on the ground all year round for our project. For example, a bottle of shampoo or conditioner is the equivalent of $15, so rather than bring travel sizes, we pack full sized bottles and give the bulk of it to our friends when we leave. There are certain brands of cereal or candy that folks get a craving for that are not available in Kenya, although much has changed since I first went there in 2009. They now have KFC and Subway, neither of which I've been to there. Why go halfway around the world to do something I can do at home?
We will be flying out of Bush International in Houston Thursday afternoon and will arrive in Frankfurt, Germany around 8am local time Friday morning. We'll be screened for Covid as they examine our vaccination records and online documents we have already uploaded and I'm sure we'll go through a security check before we board our next flight. We have almost a 3-hour layover, so that should be plenty of time as long as our flight out of Houston isn't delayed. I don't need any big adventures like the time we missed our flight in London and ended up in Istanbul. Pastor Kevin always likes missions that are "uneventful" and so do I! Adventures make for great stories afterwards but aren't so much fun at the time.
Our flight from Frankfurt should arrive in Nairobi around 8:20pm and I hope to be at our lodging by around 10:30 or 11pm after going through Immigration and Customs, which will also include Covid checks of our paperwork or rapid tests for some of us.
One of my new team members asked how I entertain myself on these long flights. I mentioned bringing my own movies, music and Kindle books on my smartphone and that newer planes on international flights usually have USB and sometimes power for plugging in laptops, plus an on-demand entertainment system where you can watch a movie and pause it for dinner or a bathroom break. My best option personally though is closing my eyes and dreaming!
That's it for now, I'll try to write another post or two before we depart with more thoughts on travel and what we will be working to accomplish through our clinic in Waithaka. Blessings everybody!
At long last, we are preparing to saddle up and head to Kenya next Thursday. We were all ready to serve again in 2020 and Covid got in the way. God had a different plan and we ministered to our own neighborhood instead for the last 2 years. This will be my 20th trip to Nairobi, there just seemed to be something wrong about stopping at 19! Of course, someone will challenge me to 25 and I'll say yes as long as the Lord gives me the strength and good health to do so. After that, I'll support whatever mission work Redeemer is involved with.
We have a team of 9, including me. Half are first-timers and half have been with me before. It's a great group, no high maintenance people in the bunch. It's been a blessing to see this team form over the last 6 months or so. I love the energy and the sense of awe that new members of the team bring and the steadiness that the old hands contribute. It's a good mix. Here are some pictures as we were commissioned and prayed over this morning at all three worship services. Click on an image to see a larger version.
We will be staying at a familiar convent, the Little Daughters of St. Joseph. It will be good to see our friends there who have taken such good care of us over past missions. We will each have our own rooms with our own shower and commode but will eat buffet style as a group for most meals.
Most of my concerns will fade away once we are in Nairobi. It is a whole different world today, with differences from one country or airport to another regarding vaccinations and Covid tests. Please pray for us that it all goes smoothly and none of us ends up in quarantine. We are flying United/Lufthansa from Houston to Frankfurt, Germany and from there on to Nairobi. The Frankfurt Airport doesn't require masks now, but when you can't socially distance in the security lines, they will not settle for a cloth mask, it must be a medical grade N95 one.
Rather than speculate any more, just stay tuned right here every day and I'll do my best to report on our travels and on the clinic. I will be posting here as often as possible as we do our final preparation for the trip and as I can during the mission. I always try for every day, but Internet and even power can sometimes be spotty, especially if there are heavy storms. Blessings everybody!
