Notes from the Mission Field

Reflections on the Fall 2011 Kenya Mission Trip

2011-12-05T11:31:00.001-06:00

Please click on the picture above to see the latest slides that have been added from the November trip. Come back often as we are still adding pictures almost daily.

Now that we've been back for about two weeks and I've had time to cogitate on what this trip meant to me and have talked to the rest of the team about their high points, it's time to get some stories told and some final thoughts recorded.

As I said before we embarked on this latest mission to Kawangware, it was a real blessing to have so many new team members with us. Half of our team of twelve were on their first African mission. It was a joy to see all of them on the early morning Nairobi National Park safari, that first Saturday we were there, suddenly come to the realization that they really were in Africa. Spotting your first zebra or giraffe will do that to you! You pinch yourself to make sure you're not dreaming. It's also always my great pleasure to sort through the 5,000 plus pictures that we always bring back with us and try to pick the "best of the best" to tie into this blog. I love the different perspectives that each of us has; some are great at pictures of people, some of places, others favor wildlife or extreme closeups of the stunning flowers that are everywhere. Yesterday I hand delivered DVDs of all the pictures I've collected so far to the rest of the team between church services, this way they can also get dizzy and goofy like me from photo overload! I am already working on a nice DVD project to give to everybody prior to the Christmas holiday, so that they'll have a remembrance that can be shown on their TV DVD players or computers for family and friends.

From an evangelism standpoint, I think this trip was our most successful to date for several reasons. First of all, after the usual first day startup glitches were overcome, the vision clinic ran very smoothly all week. We saw more and more patients every day, but it felt like we were not working nearly as hard. The traffic control through the clinic was outstanding, the pace was very rarely hurried and this steady flow resulted in 2,452 people getting some sort of treatment for their vision needs and more importantly, all who came heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Whenever there was a lull in the action, Howard (along with Dan, Josh, Dr. John, others from our team and local volunteers) led the charge into the street right in front of the church, encouraging people to come in for free eye and dental care, stressing that there was no waiting at the moment. This is a huge selling point, since Kenyans are in the habit of waiting for most everything. We always learn greater patience from being with them.   Secondly, more of our team participated in the triage function than ever before. A large part of this was due to the changes that Dan and Mark made in the dental clinic setup. The previous November, Pastor Kevin, John Zoch and I had made many futile attempts to share Jesus with those waiting for care. Unfortunately, due to the physical layout of the tents and waiting areas, most everybody who was waiting could see patients being given numbing shots of Novocaine or our local dentists performing extractions and minor surgeries. The furthest thing from their minds was getting into a discussion about the spirtual realm! On Monday morning, I met with Dan and Mark, both from Lutheran Social Services of the South, about designing a better registration/waiting area layout. They are both involved in a lot of fundraisers, like golf tournaments, that require them to be very aware of traffic flow and crowd control. We enlisted several local volunteers and turned the registration tent 180 degrees, so that it was not facing the business end of the clinic. A banner was also hung to block any view of the clinic area until patients were allowed in for treatment. The registration tent was limited to 1) a blood pressure check, to make sure readings were in range for extractions or surgeries and 2) the actual filling in of registration cards. After these steps were done, patients would wait for Dan or Mark to share the Gospel with them. During the week, many of our triage team from inside the vision clinic also joined in with Dan and Mark. We all learned from each other the best ways to start conversations about what was going on in each person's life and ways to effectively pray over each and every one of them. By week's end, upwards of 1200 patients had received possibly life saving treatment and medications from our dental team and even more importantly, each and every one of them had gotten the eternal life saving message of Jesus' love for them. It gives me chills to think of what a difference a year can make and how such basic changes to the setup of the clinic could have such dramatic results. Thank you, Jesus!

We had many heart warming encounters during the week. For me, seeing the Mother Teresa of Kawangware once again, bringing in her current orphans for a checkup, was wonderful. She brought the same baby with her as last November, the one we suspected of having a cleft palate. This time, Dr. Terry was able to determine that there was no cleft palate at all, but an abnormal airway was the source of the little guy's problems with food and drink. To me, it is a miracle that he has survived, since he started life with club feet, this airway defect and appears to be autistic. When Dan would hold his little hand and talk to him soothingly, he would stop his spasms for awhile and focus on Dan's loving face.
Our hearts and prayers are with Mother Teresa and the little ones that no one else wants, but that she so lovingly cares for. What a ministry she has.

As mentioned before, the number of team members that tried their hand at the triage function was more than ever before. In the vision clinic, the triage station follows after patients have had their eyes examined using an eye chart from 20 feet away. In terms of the practical side of the clinic, this position is responsible for routing the patient to the next step in their treatment. Some need to see a doctor for itchy eyes or cataracts, some only need distance glasses and will go for an autorefractor exam, while others may only need reading glasses. A few need nothing at all or we can't provide the services they require. In all cases, the spiritual side of the clinic centers on triage. Pastor Dave and Pastor Zedekiah began the week in triage, and were soon joined by Mary, Josh, Risa and local interpreters. The women did particularly well working with women, since it is a universal truth that women will share with each other things they might not tell a man. Each person's registration card is examined for what faith tradition they come from. If they are Christian, we bless them and pray for any needs they may have before routing them to the next step. If they list no church, or they are Muslim, Hindu or of another non-Christian faith, our triage staff talks to them about Jesus and His saving grace. And we always, without fail, pray over them one on one. There are many approaches to starting the spiritual conversation, all loving, that are used. One is a variation on the old Kennedy evangelism explosion question asking about one's final destination, were they to die tonight. It is shocking to hear the number of people that in all seriousness will announce that they are going to hell, because they have not done enough good to balance out the sin in their lives. Another good opener is just to ask people what is going on in their lives. After the normal pleasantries, Kenyans are much more willing to share their day to day joys and trials than we are in the American culture, where no matter how we are doing, we always say we are fine, everything is OK. The triage station is far and away where more people come to Christ, ask about joining the church or want further conversation with the local pastor. While every station in the clinic has its opportunities for giving our patients a "second touch" with the Gospel (the "first touch" is from local evangelists working with small groups before registration for the vision or dental clinics) the fact is that the strongest push is made in triage. Examples of this "second touch" in other places includes the patient being asked to read a Gospel tract while trying out reading glasses or the first thing a person with new distance glasses sees is a sign across the room that says "Jesus loves you!" in both English and Swahili. These experiences have each led to deeper conversations.

One blessing that we started last spring at our clinic in Kibera (because Salem had success with it in their clinics) was the awarding of certificates of appreciation to each of our volunteers on the last day. There were more than 40 volunteers this time and Risa did a beautiful job tracking the volunteers and of printing their individual names on each certificate.  It's amazing how a little recognition can go so far. On a bittersweet note, one of our volunteers, Elvis, who had been handling traffic flow coming from the triage unit to the back end of the clinic, took his certificate home right after the clinic to show his family. We were saddened to learn later that he had been killed that evening in a police shooting. He was one of the first street boys to go through the Fikisha program, which is designed to get boys out of the bad environment and onto a better path. Elvis wanted to be a social worker and his favorite verse was John 3:16.   During one of our morning devotions during the week, Pastor Dave read us the story of Moses and his calling by the Lord at the burning bush and he then prayed a "use me" prayer for each of us. Dan and Mark were used in a mighty way after the clinic was over, when they stayed on in Nairobi for a couple of extra days. They went to the church in Kawangare on Sunday to worship and were greeted with the sad news about Elvis. They spent Sunday afternoon visiting the family and also consoling congregation members. Dan wrote us a beautiful email, saying he never expected to be used in this way. It's a huge blessing when you realize that's what's happening and you are right where God wants you to be. During this time of grieving, I was also in contact with the youth leaders of Fikisha and Pastor Zedekiah via Facebook and email, encouraging them to honor Elvis' memory by redoubling their efforts in reaching out to the boys of the community. We all have the comfort of the Easter victory, assured that we will see Elvis again one day.

One of the many blessings that we receive when we serve others in a place so different from our home is that of having our comfort zones vastly enlarged. This always happens in many small ways, even for us old hands at these trips and it is always fun to watch the new team members blossom and do more than they ever thought possible. Beth expanded her horizons in many ways with her work in the dental clinic, Allison always had a look of wonderment on her face in every situation and it was incredible to see Mary, Josh, Risa, Mark and Pastor Dave as they ministered to the people while all of them did triage duty in both the vision and the dental clinic. We all took our turns doing different jobs during the week in the clinic. There isn't a job that can't be learned in half an hour.  Some involve lots of standing, some lots of sitting, some are more people oriented while others, like eyeglass assembly, require focus on the task at hand.   Franky, once our local volunteers are trained early in the week, our tasks become more oriented towards supervising and keeping things moving smoothly.

Finally, I would be remiss as one of the leaders of our Africa mission effort if I didn't put out my usual call to service. Please seriously consider this advice if you are one who has never done work in the mission field. It comes from one who was a prodigal son for over 25 years before returning to the Good Shepherd’s flock. I was broken beyond repair and He put me back together in a way that gave me a heart for Him and others. There is nothing more worthwhile than seeking and discovering God’s purpose for your unique personality and talents and then finding a way to fulfill His will in some way that serves others and glorifies Him in the process. He will bless you beyond your wildest dreams. I’m living proof. It doesn’t have to be a mission halfway around the world, although getting out of your everyday context is a great way to cut through all the clutter and “busyness” that make His call nearly impossible to hear over the din of our culture. It can be as simple as serving in a soup kitchen for the homeless, taking special needs kids bowling, building a ramp with the Texas Ramp Project for one of your neighbors who is imprisoned by his front steps, taking meals to those who need them with Meals on Wheels or maybe volunteering at the hospital. We have opportunities to do these kinds of things and many, many more at Redeemer or there are plenty more out in the community at large, if you are uncomfortable at first at the thought of being branded as some kind of do-gooder Christian. It’s all the same however you decide to serve and is valued highly in His sight. Trust me. The rewards outweigh the effort you will expend by at least a hundredfold. Again, if you are not already involved in some sort of service to others, just do it! What do you have to lose? A little time you might spend watching TV? Just try it! I’m not saying to go looking for ways to serve others because of the rewards that I know you will receive, just that if you serve others with the right motives, God's blessings will certainly follow. What are you waiting for?

To learn more about this trip or our upcoming mission to the Nairobi slum of Kibera from April 26-May 6, 2012, please contact me, Dave DeVore at 512-323-5343 or at dave@mrpcaustin.com or get in touch with Pastor Kevin Westergren at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Austin, Texas at 512-459-1500 or by email at kwestergren@redeemer.net.

To God be the Glory!

Risa's pictures added today

2011-11-24T21:26:00.000-06:00

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Click on the picture above to access the pictures of the trip that have been posted so far.

I added in about 75 pictures from Risa and sprinkled them throughout the slideshow. I hope you enjoy them. Keep coming back for the next several weeks as we gather up more pictures from the rest of the team.

Pictures have been added

2011-11-21T13:35:00.001-06:00

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Click on the picture above to access the pictures of the trip that have been posted so far.

Pictures from my camera have been added rather quickly today. I will add captions to them as I get time so that it's easier to tell what's going on. Over the next week or two, I will be gathering what usually turns out to be about 8,000 pictures from the rest of the team and adding the best of the best to the Picasweb album that this blog is linked to. Also, I will be adding stories and reflections on this trip for a while to come. Technical glitches, extreme business and just plain exhaustion all played a part in the blog for this trip being pretty terse and factual, with almost no mention of the incredible spiritual things going on around us. Stay tuned and enjoy the pictures for now!

Saturday and Sunday travel, we're home!

2011-11-20T21:14:00.004-06:00

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Please click on the picture above to see pictures from the November 2011 mission. More pictures will be added soon.

Saturday November 19 and Sunday November 20, activities and travel home

Everyone was able to sleep in relatively late, since the safari to Lake Naivasha was not scheduled to leave Scripture Mission until 8am. Howard, Martha and I stayed behind to complete the inventory of our unused lenses, frames and supplies. While the group was waiting for the bus, a bunch of velvet monkees that stays at the compound came out and mugged for us. Terry went back inside a brought out a few slices of watermelon and bananas and we flung them around the lawn. Guess what? They scrambled to get the food. Imagine that! Once we got a good start on the inventory, I went to the LCMS offices and finished putting the stats together for the mission, got our expenses in order in preparation for changing our money from Kenyan shillings to dollars and waited to get into Catherine's office so I could cleanup /tuneup her computers. She got delayed and so I went back to my room, got a shower and packed up my souvenirs and the rest of my stuff. Other groups began returning from the mission field throughout the day. Prior to a scheduled debriefing meeting between our U.S. team leaders and Bishop Bakari and others from the ELCK, our local LCMS missionary and his staff and John Maina of LHM, I got my chance to take care of Catherine's laptops. I also lightened my load for the trip home by leaving unused snacks, pens, etc. The Payday candy bars and Nature Valley granola bars were particularly appreciated by Shauen for his family, since many foods and treats we take for granted are not available worldwide.

We left on 2 buses for the airport at 6:30pm, after loading a large truck up with our footlockers. Our route took us through downtown Nairobi, a way we had not used on previous trips. Traffic was horrendous, so it was a good thing we got an early start. The bus I was on got to make one extra stop. As we pulled into a gas station while still at least a half hour from the airport, those of us in the back of the bus heard our leader ask the driver "Are you telling me we are stopping for gas?", to which the bus driver replied "Yes." We got 17 liters of petrol (about 4 gallons because this was what 2000 shillings would buy) and proceeded the rest of the way to the airport without further incident. It took a while to get enough carts for our footlockers, but once we were all loaded, we had a pretty smooth time getting checked in and through the first security screening. I exchanged Redeemer's remaining petty cash back from shillings to dollars. Our group met in the terminal cafe for one last meal and the traditional Tuskers, a very good Kenyan beer. It was a nice reward for a job well done, although I had an iced tea, since I don't drink. Like many foreign missions, our time in Kenya had been absolutely alcohol free, so as not to offend any of our hosts, pastors or the different tribes and ethnic groups we dealt with. In our case, drugs and alcohol are a big problem in the slums, one reason Islam looks like a better way of life on the surface. Since our purpose is evangelism, this tee totaling is a small price to pay and sets a good example. We went as a group to Gate 10, checked in and went through two more security scans. After about another 45 minutes spent in the terminal, we boarded British Airways Flight BA65 and said goodbye to Nairobi around midnight. The plane was warm, but the area around my seat was especially so. I complained to flight crew, but to no avail. It was a completely full flight, so I wasn't able to get my preferred aisle seat. I've found that I do much better if I get up every hour and a half to stretch and keep the circulation going in my legs. Also, taking my shoes off is more comfortable, but it can be hard to get them back on at the end of the flight due to the natural swelling of the feet and ankles that occurs during flight. I can now empathize more fully with pregnant friends!

Even though we took off from Nairobi about half an hour late, we got to London's Heathrow Airport nearly on time at about 5am local time. I took Josh to the Giraffe Restaurant for a light breakfast. Eying the menu, one of the first choices was Huevo Rancheros, which was not going to happen out of deference to our good friend Lupe. I couldn't see anything good coming out of ordering an English attempt at this dish! During the 5 hour layover, some of the team shopped and we all mingled and shared stories of the past week, some funny, some moving and more than a few heartbreaking. The flight from London to Houston boarded on time, but we were delayed by fog from taking off for about 30 minutes. As I write this, we are about 40 minutes out from Houston and did not make up any time, so we'll probably be a little later than usual getting back to Austin for several reasons. In the past, we were sometimes the lone flight arriving at 2:45 and the lines for the initial border entry screening would not be too bad. Much later than this and the crowd can triple, adding considerably to the rest of the process that also includes gathering our footlockers and luggage, getting personal items from the lockers and then going through one last screening.

Yes! Things went well in Houston, we had a good trip home from Houston including the traditional stop for Blue Bell. Pastor Dave drove the whole way and dropped me off around 7:30pm. All is well. Time for a hot shower and then sleeping in my OWN bed! Thank you Jesus!

Saturday preparing to come home

2011-11-19T02:19:00.002-06:00

I'm sitting in our LCMS International Mission offices in Nairobi down the road from where we stay. Howard, Martha and I saw the rest of the team off on their safari around 8am and then worked on taking inventory of our remaining supplies. I am waiting for Catherine to come and unlock her office so I can tuneup her computers. After that, I'll get some lunch and a shower, a little nap and a I may be be able to add to the blog before we head for the airport around 6:30pm. We totaled up the vision clinic stats this morning and we saw 2,452 people. I don't have a total for dental yet, but I suspect they had 12-1300 patients, all of whom were evangelized and prayed over by our triage team. Thank you Jesus!

Over the next week, as the jet lag subsides, I will have some profound and some funny stories about this mission. We have had lots of technical Internet glitches this time, so several hundred pictures that should be available to you by now will be posted soon after our return.

We fly out around midnight Nairobi time and arrive back in Houston around 3pm Sunday. Please pray that we have a safe, uneventful and restful trip home. After customs and the drive back to Austin, I should be in my own shower and then my own bed around 8:30pm if past history is any guide.

Thursday and Friday clinics

2011-11-19T01:19:00.004-06:00

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Click on the picture above to see the preparation during the past months and new pictures that will be added as access to the Internet permits throughout the mission trip.

Friday November 18
The last 2 days have been so hectic that they have gone by in a blur. The Lutheran Hour representative, Peter, showed a King David movie Wednesday night and the Jesus Film on Thursday. Both Thursday and Friday we had more than 550 in the vision clinic while we had 303 for dental on Thursday and upwards of 225 today. We took our LCMS missionary, Shauen Trump and his family, along with Catherine to the Carnivore, a Brazilian style steakhouse with every kind of meat known to man in unlimited quantities. It was a great break from the slum. I'll try to fill in more details of our week tomorrow, since I'll be staying here in Nairobi while the others go on a safari at Lake Naivasha. I will be meeting with other team leaders and the leadership of the ELCK Saturday afternoon. More to follow.

Tuesday and Wednesday clinics

2011-11-16T01:44:00.000-06:00

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Click on the picture above to see the preparation during the past months and new pictures that will be added as access to the Internet permits throughout the mission trip.

Tuesday, November 15
Pastor Dave started our day with Moses and the burning bush, talked about God's purpose for each of us and concluded with a powerful "use me" prayer. We boarded our bus at 7am, which is the pattern for the rest of the week, now that the clinic is up and running. Dr. Terry was able to break away for our morning devotion with the volunteers and announced that we were not lined up in a zebra. We all laughed and alternated between each team member and our hosts. Pastor Dave did a devotion based on Psalm 145, teaching us that God is good, God is great and we are here to glorify him. This, along with some praise music in Swahili got us ready to man the clinic on a high note. We never seemed as busy nor as chaotic as Monday, but we saw more people in each clinic. The Lutheran Hour team was unsuccessful Monday night in showing the Jesus film due to speaker problems. Even so, we saw about 440 patients in the eye clinic and around 170 came for dental work, both topping the previous day's totals. We had dinner at 6:30 and shared experiences around the table, before either playing games or just hanging out checking emails, phoning home or visiting with each other. It was the end of a good day.

Wednesday, November 16
Everybody got a good night's sleep after the hard work of Tuesday. In my experience, it is usually finally Tuesday night before one gets acclimated to the 9 hour time difference with Austin. We breakfasted and I led a devotion based on 1 Corinthians 12 which discusses the necessity within the body of Christ for different skills and talents, all of which are used and inspired by the same Holy Spirit. The clinics began on time and without a hitch. Traffic to each clinic was fairly steady all day long and we had almost 500 vision patients and 252 dental patients by the end of the day. At this pace, and if the weather cooperates, we will end up with about the same or more patients for each clinic than we had last November. The Lutheran Hour team was able to show a portion of the Jesus Film Tuesday night and planned on showing a movie about David tonight, then one about Jeremiah Thursday and yet another film Friday. Even though the clinic ends Friday afternoon, the LHM staff will encourage church attendance the following Sunday with the Friday screening. After dinner tonight, we met to discuss recreation options for Saturday while other teams are returning from their sites. We had several power outages, and since the Internet is iffy at this point, I am going to post these abbreviated descriptions of our comings and goings for now and fill in more details later.

After the power failures
We had many laughes in the dark as I got into a competition with Josh. We had a shootout between the apps on my Android phone and his iPad. My phone had a flashlight app, his had goofy screensavers. My phone had Angry Birds, of course he matched me since this game was born on the iPad. It went on and on, back and forth, until we were all laughing to the point of tears. It was a combination of exhaustion and silliness that was sublime.

Monday Kenya mission news

2011-11-15T13:14:00.001-06:00

Monday November 14
This post was all written and ready to go last night and was lost during an Android tablet glitch. We had a wonderful first day's clinic, everyone was in bed and I had put in an extra hour telling the story of our day. This is my second attempt and I am now using a different method which has frequent automatic saves to prevent a recurrence of last night's disaster. I couldn't even use a phone right last night, my Skype calls to Adrienne and even cell phone calls all had problems, so I finally gave up and went to bed, comforted that at least Adrienne knew I had tried.

Back to Monday. Because it was the first day of the clinic, we needed to be breakfasted, have our daily devotion done and be on the bus by 6:30am. I did one of my favorite devotions from Oswald Chambers called "What is a Missionary" which has a main point of keeping the primary focus on the One who sent us, rather than the overwhelming needs and suffering of the people. This lesson is always valuable, particularly for new team members. I use this devotion at the start of every mission I am involved with. Upon arrival, our goal was to have the vision clinic setup, devotions done and up and running by 8:30. We hoped for a 9am start at the dental clinic and came close. As usual, it seemed like mass chaos for the first couple of hours of both clinics, which would have been true to the untrained eye. At all of our previous clinics, it took nearly a full day to get things tweaked out, especially with many new team members. Well before noon, things were starting to go very smoothly. On the dental side, I asked Dan and Mark to help figure out a better physical layout that would be more conducive to "second touches". They really came through. They turned the tent backwards and they had a banner hung that would shield waiting patients from seeing the clinic's outside aspects. The sight of patients getting numbed up and of surgeries and extractions being performed on the open porch had made it difficult for Pastor Kevin and I the previous year to keep clinic goer's minds on the Gospel message we were sharing. Dan and Mark have continued tweaking traffic control and the process and have been praying over each and every patient, along with occasional help from Josh, Risa and Pastor Dave. This is a first for any dental clinic I have been involved with and I am sure it will have eternal consequences for some who came today. We ended the day with 409 vision clinic patients treated and around 160 dental procedures performed

A wonderful weekend in Nairobi

2011-11-13T12:16:00.013-06:00

We had a very full Saturday, beginning with leaving our compound for a wild game photo safari. I really enjoyed watching all of the reactions of our team members to the incredible scenery that God had created just for us and the amazing variety of animals from giraffes to zebras to baboons to water buffalo and the list just goes on and on. After the safari, we took a short ride to the elephant orpanage featured on 60 Minutes recently. You can learn about it on YouTube. Next on our agenda was lunch at the Veranda, where we sat outdoors and had some very good entrees for less than $10 including tip. I had deep fried prawns and fries and it was excellent. While we were in the middle of shopping for some souvenirs, Pastor Dave and I were called back to the LCMS offices for a meeting that had been scheduled for an hour and a half later. We were to meet with Bishop Obare, the head of the Kenyan Church, his staff and other interested parties but he and others in the highest level of the national church were forced to leave Nairobi for an installation of a regional bishop the next day. The scheduling for the installation had changed at the last minute and they were facing at least an 8 hour drive late into the night. We worshipped at the Scripture Mission with the other mission teams around 6pm and were nicely surprised that two choirs from Springs of Life Lutheran Church, where we serve each spring, were there to help in the worship. We had dinner and I then participated in a brief meeting with other team leaders. I got to bed and was so exhausted that I slept through the night. Normally, I don't get a really good night's sleep until Tuesday night or so. What a blessing.

Early Sunday morning was spent having breakfast and sending the other teams off. We helped load footlockers and said goodbye to our friends, even if just for a little while. We made our way to the church in Kawangware for worship. Our driver, Boniface, has driven us on day trips before and is wonderful. There is new road construction in the slum, so we had to take some back streets there none of us believed a bus could navigate, but he is a master. He has been the driver for Ralph and Louise during their Meru clinics and everyone highly respects him, both as a driver and as a person. We were greeted by many old friends and it was a joy to introduce our new team members to Pastor Zedekiah and his congregation, both before and during their wonderful services. Although church here regularly runs over 3 hours, it goes by too quickly. There was wonderful music from several choirs and music ranged from liturgical to African to praise songs. After church, we unloaded our footlockers from the bus and placed them so we could get a jump on things Monday morning. We went out for a quick lunch and then traveled to Kibera, where we again met with old friends and showed those who had not been there the church. Our day ended with buying supplies at Nakumatt, a store similar to a Walmart, before returning to our lodgings for dinner. We will be getting up early in order to be on our bus at 6:30am to begin our first day of the vision and dental clinics.
Please stay tuned and come back often, as I will be editing and adding to these posts both during the trip and afterwards. I try to get something posted as soon as possible, but the constraints of time, my energy and the tug of details that the leading of the team entails means my first reports may be a little terse. Their purpose is to give you, dear reader, a blow by blow account as the mission progresses. Also, pictures will continue to be added during and after the trip. I always reflect on each trip a short time after it is over and will let you know when I consider things to be complete with the blog for this trip.

We are in Nairobi safe and sound!

2011-11-12T11:50:00.003-06:00

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Click on the picture above to see the preparation during the past months and new pictures that will be added as access to the Internet permits throughout the mission trip.

Thursday, November 10th
We saddled up again at 8:00 this morning as Pastor Dave and Risa picked up Josh and I at my house. We drove to Manor, where we met Howard, Martha, Ralph and Louise at the 290 Cafe. We had an uneventful drive through Elgin and Giddings, arriving in Brenham for our traditional Blue Bell and rest stop at Scoops. While there, we encountered some parents with an adorable little girl that had an ice cream cone as big as she was and more of it on her face than anywhere else! I took her picture and both she and her Mom got a laugh out of it. We proceeded on 290 to what had been The Kettle on the periphery of Bush International Airport but now had a sign announcing it as the Hot Biscuit. We each ordered items ranging from a late breakfast to burgers to my chicken fried steak special. We knew that this would be one of the only meals for the next 10 days that we would have much choice over. From now on, it would be as my Dad used to say "You will eat that AND you WILL like it!" That last part was always the hardest. Our waitress confirmed that only the name had been changed by the chain, allowing that she had been there for 9 years. We left for the long term parking around 12:30, and the Fast Park shuttle got us to our terminal at 1pm. We old hands renewed acquaintances and introduced our new team members to our friends from the other congregations. Check in and going through security were pretty smooth with the exception of my being treated to yet another full body scan. I guess I passed because we spent the next couple of hours in the terminal and I am writing this from British Airways Flight 194 near Newfoundland at 37,000 feet doing 678mph. Dinner was pretty good for airline food, I had curry chicken with a salad, roll and cheesecake while others got a pasta dish. I got a little sleep afterwards, but it's only 9pm at home and sleep will come easier in a while. We gain 6 hours when we get to Heathrow Airport in London and will add another 3 hours to that by the time we land in Nairobi at 9pm or so Friday night local time. We veterans of these mission trips have stressed drinking plenty of water to our teams and making sure to get up every hour or so during these long flights to avoid health issues like phlebitis or deep vein thrombosis in our legs and to get a jump on altitude sickness in Nairobi by getting well hydrated in advance.

We're about an hour out from London now and the cabin crew is beginning to distribute box breakfasts. I got a bit more sleep during the flight, it's approaching midnight in Austin and 6am in England. Once on the ground, we will probably climb down some portable steps and board buses for the ride to the terminal. Heathrow has been undergoing renovations for the past year or two and it's invariably 50 degrees and raining when we arrive. It would be nice to pull up to a terminal just once! I am currently munching on a mysterious muffin from the breakfast that seems to be made from some form of cardboard, judging by the lack of taste. At least the black coffee they served me is hot, strong and quite good. British Airways takes pride in their Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee, I guess Juan Valdez is out of work and his children and burro are now going hungry. I always liked that burro!

Friday, November 11th
It's now Friday both at home and Shannon, Ireland, which we are nearly over. Less than an hour to touchdown now. Once we clear security, we will be getting a leg up on our Saturday lunch in Nairobi at a nice restaurant called the Veranda. Gus was able to obtain a copy of the menu and we're going to try to get a sense of what people might want for lunch a day in advance to allow the restaurant to be better prepared for our large group. Since Pastor Dave and I are scheduled to meet with Bishop Obare and others from the ELCK Saturday afternoon, it would be nice if lunch were a little bit more efficient than usual. The Kenyan culture moves at a graceful, slower pace than our hectic world and it can be maddening to us when things seem to take forever. I, for one, think we can learn from our hosts when it comes to being more relaxed and enjoying the moment. After all, we live in the present, but the western way is to try to rush into the future. We don't savor the present when we get there, because we're already scurrying to the next future. It will be interesting to see if this grand menu experiment pans out.

We're at Heathrow now and we got a very pleasant surprise. The remodeling is done and we pulled right up to a real terminal instead of being bused from the tarmac in the ever present morning mist and drizzle that is London. Not only that, but we went through a much smaller and vastly more efficient security checkpoint in record time. Our layover is a little more than 2 hours, then it's on to Nairobi.

Well, we are finally airborne on British Airways Flight 65 after about a half hour delay waiting to take off. The plane is completely full, so it also took a bit more time for passengers to jostle all of the carry-on luggage to make it fit the always limited space allotted for it. I'm writing this on my Toshiba Thrive Android tablet that I've gotten since the spring Kenya tip. It is much easier than dealing with my small laptop in the very cramped quarters of today's economy class air travel. I'm pretty confident I'll be able to crank out blog postings complete with pictures fairly readily using it as long as we have good Internet access. It will feel very good after this long flight to get some exercise helping to shepherd the approximately 60 footlockers from the baggage area late tonight to the waiting truck that will transport them to our compound. It will feel even better to get a hot shower before bed after a day and a half of travel. With any luck, We'll get some sleep before a very busy Saturday. Stay tuned!

Kenya Team Commissioning

2011-11-06T12:06:00.001-06:00

KenyaFall2011

Please click on the picture above to view pictures related to the November 2011 mission. Come back often, especially between November 10th and 20th while we are in the field. We'll be posting new stories and pictures on a daily basis when possible.

Pastor Kevin commissioned us at all three services this morning. He told the congregation of our expectation of seeing upwards of 5,000 people this trip at the vision and dental clinics at the Lutheran church in Kawangware. Particularly touching to me was his explanation of the witnessing we do to Muslims merely by our presence. While it is clearly expected of Muslims to take care of the needs of the poor, the widow, the orphan and others within their own faith, it comes as quite a culture shock when they encounter Christians that have come halfway around the world at their own expense to take care of anybody and everybody that shows up at one of our clinics. When they ask why are we caring for non-Christians, it opens the door wide for us to explain the grace that Jesus brought into the world for all. In a quote that has been attributed over time to St. Francis of Assisi, the writer tells us to "Preach the gospel at all times; when necessary, use words.” Of course, it is riduclous to think that the Gospel can actually be preached without using words, but the point being made here is that selfless service to others, a smile, a hug, a loving gesture on our parts can go a long way towards making the recipient wonder what in the world we are up to and why we seem to have found a joy that they would like to share in. In other cultures I have come in contact with, it would be considered rude to force the Gospel or any religious or political point of view on someone. But when sincerely asked about your beliefs, it is completely proper to respond with a truthful, heartfelt answer. This is why serious Christians need to be ready at all times, as Peter reminds us in 1 Peter 3:15-16 where he says to "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander." I pray that we all get a chance to give an answer many times on this trip. Praise God!

Mission work at home - ramp build this morning

2011-10-29T20:09:00.002-05:00

RampBuild10-29-2011

To see pictures of the ramp build, click the picture above.

Sometimes, when we are explaining the incredible international mission trips that Redeemer has sponsored, the question comes up "Why don't you serve others right here in Austin? We have plenty of homeless people, hungry people, spiritually lost or seeking people, etc." You get the idea. My stock answer to these objections is usually to thank the person for having a heart for these areas of ministry and then challenging them to organize an effort to address whatever need they have brought up. This is the way ministry works at Redeemer. Somebody identifies a need, runs it by our Pastors and then is empowered to lead the project. Some absolutely amazing ministries have resulted from this bottom-up approach, including some of our members being involved in a breakfast for the homeless each month, others doing regular blood drives, a disaster relief team working on everything from Hurricanes Ike and Katrina relief to working with families that lost their homes in the recent central Texas wildfires. The list goes on and on. I am going to amend my stock answer to this question to include the following observation. While some of us have been called to get out of our comfort zones, saddle up and do the Lord's work in faraway places, it is not possible to obey God's call to the mission field and not be deeply effected by it. Every one of us that has participated in these trips (in my case, first helping to build two churches in Mexico and now preparing to go on my sixth trip in the past two years to Kenya) has come back with what Pastor Dave calls "Jesus eyes." We are more sensitive to the needs around us in our day to day surroundings and are more involved than ever in our local communities. This morning, I had the pleasure of helping build a wheelchair ramp for a woman in her 90's. Her daughter, who is in her 70's, explained that the ramp would make it much easier to get her mother out and about, since she had fallen recently and was afraid of falling again going from the house to the car. The work amounted to five of us having some fun with power tools, telling tall tales and sharing a few laughs on a Saturday morning. We were done in less than three hours. It was huge, however, to the lady who had been trapped, for all practical purposes, in her home. A group of men from Redeemer is involved in this caring ministry along with the Texas Ramp Project, about once a month. No special skills are required, but the good you can do and the rewards it brings to both us and those we serve are abundant. I guess my point is that the fact that some of us are called to work on foreign missions in no way limits us when we get back to Austin, but in fact spurs us on to being even more involved locally than we ever were before. You don't need to go halfway around the world to serve the Lord and others, your mission field might be as close as your neighborhood, your school or your workplace. If you aren't already active in some sort of serving, helping ministry, I would encourage you to check with Redeemer or your church and see what the needs are. If nothing interests you, perhaps you already feel tugged by the Holy Spirit to address someone's need in a different area. Pick up the ball and run with it! If you do, you will never be the same and I can promise you that the change will be for the better for you and for all those you touch. Thank you, Jesus!

A word about security concerns for the upcoming trip

2011-10-27T16:51:00.002-05:00

KenyaFall2011

Please click on the picture above to view pictures related to the November 2011 mission. Come back often, especially between November 10th and 20th while we are in the field. We'll be posting new stories and pictures on a daily basis when possible.

There have been a number of news stories lately about the unrest in the Somalian capital of Mogadishu and along the Kenya/Somalia border. Pastor Dave and myself, as well as the leaders of the other teams that are part of the upcoming mission have been staying on top of things and want to put all of our supporter's minds at ease. Paul Althoff and Kevin Pieper have just returned from their advance trip to Kenya and are convinced that everything will be just fine. Our LCMS missionary rules stress our personal safety above all else. All of the groups stay in secure locations and are at their lodgings by dark every day. The church locations where we do the Lord's work are also secure. We never travel alone, but only in large groups and we don't go to venues such as sporting events where large crowds might become a problem. The best advice I've heard so far is from our wonderful liaison with LCMS International Missions in Nairobi, Catherine Wangari. She suggests that anyone that is concerned about us do a Google search and get a map of East Africa. They will see that Nairobi and Mogadishu are 752 miles apart by road and that all of our teams will be 300-400 miles away from the border, regardless of where they are serving. I am personally on a State Department email list for security alerts about Kenya and appreciate the fact that there is now heightened security in place to take care of any threat. After all, tourism is one of Kenya's biggest economic engines, the authorities certainly don't want that jeopardized. Please continue to pray for an effective mission for all involved. May we bless those we come to serve. I know we will be blessed abundantly in return. To God be the Glory!

Dental Clinic Preparation

2011-10-17T18:18:00.001-05:00

KenyaFall2011

Please click on the picture above to view pictures related to the November 2011 mission. Come back often, especially between November 10th and 20th while we are in the field. We'll be posting new stories and pictures on a daily basis when possible.

We had a pill counting party at Adrienne's house Tuesday night. Ralph and Louise Genz and Martha Faske joined us for BBQ from Mann's (we needed to get our strength up first!). We counted approximately 28,000 pills into little zip lock bags and labeled them, finally gathering them up into one gallon storage bags for each type of drug. We started at 6:30pm and were done with the bulk of it by 11pm. There was just a little left to do that Adrienne and I finished up Friday evening. The medications for the dental clinic range from simple aspirin to a mixture of Tylenol and Hydrocodone to antibiotics such as Amoxicillin or CIPRO. The dental clinic will focus mostly on extractions and minor surgeries with an eye on doing the most good for the largest number of people. Like the vision clinic, the dental clinic is being used as a caring vehicle for sharing the Gospel. Last November, we treated over 1,100 patients, some of whom may have died from tooth infections or other conditions we would take for granted in the U.S., had we not been able to give them dental care and life saving antibiotics. What a blessing this ministry is! The team will be led by Dr. Terry Councill, who is associated with the Salem Lutheran Church team in Tomball. He was with us last November as well. We are eager to work together with him and the local Kenyan dentists again. He will jump in to take care of the toughest cases and will instruct the local dentists in new or different techniques, something they are always hungry for.

We're into the home stretch leading up to the November mission!

2011-10-17T13:44:00.000-05:00

It's that time again, about a month before our next mission trip to Nairobi's slum of Kawangware and the incredible Lutheran church there. We will soon be back among our friends, worshiping with Pastor Zedekiah and then serving the community during the work week with both a vision and a dental clinic. It seems like we just got back in May from Springs of Life Lutheran Church in Nairobi's largest slum of Kibera. The work on the next mission trip always begins behind the scenes almost immediately after returning from the previous one.

This past Sunday, October 9th, was a very full day. Pastor Kevin and I were at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Giddings, along with Gus Jacob from Salem to present what we are doing on our African missions as part of their Missions Sunday. Pastor Kevin preached at both services and I showed a slide show during their fellowship time between worship. The pastors and the congregation all showed a great deal of interest in how the clinics are used as a vehicle for spreading the Gospel. They took a door offering to help support the mission and that money will be set aside to help enable one or more of them to join us on a future mission. After the presentation, a 2nd grade teacher wanted to know if her class could help us by making our beaded cross necklaces as a crafts progress for her class. We use these necklaces in explaining the Gospel by the meaning of each of the colored beads and accompanying Scripture. Each team gets about four dozen of them and we will probably have seven teams next April, so they'll need to make about 350 of them for us. What a great way to get the kids involved!

Gus and I headed back to Austin, while Pastor Kevin preached at the late service. Of course, we couldn't make it through Elgin without stopping for BBQ for lunch and this time it was Southside Market. The brisket and sausage were great, afficianados of Meyer's liek Pastor Kevin prefer the sauce there. I just keep trying BBQ at new places in small Texas towns every chance I get and I have many favorites.

Back in Austin, we arrived at Redeemer around 12:30pm and loaded up a cart with all of the materials Gus had brought with him to help us conduct our very first orientation. We were expecting about 25 team members from both Redeemer and Good Shepherd in Cedar Park. Our team will be returning to Kawangware, while the Good Shepherd team, led by Pastor Goodwill, is slated to serve in the rural church in Chesenende. I had already been planning on taking any team members that couldn't make it for one reason or another to Salem Lutheran Church in Tomball for their orientation on October 29th. Against all odds of perfect attendance for a group of this size, everybody was present and accounted for when we started the training at 1:30pm, including one extra missionary from St. Paul Lutheran in Vernon, Mark Kieschnick. He attended our orientation because October 29th wouldn't work for him and Austin is a little closer. Gus did a great job of going over the numerous travel and mission rules and pointers during the first hour. The next two hours were filled with each team member being trained in two or more of the vision clinic's six stations. This is important for several reasons. Some of the jobs involve lots of standing, others mostly sitting, so it's good to be able to change tasks occasionally. Some of the stations, particularly triage, involve hearing intimate stories and praying with the people over their most private or painful thoughts and situations, so being able to decompress a bit occasionally by doing a more mundane job is welcome. Everything went very well and we were able to dismiss everybody by 4:30pm. Many thanks to Gus for his help in making this a great afternoon.

I am most impressed by the number of people coming on the November trip for the first time. I'm guessing that about 60 percent of our two teams are new. This is wonderful, since their enthusiasm, joy and energy are great for recharging the batteries of those of us that have been on multiple trips. In turn, we veterans can help channel that energy and hopefully keep some of the same mistakes we've made in the past from being repeated. This mix of old and new will be a blessing for all involved.

Some musings on the meaning of the spring Kibera trip and the last of the pictures are now posted

2011-06-11T15:06:00.001-05:00

Kenya Spring 2011

Now that the jet lag is finally over and I am getting back into my daily routine, I've been able to ponder the recent mission to Kibera and it's time to put together some final thoughts on the things that made this mission trip so special. There were several overarching themes that really cropped up over and over again, both while we were there and in my reflections since our return home. They are:

1.) The teamwork between all interested parties was nothing short of amazing. We got help from our experienced volunteers from Kawangware including Pastor Zedekiah for most of the week. This was very important because our team from Redeemer only consisted of 6 members. There are 6 stations in a vision clinic and a minimal team is usually one team member for each station plus the team leader. This allows the leader to roam the clinic and pitch in wherever there is a bottleneck or to take care of inevitable issues as they arise. The local evangelists were fantastic. Last year, we had several evangelists that had come from other locations to help. This year, all of our evangelists were from Springs of Life. I know when visitors ask me about Redeemer, they understand by the time I'm done with them that it's the only church for me! I'm sure our evangelists are just as enthusiastic about their home congregation. We had wonderful help from Lutheran Hour workers, some of whom also belong to Springs of Life. They were spreading the Gospel to our patients as they waited for registration. They have a new program of Bible Correspondence Courses they were stressing. Since mail and even cell phones are iffy ways to connect with people in Kibera, the program requires that Bible students bring their lessons to the church every Sunday to be handed in. The LHM workers then give the students new lessons and take the previous lessons to be graded during the next week. This commitment to the hard work of hands on evangelism deserves our utmost admiration. The program has the added benefit that people just MIGHT step foot inside the church on Sunday, since they are there with their lessons anyway. Also, the Lutheran Hour team members showed 2 movies during the week in the neighborhood (not on the church grounds). Monday night at 9pm, after we were exhausted and already heading for bed, they showed the Jesus Film, dubbed in the local flavor of Swahili called Luo that is spoken in the neighborhood, to about 600 people and of course made mention of the vision clinic. On Wednesday night, they showed a film about Mary Magdalene to about 1,000 people in the neighborhood. Attendance at the clinic was great all week and a large number of the patients who came to see us were there as a result of the Lutheran Hour missionaries. Well done, good and faithful servants! The commitment and cooperation we got from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Kenya and their local Diocese was very helpful as well, with Sylvester, from the staff of Bishop Obare, actually showing up Monday morning to encourage us on our first day. What a blessing! The Springs of Life volunteers were very dedicated and worked long hours side by side with us cheerfully. Our morning and evening devotions with them were particularly special and by the time we had our last devotion and parting ceremony on Friday, there wasn't a dry eye in the place. There were tears of joy at having made new friends and tears of sadness at having to say goodbye until next time. Finally, it was very special to serve with Rev. Bakari and his wife Sophia, both of whom are converts from Islam. They have an all consuming fire for the Lord that is infectious to all whom they meet. I feel that this vision clinic was only the beginning of really building up the Springs of Life Church as a light on a hill in their local community. By week's end, the Pastor had confided in me that he could not have met as many community members in a year as he had during the past week and that everywhere he goes now people yell out "Pastor!" and know who he is and the good that his church does in the neighborhood. No mention of teamwork would be complete without mentioning the support that the LCMS World Missions local missionary, Pastor Shauen Trump and our dear friend Catherine Wangari gave us. There wasn't a problem too big or a detail so small that they weren't able to joyfully help us with. Again, well done, good and faithful servants to all who contributed their time and talents to this evangelism mission.

2.) I am very happy to take note of the extra energy and joy that first time members always bring to the table, which in turn energizes all of us. Starting with seeing some of the sights of Nairobi to actually working in the slum, they brought us a lot of laughs. Both Lupe and Leslie were on their feet for long hours every day, barely taking a break, but continuously smiling and shining for all to see in their service to the Lord. It's contagious! We also had veterans of 4 or more of these missions under their belts on our team, all of whom have a deep, heart-felt commitment for the sharing of the Gospel and the love of Christ. We have maybe a little different joy, peace and overall demeanor about us than the new team members, not any better or worse, just different. I think the mix of new and veteran team members was part of what made this misison so special this time. The wonderment, sense of awe and wide-eyed joy of the new missionaries helped to keep us old-timers from getting too detached or jaded, and I'm sure that in turn we provided a necessary rudder for the newbies who were far outside of their pre-concieved comfort zones. It's amazing how much bigger your comfort zone gets when you get out of the boat!

3.) Communication issues abounded, both involving phone and Internet service. While these problems made it harder in some ways, they ultimately didn't really matter much. I was still able to post almost daily reports about what we were doing, but had to walk about a quarter mile to the LCMS World Missions offices each evening and really only had the time and energy to do minimal reports and I was not in much of a position to post any pictures. Also, because we gladly gave our Kenyan cell phone to another team that was going out into a rural area to replace their damaged device, we were not able to call and let our families know we were OK until Monday, more than 4 days after we left Austin. This was actually kind of funny. On Saturday, Catherine bought us a SIM card and cell minutes for an old Nokia phone that she had, but we couldn't figure out how to activate it or use it until our driver, Joseph, got it going in about 10 seconds on Monday morning. Due to the eight hour time difference, we couldn't actually call home until after work that evening. I'm sure Adrienne would not have appreciated a 2am phone call from me no matter how much she might have been worried about us!

4.) Even though we worked at an existing church that was dedicated in 2003 by Bishop Obare, and though this was our second clinic there, we really got a sense of being involved in ground floor church building. Pastor Bakari was filled with the Holy Spirit the whole time, the congregation had a unified sense of purpose, the Lutheran Hour staff were incredibly dedicated to their work and, of course, it all rubbed off on us as well. Each and every one of us can't wait to get back to Kibera next May to see how much the church has grown in terms of numbers and also in their faith and the many ministries they are doing.

5.) Also on the subject of church building, Ralph Genz was privileged to be a part of the team led by Paul Althoff of Salem at Chesenende, a brand new clinic site that we at Redeemer hope to return to in November in partnership with Good Shepherd Lutheran Church of Cedar Park. It was a wonderful first time clinic and some of Ralph's photos are now included with those from Kibera on the blog.

6.) Finally, these reflections would not be complete if I didn't once again issue a call others to join us in spreading the Gospel to the world. I highly recommend a book by David Platt called Radical that was on the NY Times Bestseller List last year. Pastor Platt shepherds a large church about the size of Redeemer in Birmingham, AL. I read his book during the long flights on this trip and it's a life changer. His basic premise is that we have come to worship the American Dream in our culture and it even extends to the way we do church. Bigger is better. After teaching in home churches in India, China and other places where people were risking their lives, jobs and everything they own to learn more about the faith, he just didn't feel right in his own church, with millions of dollars worth of vehicles outside of a multimillion dollar sanctuary. Entertainment, programs for the kids, and other facets of large American church culture had pushed aside the hunger for the Word and giving glory to God through true worship. He went back to his Bible and discovered that Jesus had a mini-church of totally devoted followers who had given up everything in order to follow him and fulfill the mission he sent them on when he gave them The Great Commission. They didn't need a mega-church to turn the world upside-down. Just committed followers doing the hard work of one on one discipleship training. Since we are called to spread the Good News to the world, and two thirds of the world isn't Christian, and most of that two thirds lives outside of the United States, Pastor Platt has been empowering people from all walks of life in his congregation to participate in one way or another in foreign missions. He has noticed what we have also seen at Redeemer. Those who get outside of their comfort zone and help in making disciples of all nations come back to their local community and are even more involved in doing the same at home. The enthusiasm they bring back is contagious and their congregations are alive. Again, I can't say enough about this book except that I wish that I had written it! I may even base a study in my Sunday School class on it in the coming year.

As always, if you would like to join us on a future trip or have any questions about what we do and why we do it, please contact Pastor Kevin Westergren at 512-459-1500 or kwestergren@redeemer.net or me, Dave DeVore at 512-323-5343 or dave@mrpcaustin.com.

To God be the Glory!

Pictures are being added daily

2011-05-28T16:28:00.000-05:00

Kenya Spring 2011

I intend to have about 300 representative pictures up after the long Memorial Day holiday weekend here in the States. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have reviewing them. More posts to follow after I've had a little more time to reflect on the mountain top experiences we had during this mission.

Saturday events and travel home to Texas

2011-05-23T14:36:00.000-05:00

Leslie, Lupe and Tom got an early start with our driver Joseph on some in town sightseeing, but not before we had Joseph assemble one last pair of glasses. As mentioned previously, the whole team worked on inventorying our remaining supplies, completing statistics for the clinic and finishing up 2 last pairs of glasses for staff at the Scripture House after dinner Friday night until after 9pm. Howard, Lupe and I had incredibly bad luck and just could not get any frames to work with for the last pair of glasses with the required lenses. Joseph had the job completed in about 45 seconds. In our defense, we were at the end of about a 14 hour day the night before, nothing was making any sense after about 7:30pm and the light was better in the morning. I had breakfast with them before they left to see Nairobi and then made my way with Howard and Martha over to the LCMS World Missions offices to work my magic on several computers. The Faskes checked their email on my laptop before leaving with friends from Kawangware while I started on an older desktop system that was short on memory. When I was unpacking my computer bag earlier in the week, a stick of memory had fallen out and I had thought it was funny that it had made it to Nairobi completely unbeknownst to me, obviously stuck in my bag after a repair at one of my clients. In fact it was a rather rare type and speed of memory. Lo and behold, it was exactly the part that was needed for the office computer. I have had too many experiences like this over the last several years to believe in coincidences or accidents anymore. It was plain to me that God had provided for his missionaries in Kenya. Pretty cool, huh? I completed my work on the computers a little after noon just as Catherine arrived at the office. I helped her with a few questions and then we took an empty footlocker over to the Scripture House and loaded it up with real Cokes made with cane sugar. That’s a real treat compared to the corn syrup variety that we have in the States these days. I was able to get in one last hot shower before the other teams began to arrive back from their various mission posts and then a little 20 minute nap before a 3pm team leader meeting. I had just enough time before the meeting to buy a couple of souvenirs from the mission ladies who were just beginning to setup shop in anticipation of the returning teams. The leader’s meeting was a good time of sharing some tremendous stories of God using all of us to build His church during the past week and some strategizing on what worked and where we could improve next time around. The usual pizzas and Cokes were served to the team members as they returned from the other 5 locations, but there was also a treat that Lupe had whipped up with the help of our cooks for everybody. It was a full meal with rice, vegetables and meat. Everyone was very appreciative of Lupe’s efforts and the other teams continued in their efforts to try to steal him from us! The answer was “Still no deal!”.

We left for the airport around 6:30pm Nairobi time and it was a good thing, since we ran into heavy traffic caused by a 2 car wreck. As we were stalled in traffic, children of various ages descended on our buses and other vehicles trying to sell their varied wares of trinkets, snacks and assorted junk. We passed through security without incident once we reached the airport and then we changed our Kenyan shillings back into dollars, bought more souvenirs in the many shops and fellowshipped in the coffee bar over sandwiches and drinks until it was time to go to our gate. Our flight took off nearly 45 minutes late when it was thought there was extra baggage on board that didn’t match any of the passengers. Better safe than sorry. This had been the day that the world was supposed to come to an end and, since I’m still here on the plane from London to Houston writing this, I guess it didn’t happen. Our layover was a little shorter, but adequate for everyone to clear security in a very crowded Heathrow Airport. There were no signs of a bad economy there, the place was packed with travelers. While I’m on the subject of travel, we gave out travel time estimates during our commissioning at Redeemer at different services that ranged from 18 to 35 hours and I want to clear up any confusion. Yes, it is true that our two flights total from 18 to 20 hours depending on delays waiting to take off, security issues, etc. The bigger number comes from when I count from the time I leave my home in Austin until I am at the Scripture House in Nairobi or from when we leave for the airport in Nairobi until I am on my front porch. Typically, we leave around 8am for Houston, with stops for Blue Bell in Brenham and then lunch outside of Bush International. We get to the airport and begin to go through security around 1:15pm and usually fly out around 4pm. After the flight to London and a layover, then the flight to Nairobi, the clearing of customs and the bus ride to the Scripture house, we are usually there at midnight local time. This time of year, Nairobi is 8 hours ahead of Austin, so that would be 8am Austin time Thursday until 4pm Austin time Friday. That adds up to 32 hours from end to end for a good trip. Our worst one was several hours longer coming back last May during the volcano in Iceland. We had to wait in London on the tarmac for over 2 hours for a flight slot back to the States, then our normal 9 hour flight was 11 hours because we had to fly into the Arctic Circle before heading south to Houston to avoid the volcanic ash cloud. To top it off, we were missing a footlocker with some of our team’s personal items and that meant a late getaway from Houston. My recollection was it was 38 hours total, with 13 hours spent on the London to Houston plane, my longest stint on a plane including trips to Israel, England, Germany and Hawaii over the years. I hope this clears up any confusion, the travel is definitely long, but we get to meet complete strangers on the plane rides whom we are able to befriend and witness to since it seems everyone is interested in why we have name tags, cross necklaces and are part of a large group. This "salting" of the plane with team members is intentional and has led many great discussions about faith over the years.

We arrived at my house precisely at 8pm, making the return trip 33 1/2 hours accounting for the 8 hour time difference, about average. Leslie unloaded her things into her SUV, Lupe's family came to pick him up and we all shared one last hug. The end of a most blessed adventure! Praise be to God!

Friday - an amazing end to the week

2011-05-21T03:35:00.001-05:00

We came prepared to work hard the last day of the week and were greeted at the clinic by Paul, one of the Conquerors singing group from the church in Kawangware. He had a guitar and was awaiting the arrival of his 4 or 5 other band members. They either had traffic problems or something else came up. While he couldn't do the multiple part intricate vocal harmonies they are known for, it wasn't long before the we raised the roof of the sanctuary with a joyful noise. Our Kenyan hosts and the local volunteers have an outstanding ability to learn a simple song and then improvise around the basic theme until you can't stand still and it's all to the glory of God. The music has always been and will always be one of my favorite parts of these mission trips. The quiet dignity, profound faith and deep joy of our friends here just can't help coming out in their music. We ended our morning devotion time with words of encouragement and a prayer from Pastor Bakary. Since it was threatening to rain for the first time all week, our evangelists were working with 15 people at a time rather than the ideal of 8 to a group in order to move our patients up to the large 100 person registration area tent for protection from the elements. Once it was apparent that the thick cloud cover was going to burn off, we got back to our ideal sized group in which people are more comfortable sharing intimate questions about faith. About mid-morning, I was making my rounds when, coming up the hill walking directly towards me, were 2 policemen with machine guns. A few thoughts went through my mind, such as hoping we weren't doing anything illegal and whether we had all necessary permits to run the clinic. As it turned out, one of them is a member of the church and needed an eye exam. Since they were on duty, I fast-tracked them through the registration. When it came to the eye chart exam, Leslie put her hands up and mock surrendered before pointing at the various lines of the eyechart. We had a lot of fun at each clinic station and then we got our new friend in front of the local eye doctors. When he sat down, his gun was lying across his lap and was pointed directly at our friend Dr. John, who was going to do the exam. Dr. John scooted to the side rather quickly! Meanwhile, the other policeman, Augustine, motioned for me to come outside with him. He was very appreciative of what the church and our team were doing in the slum. He is a Christian and said that while sometimes his job involves going after bad guys, for the most part he tries to do his work with the attitude of a servant and gets his greatest satisfaction out of helping people. We had a great conversation and he intends to bring others to our clinic in Kawangware in November. When his partner was done in the clinic, I got a picture of the two of them and then they had me stand with Augustine holding a machine gun for another photo. I showed the picture to the rest of the team and told them they needed to follow my orders or I would go and get my weapon! We all had a good laugh out of that one. By 11:30 we already had nearly 350 people on the church grounds in various stages of going through the clinic and were well on our way to our best day of the week. Right after lunch, which we didn't stop for but snacked on the run instead, about 120 uniformed children from a nearby school arrived wanting eye exams. I could see mass chaos beginning to ensue. Our registration volunteers wanted to send 10 children in at a time and then 10 of our regular neighborhood patients, 10 children, etc. There is no way that would have worked and our orderly clinic would have gone up in flames. Dr. John came to the rescue and we put an eyechart outside on the wall of the parsonage. He trained Allen, one of our local volunteers, to look for 20-20 vision and we began rapidly separating the sheep from the goats. Out of the 120 or so kids, only about 20 were candidates for further examination. But, to my surprise, it didn't end there. The doctor told me some of the children had been told by their friends what letters to call out on the eyechart while others were less than truthful because they wanted glasses whether they were needed or not. The doctor ran a second quick screening and weeded out 5 more children. Everybody won, the clinic was kept from bogging down, every child got an eyechart exam and those that needed help were routed through the clinic. We closed the gate at 3:00pm because there were about the number already inside that we could serve without making anybody wait for an hour or more, only to be turned away later. We finished the day exhausted, having seen 727 patients, our best day of the week. For the week, our grand total ws 2822, with about half being Muslims. We packed up our footlockers so some of Catherine's people could get them back to the Scripture House. We then had a very special service to close the clinic. There were several songs, and then Pastor Bakary delivered a rousing sermon that he had prepared for the occasion. After that, Isaac, a congregation member and worker with the Lutheran Hour and I handed out certificates of appreciation to our volunteers. Their faces were beaming as each came forward to receive a certificate and have their picture taken with me. I'm not sure if a picture with me is any big deal, but they seemed to like it. Pastor had me say a few words to the team. I thanked them on behalf of Redeemer for their service and told them what a blessing they all had been to each of us. Halfway through my impromptu remarks, Pastor cut in and said that all week long they had all been listening to me and that I talked funny, like an American, then he made some unintelligle noises to demonstrate how I sound to them. It was a huge laugh at my expense and I loved every minute of it, feigning hurt feelings in an overly dramatic way. You know that we have a very special relationship with the Springs of Life Lutheran Church when we are this comfortable with each other. I finished our thanking of the volunteers and praised God. The congregation then had all of our team come forward and sang a blessing over us with each of them having both of their arms raised up towards us. Martha had us do the same, to reflect the blessing back onto them. What a moving moment. We were then given a gift by the congregation, a large thank you card signed by everyone with their wishes for us, and none of us had a dry eye. Finally, we sang a benediction together and each congregation member lined up and everyone in the church hugged each other and us individually. There were many smiles, laughs and tears as we parted company until next May's mission to Kibera. We barely made it out of the slum before dark, as required by our mission rules, but we did. We had dinner and then all worked on counting the day's totals, inventorying our remaining supplies and making one last set of glasses for one of the compound's security guards, finishing after 9pm. A long, hard day's work of serving others to wrap up the mission had come to an end. Thank you, Jesus!

Please keep an eye on this space for then next few weeks as I get pictures, more stories and reflections on this mission trip posted to the blog. The spotty communications this time around has precluded me from being more immediate, particularly with pictures and movie clips. We have thousands of pictures to choose from among the group, so that work will begin once we are back to our daily lives in the States.

Thursday - Our largest clinic yet

2011-05-21T02:25:00.000-05:00

We did our usual routine of 6am breakfast, got in the van at 7am and rode into Kibera. There were some people already waiting for the clinic to open when we arrived. We had a daily devotion and prayer along with some wonderful acapella music that the entire group of volunteers participated in, with our friend Rosemary leading the song. It was a solo and response number, first in Swahili and then in English which basically said Jesus is the winner for one verse, Satan is the loser for another and wrapping up with trusting in what the blood of Jesus has done. A great way to kick off the clinic. 641 patients were seen during the day, we barely stopped for anything. Several people visited during the day, including a Finnish Lutheran pastor and the owner of the transportation company we use, John. We had dinner at a newer Italian restaurant in town called Osteria with our LCMS missionaries Shauen and Crystal Trump, their young son Josiah who was remarkably well-behaved even though he was in the throes of teething and Catherine, our superhero mission coordinator, without whom these missions would be much less successful, if possible at all. All of the behind the scenes work she does in preparation for fielding multiple teams several times a year is nothing short of astonishing. It may be something as mundane as making sure our customs process goes smoothly by standing in line for hours getting permits of one sort or another or it might entail working out budgets for each location based on their unique needs. I know her cell phone bill must be astronomical, since she is never more than a minute away from being called or needing to contact someone to avoid or put out a potential fire. It was a joy for the team to break bread with them. We got back to our lodgings around 9pm and everyone hit the sack in preparation for the hard work of the last day of the clinic.

An inspiring Wednesday in Kibera

2011-05-18T13:26:00.001-05:00

Our day began with Lupe arising at 4:30am to work on a special surprise for us with Esther, one of our cooks. We were greeted by egg and cheese omelets with all of the fixings when we made our way down to 6am breakfast. I hate see how much weight each of us is gaining on this trip, but it sure tastes good. We stopped at the LCMS World Missions office to pick up a couple of cases of water for our volunteers. We ran very steadily all day again today with very few breaks for anyone, so plenty of water is essential, especially for our evangelists out in the hot tents and any of the positions that require a lot of talking and/or walking. We saw another 519 people today and many more of them were Muslims, especially in the afternoon. There was one Muslim woman and her uncle who came and after talking with the Pastor, Tom and others, decided they wanted to know more about our faith. We gave them Bibles and Tom marked the Gospel of John for them after I told them that was where I would have any new believer start, since it gives you everything you need to know and is aimed straight at the heart. What a blessing it was to see how happy they were. I got a picture of Tom with them that will appear on the blog as soon as I can make it happen along with all of the other notable pictures that are still waiting to be posted. There were some heartbreakers also, such as a woman who was blind in one eye and had good vision in the other. Our doctors decided we needed to protect both eyes, so we gave her a brand new frame with blanks in it. One man approached me outside and really wanted me to help him with his acute hearing loss. All I could do was talk with him and empathize for a while, but he seemed a little better off for the attention. A teacher also came to me asking if she could bring her 30 girls to the clinic, since we had seen several of them during their lunch hours. I let her know we don't do reading glasses for anyone under 40, so any help we could give would be distance glasses or medications for various conditions. We were already ordering more medications to complete the week, so I checked with our doctors and they gave the go ahead for the class to come on Friday morning. What a blessing that will be for any of the girls, ranging in age from 8-15, who can benefit from this care. At the end of the day, the Pastor asked me if I would like to lead our afternoon closing devotion. I had about 15 minutes to find a Bible and I landed on the Great Commission to talk about. Pastor Bakari introduced me as Pastor Dave from Texas, so I guess we now have two Pastor Daves at Redeemer! After reading it, I spoke of how the Great Commission was the real reason behind the clinic, the motivation for our team to come from far away and it is the motivation and the means by which the local church in Kibera will continue to grow. It is why we mission minded people get out of bed everyday looking for someone else to share the Good News with. After my "sermon", we sang the Doxology and a musical benediction. What a great way to end the clinic. And don't worry, the real Pastor Dave has nothing to be afraid of! After our ride home, we arrived at dinner with Catherine to find that Lupe, with Leslie's help, had cooked up a breaded chicken creation that was beyond belief, along with rice, tortillas, beans and pico capped by watermelon for dessert. I know I'll sleep well tonight!

This is the first time I have been able to use the Internet from my room, since it was finally fixed today. It makes my life a great deal easier. This has been the trip where communicating was like pulling teeth. We got the news that Pastor Kevin and Tammy's baby Benjamin had arrived and we are all very excited for them.

As we left the clinic today, our evangelists let us know that they were going to show a film about Mary Magdaline. We got a good bump in traffic Tuesday after a showing of the Jesus film Monday night, so we hope to continue the trend and are well on the way to a week where we might see as many as 2,500 patients. That's it for now, I need a good night's sleep to be able to get up and do it again. Praise God!

Tuesday's clinic

2011-05-17T12:05:00.000-05:00

Our day began with a 6am breakfast and a devotion based on the separating the sheep and the goats section of Matthew by Tom in which he focused on how we needed to treat even the least of our brothers as if they were Jesus himself. We had a good discussion mentioning others who had done so, such as Mother Teresa. We were on the road at 7am in plenty of time to arrive at the church and get the clinic opened by 8am. The evangelists started the day seeing only 8 people at a time in 3 tents and really spent a good amount of time with eah group. This is important, because on the first day, they were seeing far more people at a time and anyone with questions would have been hesitant to speak up, especially Muslims. It is also important because it meant we had a full 100 person waiting tent full at all times on Monday, disrupting the flow that we would have liked to have had. Tuesday was much different and people we waiting to be evangelized rather than for the clinic. It seemed as if the clinic was very quiet all day long,but with the more sane beginning mentioned above, there was a steady drip, drip, drip of activity and we wound the day up with nearly 500 patients having been seen. The steady, more orderly approach is much better and less tiring. While we worked hard on Monday, we were flailing and wasted a lot of time and energy. The second day is always much better than the first and we have high hopes of seeing between 2,500 and 3,000 people at the clinic before we close Friday. That could change if we get any appreciable rain. We have been praying for rain in central Texas for so long that it seems odd to ask the Lord for dry weather until the clinic is over. When it rains, people stat home due to muddy streets everywhere and the need to make sure their shanties and possessions don't wash away. There were many wonderful spiritual stories throughout the day, which we will share with each other after dinner and during breakfast tomorrow. More to follow as the clinic continues. God bless everyone who has been praying for our safety and an effective witness in an area that needs the hope that only our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ can bring.

The Clinic Begins in Kibera

2011-05-17T11:47:00.001-05:00

We had breakfast at 5:45 and did a daily devotion that I love on the first day of a trip by Oswald Chambers called “What is a Missionary?”. It stresses the need to focus on the one who sent you, Jesus, and noton the many problems and suffering that will surround you. If you remember who sent you and concentrate on the mission at hand you will be effective, while it is possible if you get distracted by every need you encounter, you will not accomplish anything, let alone what you came to do. After breakfast, we got in the van at 6:30 and our new team members got their first ride through the slum as everyone was leaving for work. The hustle and bustle is amazing. We arrived at the church at 7am to get an early start on setting up the clinic, with a goal of seeing our first patients at 8:30am. We succeeded in that, but we had the usual first day shakedown issues that always occur when new team members, new and old volunteers and leaders who know the “right way” to do things such as myself try to get a big undertaking running for the first time. There are belches of smoke, fits and starts and finally the engine starts to run smoothly. By the end of the day, most bottlenecks and glitches had been overcome. We had many wonderful experiences, making friends with new volunteers, getting to know our new Pastor, Rakary Care and others. The local church and the Diocese have done a very good job of advertising the clinic, both in radio spots and via a wonderful little church lady with a bullhorn. She came to meet me late in the morning and I told her we were an eyeglass clinic and could do nothing for her throat! She laughed and probably was convinced that I am crazy. At the end of the day, she may be right! Around 3pm we had to shut the gate to any more patients, since we had around 125 people waiting to get into the clinic already on the church grounds. We were able to serve everyone who was already there, shut down the clinic and be on the road back to hot showers and dinner by around 5pm. We saw 439 people total today for everything from distance or reading glasses to visits with our doctors for medications for itchy eyes, infections and other ailments as well as referring 10 people for cataract surgery to hospitals in Nairobi, a service that we pay for. Everyone was exhausted once we got back to the Scripture House, since we hadn’t stopped for lunch but opted for quick drinks of water and a snack here and there.

As I said at the end of my last post, this trip has been marked by unusually bad glitches in communication, first and foremost no access to a phone that we could call home on until today and still no Internet in the Scripture House where we are staying. We have lots of great pictures that I haven’t been able to upload yet, so keep an eye on the blog at least until after we are back next week. I will continue to work until there is plenty of material about the trip readily available here.

Sunday in Nairobi

2011-05-16T12:08:00.002-05:00

As mentioned, Lupe indeed did wander down to the kitchen at 4am, I followed an hour later with my camera and found him chopping up about a quarter of a pig, while our two cooks were working on eggs, hand made tortillas and other breakfast taco fixings under Lupe’s direction. Lupe had brought some spices with him, but his salsa was taken away from him during one of the airport searches. It didn’t matter, he managed to make an incredible salsa with fresh ingredients anyway. The 40 or so who had breakfast before heading out to their respective missions were all surprised and it was a wonderful, joyous occasion. On many of our previous trips, it was much more subdued as we encouraged each other and talked about the different challenges and opportunities that each clinic location presented. This time it was pretty raucous and more than one of the other team leaders tried to trade me two or more team members for Lupe. No way, no deal!
As the different groups all loaded up their vans for travel to their respective clinic locations, the leaders all gathered in a prayer circle and Paul lifted up a beautiful prayer asking for a safe and effective mission for all involved and, of course, that many would be saved by hearing the message of salvation through Christ that we would be spreading throughout the country.
We met our driver for the week, Joseph, and he has turned out to be a wonderful guy to be around. He has a good sense of humor, although he didn’t quite know what to make of Howard and I going round and round at first when Howard insisted I ride up front with Joseph in the “Suicide Seat.” This was a reference to a previous trip in which we came to a screeching halt inches from the side of a large truck at a roundabout with Pastor Kevin in the same spot. As the day went on, Joseph told me I was the funniest passenger he had ever worked for. I’m not sure it was a compliment, but we have already had lots of laughs together.
We arrived at Kawangware for the 10am church service. It was wonderful, as usual, and features many readings, several traditional Lutheran hymns and a wide variety of music performed by 2 adult choirs, the teem choir we had been blessed by the previous night and some incredible praise songs led by members of the Conquerors and others. Pastor Zedekiah asked me to come up early in the service to thank Redeemer for the donation of a large bongo and T-Shirts for the teen choir. I expressed greetings from Redeemer and told the congregation we are happy to help them in their ministry in any way we can. Later in the service, I had the pleasure of introducing Tom Krueger as we celebrated the water well project soon coming online with fresh water for the church compound and for the Living Water ministry to the nearby community that it will provide. Tom and I both praised God for this miracle and he also made a point of stressing that we always receive many more blessings than we could ever give when we serve them and their ministry. Leslie proved to be a human “kid magnet” as every little kid flocked to her and sat with us during the bulk of the service. It was a great experience. Pastor’s sermon was based on readings from the Gospel of John and we were doubly blessed in that this Sunday proved to be a communion Sunday. The whole team was communed by Pastor Zedekiah. When all was said and done, church let out around 1:15 and we stayed for a little while to see which congregation members might be coming to Kibera to help us get up and running faster and to also renew acquantances with many of our friends who were in church with us.
From Kawangware, we went to the Junction for lunch, a nice restaurant in a pretty nice area of town. It was chosen for good, reasonably priced food and for its proximity in the same mall to Nakumat, a large store similar to a Super Wal-Mart. It was very busy, being nearly 4 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, but we did get snacks, water, etc., for the early part of the week and we headed to the Springs of Life Lutheran Church to go over the setup of the clinic with the Pastor.
Catherine already had our footlockers and other equipment at the church and we were not able to actually get to setup in the sanctuary for Monday because there was a function going on. We did get some ideas for improved traffic flow for this week that we might try. We went back to our compound, dinner and a good night’s sleep.
Our Internet and phone access has been very spotty and we hope for that to improve as time goes on. All of us are well and are very geared up to start the clinic.

Saturday, Lupe's Birthday in Nairobi

2011-05-15T12:19:00.000-05:00

Saturday May 14th, Lupe’s Birthday in Nairobi
Our day began with a 5am breakfast for those of us going to a wild game park on the city limits of Nairobi. There were less than 5 hours of sleep possible, but in fact we all got anywhere from zero sleep to maybe 2 hours of on and off sleep at the most. This early hour was necessary to give us the most chance of seeing nocturnal animals as they began heading off to bed themselves. It also helps to shock us into a time zone that is 8 hours ahead of our own CST so that we will be more effective when we start work Monday at the clinic. The entrance fee was a nice surprise as it was only $40 in U.S. money. Those of us who had gone during any previous November trip remembered it being $60. We all road in the big bus that we had taken from the airport the night before and it was pretty full, with about 25 of us opting for the game park. Others were able to leave at more respectable hours to see the Karen Blitzen House and Museum and a factory where beads and beaded products are made. Our first hour and a half of the safari was just OK, during which we saw plenty of giraffes up close and personal, elands, water buffalo, water bucks, ostriches and severals species of birds, including crested cranes. We felt like it had been a good, but not great morning so far. All that changed. Leslie and another member of the group spotted a lioness in a distant tree that the rest of us completely missed. We had our driver, Boniface, back up about 50 yards for a better view and then those of us with a range of fancy cameras proceeded to work our zooms pretty hard, since we were at least a couple of hundred yards away from her. I wound up with a very nice shot of her lounging in a nook about halfway up the tree. Not long after that, we ran across quite a few velvet monkeys near the road and enticed them in closer to us by throwing them a banana and some nuts and dried fruit. They put on quite a show for us and we were a little concerned they might jump into a bus window in order to get some more goodies. We rounded out the end of the trip with some great pictures of baboons hamming it up right near the exit of the park. Our next stop was the Veranda restaurant, where we sat outside and enjoyed a beautiful birthday lunch with everyone singing Happy Birthday and God’s Blessings to You in four part Lutheran harmony for our friend Lupe. We got back to the Norwegian compound about 2:30 and I got a much needed 20 minute nap, after which I went over to the LCMS World Missions office and began work on 2 computer that need some maintenance. This was also the first chance to let our loved ones know via email that we arrived safely and I was able to post our first report about our travel. I walked the several hundred yards back to the Scripture House for worship, which was led by Shauen Trump, our LCMS missionary here. He had a wonderful, inspiring message that explained the unusual Moroccan derivation of his first name also was very encouraging about how the Lord protects those he calls, based on Psalm 121. I’ll never pray that Psalm the say way again. We relaxed for a while, I bought a shirt from the local ladies and then we had dinner around 7pm. We fellowshipped with our fellow missionaries on our last evening as a large group, some of us did some refresher training on their assigned clinic stations and Howard and I ended the evening by attending a leaders meeting to go over final details for the week. It was led by Gus Jacob, Paul Althoff and Kevin Pieper of Salem Lutheran Church and I found it very uplifting. What great mentors they have been to all of the churches that have been blessed to share in their mission ministry. Lupe was in bed when I got back to the room because he had arranged a very special treat. He was going to work with our cooks starting at 4am to make breakfast tacos for the early teams that would be having breakfast at 6:30am before their travels to the outlying clinics. It is impossible to stop him from using his special gifts for hospitality. Of course, we would never try, but this does explain why we gain weight on every trip he is involved with!

Travel May 12 and 13th

2011-05-14T08:04:00.005-05:00

Got to Kenya safe and sound. See details below!
Travel May 12 and 13th
Tom, Leslie and Lupe all arrived at my house a little after 8am and we stowed all of our baggage in the bed of my truck under my handy dandy tarp and cargo net in case we ran into rain. It’s a good thing we did. We made the short ride out to Manor and were joined around 8:45 by Howard, Martha and Ralph. We were surprised to find out that Louise had fallen ill and would not be making the trip. Leslie transferred to Howard’s Expedition and we followed them through blinding rain, with water stacking up on the road to the point that we were forced to slow down for fear of hydroplaning. We made our traditional stop in Brenham at Scoops for Blue Bell and a rest stop before heading to Bush International in Houston. The rain let up during that leg of the trip and it was dry when we arrived at the Kettle Restaurant on the outskirts of the airport for a final American meal. This would be the last meal for a while where we had any say so over what we would be eating, so most of the group had the soup and salad bar, while Ralph and I indulged in good old fashioned burgers and fries. It’s nice to know what the source of the meat in your burger is, something you are not always sure of when you travel the world!
We arrived at the airport at 1:15 as planned to meet with many of our old friends from previous mission trips and began to also make new friends. We placed our gallon Zip-Loc bags with our liquids, razors and other sharp objects in a foot locker designated for this purpose. Those of us assigned to carry an Autorefractor, Howard, Tom, Ralph and myself also place our small carry-on item in footlockers and noted the number, so we could retrieve our stuff in Nairobi. The Autorefractors are amazing devices that automatically examine eyes for distance vision and produce a thermal paper prescription when all goes as planned. They are sensitive and expensive, so we keep them with us at all times, since the vision clinics could not be run as quickly, efficiently or effectively without them. They are a key piece of equipment. We cleared security in about an hour, it was very warm and several of us got varying levels of extra attention, including the dreaded full body scan. I got one in London last year and was the butt of many jokes, so I had no sympathy! We boarded our plane after last minute cell phone calls to loved ones and took off about 15 minutes late due to weather delays. The first half of the ride was pretty bumpy, so the flight attendants really earned their pay serving dinner. For once, the food was not half bad, the choice was curry chicken or lasagna. I had the latter and it filled me up. Dessert was a very good Eli’s strawberry cheesecake from Chicago. I finally started to nod off about the time we were nearing the east coast and there was a really big bump that awoke many of us and the ride became rough for about another half an hour. I probably got a total of three hours of on and off again sleep on the way to London, which is the flight that we really try to sleep on in order to get lined up more easily with Nairobi time. The pilot made up the little bit of lost time from the late start and we arrived in London right on time at 7:30am local time.
We had about a 3 hour layover at Heathrow, taking most of the first hour going through security once again. As usual, several of us were pretty thoroughly searched, both our persons and our possessions. I had bought a small snow globe in Houston as a little gift for Catherine, our liaison in Nairobi, and suddenly realized that it would probably count as something with liquid in it. Duh! I had carefully stowed all of my gels, liquids and pastes in a footlocker in Houston to avoid the hassle of yet another check and here I was with a snow globe with the space shuttle in it. The security lady pointed out it didn’t even have snow in it, but shiny little floating stars. She had mercy on me and let me keep it with a laugh, even letting the guy x-raying the baggage know what to expect. Our flight from London to Nairobi was much smoother than the first leg of the trip, with mostly sunny weather along the way. The food was not very good and pretty much met my low expectations. I ate it anyway, since I needed to keep body and soul together. It reminded me of my Dad when I was a kid telling me “David, you will eat that AND you will like it!” It was the part about liking it that was always particularly hard.
We arrived in Nairobi a little before 9pm local time, got visitor’s visas, collected up all of our footlockers, exchanged some of our money for Kenyan shillings at a rate of 82.75 per dollar. You have so many 1000 shilling bills when you are done you feel like a billionaire. We keep some U.S. dollars because there are tourist attractions and some merchants along the way that prefer them for payment. We loaded up the footlockers into a large truck and took the 45 minute ride to the Norwegian Lutheran Scripture House compound where the whole group will stay for the first 2 nights. It will be the Redeemer team’s home for the entire mission trip. Once there, we brought the footlockers into the compound, retrieved our personal items from them and got our room and roommate assignments before hitting the sack at around midnight. Saturday will bring excursions to local attractions, shopping for snacks, bottled water and other supplies for the week ahead, some afternoon training in various clinic duties, a team leader’s meeting and the day will conclude with a group worship service and then dinner. Sunday will be a travel day for the other teams to get to their respective locations. Those of us in Nairobi will worship at the church in Kawangware and celebrate the progress on the water well with the congregation. We will then go to lunch at a nice restaurant before taking all of our vision supplies and equipment to Springs of Life Lutheran Church in Kibera where we will be serving.

Preparation for May 2011 Kenyan Mission

2011-05-10T16:22:00.002-05:00

Kenya Spring 2011

It's time for an update on how things are shaping up for our May 12-22, 2011 mission to the Springs of Life Lutheran Church in the Nairobi slum of Kibera. At his point, we will have 6 team members: Howard and Martha Faske, Tom Krueger, myself and two newcomers, Lupe Barragan and Leslie Sledge. Ralph and Louise Genz will also be coming with us, but will be helping to start a new rural clinic site at Chesenende, several hours northwest of Nairobi. We went to Salem Lutheran Church in Tomball Saturday, April 8th for training and orientation. It was a real blessing to see our old friends from previous missions and to meet the new people who are on fire to serve the Lord in east Africa. The morning was spent listening to Pastor Emmanuel Agook explain the basic beliefs of Islam and the best ways to witness to the many Muslims we will encounter. In the afternoon, we all took two sessions of training, Lupe and Leslie learned to do the eyechart exam and the autorefractor eye exam, while Martha and I learned about lens pulling according to prescriptions and the available inventory of lenses, as well as boning up on the eyechart. It is important for us to be cross-trained for this trip, since we will more than likely only have 6 team members to cover the 6 stations of the clinic. There is a possibility that one additional missionary from Salem will join the group in London and could be tapped to work with our team. We are all very excited to be going back to Kibera, an area where we held their very first vision clinic last May. During that trip, we saw nearly 2,500 patients, mostly Christians on Monday and Tuesday who had heard about the clinic through church and other sources and mostly Muslims Wednesday through Friday who had heard by word of mouth. It was a pleasure to share the love of Christ with all who came to be served and we look forward with great anticipation to seeing all of the friends we made a year ago at Springs of Life. We will be going to the church in Kawangware on Sunday to worship and to celebrate the dedication of the water well project. If the past is any indicator, chruch will last from 3 to 4 hours, with children being let out of the service in the middle to go to Sunday School. After church and the water well celebration, we will go out for lunch and then will proceed to the Springs of Life Lutheran church to unload and unpack our equipment and supplies in preparation for the Monday-Friday vision clinic. I will be posting updates at the end of each day. We will be 8 hours ahead of Central Standard Time, so new articles and pictures should begin being posted between 8 and 10pm Nairobi time, meaning you should look for them between maybe noon and 3pm.

An Unexpected Brush with God

2011-01-25T16:35:00.001-06:00

I had a really neat experience early this morning. I took my truck into the shop for some routine maintenance and when I got home, my Internet was down. I had planned on working on a shop full of computers, all needing Internet access to perform the repairs. Instead, God gave me a little extra time to reflect on what had just happened and I wrote it up. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did being part of this beautiful morning.
God's blessings on your day!
Dave

An Unexpected Brush with God
I went to drop my truck off at my local mechanic for a 75,000 mile going over from stem to stern this morning. I only live about 6 blocks from the shop and was going to walk home. For those of you that don’t know me, I have a computer repair business and one of my customers is this old time mechanic shop. I’m friends with all of the service writers and have always jokingly called an older porter there “Easy Money” whenever I would see him. He’s always smiling and has a good word for everybody he encounters as he ferries customers home in their cars or pumps gas at one of the last full service gas stations in the world. I soon found out the secret to his wonderful attitude. As we got into the truck, he commented on how nice it was. I told him I had bought it used a year and a half ago after a wreck in which I should have been killed and that it was in the split second after realizing I didn’t have a scratch on me I had felt in no uncertain terms that the Lord was blessing my going on my first mission trip to Africa. Before that, I was wavering. He then told me of a wonderful ministry he has at a nursing home, having been there the night before. He always brings some familiar Scripture with him like “For God so loved the world……” and sings songs like “Jesus Loves Me” with the seniors. Outsiders always wanted to know why it was such a happy place when he was around. He always just points to the sky and smiles. When we pulled up to my house, we dallied for a minute or two longer, sharing our witness with each other. We then held hands and he prayed a most powerful and moving prayer over both of our ministries. And to think I was going to walk home. That early morning 6 block ride was something God had planned all along. Who knows? It may lead to opening one or both of our hearts to new ministry opportunities, perhaps with each other. One thing is for sure, I need to be certain I’m always using my “Jesus eyes” when I see what appear to be ordinary people in everyday circumstances. You never know who He will place in your path as an incredible reminder of His boundless love. What a way to start the day!

More pictures and a funny story

2010-11-23T09:13:00.003-06:00

Kenya Mission - Fall 2010

Click the photo above to see all of the pictures that have been added to the mission photo album so far. Now there are around 260 of them and I'll be adding captions and replacing some of them with better ones as the team continues to get their pictures to me.

I forgot to mention a very klutzy move on my part after we had cleared security at Bush International Airport and were already out in the arrivals area with our footlockers waiting for a truck from Salem to pick them up. Tammy and Jack had come to pick up Pastor Kevin and I was waiting to help stack my footlockers with the others. I stepped back to get a hug from Tammy, forgetting there was about an eight inch drop off of a curb right behind me. I started dancing backwards, falling through various bystanders as I tried feverishly to regain my balance. It seemed like I was falling, falling for ages when I finally crashed through a bunch of empty airport carts and ended up on my backside. It felt like I was on Dancing with the Stars for over 100 yards by the time I came to a stop. Everyone was looking to see if I'd broken my neck or not. Only my pride and my backside were the worse for the wear, and I got up and made sure I still got my hug! After nearly 30 hours and 8,000 miles of travel, leave it to me to make a smooth move like that near the very end of the journey.

Reflections on the mission trip

2010-11-22T10:27:00.003-06:00

This mission trip was the first time I have been involved with a dental clinic. I learned that I am not squeamish, given the number of things that I saw that would make most people faint or at least not feel very good! My role was to do everything I could to make life easier for our dentists and volunteers and to help make the overall dental clinic run efficiently, thus freeing Pastor Kevin to concentrate on bigger picture issues, since he was the leader of the entire mission. This included jumping in to help with traffic control, making sure our hygienist always had patients at the ready as she completed cleanings, resupplying the cleaning station with fresh water, dumping the inevitable large bottles of blood that some of the cleanings produced, supplying our volunteers with needed bottles of water, especially in the heat of the sunny afternoons, helping to decide with Dr. Zoch and Pastor Kevin when the opportune time was to quit accepting any more patients for the day, aiding with setting up and tearing down the clinic both daily and at the beginning and end of the mission, and anything else that would promote the sharing of the Gospel through this vehicle.

My respect for the great job Salem has done mentoring Redeemer during the seven mission trips we have partnered with them on has grown with each journey. The number of details that have to all come together to sponsor both a vision and a dental clinic is pretty staggering and it took a lot of effort on the part of our Redeemer mission leadership, key team members, Gus Jacob, Kevin Pieper and Paul Althoff of Salem and Terry Councill (our Houston based dentist) to make this mission trip the most successful one we have done yet. With each passing mission, our Redeemer team has been given and has accepted more and more responsibility, both financially and logistically. We are at the point now where we supply both the vision and dental clinic with inventories of instruments, consumables and medications. While we still have a little ways to go before we can independently field teams of our own, handling travel details, dealing with the local Kenyan church and governmental authorities and many other matters that Salem still helps us with, I’m sure the day will come when we are in an even more equal partnering relationship with Salem. The inclusion of the Good Shepherd team and their invaluable contributions to the success of this mission show that our efforts at mentoring and partnering with other local congregations are beginning to bear good fruit. Like all excellent mentors, the Salem team is most satisfied when we pay it forward, doing for other new congregations what they have done for us, which, when you think about it, is the putting of Christian principles into practice.

What’s next?
The team will get together soon to celebrate our very successful mission and will review what went well and what could use some improvement. Most of us will begin immediately to concentrate on planning and preparing for our next trip to Kenya, scheduled for May 12-22, 2011. There will be a vision clinic at the Springs of Life Lutheran Church in the Nairobi slum of Kibera at that time. We will be looking with a critical eye at whether we can field a dental team there also or possibly at Kawangware again. Our ideal plan would be to have a dental team at one church and a vision clinic at the other and then alternate them every 6 months. This would help us avoid saturating a mature market for one service or the other and would mean we would have a steady, long-term presence at both of the churches we are committed to. These are only some of my ideas and Pastor Kevin and others on the team will certainly have different perspectives as well. That’s one reason working with this team has been so gratifying. We all have a single purpose, fulfilling the Great Commission. But we are also able to brainstorm and tweak the process to make it more effective than it already is. And once we have agreement, everyone gives it their all, even if their particular idea was rejected or put on hold. What a wonderful group of sharing, caring saints to work with!

Each of us comes back from Kenya every single time recharged and renewed by the spiritual experiences that God had in store for us there. I can’t name one member of the team who is not very involved both at Redeemer or their home congregation and/or in our local community. Rather than becoming fanatical or single-minded and only worrying about serving our brothers and sisters in Kenya, instead we are all the more energized to use our gifts and the growth in faith that these trips produce to the betterment of the ministries each of us has at church, at work, in school or wherever our daily lives place us. I always have to ask myself if I am continuing to serve in Kenya for all the right reasons, the main one being that we all feel called by God to minister in this way, or do I do it because of selfishly wanting the awesome spiritual growth and gifts that result each time from “getting out of the boat”? I have concluded that it is a little of each, and if we continue to do these good things, always remembering and submitting to Him who sent us, it is not only OK to continue this work and other ministries that take us outside of our comfort zone, it is also just fine to accept the gifts that God showers on us for obeying his call. He is like all good fathers and wants to give good gifts to His obedient children.

A call to service
Please seriously consider this advice if you are one who has never done work in the mission field. It comes from one who was a prodigal son for over 25 years before returning to the Good Shepherd’s flock. I was broken beyond repair and He put me back together in a way that gave me a heart for Him and others. There is nothing more worthwhile than seeking and discovering God’s purpose for your unique personality and talents and then finding a way to fulfill His will in some way that serves others and glorifies Him in the process. He will bless you beyond your wildest dreams. I’m living proof. It doesn’t have to be a mission halfway around the world, although getting out of your everyday context is a great way to cut through all the clutter and “busyness” that make His call nearly impossible to hear over the din of our culture. It can be as simple as serving in a soup kitchen for the homeless, taking special needs kids bowling, building a ramp with the Texas Ramp Project for one of your neighbors who is imprisoned by his front steps, taking meals to those who need them with Meals on Wheels or maybe volunteering at the hospital. We have opportunities to do these kinds of things and many, many more at Redeemer or there are plenty more out in the community at large, if you are uncomfortable at first at the thought of being branded as some kind of do-gooder Christian. It’s all the same however you decide to serve and is valued highly in His sight. Trust me. The rewards outweigh the effort you will expend by at least a hundredfold. Again, if you are not already involved in some sort of service to others, just do it! What do you have to lose? A little time you might spend watching TV? Just try it! I’m not saying to go looking for ways to serve others because of the rewards that I know you will receive, just that if you serve others with the right motives, God's blessings will certainly follow. What are you waiting for?

Keep an eye on this blog for the next few weeks, since I am still gathering the pictures from other team members and I want to get photos of their perpectives available for all to see as well. I will also continue to post more reflections on the meaning of this trip and begin to chronicle the preparation for our next African evangelism effort.

To God be the Glory!

Travel Home

2010-11-22T10:18:00.000-06:00

Travel Home – Nairobi to London
The team is currently flying at 36,000 feet southwest of Stuttgart on the way to London. We left our compound at 6:45pm after our usual heartfelt goodbyes with Catherine, Claude, Rhoda and team member who are taking later flights tomorrow. We battled some traffic getting to the airport, only to find that any rush was in vain, since our plane had been delayed until 1am, instead of the scheduled 11pm. The good news is that we had a planned five hour layover at London Heathrow anyway and we should be able to make our connection. The bad news is that the time was spent in the Nairobi airport, where they don’t believe in air conditioning (the may actually use the heat to torture us!). It was probably 70 outside, but some of the terminal waiting areas had to easily be 95 degrees. We were fortunate that our area was only about 85-90 when we were waiting to board. Pastor Goodwill made a point of greeting each crew member warmly as they passed through in front of us, and all but one or two responded with pretty good humor. We dared him to try his greeting technique on the general public and the first traveler went away scratching his head, after giving us a very funny look. But the next guy was a gem. He had gone to UT Austin years before and wanted to know what was wrong with the football team, with them having just played in the national championship game last year and now being just far too painful to talk about or watch. Pastor and the other Aggies in our group had some good-natured fun with him and made the usual predictions about the upcoming Thanksgiving game. After that light banter, we told him about our mission and he told us that he has been working to save the animals and the natural habitat in Africa. The heavy three year drought that finally ended this year had literally decimated cattle herds and other wildlife. Poachers are now going after elephants, lions, rhinos and other species, some for food, others doing it for big black market money. He pointed us to a National Geographic Wild episode that is going to air on December 8th, detailing what he fears is becoming a losing battle. When it was time to board, we wished him well with his noble calling. While most of us on this trip are pretty outgoing (or we wouldn’t be evangelizing halfway around the world!), Pastor Goodwill takes it to a whole different level, using his gift for dealing with people to pretty quickly getting at what makes them tick. He, Patricia and Rick from Good Shepherd have been a blessing and a great addition to the team, each tirelessly spreading the Gospel in their own ways.

London to Houston
We arrived in London at about 7am local time and the three hour layover worked out as scheduled. We all enjoyed the time, visiting with members of other teams and with each other. It is truly amazing, the variety of ways that the Lord used each of the teams for His purposes. We were finally assigned to our gate, which usually happens about 20 minutes before boarding and were put on three buses to take us out to our Boeing 747-400. There was one glitch, however. One of the new members of the Salem team had her luggage mistakenly put on another plane by British Airways, and, due to security rules, was not going to be allowed to fly with us, since her baggage would not have been flying with her. Luckily, Kevin Pieper was able to get her on our flight, which was blessedly about half full and he also managed to get her luggage retrieved and put on board our plane. This was the first truly difficult travel situation that we encountered and even it worked out OK. I'm glad, since she had never flown before and it was her first mission and was so far from home. The Salem crew came through once again! The plane took off right on time and we expect to arrive at Bush International Airport around 2:15pm. What a contrast between this flight and the journey home from the mission to the Nairobi slum of Kibera last May! The Icelandic volcano was still causing major travel problems then and it took over 35 hours from the time we left for the airport in Nairobi until I was on my front doorstep in Austin. The London to Nairobi leg involved 13 hours in one plane, 2 hours on the ground at Heathrow waiting for a flight slot and 11 hours in the air, since we had to fly north of Greenland into the Arctic Circle before the long trek south to Houston. Today’s flight should take less than 9.5 hours and the total trip will probably be around 30 hours from beginning to end. It will likely take about an hour to clear customs and retrieve all of our footlockers and personal items , if past experience is any guide. Then we will be heading back to Austin, with the mandatory stop in Brenham for Blue Bell and gas.

As predicted during my writing on the plane ride that is shown above, we got in around 2:30pm in Houston. As luck would have it, one of the Salem team members had been in the military with a customs agent who came to inspect our footlockers. It's good to have friends, because we sailed right through security like never before. While there were spot checks of personal items, the mission footlockers were not a problem. Only one footlocker didn't make it with the others, of course, it had to be the one with Howard and Martha, Ralph and Louise and Paul's (leader of the entire mission) personal items. Paul is coming through Austin on Wednesday and with any luck will have their possessions with him at that time. We did stop for the Blue Bell and I was deposited on my front porch at about 6:30pm, about 30 hours after we headed for the Nairobi airport.

Saturday preparation for departure

2010-11-20T01:56:00.001-06:00

This morning, a group led by Pastor Kevin headed out to the Lake Naivasha game park. The five of us who had been there before in May stayed behind and had a leisurely breakfast. Ralph and Louise, Howard and Martha headed out to see some sights around town. The Zochs are laying low after a pretty exhausting week. I also am hanging around the Norwegian Scripture House to put some final touches on this blog and will be meeting with ELCK representatives and the team leaders of the other mission sites as they arrive back in Nairobi around 2pm at the LCMS World Mission offices a couple of blocks away. Hopefully, Pastor Kevin will be able to join us at some point. These meetings are good debriefings, where ideas are swapped about what has been effective and what needs more improvement. Our team members from Good Shepherd have commented on how well organized our week was and that is a tribute to our Salem friends patiently teaching us the system that they have been fine tuning for a long, long time. Our veterans always spot more ways we can improve the process and we sometimes are our own worst critics. It was an incredibly successful week and we need to be thankful for that, all the while realizing we can always find more efficiencies and should never stop examining every aspect of these missions, while remaining true to our overarching purpose: fulfilling the Great Commission.

As the teams begin to trickle back here, there will be pizza and Cokes waiting for them. We should leave for the airport between 6:30 and 7pm and fly out for London around 11pm. We always allow plenty of time for the inevitable delays in customs that a group with 60 footlockers can expect to encounter.

Once we are on the plane, I will be going to each of the other camera carrying team members so that I can borrow their memory cards and copy their pictures into my laptop. I love the different perspectives each missionary has, some have wonderful pictures of the children, others focus on nature or the places we have been. The pictures that are attached to this blog up to this point are from the 513 I have taken so far and are heavily tilted toward my work in the dental clinic. I expect to have 5,000 or more pictures at my disposal and will create a new photo album and link it to the blog that adds these other unique viewpoints. I always create a DVD for each team member that has all of the pictures from everybody, the good, the bad and the really ugly! This way, if there is a particular purpose they have, they have access to the collective wisdom of the team. Stay tuned, there will be a few more journal entries about our travel adventures, the new pictures mentioned and, as always, some final reflections on this mission. Of course, that won't complete my work by any means. I will be putting together video and pictures for school chapels and classroom talks at Redeemer and for presentations to various groups such as the LWML, LLL, adult Sunday School classes and anyone else that is interested. I love to show people where their time, talents and treasure are going and the tremendous effect they have had on people's lives, both those we serve and on each of us.

I will also be gearing up right after the first of the year for our mission from May 12-22 to the church in Kibera to host at least a vision clinic and possibly the first dental clinic there. Keep an eye on this blog for info as that begins to take shape.

To God be the Glory!

Click on picture below for the most current set of photos:

Kenya Mission - Fall 2010

Friday was even better than Thursday!

2010-11-20T01:17:00.003-06:00

We started our day with many people already waiting for both the vision and the dental clinics upon our arrival. This proved true to form, since it seems that people wait until the last minute to finally seek treatment. By 9:30am, we already were working on cutting off the line for the dental clinic. By the end of the day, some people had waited seven hours or more. On the vision side, over 700 people were served and nearly 250 sought and received dental care. For the week, we saw almost 3500 people, around 2400 in the eyeglass clinic and a little over 1100 for dental. Some people were treated in both areas. There were many more heartwarming stories of broken people being led to Christ or at least being willing to give the church a chance. For the week, the number of these seekers was about 130. It wasn't unusual in the triage area after the eyechart exam to see at least 5 of our evangelists praying individually with patients. There were many tears and more than a few laughs. Our highlight in the dental clinic was when the "Mother Teresa of Kawangare" returned with the rest of the children in her care. She has an incredibly deep faith and has totally surrendered herself to God and his calling for her. I spoke with Karin, the Pastor's wife, about whether she and her group of deaconesses might be able to make Mother Teresa part of their ministry, since both churches in Nairobi that we visit have strong ministries for HIV/AIDS orphans. I think there would be a great deal of synergy there. We got some pictures of them arriving at the clinic, with our dentist, Dr. Zoch and during their treatment. The youngest, a child less than a year old by my estimation, had several deformities and a cleft palate that opened into his nasal passage. I am hoping that there is somebody we can refer him to for treatment, since we are not setup to work on such a complicated medical/dental issue, but concentrate on extractions. The other children were amazingly well adjusted and acted just like kids everywhere, laughing, fighting and bothering each other. For me, the whole saga of this incredible woman of God was the highlight of my trip. There is always one stellar moment, and I always pray that the Lord will let me be part of something like this. He has never let me down. You certainly can't predict what it will be, He always has a surprise in store for you!

We were trying to shut down both clinics by around 4 to 4:30pm. The vision clinic was successful in this and dental would have been, but the last three patients had difficult surgeries and we didn't have everything cleaned up, stowed in footlockers and in our bus or a pickup truck until nearly 6pm. We had a final song and some tearful and joyful "til we meet agains" with our volunteer, a closing prayer for the week was led by Pastor Kevin and we boarded our bus. We got to see a different side of the slum on our way home, that of nightfall, little shops starting to be lit by one candle and people walking around and having a good time on a Friday night. After a stop for some final snacks and other goods at the Nakumatt, we arrived at the Scripture House after 8pm, too late for dinner. Catherine ordered some chicken and french fries that were delivered after our evening devotion by a guy on a motorcyle and it was hot and tasted great, probably because it was great and because we were famished.

I have uploaded more pictures from the last 2 days of the trip and they now join the rest of the pictures that are already there. Click on the picture below to see them, either indiviually or as a slide show.
Blessings to all and thanks for your support of this mission to the slum of Kawangware!

Kenya Mission - Fall 2010

Thursday was our best clinic yet!

2010-11-18T14:08:00.000-06:00

My day began at the LCMS World Mission office helping the staff there with some computer issues, it was nice to be able to use my talents for my friends there. I rode into Kawangware with Catherine and even though it was around 10am and traffic should have been light, there was unexpected construction and we had to take a longer back way that I had never seen in my three previous trips to Nairobi. It was a nice change of pace. When we got near the church, it was too muddy to park in front, so we stopped about 100 yards short of it and started towards a small flat spot full of goats. I asked Catherine if they would get out the way and she matter of factly said "They will have to." They did. We brought two cases of water with us for the volunteers and had some of our young friends trek it to where it needed to be. When I arrived at the dental clinic, Alex, our lead local dentist looked at his watch disapprovingly. I said it was OK because I was on Kenya time where no one is ever really late. He just said "A noise was missing!" It's hard to believe he would say such a thing about reserved, quiet Dave DeVore! We all had a good laugh at that one. There was good weather all day and we saw over 700 people in both clinics, with 242 being seen in dental and the remainder going to one or both clinics. In the afternoon, a short, nicely dressed woman brought a young boy to Dr. Jay, a wonderful dentist of Indian descent. She showed him a piece of paper and they talked for a while in Swahili since she spoke no English. Dr. Jay called me over and said :You need to see this." It was an article from the large Nairobi paper, the Daily Nation entitled "The Mother Teresa of Kawangware" and it was about her. She is a woman of strong Christian faith with no visible means of support who takes in unwanted children. She has seven total right now and the little boy she brought in is her most recent addition to the fold. His parents had wanted to kill him, so she stepped in. Once we realized what was going on, I called Dr. Zoch and Dr. Councill over and the were filled in on the situation. She wanted to bring the rest of the kids in tomorrow to make sure they were all right, and we readily agreed. How could we do anything else? It turns out her own son, named Abednego, is one of our volunteer evangelists and is always walking the streets of the slum preaching about Jesus. I always pray before each mission that I will be involved in some small way in an experience such as this and God answered in no uncertain terms. I can't wait to see her with the rest of the children tomorrow. After the clinic, the rest of the team stayed at the compound for R&R, while Pastor Kevin and I went to the home of LCMS Missionary Pastor Carlos and Lidia Winterle for dinner and to do some work on a new computer he had gotten recently. The food was excellent and was prepared by Lidia, who spoke Portuguese and a smattering of English. Not a problem, she was as much a part of the evening as anyone. They are from Brazil and have helped with the Kawangware church during their call over the last four years to the large ELCK national church downtown. They are preparing to head to Capetown, South Africa to minister to a small English speaking congregation there. I help him with his computer via Skype and a remote control software we use in my business called LogMeIn. Once he is relocated after the first of the year, he will be my most distant customer! That's all for now. Last day of the clinic will be tomorrow. More pictures and stories to follow once we wrap things up. Blessings!

Wednesday began with a downpour

2010-11-17T23:29:00.001-06:00

Our volunteers straggled in later than usual after having trouble getting to the church this morning during a tremendous half hour burst of rain. Our local dentists spotted an empty matatu (a van that is used for public transport that holds a driver and 14 passengers in very close contact!) and commandeered it by paying the driver more than he would have gotten for a full vehicle if he had been picking up individual riders as needed. Fortunately, our own team had already gotten there just before the sky began to weep. On the way to the clinic, I got to do one of my favorite devotions from Oswald Chambers entitled "What is a Missionary?" The main point of it is to remember Who it is that is sending you and not get so wrapped up in what is going on all around you that you take your eye off of the primary mission that He has given us in the Great Commission. I had a few conversations during the day about aspects of the devotion that tell me that it was received well and had provided food for thought. Even with the rainy start, it was a good day, with over 500 people coming to the clinics and about 200 of them going through the dental clinic. We had a Muslim woman return to the vision clinic asking for Pastor Goodwill (he had spoken to her earlier in the week)and he had a wonderful exchange with her that eventually led to her speaking with Pastor Zedekiah and promising to come to church the next Sunday. Another Muslim woman was very angry with God, and after much probing and back and forth, it was found that she had a paralyzed husband. At first, she didn't want any prayers, but at the end of the conversation, she allowed us to pray for her and her husband in the name of Jesus. We all included her and her husband in our own individual evening prayers, knowing that if her husband was miraculously healed, it would be a powerful witness to her family and community of the healing that only Jesus can bring for both spirit and body. In the evening, we went to the Carnivore, obviously not a vegetarian restaurant. The meal started out with salad and bread. Then a scalding hot plate was set in front of each of us and for the next hour or so, we only dined from the meat food group. There was chicken, pork sausage, ostrich, beef, chicken liver, pork, turkey, chicken gizzards, pork ribs and on and on and on. We took Rhoda, Catherine and her son Eugene with us as our guests. Eugene is 14 and has a scary capacity for food! Rhoda had the staff come and do a birthday celebration for Jon Zoch, which came as a bit of a surprise to him, since his birthday is in April! In the morning, I will meet our mission coordinator at the LCMS World Mission office to use my gifts and get her email working right. She's getting some extra supplies for the dental clinic and I will ride with her to the church in Kawangware when she takes those supplies to the team. Tonight, Pastor Kevin and I will be dinner guests of Pastor Carlos Winterle and his wife, who are from Brazil. I will be doing some tuning on his computer as well and we will compare notes on the water well project and his mission over the years. He has been instrumental in working with the street boys, has been behind a new shower facility for them that was dedicated last July and has been a strong proponent of the water well. He has a blog and his writings have resulted from donations coming to Redeemer for the project from all over the U.S. I am adding new pictures to this site daily, so keep coming back. You can get to them by clicking on the title of this article. Once we are back in Austin and I can gather up all of the pictures that the group has taken, I will redo the picture aspect of the blog. So far, you have only seen what I have seen and I want a more balanced birdseye view of our experience. Each missionary has a different perspective and has had unique encounters. For now, you will have to be satisfied with what has come in through the lens of my camera and my heart.

Tuesday and the clinic is picking up steam - click here for pictures

2010-11-16T12:39:00.002-06:00

We really had a great day today in both the vision and dental clinics. We saw nearly 500 patients for eyeglasses and 224 people received dental care. At our evening devotion, we shared some of our highlights of the day and the clinic so far. Pastor Goodwill and Ralph had stories of working with people looking for answers that we know only Jesus can provide. Pastor Kevin worked with a Muslim man who felt that Jesus was a great prophet, but hadn't died, finally giving him a Bible so he could compare what he had been told with what is actually in Scripture. He made the point that either Jesus was telling the truth about his sacrifice and resurrection or Islam was wrong about Him and what He had done, but that both could't be true. Hopefully, he will seek further answers from Pastor Zedekiah. Louise dealt with one woman who didn't list a faith or home church on her registration card. She said she didn't go to church. Louise persisted in asking why not and gave a powerful witness to her concerning her final destination and how Louise was sure of her own salvation. The woman was moved and is going to come to church next Sunday! I told the group how working with the dental cleanings for the volunteers with Diana had been so rewarding, once we got over their initial apprehension. We had a morning devotion in the dental clinic and then we held Pastor Zedekiah hostage until he got his cleaning. I'm glad, since I had expended a lot of energy Monday trying to find a time during the course of the day when he wasn't effecting eternal consequences with one of our clinic participants. The young men actually started asking to be next for cleanings today, so I think the word has spread that there's no pain and it's a good thing to have done. I now have a total of 23 people that are interested in cleanings and we should be able to accomodate them. In the past, Diana has had to help with the traffic flow and logistics of the dental clinics and has had no time to practice her vocation. It's nice to see her using her gift from God, since we have more team members supporting the ministry of the dental clinic on this trip. We are even looking ahead to future trips and considering lay volunteers from the church being used to assist the dentists and the hygienist.

Pastor Kevin and Ralph had a meeting with Living Water representatives here in Kenya this afternoon. It went very well and they are scheduled also to meet with church officials to iron out more details of this ministry. Things are looking very good for the well project to begin sooner rather than later, if all of the pieces fall into place.

Tomorrow night, the group will be having dinner at the Carnivore, which is a very aptly named restaurant. I hope to be able to share a few observations after dinner, if we don't get back to our lodging too late.
Blessings!

To see pictures since the beginning of the trip, please click on the title of this post above.

The first day of the clinic bears much fruit (click here for pictures)

2010-11-15T12:38:00.003-06:00

Click on the title above to see selected pictures of the trip to date!

The roads were a little worse at 7am than they had been Sunday morning, due to the overnight rains. Our bus didn't even attempt to turn into the church grounds, instead, we parked across the street and walked in. Since we didn't have all of the supplies, an electrical generator, etc., onboard the vehicle was much lighter and the driver was able to handle it better in the even more adverse conditions than he had been able to Sunday. I worked with the dental team completing setup of all of our equipment and organizing our medications, instruments and supplies and we were able to see our first patients by around 10am. The vision clinic required a little less setup, and with a team of eleven there was plenty of manpower to get them open for business a little sooner. The morning was fairly light, due to the road conditions and it being the first day, but by day's end we had seen a respectable 400 people in the vision clinic and had treated 196 in the dental unit. Pastor Zedekiah ended up with 22 people to follow up on who were either interested in Christianity or were Muslims with questions. One man was going to bring his Koran back to continue in his discussions with the Pastor, perhaps a good sign since he is willing to talk about the differences in the faiths. Historically, the first day, regardless of weather, tends to be a little slow, but word of mouth spreads quickly in the slum and succeeding days get busier and busier. Our triage team, consisting of both of our pastors, Dan Zieschang and at times others such as Ralph Genz had many moving stories to tell after dinner during our evening devotions. One involved a 20 year old woman that needed to have a corneal transplant and had been unable to receive treatment due to the high cost. She had come to us in a last ditch attempt to get the surgery. While we do refer patients for cataract surgeries, corneal transplants are outside the scope of what we are set up to do or have a budget for. We were only able to pray with her and leave it in God's hands. There were many lighter moments as well. On this trip, our dental team has decided to do cleanings for the Pastor and any of the volunteers who are interested, since they never get time to be treated under the normal flow of the clinic. I began gathering a list and out of the 20 or so volunteers, only a handful expressed any interest. As I talked to these young people, I came to the realization that they were apprehensive as none of them had ever had a professional cleaning and thought it would be painful. One told me she didn't want instruments in her mouth. One of our volunteers from a previous trip took the plunge and came back to her post smiling after about an hour. Next, I challenged one of the young men by asking him if he had more courage than the girl who had just come back. Hesitantly, he headed for our dental hygienist's station, ably staffed by Diana Zoch and she did the rest, putting him at ease every step of the way. By the end of the day, others, particularly young men who had said "no way,never!" in the morning were wanting to be next! This is the first trip we have carried an ultrasonic scaler with us, similar to what is used in our own dentist's offices in the U.S. I now have a list of 15 people total who will get cleanings (or washings as the Kenyans call them), leaving us with the capability of doing perhaps 25 more cleanings for others not associated with the clinic in any way. We feel this is a nice way of giving back to those volunteers who have helped us trip after trip, and since it is an extra service, it is really not taking away from the main focus of the dental clinic or showing favoritism. The practical purpose of the dental clinic is to do extractions and dental surgeries, all the while meeting our overall puropse of spreading the Gospel through this loving effort. That's about it for today, we need to get rested up for much more of the same tomorrow. Thanks for following our progress and keeping us in your prayers. Thank you Jesus, for the way you have called us to serve others.

Sunday in Kawangware, Reuniting with friends, worshipping together

2010-11-14T12:31:00.001-06:00

We had a wonderful day, starting with loading up a larger bus than we have used in the past and a truck full of all of our footlockers and other supplies for the trip to Kawangware. The heftier bus barely made it through the rather wet and muddy narrow approach to the church. It is now raining at 9pm as I write this and I'm a little concerned about our journey in the morning. At any rate, we arrived at the church and had a wonderful greeting from all of our friends that we have made on previous missions. We were there in time to get all of our clinic supplies into the area where the dental clinic will be held before we had an outstanding three and a half hour worship service which included a wide variety of music ranging from a children's choir to the women's choir with several other styles in between. Adding to the special feeling of the service was the fact that it was a Communion service. There was one choir number that I got on film that was performed out on the lawn after church. We completed setting up the chairs and compressors for the dental clinic to get a jump on tomorrow morning and rearranged the church so there wouldn't be so much work in the morning. We left the church at around 4pm, famished and ready for a long overdue lunch. We ended the day with a trip to Nakumatt (think Super Wamart) to buy supplies for the clinic, snacks and water for us and to get a bite to eat. Pastor Goodwill led a devotion during dinner, while I was at the LCMS World Mission offices transferring data from Catherine's desktop system to a flash drive, so I could finish prepping the laptop that the mission team had purchased as a gift for her last month. That process went smoothly and I am now ready for a shower and bed, since we leave at 7am for the first day of the clinic. I will post pictures from the last several days tomorrow evening when the clock is not so against me.
What a blessing today has been!

Saturday in Nairobi

2010-11-13T11:44:00.002-06:00

Some of the group got up bright and early to be on the road by 6am to go to the wild game park on the outskirts of Nairobi, others decided to sleep a little later and visit the Karen Blitzen Museum, named for the subject in the movie Out of Africa. Another group that rode around town seeing many sites including the U.S. Embassy. They got a special treat when they visited the large downtown national Lutheran church and actually had coffee with Bishop Obare. Pastor Kevin and I took a ride across town to meet with the pastors of the churches that are going to have clinics this week, representatives of the ELCK and some of our Lutheran World Missions staff. It was very interesting hearing the various viewpoints on how the clinics had benefited the churches that have held them and how the kingdom continues to grow through the evangelism associated with these missions. Kevin Pieper of Salem shared how their new member process at Salem works, trying to give the local pastors some ideas on how they might approach accepting new members. In many of the church locations, a person wanting to become a member or be baptized may have to take instruction in the Christian faith similar to confirmation classes. As in the U.S., there is a spectrum concerning these issues and our mission teams just need to adjust and follow the lead of the local pastor.

After all of the groups returned to the Norwegian Lutheran compound we had a worship service led by Claude Houge, who is the LCMS World Missions coordinator for 5 east African countries and Kevin Pieper. It began with songs from the Kawangware Children's choir and included several praise songs, readings by Pastor Houge, Paster Kevin and Pastor Goodwill. It was a very moving, highly spiritual service. I found a little tear running down my cheek during the readings from Isaiah and Luke dealing with Jesus' sacrifice.

After church, some ladies that work with the orphans in the slum came with souvenirs and clothing for sale to support their mission. I got several shirts, since I have been promising a few friends a souvenir for quite some time. We had dinner around 7:15pm and everyone is now winding down in anticipation of a big day tomorrow. The groups going to the outlying areas are leaving as early as 5:45am. We will be loading up all of our footlockers into a truck around 8:45am and will be on the way to church by 9am. After a church service that I am sure will feature several choirs and many musical styles, we will do some preliminary setup for the dental clinic. That's it for now, please come back often for more reports on our comings and our goings.

Travel 11/12/2010

2010-11-12T15:16:00.001-06:00

11/12/2010 Enroute to Nairobi from London on British Airways Flight BA065
It’s nearly 6pm Nairobi time and we have made good time today. We should arrive at the airport around 9:30pm, due in part to a shorter than normal layover at Heathrow. This layover was so short I didn’t get a chance to break out my laptop for another report. Our security check went very quickly with no problems that I’m aware of. Dan Zieschang had arrived in London from Chicago about an hour before we did and he found us without a hitch. I have brought a computer projector bulb for Pastor Carlos Winterle, one which can only be purchased in the U.S. Dan and his son Danny have put together a DVD of film clips of greetings from Redeemer kids and we would like to show it Sunday to the children’s Sunday school hour. If there is no projector available at the church, we are hopeful that the first use of Pastor Carlos’ bulb will be for this occasion. I no longer am much of a believer in coincidences, I’m much more inclined to think that God may be intimately involved in this circumstance. I got the request for the bulb with only a week to go before our trip, the supplier had no provision for expedited shipping and UPS tracking had predicted it’s arrival somewhere between November 10th and 16th. We left on the trip early on the morning of November 11th. The package with the bulb was on my porch the evening of November 9th with a full day to spare! Thank you, Jesus!
The rest of our long day looks like this. After arrival in Nairobi, we each will get tourist visas. This process involves filling out a form, paying $25 in new U.S. currency and having our pictures taken. Next, we will proceed to the baggage claim area. There are money exchanges there, so each of us will change $200-$300 into local shillings, which last spring produced about $78 shillings per dollar. Each missionary will then retrieve the two footlockers that they were assigned ages ago in Houston. We will then go through one last security checkpoint, load all of the footlockers up either in a truck or on top of the bus that will take us on a 45 minute ride to the our lodgings at the Norwegian Lutheran Church’s Scripture House compound. We’ll break open the footlockers with our personal effects in them, get assigned to both rooms and roommates for the weekend, have a group prayer, hear some words of instruction from the Salem leaders about options for Saturday activities and maybe get a shower before hitting the sack. It looks at this point like this trip will end up being about 31 hours from start to finish, counting from the group gathering at Ralph and Louise’s house Thursday until our arrival at the Scripture House Friday night. This is not trivial travel, but everyone has been in great spirits the whole way and the entire team of about 40 members really has lifted each other up along the way. Just arrived in Nairobi safe and sound, ready for bed!

Travel 11/11/2010

2010-11-12T15:14:00.000-06:00

11/11/10 Enroute to London on British Airways flight 194
As predicted, there were both Blue Bell and The Kettle on the way to the airport. Lutherans like tradition or put another way, we seem to hate change! We ran into very little traffic, it was overcast most of the way and I’m sure the Veteran’s Day holiday contributed to the lack of traffic congestion. We arrived at Bush a little before 1pm and immediately began to help with the footlockers, which had just arrived by truck. Some porters actually did a lot of the work, bringing in footlockers on big carts that held about eight of them at a time. We placed baggage tags on each one and made sure they were clear of UPC tracking labels from previous missions. Those of us that are carrying the twelve expensive autorefractor eye exam machines placed our personal items in empty footlocker space set aside for this purpose and we duly noted the locker numbers that held our own belongings. This will make life much easier when we are looking for our individual items late at night after arrival at our lodgings in Nairobi. All of us were assigned two footlockers to be responsible for, which we also noted the numbers from as if they were our own checked luggage. This saves about $400 per locker in shipping, making these missions feasible, since the cost would be prohibitive otherwise. It never ceases to amaze me how well this system, developed over many mission trips by Salem Lutheran Church to the Honduras and Africa works. I’m sure there has been a fair amount of trial and error over the years, but to look at it now is a thing of beauty in its precision. Check-in went very smoothly until we got to the security check area. It was pretty backed up and very warm. Some of the team members were full body scanned with the latest TSA machines and one of our team, who shall remain nameless, was physically searched pretty aggressively. We had about an hour and a half to kill before boarding the plane, time that was well spent renewing acquaintances with friends from previous mission trips, making new friends with first time travelers and placing final phone calls to loved ones before our departure. I am writing this at around 7pm Austin time, over northern Michigan. According to the running totals on the onboard map, we are about as far north as we are going to get and will follow the coast of Newfoundland before heading out over the Atlantic for London. Arrival there should be in about 6 and a half hours, meaning the flight will have been about nine and a half hours in the air. We are flying at about 35,000 feet at nearly 650 miles per hour on a Boeing 747-400. More to follow during our layover at Heathrow.

Travel day is here!

2010-11-11T07:56:00.000-06:00

It's around 7:45am in Austin as I write this, Howard and the crew will be picking me up by 8:30 this morning. If past tradition holds true, we will be making great time through Manor, Elgin and Giddings and then the SUV will get a mind of its own and turn into the Blue Bell in Brenham, even if it's only 9:30 or 10am! One last treat before we must pretty much eat whatever is placed in front of us for the next 11 days. We also have made a habit of stoping at The Kettle, just outside of the airport for lunch. You can get an entree or the buffet is pretty good as well. We'll gather up around 1:15pm at Bush International Airport to get all of the footlockers in from a Salem truck, then get two each of them assigned to all of the missionaries. We'll surely have a group prayer before heading through check-in and security en masse. We'll fly out around 4pm for London and arrive very early London time, probably around 5am. Our flight to Nairobi will be around 10am local London time and we'll arrive there around 10:30pm. After clearing customs,getting visas and traveling to our compound, it will be well after midnight Nairobi time. My next post should be sometime Saturday, as we'll be 9 hours ahead of Austin time, so there may be something for those of you in the States to read with your morning coffee. Please continue to pray for our safety and an effective mission that touches many lives with the Good News. To God be the Glory!

Pictures from the mission so far

2010-11-10T07:15:00.003-06:00

Here are pictures up to and including our commissioning last Sunday. Click on the "Pictures from the mission so far" link above to see them!

We're all ready to go!

2010-11-09T20:36:00.003-06:00

We have finally arrived at the point where there is not much more we can do other than pack our personal baggage before the mission trip and pray for God’s will to be done. The many months of planning, ordering and purchasing supplies, countless emails and phone calls are coming to a much appreciated end.

On Sunday, the Redeemer team was commissioned at all three worship services. Pastor Kevin told the congregation about the love of Christ that is shown through both the vision and dental clinics and stressed that while these health services and human care ministry that we provide to the people of Kenya are wonderful and worthy of doing in themselves, they are actually a means to an end. Our primary purpose is to fulfill the Great Commission, as given by Jesus to the disciples in Matthew 28:18-20 which reads:

Mt 28:18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Mt 28:19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Mt 28:20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

As long as we never take our eye off of this overarching purpose, our efforts will be a success, even if only one person comes to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior during our clinics.

I have mixed emotions about our travel. It is usually a 30-35 hour from start to finish affair, beginning with a drive down to Houston from Austin early Thursday morning, flying to London around 4pm after gathering all of the missionaries together at Bush International airport and assigning each of them two footlockers of vision or dental equipment for their checked luggage. Because we do this to save on shipping the equipment, each of us will need to live out of a carryon and the small personal item we can take on board for the next 11 days. You learn to travel light! We will have a 4 or 5 hour layover in London before flying on to Nairobi. We'll get to our lodgings around midnight and be in bed by 1am if past experience is a good guide. While this is not trivial travel, I look forward to the variety of people I'll get to meet and share with. On one trip back from Kenya, I got to talk to a Kenyan U.N. delegate who was on his way to New York on U.N. business for about half an hour. He turned out to also be a Christian and we wished each other well, after sweltering while waiting for our plane to start boarding. Our seats on the planes are always quite scattered, intentionally, so we can interact with other passengers who are not part of the mission team. Who knows how much evangelism is done just through our travels and chance encounters? I'm not much of a believer in accidents anymore, so I look at it as showing Christ's love to whomever God has managed to place in my path. Most people seem genuinely interested in our mission and will ask all kinds of questions, giving us the opportunity to explain what motivates us.

Please keep our safe travels in your prayers and that things go smoothly as we go through various security checkpoints along the way. With the heightened security after recent events involving Yemen, it may be a bit more of a hassle herding our large group with all of our supplies through the process at each airport.

Final Preparation and Packing for the Dental Clinic in November

2010-10-22T12:11:00.001-05:00

We've been very busy for the last few weeks on the dental side of the mission trip procuring last minute items such as headlamps for the Nairobi dental team, batteries to run them and the like. We (Martha, Howard, Louise and myself) had the "party" described in my previous post on Wednesday night, October 13th at Casa Genz. We consumed a large pizza and counted, bagged and labeled thousands of pills. There were antibiotics, painkillers and Benadryl, which is used to curb allergic reactions. I brought my laptop and a small laser printer and handled creating the labels as needed and affixed most of them to the bags the others had already filled. I had bought 3 pill counting trays from one of my customers, Nucara Pharmacy, and once the gang got used to using them, it was pretty amazing how quickly things went. It only took about 4 hours to complete the job. Tomorrow, Saturday October 23rd, Martha and I are going to meet Gus Jacob and Dr. Terry Councill (our Houston dentist) at Salem Lutheran Church in Tomball to pack the dozen or so footlockers with the medications, dental instruments and other supplies that will be needed. The next time we see these footlockers will be November 11th at Bush International Airport.

A Look at Preparation for the Fall 2010 Kenya Mission or What I Did During Summer Vacation!

2010-10-04T08:24:00.004-05:00

Welcome back to to the Notes from the Mission Field blog after a summer hiatus between mission trips. While there have been no recent postings to the blog, this doesn't mean we have not been hard at work planning for our November 11-21 mission to the Nairobi slum of Kawangware to put on a vision and dental clinic for the community surrounding the Lutheran church there. Even while we were still in Kenya, during our May trip to the Springs of Life Lutheran Church in Kibera, we were already meeting with local church leaders, LCMS World Mission workers and others to begin to set expectations for our upcoming mission.

The summer was spent working by phone, email and in person with our good friends and mentors at Salem Lutheran Church in Tomball. We have been going over the million and one details that fielding a team totaling 35-40 missionaries half way around the world entails. A particularly eye-opening aspect of our planning has been what goes into supporting a dental team. For the first time, Redeemer will be largely responsible for the dental clinic. In the past, the team from Salem has shouldered this responsibility for us. Like all great mentors, they have begun to nudge us out of the comfort and safety of the nest and are gently forcing us to take our first flight lesson. In the past, Redeemer supplied Dr. Zoch and his wife Diana to run the team and we handled the dozen footlockers that the clinic requires during our travel to and from Nairobi. All of the supplies and medications to be used or dispensed to the patients at previous clinics had been provided by Salem and their donors. For this trip, we have purchased the medications and are currently assembling the incidental supplies that are necessary, everything from duct tape to the portable headlamps and required batteries that the dentists need to be able to do their work. There are many things such as these that we will need to bring with us, as well as a list of items that we need to purchase in Nairobi upon our arrival.

Our team was in Tomball last Saturday for orientation. This was a great refresher course for the old hands and it helped to answer questions and assuage any worries that first time members of the team may have had. The one point that can never be overemphasized that was made is this: our first and foremost purpose is to fulfill the Great Commission. Even though a wonderful human care ministry takes place in these clinics by which we can demonstrate the love of Christ, we must never lose sight of reaching lost souls with the Good News. We had a wonderful speaker in the morning, Emmanuel Agook from Sudan, who in a two hour presentation described the main tenets of Islam in great detail and gave us many practical pointers on how to witness to the people of this faith that we will undoubtedly encounter. The question and answer session was particularly valuable, as members of previous mission teams were able to also share what had worked for them and were able to ask Emmanuel for his suggestions for ways in which we can be even more effective.

Once again, our team will have a core group of veterans being led by Pastor Kevin Westergren. They include Howard and Martha Faske, myself, Ralph and Louise Genz, Dan Zieschang and Dr. Robert and Diana Zoch. One newcomer from Redeemer, David Hanson, will man the autorefractor station, while the Zoch's son, Jonathan, who is a DCE in the Houston area, will help with the dental clinic. Three first time travelers from Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Cedar Park will be Pastor Richard and Patricia Goodwill, and Rick Masselink, who is involved with outreach and missions. Our twelfth and final team member will be Dr. Terry Councill, a dentist from Houston who is a veteran of many dental missions to Honduras and Kenya.

There are two major pretrip tasks that remain. After the orientation, we gathered up the thousands of pills that will be prescribed during the clinic to bring them back to Austin. We are able to get great prices on these antibiotics, pain killers and other medications because we buy them in bulk and they are for charitable purposes. The practical downside of this is that we have to count and package the medications into standard sized doses. An example is the 6,000 acetaminophen tablets that need to be broken down into small Zip-Loc bags in groups of 30 and then labeled, with the required expiration date (or we may have trouble with customs) and the doctor's recommended usage notes. We are planning on having BBQ one night very soon at the Genz residence, and instead of playing cards or 42, we will be having a pill counting party! We will have a small team of volunteers return to Tomball on October 23rd to pack up all of the dental tools, supplies and medicines into the dozen footlockers according to a very detailed manifest. We can't just throw a hodgepodge into any old trunk, since we have a weight restriction of 50lbs per footlocker. We are very grateful that Dr. Councill has gladly agreed to be there with us to supervise and identify what each item is as we pack it. While we do have a good list to work from, our volunteers that weekend will not include any other dental professionals and we might as well be monkees packing transmission parts were it not for Terry!

Please keep an eye on this blog, as the postings will be more frequent as the final stages of preparation for the trip unfold. Once we are on the ground in Africa, I will try once again to make daily postings, along with pictures, to keep you informed of our comings and goings. As always, please keep final planning as well as our safety and effectiveness in spreading the Gospel in your prayers.

Kenya Mission - Spring 2010

2010-05-19T08:31:00.002-05:00

Click on the picture to the right to go to an updated photo album from the mission trip.

5/15/2010 Final Reflections on the Nairobi Mission

2010-05-15T10:13:00.002-05:00

Click on the title line above to go to a photo album from the trip.

From Psalm 36, a paraphrase by praise band Third Day that I particularly like:

Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens.

Your faithfulness stretches to the skies.

Your righteousness is like a mighty mountain.

Your justice flows like the ocean’s tides.

I will lift my voice to worship you my King.

And I will find my strength, underneath your wings.

I hope that if you are considering going on a foreign mission with Redeemer or another group, that my daily notes from the mission field will give you encouragement by showing that when you step out in faith and get well outside of your comfort zone, God will be intimately involved in every tiny detail and that He will watch over you. I can honestly say I have never been all that concerned about my personal safety, since He shields those who are doing His will in the most remarkable of ways. Take it from me, He has many surprises in store for you as He teaches you important life lessons that will increase your faith enormously and that will prepare your heart to serve Him boldly for the rest of your life.

My final reflections on the mission to the Springs of Life Lutheran Church in the slum of Kibera are these. We set out to spread the Good News to those who had not yet heard it, answering the call of the Great Commission. Many now have a new relationship with Jesus, and with that will come salvation and a new life here in this world will have begun that includes peace, comfort, joy, love of God and fellow men and all of the other fruits of the spirit that personally knowing the Good Shepherd bring. This was the ultimate purpose for this trip and I feel very good about the results. The nearly 2,400 plus people that came to the vision clinic and the hundreds that received glasses, medication or referals for cataract surgeries was a wonderful bonus, but for the nearly 100 people that confessed Jesus as their Lord and Savior, the consequences are eternal, starting right now. Of course, one can't be part of a mission like this without it having profound life-changing effects. I know that each of us will continue to marvel and struggle with what we have seen and heard in the slum. It won't be quite so easy ever again to live in the comfort of the most amazingly blessed nation on earth after having seen the other side of life up close. I am always very thankful to get back to my average, middle class home in Austin, TX. I am keenly aware that I am blessed in material ways that 97% of the world can’t even imagine. Of course, the gentleness, family closeness and strong faith in less than ideal circumstances of the brothers and sisters we’ve worked with and met over the last 10 days in Africa is a great example for us. There are many stark contrasts on both the spiritual and the material planes that are full of teaching moments. Our missionaries have done such a good job over the years that our friends in Africa are now holding up a mirror to our country and are serious about sending missionaries to America! I say, bring them on and let them start in Austin, TX!

As has happened with the past mission experiences I've had in working in some of the poorest areas of Mexico and Africa, I know that when I see each of the team members in their Sunday finest in the Narthex between church services, that we will not need to say a word, but will simply shake hands, embrace and laugh. There is a unique bond that develops after sharing the love of Jesus together with others under the circumstances we have overcome and enjoyed as a group, under the guidance and protection of the Holy Spirit. I am well aware that there are well-intentioned people who question why Redeemer sends people to Africa, Mexico, China, Russia, India and other far flung places, when there is so much to do in Austin, the most unchurched city of its size in Texas, if not in all of America. I can only tell you that you come back from these missions with the eyes of Jesus, looking for more ways that you can serve right here. I know that without my foreign mission experiences of the past 6 years, I never would have been involved with Redeemer’s participation in the Texas Ramp Project, helped in Hurricane Ike relief in the Beaumont/Bridge City area or done any of a number of things around Redeemer. Instead, I more than likely would have been content to sit in a pew on Sunday and maybe only would have practiced my faith among my family and close friends. Redeemer's emphasis over the last several years on making each and every member of the church a missionary in their daily lives here in Austin, Texas and beyond has increased the size of my comfort zone to the point where I'm not sure I have one anymore! The very best advice I can give is that if you think you hear the least little small still voice calling you to step out and serve God and others, here at home or in a bigger mission effort, I would highly advise you to take heed of it. That voice is very hard to hear over all of the commotion and “busyness” of modern life. In fact, it is a good discipline to seek the will of God through Bible study, worship, prayer and fellowship with other believers. Seeking to discern the will of God for your life takes devotion, time and intent listening. Once you have heard His call, don’t let the wisdom of the world get in the way. The blessing that you can be to others and the blessings you receive when you step out in faith will truly amaze you.

To God be the glory!

Dave

5/9/2010 Travel Travails

2010-05-09T22:35:00.000-05:00

The team staying in Kenya for the next week sent us off with a mission song as our bus left from the Norwegian compound at 7:15pm local time Saturday. The ride should have taken about 30-40 minutes, but about halfway to the airport, traffic came to a 3 lane wide screeching halt, with us in the middle lane. Traffic was backed up for as far as we could see. The next 25 minutes were filled with local young men and children trying to sell us every piece of junk imaginable and, with no air flow through the windows, things got pretty warm and stuffy in the bus. We were all beginning to be concerned about getting through security with 60 footlockers and checking in before boarding our flight. Kevin Pieper said a beautiful prayer asking for God’s help in resolving whatever was causing the traffic jam, and within 2 minutes, the traffic seemed to part like the Red Sea and we were suddenly doing about 50mph on our way to the airport. The entire bus sang the Doxology, praising the Lord’s answering of our prayers. I’m sure everyone on that bus suddenly felt very near to God.

After arriving at the airport, we unloaded all of the footlockers onto carts, with most of the group taking 2 footlockers as their checked luggage. Paul Althoff was first in line and security randomly opened 2 of the footlockers, with the first one containing the Faske’s and my backpacks. Somehow, Paul was able to do a little talking about the clinics that we had conducted throughout the country and, after a few tense moments, the group was cleared to come through security. Check in for the British Airways flight to London went very smoothly and in record time. I think maybe God’s answer to the prayers on the bus flowed over into the airport procedures as well. Our flight left right on time for London. I stayed up long enough to be served dinner and then slept for 4-5 hours. I was on the aisle and neither of the other 2 people in my section stirred either. It was the best and longest rest I’ve ever had on a flight, bar none. There was a young Kenyan man next to me who was heading back to Dallas to continue his studies at Dallas Baptist University. We talked about the clinics and his views on the Kenyan constitutional referendum. He was already missing his family and Nairobi, which he said was the best city in the world. After our quick tour of the nicer parts of town yesterday, I can understand that.

We had about a 3 hour layover in London and we appeared to be right on schedule even after boarding British Airways Flight BA195. That is, until the Captain came on the intercom and explained that the Icelandic volcano had takeoffs and landings for the northern routes scrambled and that we would be waiting on the ground for an hour before taking off. That hour came and went fairly quickly, as I got to know a lawyer from Houston in my row and he got to hear my mission and computer guy stories. We also got to play musical chairs as couples found ways to trade others for their seats so they could sit together on Mother’s Day. The Captain announced another hour’s delay and we all groaned, since about the best the Redeemer team could now hope for was an arrival in the Austin area between 9 and 10pm, assuming a perfect drive back from Houston, and that we would encounter no issues at the immigration and customs checkpoints. This time, the Captain’s word was good and we were taxiing down the runway almost exactly 2 hours after our tickets said that we should be. All told, we ended up in that plane for nearly 13 hours. Even though none of us would have wished or tried for it willingly, we set a new world’s record of 34 hours and 15 minutes for the return trip, counting from the time we left for the airport in Nairobi. That's one long day of travel, coming right after a full day Saturday at the Lake Naivasha game park and driving around the sights of Nairobi. This was a very small price to pay, considering all of the travel mercies and wonderful encounters with the people that God had brought to us during the last 11 days in many situations.

5/8/2010 Back from Naivasha, Ready to Come Home!

2010-05-08T07:50:00.001-05:00

We had the most amazing day, starting around 5am. My friends from Trinity-Klein arrived from London late last night and I got to have breakfast with them, shared what we had done and wished them the best during their mission to Namonga, Kumpa and Narok. Our team headed out for Lake Naivasha at 7am and arrived there around 9am. We each paid about $25 for the privilege of riding in a very long boat and viewing hippos in the water at close range. We also saw an African eagle that is very similar to a bald eagle, impalas, water bucks and assorted other wildlife from the boat. After about a half an hour, we got out of the boat and were able to walk within yards of giraffes, zebras, wildebeests and impalas. Wow! I’ll post pictures on this blog over the next week or so of this adventure and other nice moments from the trip once I get back.

We have pizza and sodas here in Nairobi at 4pm as the rest of the teams begin to arrive back from the field. We leave for the airport around 7pm, get through security, customs and immigration and then fly out around 11pm. We still had use of our rooms, so the Redeemer team is showering and freshening up prior to what is usually about a 32 hour trip from the time we hit the Nairobi airport until we are back in our homes in Austin. Please continue to pray for our safe travels. We are all really excited about sharing our experiences with everyone in person once we return. Blessings to all who have been reading our reports, there will be a few more to follow as I have a chance to reflect more on this mission.

5/8/2010 Saturday excursion begins

2010-05-07T22:20:00.000-05:00

The Trinity-Klein group got here late last night, they made it through London without a hitch. They will be splitting into 2 teams, one going to Narok and the other going to Namonga and Kumpa, which is Masai warrior territory. I visited all of these places on the planning trip in late March. We are breakfasted already and will beleaving soon for the hippos. The final tally for the week was 2371 people came through the clinic and a solid 75 received Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Many more are already signed up for baptism classes, and a multitude of seeds were planted with our Muslim brothers and sisters. We are going to let God be God and take care of the rest. We have obeyed the Great Commission and done our part, now the Holy Spirit will move in the hearts of those we have touched and the Lord will use others to water and nurture these seeds further. Anyway, we are looking forward to today, being out in God's creation and decompressing from our week in the slum. What a blessing! I hope to get one more brief report off before we quit Nairobi until the next time.

5/7/2010 Our Final Day in the Mission Field

2010-05-07T14:55:00.000-05:00

This last day was bittersweet in many ways. The young man that wanted his dying father baptized never came, even though we talked to him in the morning and everything pointed to it happening. Pastor Dennis and Vicar Paul will pursue this until they come to a resolution one way or another, I’m sure. The clinic had a steady and mounting stream of people, and by noon, over 350 patients had entered the church grounds. We ended the day with 606 patients, many of them Muslim, our best day yet. As our LCMS contact Catherine pointed out once again, “We are a last minute people!” Today definitely proved it to be true. We shut the gates at around 3:30pm, since our doctors were only contracted until 5pm and we estimated it would take that long to move everyone through the process that was already waiting. Still, several people managed to straggle in anyway. Catherine was not so fortunate. She didn’t have her car today, so she rode a matatu, a public transportation van that packs 14 or more people in. When she got there a little after 4pm, the 2 Masai warrior guards would not let her past the gate. She tried to call me and my phone was on silent ring somehow. One of the guards pressed a Masai club to her stomach to keep her from passing when she insisted that she needed to get in. She eventually convinced them that she worked with us and they finally recognized her without her car. I commented that I bet no one ever told her how hard church work could be! She took it all in stride and saw the strange humor in the situation. No harm, no foul.

We counted up our totals for the day for each kind of treatment that was delivered and ended with a strong devotion by Pastor Dennis, a prayer and a group picture. There were many touching goodbyes. We took inventory, packed up all of our footlockers, and headed back to our lodge. We went out to dinner at a nice restaurant near the Karen Blitzen museum with Rhoda, Vicar Shauen Trump, an LCMS missionary who will be assuming some of Claude’s duties and Pastor Dennis.

Tomorrow we go out into the countryside at 7am and ride for about 2 hours to Lake Naivasha to see the famous hippos on the island there. We will return by mid afternoon to shower, finish packing, celebrate with the returning mission teams and then will head for the airport for the long trip home. More reports to follow as I am able, with a final report and reflections on the mission soon after we return to Austin. Please continue to keep travel mercies in your prayers for us.

5/6/2010 Incredible Thursday in Kibera

2010-05-06T13:50:00.000-05:00

Our usual routine of a 6am breakfast and a 6:45am ride to the church was followed today without incident, although we all concluded that anyone who would ride a motorcycle in Nairobi rush hour traffic has serious suicidal tendencies, based on some of the maneuvers we saw a couple of them make. We arrived and while waiting for the church to be unlocked, had a nice conversation with our Vicar, Paul. He is very committed and told of us what was required to go through seminary and then a vicarage, both in terms of education and financially. I have the deepest respect and admiration for his unbending faith and commitment to serving the Lord. He will make a wonderful pastor.

For once, it was not raining first thing in the morning and, in fact, it stayed sunny and was dry all day. We again had a large percentage of patients that were Muslim, and the Imam of the local mosque even came in and wanted a rush job through the clinic ahead of everyone else, so he would not be late for 4pm prayers. We tried to accommodate him, and we were able to fit him with reading glasses, but he still had to leave without getting a prescription filled for distance glasses. If he returns tomorrow, we may be out of the lenses he needs anyway, since it is a minimal correction. Pastor Zedekiah from Kawangware was back today and his ministry bore much fruit, as did Pastor Dennis’ and Paul’s. There are possibly 10 baptisms lined up for the near future and several Muslims seeking instruction in Christianity will be taught soon.

One of the most moving experiences for me so far involves a man of 25-35 years of age with a young son that he brought to the clinic on Tuesday. After receiving eye medication for the boy, the man (who shall remain nameless) was sitting outside of the building housing the Pastor’s office with the boy in tow, looking rather distraught. I was making my rounds and struck up a conversation with him. He told me that we had taken good care of his son, but he had concerns about his father, who was dying and in the final stages of cancer. He allowed that he was Catholic, had worked in evangelism and was in need of spiritual counseling. I told him I knew that the pastors were all busy at the moment and I would be happy to pray with him right then or anytime, but that I’m not a pastor. He said he needed to leave to meet the visiting nurse that was to come at noon to change his father’s bandages. He said he would be back at 2pm and I told him to find me and I’d see to it that he got to work with a pastor. He didn’t return that afternoon or Wednesday, but I did see him late this morning, sitting near the Pastor’s office once again. I greeted him by name and we talked for awhile, with him saying that his father no longer recognized any of his family. Vicar Paul happened by on his way to the evangelism tent and I quickly flagged him down and the two of them headed for the privacy of the office. Later in the day, Pastor Dennis came to me and told me the rest of the story. The man had told Paul that he had asked his priest to baptize his father and had been refused. Pastor decided after also talking to the man that an emergency baptism was called for and agreed to do it this afternoon. He told me that because this situation had come to light as a direct result of the eye clinic and since I had already worked with the man twice already, he felt that I should go with him and Paul when they perform the baptism. What an awesome privilege! The man promised to be back at 4pm. When 4pm came and went, we called on his cell phone and he said he was on his way. We were going to walk with him a mile or two into the slum from the church, and if the clinic ended and our team needed to leave before dark (a mission rule), Pastor Dennis would have gotten me back to our lodging half an hour away. As 5pm approached, we decided that we would try for in the morning. I am hoping that it all works out then and we are in time. All agreed that it would be better to baptize the father and be in error about it than to not do it, and be in error, especially from the perspective of the father’s eternal life and the burden that the young man was carrying due to this. My prediction is that if we are able to do the baptism, that this man will become the strongest new church member that Pastor Dennis could ever hope for! I am asking that you join me in praying for this man, trying to take care of his young family and suffering so much over his father’s spiritual dilemma.

One last note for tonight. We are all well aware that the Icelandic volcano from the place I can’t pronounce, let alone spell, has begun emitting more ash and that the cloud will be in Ireland, Scotland and maybe England by Friday. Portugal is already canceling flights. The reports that we have seen said the plume contains about 10% of the amount of ash that the original eruption did. We are scheduled to fly out of Nairobi Friday night at 11pm local time and be at London’s Heathrow Airport by mid-morning Saturday local time. We are asking you to pray for a cancellation of our flights so that we can remain here in relative calm, safety and in affordable accommodations if this comes to pass, rather than be stranded with 60 footlockers and maybe 40 people for who knows how long. The original disruption lasted a week and 8 million travelers were affected, including LCMS World Mission workers out of St. Louis that were to be in Kenya for 10 days before our arrival and were also to be with our mission groups for several days to observe what we are doing. They never made it here. Our mission has been blessed beyond belief up to this point. Please join us in praying that we end up in the best possible circumstances, and if we do get stranded somewhere, that we are given the strength to be a help and a witness for Christ to those whom God places in front of us.

5/5/2010 Wednesday in Kibera

2010-05-05T13:38:00.002-05:00

We had a heavy thunderstorm overnight and the power kept going on and off at fairly regular intervals. One very good thing about it was that the Internet connection is fine now. That’s one way to reset your cable modem, take down the whole neighborhood several times within a few hours. I’ll have to remember that the next time one of my computer repair customer has a balky Internet connection. I’ll just find the Austin Energy substation for the neighborhood and turn it off for awhile!

We had our usual early morning breakfast and I led a brief devotion and discussion based on Psalm 36. Our ride to church was uneventful, but it was obvious there had been quite a bit of rain, since water was still flowing in the ditches and it was still misting when we arrived. Our Vicar, Paul led a devotion and we began seeing patients around 8:30, since there were not many people waiting in the bad weather conditions. This was to be our first day without our Pastor from the Kawangware church helping us to work with the heavily Muslim clientele we are encountering at the clinic. The team providing the “second touches” of Ralph and Louise, Pastor Meeker and his Vicar Paul proved to be up to the task. Even though it rained most of the day, we all stayed steadily busy with a trickle of patients that never stopped. By day’s end, we had once again seen over 400 in the clinic, 407 to be exact. There were a number of heartwarming stories as there always are. In one case, an 84 year old man needed the strongest prescription for distance glasses I have ever seen. When he put on the “Coke bottle” glasses, he was able to read the tiniest line on our eye chart with no mistakes. I can’t even do that. He was all smiles and we got several pictures with him. I insisted that he take his new glasses off before he went down the steps of the church and we walked him down. The last thing I wanted was for his new found happiness to end in a tragic tumble only a few minutes later. At another time during the day, a young man named Vincent dropped by and said a friend from the UK had given him a bag of reading glasses to donate to a good cause and wanted to know if we can use them. I said we’d find a good home for them one way or another and he walked home and brought them back. What a blessing to receive such a gift from someone in the neighborhood. We also had some fun. We set up Jacob, the small son of our volunteer Jacqueline as if he were assembling distance glasses, complete with a light on his little head, a screwdriver in his hand and some glasses for him to work on. I got several great shots. The whole idea was to show Dan Zieschang that our littlest worker could perform this job in the clinic at a high level, because no matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t get Dan up to speed on this particular job. We would still be on the mission trip to Kawangware last November now if we had to wait for the first pair of glasses to roll off of Dan’s assembly station! We love and miss Dan a lot, and wish he were here with us. He’d truly be in his element giving his powerful witness to people of all faiths and praying with them for any heartbreak in their lives. Finally, speaking of Dan, we got a surprise visit from his buddy Mosah, the youth leader at the Kawangware church. He wanted to say hi to us and especially thank Howard and Martha for sending teaching materials over to him via the Pastor. It was very good seeing him again, he is an incredible young man with a real heart for making the lives of the youth he shepherds better. There were many other touching and funny moments throughout the day that we’ll all share with our friends and families when we return to Austin. It’s getting to be time for lights out, so I’ll conclude this report by asking the Lord to bless all of you who are with us here in your thoughts and prayers.

Howard shows 11.00 strength lens

Raphael and Martha with happy customer!

Dave and Mosah

Jacob ready to go to work

Jacob shows Dan how it's done!

5/4/2010 Another very good day at the clinic

2010-05-04T13:18:00.002-05:00

We had pretty heavy rain from about 3am to 5am last night and the roads and the ditches were literally overflowing with water in many places. It took a full 45 minutes to get to Springs of Life Lutheran Church, a trip that only took about 25 minutes on Monday. We were there by 7:30 and had to wait for one of the lay leaders to arrive with a key to let us in. The church’s Vicar, Paul, led a short devotion and we had the clinic open at 8am. It was an amazing day, we had less than half of the number of people in the clinic at any one time than we had the previous day, yet we were able to see 446 patients (Monday was 437). When Monday came to an end, we all felt like we had been run over by a truck. Today, we were most assuredly tired, yet it was nothing like opening day. We’re getting better at only letting a limited number into the clinic at a time and our evangelists are working with smaller groups, as we requested. On Monday, there was a rush in the morning that we never really could recover from. On Tuesday, there was a slow start due to the weather, but there was a small steady flow of clinic visitors all day long. We are still making some tweaks to the layout in the church and to moving volunteers to posts where they might be more effective, but for the most part, things are really starting to click.

One thing that concerns me is that we only had 2 people come to Jesus or reaffirm their faith on Monday, while I know at least 8 did today. These are small numbers compared to past mission trips, but there are several factors at play here. A larger percentage of our patients were Muslim than at earlier clinic locations. It is not going to be an overnight or rapid Kennedy Evangelism Explosion type of conversion for hardly anyone coming from this background. It will take the time to build relationships and large measures of patience and love will need to be shown before results are seen. Even with low numbers of actual conversions or reaffirmations of faith, there are several Muslims who have been identified as being open to being taught Christianity from a Lutheran perspective, including one woman. Another thing we have run into is that most of our guests who are not Muslim are already Christians in a mainstream denomination, with a smattering of Christian sects. People that didn’t have at least a nominal religious affiliation were pretty few and far between.

We got a surprise visit from some of our friends from Kawangware. A Norwegian short-term missionary brought them so he could get a look at our clinic and film them there singing some of their songs. He also did a brief film of Ralph and I explaining what occurs at the clinic and why we are evangelizing using this method. We exchanged contact information with him, since he should have a video up on the web by the end of the summer. I pointed him to this blog for a more detailed look at what we do. It was incredible seeing our friends David, Joyce, Jackson and others and we thoroughly enjoyed the little time we had with them. David said he and a few others would be back on Friday. What a blessing! I had been a little depressed that we had not been able to get to Kawangware on Sunday and thought we wouldn’t get a chance to see any of these friends until a future mission there.

Making my rounds from station to station as the leader of the team, I get a unique opportunity to talk to a wide variety of local people, the volunteers, the evangelists and others and have heard many very moving experiences of sickness, heartache and suffering as well as some incredible personal testimonies of people in dire circumstances who are staying the course only through their faith in Christ. It has had the effect of a manifold strengthening of my faith. During the past 2 days I have prayed over many problems with people from all different walks of life, shared joys and tragedies alike and have received far more than I have given in return. I am very thankful that I have been used in this way and am anticipating doing far more of this personal ministry as the mission continues. Ralph and Louise have been working the triage and eye chart stations respectively and concur that we have really gotten out of our comfort zones and are exhilarated as the Holy Spirit works through us in the lives of others.

It has just begun to rain extremely hard and the electricity has been going on and off in the whole compound for hours now, so I am going to post this report while I can. More thoughts and accounts of our comings and goings will follow as I am able. May God bless you and keep you the rest of this day!

5/4/2010 - Tuesday begins

2010-05-03T21:58:00.001-05:00

We're all much more rested now after a great night's sleep. Being exhausted does that for you! It's a very good kind of tired, knowing that your strength had to have come from the Lord, because there's no way any of us could have performed the way we did yesterday on our own power. I'm really looking forward to getting to know each of our volunteers better today, just like everyone else in the world, they all have a story. I got to work with Howard's volunteers assembling distance glasses during one of the peak periods yesterday. One is a young woman named Happiness. She is 29 and said her mother named her that because she was born on December 25th, the same day as someone else who has brought many smiles to the world. She is aptly named because she has a beautiful smile and is always using it. I asked her if her mother lived nearby and she said no, she had died. I said how sorry I was, but she was so gracious, saying I had no way of knowing. We had a long talk about how special a mother's love is. I told her I had also lost my mother when she was far to young to be going to heaven. It was special knowing we both understood a universal heartbreak and also that we would be reunited with all of our loved ones someday as believers. It wasn't all somber. Later in the day, I was helping again for awhile,and Happiness lost a screw out of one of the frames she was working on. I told her and the other girls that they each could only lose one more screw the rest of the day or I was going to fire them and Howard, too. It was a good laugh we all had, since it's pretty hard to find volunteers on either side of the Atlantic and the thought of firing one seemed pretty absurd. To put it in perspective, we have a spare bag of hundreds of these tiny screws and I'm the worst at slipping and shooting them halfway across the room. We have a pretty easygoing, appreciative relationship with all of the workers and I'm sure our love for each other will have grown by the end of the week, just as it did last November in Kawangware and there will be tearful goodbyes then. It's just about time for breakfast, with any luck we'll have Internet after dinner and I can send another update at that point instead of the middle of the night! God's peace to all of you!

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

2010-05-03T18:42:00.000-05:00

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!

5/2/2010 Sunday Evening Report

2010-05-02T18:36:00.001-05:00

The team had a dinner of tilapia, new potatoes and a vegetable medley with pineapple for dessert. We discussed our impressions of the day just ended. All of us really liked the different flavors of music in the worship service and the incredible harmony of not only the choir, but also that of the congregation as a whole. Communion was an interesting experience, people got up from their pews in no particularly obvious order to form a row behind the communicants already at the altar rail. After about the fourth rail of believers had communed, our Redeemer crew got up and took our spot. It was common cup and a more traditional serving of the wafer, with the Pastor placing the wafer on our tongues. Knowing the high incidence of HIV and the rise of swine flu in Africa, the thought did cross some of our minds about how safe the common cup might be, given our recent experiences with swine flu practices at Redeemer. But we put it in the Lord’s hands and thankfully received the body and the blood.

After dinner, I led a brief devotion based on John 20:19-23, pointing out that Jesus sends us just as the Father sent Him and he breathes the Holy Spirit on us to strengthen and counsel us. Following some discussion of the missional aspects of this scripture, we set about coming up with a good plan for getting the clinic up and running and keeping the flow under control throughout the day. We modified our original layout for the clinic, having gone through three mockups on paper, and with everyone contributing something of value to our solution. We ended up agreeing to most of what was in our fourth pass at it and I crumpled up the other 3 sheets and discarded them. What a great team to work with, Pastor Kevin has dubbed my group the Dream Team, and with good reason. Everyone is committed to making the clinic work for its highest purpose and we all have an easy and good-natured rapport with one another. We all give our best and are all mature Christians who firmly believe that God has a plan for us and however things turn out, so long as we are in His will, it is pleasing to Him and falls in line with his purpose. What a blessing to have each of our faiths sharpening one another’s faith. We are prepared to make some more modifications to the physical setup of the clinic based on how our current plan works out and any affect that weather or the size of the crowds of patients have.

Hitting the sack now, about 9:30 local time. We need to be up around 5:30 and on the road by 6:45am to get an early 7:30am start on setting things up in Kibera and performing the initial training of the local volunteers. Please keep us in your prayers. It will be a very full day.

P.S. Just to make sure all of you know, to view the reports from all of the previous days, go down to the bottom of the page and click in the lower right hand corner on Older Posts. You will be taken back a day at a time as you continue to do this.

5/2/2010 Sunday Worship in Kibera

2010-05-02T09:31:00.003-05:00

We got up bright and early and saw the other groups off to their far flung locations. I got to pray with the leaders of the other teams, a very moving experience. We prayed for safe travels for all involved and that the Holy Spirit would move in people’s hearts to come to the clinics, that they would be open to the Good News message we are bringing and that the Spirit supply us with the right words and decisions in every situation to help grow the Kingdom. We loaded up all of our footlockers of vision supplies, medications, Bibles and water and took them to the Springs of Life Lutheran Church in Kibera. Our worship there was very special. We followed one of the Divine Services and there were children from 3 families that were baptised, about 8 other children were confirmed and we took Communion for the first time in Africa ever, for any of our group, including Ralph and Louise who are on their fifth mission to Kenya. We were introduced to the church and each of us said a little something about ourselves and thanked the congregation for their warm welcome. We told them how much we were looking forward to working with our brothers and sisters in Christ in spreading the Gospel and in helping them to grow their church. We made a big point that our number one priority is to bring people to Jesus and that the eyeglass mission is only a very good means to that end. All told, the services along with announcements took around 3 hours and it was wonderful. They had other activities at the church today, such as working on a new church constitution and they are active in the national referendum on a new Kenyan constitution, with a lot of controversy surrounding whether to teach evolution in schools and whether life begins at conception or at birth as part of the overall abortion debate. Does this sound a little bit familiar to those of you in Texas? We agreed to come back at 7:30am to setup the clinic and begin training the volunteers, with a projected time of seeing our first patient of no later than 9am. We have plenty of trained evangelists, but are a little concerned about the number of other volunteers needed for the actual operation of the clinic, since Pastor issued a call for more people to step up during announcements.

After church we went and had a good lunch at an upscale mall and then shopped for items for lunch and supplies for the clinic at the Nakumatt, a place very much like Walmart. We haven’t had Internet at the guest quarters where we are staying for 36 hours, so I haven’t been able to post my updates, although I have been keeping up with them offline. Tomorrow night, if the Internet is still down, they will allow me to make my longest house call ever as a computer repair guy. I hope I can fix it, no pressure! Other missionaries here depend on the Internet as well. More posts to follow, as I can get the word out. Thanks for all of your support and prayers.

5/1/2010 Saturday in Nairobi

2010-05-02T08:47:00.000-05:00

We all feel much better after getting some rest. Being able to lie down horizontally is a big improvement over airplane seats. There were two options for the team today, either get up in and breakfast in time for a 6:30am ride out to the wild game park near Nairobi that some of us had already gone to last November or do some sightseeing around Karen, including the Karen Blitzen museum, seeing bead necklaces being made, a giraffe petting zoo, etc. Some of the group did that while I was in meetings all day with the pastors from each church which is going to host a clinic, the Salem team leaders, the LCMS missionaries and representatives at the national and diocese levels of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Kenya. We met all morning and had lunch around 1:30pm. We continued our meetings after lunch until about 3:30pm. I am very thankful I was able to work with all of these church leaders today. In addition to the church business we covered, our pastor from Kawangware, who is an expert on Islam, gave a presentation on how to effectively witness to Muslims who come to our clinics and how the pastors should work with them afterwards over the long haul. I got a much needed nap and then bought a shirt from the same lady who makes custom made shirts in support of her mission to the children in the slums of Nairobi. She remembered me from our November trip because we wouldn’t pay her asking price but insisted on paying more. She had never seen crazy American people barter her price upwards. We were all glad to help with her much needed ministry. We worshipped as a group tonight at 6pm along with our pastor friends. Our pastor at Kibera, Pastor Dennis Meeker led Vespers and said he hadn’t done it in English in ages. Rhoda played piano and the hymns we sang out of the old blue hymnal were “Lift High the Cross”, “Abide with Me” and "The Church's One Foundation". Pastor had a wonderful sermon on serving others, very appropriate for our group. After services, dinner was served which consisted of chicken, rice and salad with watermelon for dessert. While the rest of the group ate, the team leaders met for about half an hour going over last minute details, so there wasn’t a lot of food left by the time we got into the dining room. I snacked a little after dinner to break even. In the morning, the groups that are going out into the countryside will begin their travel, while our team in Nairobi will worship at 10am at the church in Kibera. Some of the teams are less than three hours away from their host churches and are leaving very early in order to be able to worship with the local congregations where they will be serving.

4/29-4/30/2010 Travel to Nairobi

2010-05-01T00:22:00.000-05:00

The team, except for Sharon, rode to Houston Friday morning for our British Airways flight to London. We couldn’t resist stopping in Brenham for a final taste of Blue Bell. We also stopped near the airport at The Kettle for a quick lunch, knowing it would be the last time for the next 11 days or so that we would have much of a choice in what we were going to eat. On the way, we will eat whatever the airline places in front of us and once in Kenya, our breakfast and dinner will be what is served in the cafeteria. It’s all pretty good food, but we Americans like to have lots of choices! Maybe there’s a lesson here that we should be a little more thankful for the fact that we have food at all, given the conditions that we will witness and the stories we will hear in the slum of Kibera during the week. All of us will stock up on snacks and items for lunch, but we don’t expect to be able to stop for longer than it takes to wolf down something in between patients. We are praying that the Lord sends us an average of 1,000 patients a day for healing of their vision needs and that we are also able to be Jesus’ instruments in healing their souls by introducing them to the true Light of the World.

Our journey through security at Bush International was uneventful. We had 16 extra foot lockers with us so that each team member could place their personal item in half of one. This turned out to be unnecessary after all of the gyrations that the Salem leaders went through earlier. The day before our flight, the TSA rescinded their order banning personal items on the way back into the U.S. There was no outbound restriction, but rather than cause confusion with our large group, the original plan was to use footlockers both going to and coming from Nairobi. Because this change was at the last minute, we went ahead and stuck with the original plan. Some good will come out of this, it means we will have more room to bring souvenirs back with us and it is not costing anything, since there were enough team members to account for 2 footlockers each to be counted as their check-in luggage allotment. We flew out of Houston around 4:30pm local time. Our flight was very full and very warm and it wasn’t easy to get much sleep. This is the leg of the trip that the veterans recommend sleeping as much as possible, because it helps get you closer to being on Nairobi time, which is 8 hours ahead of us this time of year We normally try to remain awake from London to Nairobi, since we get to our lodging and are ready for bed by around midnight each trip.

We arrived in London around 1:30am Austin time or 7:30am London time. I considered calling Adrienne and Pastor Kevin to let them know we had arrived in one piece, and the rest of the tram dared me to do it, but I came to my senses. I’ve vacationed in London 3 times and been through Heathrow on a few more occasions and it was the most beautiful sunny morning I can recall. We saw the sunrise from the air and it was full sun and about 55 degrees as we were taken from the plane to the terminal by bus. Our body clocks said it was the middle of the night, but our eyes told us otherwise. I had a little difficulty getting through security. The highly automated equipment detected that I had liquids in my carry-on. Each and every single item was removed from my duffle bag one by one and swabbed with a “magic wand”. After swabbing all of my electronics and the inside surfaces of my bag, all of my stuff was sent back through the equipment with nothing out of order being detected. The swab was taken off of the wand and deposited into a little “magic box” and its test results also came back clean after about 2 minutes of analysis. I thanked the security folks for their diligence. Of course, I was left to repack all of my stuff while the rest of the team “cheered” me on. I’m glad we weren’t too pressed for time and I do have to admit it was kind of funny, what with some of the loving comments that were made by my dear friends that shall not be repeated here!

Our next hurdle was to meet up with Sharon, who was supposed to arrive in London about the same time as we were. Martha checked and her flight showed up as having been on time, which turned out to be untrue. Her plane had been stuck on the tarmac in Chicago for 2 hours due to problems with the onboard computer. We didn’t see her until we were nearly ready to board buses to take us out to our plane, which was not parked at a gate. She had just gone through the same experience with her carry-on that I was blessed with. You always seem to have security issues when they sense that you’re in a hurry. We had thought there was plenty of time for her to rendezvous with us when we double-checked our itineraries earlier in the week, but with all of the adventure and drama, she just made it. All’s well that ends well!

The last leg of our trip was much better. The flight wasn’t nearly as full and it was very cool, so much so that I needed my blue jean shirt and a blanket. This was great, as we all got some much needed sleep. We were concerned about customs problems with the 60 or so footlockers and so about 10 of us formed a prayer circle. Kevin Pieper asked that God would work in this situation and things went without a hitch. Praise God! It was about a half hour ride to our lodgings at the Norwegian Scripture House. After pairing people up for room assigments, we all retrieved our personal items from the footlockers and called it a night after much needed showers. Thank you Lord for travel mercies, we are now in place to serve you in the mission that you have planned for each of us.

4/28/2010 Final checklists and packing

2010-04-28T21:46:00.000-05:00

We finally head 'em on out tomorrow morning. Everything is ready for final packing and checklists are being double-checked. When you travel as light as we do, you don't want to forget that one essential item that will make life a little easier and you also don't want to take anything you won't need. One of the guys on the leader's pre-trip in March has a rule that if you take something on 3 trips in a row and don't use it, it doesn't go again. The support that our team has received from family, friends, church and community has been wonderful. Even if this particular type of evangelism and the way we are showing the love of Jesus in the form of freely meeting the vision needs of the Kibera community isn't something my acquaintances would ever do in a million years, nearly everyone I encounter has had a word of encouragement.

I've been pondering what I will do for our daily devotions on this trip. Of course, we always encourage everyone on the team that would like to lead a devotion to do so. As for me, I've almost got too many ideas, but I know that my devotions will be focused in one way or another on following the example that Christ left us in caring for people both physically and spiritually. Whether building churches in Mexico, helping with hurricane disaster relief near Galveston or working in Kenya, we normally have a devoton over breakfast just for our team and then one in the evening after dinner that usually involves reflecting on the situations and people that God placed in our path that day. While we always base these sessions on Scripture, the variety of perspectives and personal stories is always something I look forward to. It's one of my favorite parts of any mission trip. I'm hoping to also lead some of the devotions at the church before we start work each morning. Last fall, Pastor Kevin would lead them for the team and the 40 or so local church workers and volunteers in Kawangware. He did a very nice job of using Mark's Gospel as a basis for them. I may follow his lead in this regard. Time will tell whether Pastor Dennis or the local congregational leaders will have a plan of their own for morning devotions, worship and praise or not. Either way, I'm going to stand at the ready.

4/27/10 - Preparation for the trip continues...

2010-04-27T10:19:00.000-05:00

I've developed a new appreciation for what it means to be the team leader of one of these mission trips. There are many details that pop up that you would never expect. We had one team member that had to cancel due to health issues earlier this year and God gave us another to take her place in the person of Sharon Brudner. Sharon was also wtih us last November and it will be a joy to work with her again. She has lots of frequent flier miles and was able to get flights that allow her to meet up with us a Heathrow Friday. There was some doubt right up until the last minute that she could make this happen. We checked everything this morning and it all worked out great, with her having at least a 4 hour layover to get from one flight to another in both directions. One less detail to worry about. Another travel concern that we didn't have last November is that British Airways has implemented a policy of only allowing one carryon per person with no personal item that can be stowed beneath the seat in front of you. We will each be placing our personal item in half of a footlocker and will be able to retrieve it when we unpack in Nairobi. Each team member only gets a total of the carryon and personal item to hold everything that they need for the 11 day trip. You might ask, what about your two pieces of checked luggage that you are allowed? We have 60 team members going on this trip and at least 80 footlockers full of equipment, reading glasses, lenses, frames, supplies, etc. for the clinics and most of us will need to check two footlockers to help be good stewards for the overall mission budget. Each extra piece of checked luggage is exhorbitant and great care has been taken by Gus Jacob and his crew in Tomball to make sure none of the footlockers is overweight. Experienced international travelers know that it is pretty amazing how little you really do need to take with you. Not having my personal iterm, means I need to rearrange things so that I have my laptop, camera gear, MP3 player and noise canceling headphones all with me in the carryon and things that would usually be in the carryon will be shifted over to the backpack. I personally wear a fanny pack (I never thought I'd see the day when that would happen or that I would admit it!), because it is easier than emptying out all of your pockets for every security check. More travel tips and musings to follow as I think of them....

4/25/10 - Spring 2010 Mission Trip Commissioning

2010-04-25T13:00:00.000-05:00

Well, it finally became real to me this morning that it's now time to once again prepare to saddle up and ride into the mission field. The vision clinic team for the Nairobi slum of Kibera was commissioned at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Austin, TX at all three Sunday services. The team, pictured above is (from left to right) Dave DeVore, Martha and Thomas Faske, Louise and Ralph Genz, Sharon Brudner and Howard Faske. Pastor Kevin Westergren is at the far right. He told the congregation about the purpose of our mission and then commissioned and prayed over us. We will be driving down to Houston Thursday April 29th, meeting the other groups at George Bush International Airport at 1pm and flying out around 5pm for London. Our total group will number about 60 people and we will be conducting eyeglass clinics in 8 different locations throughout Kenya. Our main concern at this point is that the travel all goes well, given the recent European air traffic disruptions due to the Icelandic volcano. Please keep us in your prayers! Ask the Lord for our safe travel during which we are strong witnesses to everyone we meet along the way and that our mission has a mighty impact on the Springs of Life Lutheran Church in Kibera and the surrounding community, with large numbers of people confessing Jesus as their Lord and Savior as a result of the evangelism efforts during the vision clinic from April 3-7, 2010.