The Vision Clinic ends with a bang

Larry, Howard and Martha were all packed up as we headed to Kiambu for our last day, since they would be staying near the Wilson Airport and flying out Saturday for a safari. When we arrived, there were already quite a number of people waiting in the tents. We set the clinic up one last time and then headed outside for a devotion. First, Pastor Michael read from the end of the 2nd chapter of Acts in Swahili, which was the text I had selected for the closing morning. Here it is from the NIV translation:

The Fellowship of the Believers

⁴² They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. ⁴³ Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. ⁴⁴ All the believers were together and had everything in common. ⁴⁵ They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. ⁴⁶ Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, ⁴⁷ praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Then, I read this passage to our volunteers and the crowd that had gathered in English. I remarked on how we had been in an early church experience all week, sharing with each other, performing miracles (some blind people would see via cataract surgeries), breaking bread together, praying in "the temple" each day and helping to grow the church. It was the perfect text and amazingly enough, 15 minutes beforehand, I had no clue what my Scripture or remarks would be. Yet another miracle. Thank you Jesus! Larry and Elizabeth started a hymn, with a hand written song sheet in English and the congregation had their Swahili hymnals. Something got lost in translation and they turned out to be two different hymns. Larry picked up on what had happened right away and masterfully transitioned into a whole new set of chords on the guitar. What a blessing it is to sing together, even when we're not always on the same page!
The clinic stayed busy all day long and I thought I had made it clear to close the gates at 1:15 when it looked like we could serve about 425 patients.  I knew we needed to start shutting down and packing up by around 4pm.  God had a different plan. On my next rounds, about 45 minutes later, I discovered another 75 people were there. We worked later than planned and ended up with 496 patients for the day! Much more to follow as time permits. I will be writing during our travel home and will post updates as soon as we return. Thank you Jesus for a wonderful mission!

Thursday was a big day

After another good breakfast at Africa Heart, we rode to Kiambu, got everything setup and then had our morning devotion outside once again in the evangelism tent. It was a gorgeous morning. I did a devotion based on John 20:21, Matthew 28:18 to the end of the chapter and 1Peter 3:15. I talked about why we come as missionaries and then how we are to spread the Word through our own testimonies with humility and gentleness. Larry led us in some more music with great gusto.
The clinic went smoothly from the start and we bad a pretty full waiting area, that tent alone holds about 100 people, for most of the day. When we had finished at around 5:30, the steady drip, drip, drip had added up to over 400 patients. There were many stories to tell and I will recount some of them as time permits before we return home and after we get back. As usual, we are taking lots of pictures and they will be added to the mission trip photo album soon.
We had dinner at a fancy hotel called Safari Park, which was similar to the Carnivore that we had frequented in the past. You eat some salad and bread, after which they bring a red hot cast iron plate and then continue to pile meat on until you surrender. There was chicken,  pork ribs, pork sausage, beef, lamb, crocodile, ostrich, camel, turkey, etc. You get the idea.
Time to get ready for our last day. Stay tuned... Praise God!

Wednesday clinic continues the momentum

After yet another fine breakfast at Africa Heart, we rode the 20 minutes to Kiambu and got the clinic ready to roll immediately before a nice devotion led by Larry with a good Scripture lesson based on Jeremiah and some more music. It was a gorgeous morning, so we worshipped outside.  Nuru had shown a film about Mary Magdalene last night and our attendance was certainly boosted by it. The Jesus Film will be shown tonight. We stayed steadily busy all day long and at the end of the day had served over 300 patients. There were a few times that some areas such as triage got overrun, and it was a real luxury to be able to throw every available team member at various bottlenecks until things smoothed out again.
There has been a fair amount of excitement and some changes in plan from the very beginning of this mission trip. The most recent one was our friend Gus Jacob from Salem having a kidney stone attack out in the field, 8 hours from Nairobi. He was driven to Mombasa and then flown to Nairobi last night. He is in the Karen Hospital near the LCMS offices. He was given fluids and xrays to determine the best treatment. As of this morning, more scans were in the offing. We ask that everyone please keep him in your prayers. We had hoped to go out for one nice dinner as a group, but we haven't been able to arrange it. Instead, we will drive out about 20 kilometers from Kiambu to see the tea and coffee plantations before dark. There are some fabulous scenic overlooks. Since we will be back too late for the 6:30 supper at Africa Heart, we are looking for our driver Allan or Catherine to suggest a good dining establishment. Each of us has many stories to tell from the clinic so far. Pastor Michael and I were helping in triage this afternoon and saw a young man in his early twenties. He had been raised Baptist and still is a believer but kept falling in with the wrong crowd and he knew it was separating him more and more from God's plan for him. Pastor Michael gave him some sound advice about seeking out a good church home and a new set of friends that would encourage him in the faith and also hold him accountable. I gave a testimony about the 25 lost years in my life from ages 20-45 and begged him not to make the same mistake. We prayed over him and I hope that prayer for bringing him back into the fold bears fruit. Well, it's time for bed, if the trend continues, we'll all need plenty of rest. More to follow as the week progresses.

A blessed Tuesday in Kiambu

We were joined both Monday and Tuesday by several of our veteran volunteers from the church in Kawangware, Barrack, Tobias and James. It really helped us to get up and running quickly. We have become good friends with all three of them over the years and it reminds us of how much we treasure our relationship with the Kawangware congregation. We started out a little slow, just like Monday, but by noon we had seen about 85 patients.  Barrack went out around 10:30 with a bullhorn, driven in a pop up van by our wonderful driver Allan. The results were evident by the end of the day. We finished with 221 patients, another woman  pledging to join the church and several more cataract referrals.
The Nuru team is going to show the Jesus Film tonight, which I think will add greatly to the clinics success the rest of the week. Also, today was a market day, which may have held our numbers down a bit. So, I wouldn't be surprised if we see pretty large numbers of people, even on the order of 500 or more. While statistics are a good thing, the ones that really matter relate to how many lost and broken people meet Jesus for the first time and come to a saving relationship with Him. We are planting seeds here and may never see how far the ripples reach from our actions this week.
We have a situation with a seven year old boy name Alex that we would like for you to keep in your prayers. He was brought to us by a woman that said he had been abandoned by his parents. The local church doesn't have the resources to handle this and we are exploring options with the diocese and other churches. She will be back for an answer today. Pray that the Lord's will be done in His grace and mercy and that he use us to help find a solution.

A new clinic in Kiambu is born!

Breakfast was at 6:30am and we arrived at Kiambu around 7:30 after a 15 minute van ride.  We had secured the clinic footlockers and supplies on the 3rd floor of a building next door to the church. All of that needed to be moved into the sanctuary and sorted out. Tents were being erected and tables were arriving via truck. Another vision clinic was being born.
The congregation's president, Michael, opened our morning devotion with a prayer, then Geoffery, our evangelist from Nuru ( the Lutheran Hour), showed the evangelism cube to us and explained how he worked with the people sharing the Gospel with it. I said a few words of first day encouragement and then Larry led us all in a praise song. What a great way to start the day! I talked with Michael several times throughout the day and he was incredibly appreciative that we had brought a clinic to his church. As we stood outside, everyone who passed by called out to him "Hello Pastor Michael!" He confided to me that he was not really a pastor, but had been serving the church in Kiambu since 1989. His parents had raised him in the Lutheran Church and were distressed when their old church was failing. A wealthy friend gave some of the money as part of his inheritance to help Michael buy the land the church now stands on. Our friend Pastor Carlos Winterle was involved with the diocese in constructing the church in its present condition. They have a foundation already in place that will allow them to double the size of the building when it becomes necessary.

For a first day, the clinic went well and we shook some bugs out of the process and the physical layout that we were trying. It is a real blessing to have a mix of veteran and new team members, The new ones give us energy and enthusiasm while the old hands can train and look for glitches that need addressing. We ended up seeing 147 patients, got referrals for 2 cataract surgeries and 1 person is coming to church next Sunday. All in all a good first day. Thanks be to God.

Sunday and worship in Kiambu

We breakfasted, got our stuff together and staged to load up the vans and trucks that would take our two teams to Kiambu and Kitengela. We had a brief team meeting and prayed over each other before getting a group picture of the two Redeemer teams.  We departed Rosa Mystica and headed for the church in Kiambu. We arrived to the beautiful sound of a responsive Swahili praise song with superb African harmonies. Although I had my sermon prepared, I didn't get to use it since one of the ELCK evangelists that we had worked with in Kibera last spring named Francis was there. The worship was very lively and included all tbe liturgical elements as.well as traditional Lutheran hymns from a hymnal and a capella Swahili songs.  Catherine gave a brief history of the Vision Kenya Project and I introduced the members of our team to the congregation.
We had lunch after church at a nice restaurant called Java Cafe and then checked in at Africa Heart, our lodging for the rest of the trip. It is a very nice facility with spacious rooms, in room shower and commode and pretty good wifi access.  There was a power failure in the neighborhood, so we all took a much needed nap while waiting for dinner. The food was scrumptious and we met members of Bayside Church there. It's a 20,000 member mega church in the San Francisco area and these men are on a month long mission doing mostly construction projects. A very cool bunch of people. Some of the crew played 42 while others of us conversed with our new found friends. We then retired to our rooms to prepare for the first day of the clinic.

Saturday happenings

Our lodging at Rosa Mystica has turned out to be very nice.  It's priced a bit cheaper than our regular abode of Scripture House, and each team member has their own room with a shower and commode. Breakfast was good after a short night's sleep. We headed out to Lake Naivasha for a safari with 3 vans, stopping at a Great Rift Valley scenic overlook for pictures and souvenirs. We had a very adventurous boat ride as it took many attempts to fight our way through thick weeds in the river as we made our way out to Crescent Island.  We tried to help an injured bald eagle sitting on the surface of the weeds, saw hippos and many interesting birds including pelicans along the way.
On the island we saw zebras, water bucks, wildebeests and other animals.  We got off the water in time to avoid a rain shower. A nice lunch followed with chicken sandwiches and real Cokes made with sugar cane as the featured drinks.
Upon our return to town, we stopped at the Nakumatt for some shopping, got freshened up and then had an evening service led by Pastor Goodwill. Our friends, The Conquerors came over from Kawangware and supplied incredible music. Also, Double Dave, from past missions in Kawangware, was there with his group called Acoustic Zeze (which means guitar in Swahili). It was great to see all of them.
Catherine informed me after dinner that we would not have a pastor in Kiambu Sunday morning and that I needed to prepare a sermon, so I spent the rest of the night working on that. More to follow as time and Internet access permit.  I hope to post some pictures soon. As always, this blog gets cleaned up once I am back home and several hundred of the best pictures will be available not long after that, so stay tuned!