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

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

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

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

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

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

5/2/2010 Sunday Evening Report

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

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

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

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

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...

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....