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

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!