The Clinic Begins in Kibera

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.