Friday - an amazing end to the week

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.