An inspiring Wednesday in Kibera

Our day began with Lupe arising at 4:30am to work on a special surprise for us with Esther, one of our cooks. We were greeted by egg and cheese omelets with all of the fixings when we made our way down to 6am breakfast. I hate see how much weight each of us is gaining on this trip, but it sure tastes good. We stopped at the LCMS World Missions office to pick up a couple of cases of water for our volunteers. We ran very steadily all day again today with very few breaks for anyone, so plenty of water is essential, especially for our evangelists out in the hot tents and any of the positions that require a lot of talking and/or walking. We saw another 519 people today and many more of them were Muslims, especially in the afternoon. There was one Muslim woman and her uncle who came and after talking with the Pastor, Tom and others, decided they wanted to know more about our faith. We gave them Bibles and Tom marked the Gospel of John for them after I told them that was where I would have any new believer start, since it gives you everything you need to know and is aimed straight at the heart. What a blessing it was to see how happy they were. I got a picture of Tom with them that will appear on the blog as soon as I can make it happen along with all of the other notable pictures that are still waiting to be posted. There were some heartbreakers also, such as a woman who was blind in one eye and had good vision in the other. Our doctors decided we needed to protect both eyes, so we gave her a brand new frame with blanks in it. One man approached me outside and really wanted me to help him with his acute hearing loss. All I could do was talk with him and empathize for a while, but he seemed a little better off for the attention. A teacher also came to me asking if she could bring her 30 girls to the clinic, since we had seen several of them during their lunch hours. I let her know we don't do reading glasses for anyone under 40, so any help we could give would be distance glasses or medications for various conditions. We were already ordering more medications to complete the week, so I checked with our doctors and they gave the go ahead for the class to come on Friday morning. What a blessing that will be for any of the girls, ranging in age from 8-15, who can benefit from this care. At the end of the day, the Pastor asked me if I would like to lead our afternoon closing devotion. I had about 15 minutes to find a Bible and I landed on the Great Commission to talk about. Pastor Bakari introduced me as Pastor Dave from Texas, so I guess we now have two Pastor Daves at Redeemer! After reading it, I spoke of how the Great Commission was the real reason behind the clinic, the motivation for our team to come from far away and it is the motivation and the means by which the local church in Kibera will continue to grow. It is why we mission minded people get out of bed everyday looking for someone else to share the Good News with. After my "sermon", we sang the Doxology and a musical benediction. What a great way to end the clinic. And don't worry, the real Pastor Dave has nothing to be afraid of! After our ride home, we arrived at dinner with Catherine to find that Lupe, with Leslie's help, had cooked up a breaded chicken creation that was beyond belief, along with rice, tortillas, beans and pico capped by watermelon for dessert. I know I'll sleep well tonight!

This is the first time I have been able to use the Internet from my room, since it was finally fixed today. It makes my life a great deal easier. This has been the trip where communicating was like pulling teeth. We got the news that Pastor Kevin and Tammy's baby Benjamin had arrived and we are all very excited for them.

As we left the clinic today, our evangelists let us know that they were going to show a film about Mary Magdaline. We got a good bump in traffic Tuesday after a showing of the Jesus film Monday night, so we hope to continue the trend and are well on the way to a week where we might see as many as 2,500 patients. That's it for now, I need a good night's sleep to be able to get up and do it again. Praise God!