Thursday's clinic reached new peaks. November 20

It was nice all day, just a little damp in the morning.  We had a pretty steady flow of people coming all day, with the exception of the lunchtime lull that has become the norm.  By the time we were finished letting the last people in around 4:30pm, we had seen 561 patients, although 583 people had been counted at the gate.  There is always some discrepancy between those that register at the gate and how many people are actually treated, but it is usually not quite this large.  It’s possible some patient treatment cards will turn up in the morning.  Either way, it was a busy day. In addition, we had many more cataract referrals than on previous days.  We have now agreed to pay for cataract or other eye surgeries at a Nairobi hospital for 27 people.  We typically bring enough money to cover 30 procedures.  You might be surprised to know that these sight restoring surgeries average only $50 each, so this part of our clinic budget amounts to the best $1500 value you will ever find.  Our doctors arrange for the operations, we do one eye at a time, and I almost always see some of the same faces on our next mission come back to have the other eye healed.  Thank you, Jesus!

The team and I just returned from dinner at the Junction’s new food court.  It’s on the second floor of the mall and had previously been enclosed.  Now the street facing side has had the wall of that floor removed, so it has a nice open air feel to it.  A waiter comes by, gets you drink orders and then you can select items from any of the different food booths.  Ralph and Martha had Chinese, while Howard and I chose pizza.  Pretty weird, go halfway around the world and have a pepperoni pizza, but that’s exactly what we did!

We have spent the last half hour preparing the Certificates of Appreciation for our clinic volunteers.  We will hand them out at the end of the day and each volunteer will get their picture taken with Pastor James and I.  These diploma quality certificates really mean a lot to the young people at the church.  One young man had his name misspelled last year when we were here and has fretted about it since.  I am going to issue a replacement for last year to patch things up.  This just demonstrates how working with us and being given responsibility for the various jobs in the clinic has a profound impact on the self-worth of these kids.   I hope it has a lasting effect.

Well, it’s about time to call it another day.  Tomorrow will be very busy and it will be hard to shut down the clinic since many people will show up expecting last minute care.  We will have the closing ceremony and will need to inventory and pack up our supplies for shipment back to the States or for storage in Nairobi.  I’m sure there will be more stories to tell tomorrow.  Keep your prayers coming our way for our team and the congregation at the church in Kawangware as we share the Gospel and meet human needs through our clinic.