The latest Kibera vision clinic is up and running!

We arrived at the Springs of Life Lutheran Church grounds a little before 8 am and proceeded to rearrange pews for about 20 minutes to match a diagram that I had drawn for the team Sunday night to give them an idea of the setup that had been successful there in the past.  Pastor Kevin and I had tweaked it over the years to minimize bottlenecks, keep noise to a minimum and generally create an environment for an effective mission, both from the vision care perspective and to enhance our  intentional presentation of the Gospel in our acts and words.  Next came arranging all of our supplies and tables where they belonged for each station.  Even with a small team, we were in pretty good shape in about an hour.

Bishop Bakari Kea summoned the team and the local volunteers to the outside of the church where our first patients had been patiently waiting for over an hour.  A choir from the school and a youth choir from the church each performed for us.  Then the Bishop shared several scriptures with the crowd stressing the urgency of living in the Lord and how fleeting our present circumstances are.  I was blessed when he asked me to pray over the people and the opening of the clinic and the wonderful ministry that will be done over the coming week.  I won't soon forget what an honor and at the same time humbling experience it was.

The school choir

The youth choir

The first hour and a half of the clinic was functional, although several pieces were not up and running right away, such as the autorefractor station where we use battery operated devices to examine patients for distance glasses if they have failed an eye chart exam.  It didn't matter because our experienced team of Kenyan doctors was able to keep up quite nicely until that section was operational.  

We worked steadily throughout the day and it threatened to rain but never did, possibly holding the crowds down.  Nevertheless, by day's end we had seen 275 patients and all were given the best eye care we could muster, had the saving grace of Jesus shared with them and had been prayed over individually.  

Considering we have only 4 team members from the US, the smooth start of the clinic is a testament to the dedication of our local volunteers, our Kenyan doctors and our wonderful workers from the Lutheran Hour Ministries in Kenya who are called Nuru.  Thank you Jesus!