What a blessing! Getting ready to head back to Kenya this week...

 Greetings everybody!

After much prayer and planning, we are ready to saddle up once again.  We are blessed to have a large team of 15 missionaries, so this time we will be doing vision clinics in two locations.  One will be at the Lutheran Church in the slum of Kawangware and it will be led by Pastor Kevin.  We have served there many times before; it is the church where we were able, with the Lord's help, to install a fresh water well to supply the needs of the community in 2012. It is a living water ministry to this day. We have been back to this neighborhood to host vision clinics several times in recent years but have served alongside members of their daughter church in Waithaka, holding our clinics in a community center. It will be good to be back at the mother church where we have many friends and experienced volunteers.

My team will be serving in partnership with county health authorities at Dandora, a community near the international airport.  We will probably see large numbers of people because there is a slum nearby as well as a more affluent tech community, so the demographics will be interesting!  As usual, we are glad to be providing vision care as part of our mercy mission, but we are even more excited about spreading the Gospel.  The county health people requested that our project hold a clinic in this area, so we are happy to oblige, since we need their cooperation for future clinics within Nairobi to be granted approval.  One of the benefits for the local health department are the statistics our doctors are able to provide for each patient we see.  This helps give them an idea of the incidence of specific diseases and conditions like diabetes, cancer, cataracts, eye infections and the like in a particular part of town so they can more efficiently address those needs.

We were commissioned or "sent" by our congregation at all three services this morning.  It was good to have our large team visible to those who have prayed for us and helped support the Vision for Kenya project financially over the years.  It never gets old for me, this is going to be my 22nd trip and I am just as excited as I was on my first one in 2009.

At each service, the team members were presented to the congregation and Pastor Kevin and I got to say a few words about this mission and thanked everyone for their prayers and support.  Usually, Pastor Kevin then prays over the team, but our children's ministry had a special surprise. They had the little kids each make cards for us with personal messages and prayers that we are to read on the trip. How precious.  Little ones at each service took the microphone from me and blessed us before handing the cards to Pastor Kevin in a bundle. What a sendoff, I know it touched everyone on the team.

Here are pictures from the first two services, click on any image to see it full screen.