Sunday worship and we got to examine the clinic site and are very heartened! 6-2-2024

 We all got a little extra rest except the few of us who went to a sports bar to watch the World Cup Final.  All of them were Real Madrid fans, so even though they were a bit worse for the wear, they were happy.  Breakfast was served at 7am as usual and many of us were there then, while others trickled in, since none of us needed to leave for church until around 9:30am.  We heard stories from the road from Arron and Sarah, who finally got to Little Daughters late last night.  It was great that they finally made it after persevering through one obstacle after another. 

This morning was one of the two times it would be possible to get a team picture, the other being at our combined group dinner at a nice restaurant one evening this week.  I got the group posed, took some test shots and then had my friend Geoffrey take the shot once I was in place.  A rare photo of Dave in a picture from one of his cameras! 

We parted company with the other team as they left for Kawangware. We left for worship in Dandora and got diverted as we decided to drop all of our luggage off at our hotel.  It is a nice place, but the Wi-Fi is a little flaky in my room on the 3^rd floor.  Not really good enough for much in the way of picture

s. Anyway we arrived a bit late for church but the pastor and the congregation were very accommodating and were perfect host.  We saw choirs of every age and especially enjoyed the little ones singing and trying to do a little choreography. It was cuteness overload!

After that, Pastor John welcomed us, Catherine said a few words about our project, and I introduced the team.  I knew I would be preaching a bit and did a modified version of a talk I’ve done during our Evangelism training on being a questionable Christian based on 1 Peter 3:15. Pastor John liked it and added a few thoughts on my topic but decided not to preach himself saying I had taken care of it.  There was nothing really special from my point of view but the personal testimony that illustrated my point touched the congregation and my team members who were very kind in their assessment of what I had said.  Thank you, Jesus!

The team enjoyed the company of the little children after worship, as Catherine, Geoffrey and I met with the Pastor and our volunteers, many of whom are in the leadership of the church.  It was obvious to me that we are going to have a great partnership this week.  We answered the questions they had, and I went over the general flow of the clinic with them and assured them that everyone would be doing wonderful jobs in each station of the clinic in no time with us there to teach and supervise them.

The church served us a fabulous meal around 2pm, it was so good and bountiful that none of us is even tempted to try out the restaurant in the hotel for dinner, but will snack and turn in early.

We proceeded to the community center where the clinic will be held and the veterans on the team helped with brainstorming the flow of the clinic, given where tents might be setup outside, taking predicted rain into account and the areas where there was already mud and puddles from recent downpours. The bulk of the clinic will be inside the community center and the room we have is the size of a small school gymnasium, so I’m very happy with our options as we tweak the clinic into shape.

We parted company with Pastor John and were driven back to our hotel by our driver.  For the newbies that hadn’t driven through a slum before, I’m sure it was an eye-opening experience and it’s always fun for the old-timers in the project to point out various things we know about.  There is a mall about a city block away from our lodging, so we were able to go over as a group and buy most of the missing supplies for the clinic, plus snacks and water for our team members.

We breakfast at 6:30 tomorrow, leave for the clinic at 7 and begin setting things up by 7:30.  We hope to be open by 9am, our usual goal for a first day.  The clinic will start at 8am on subsequent days. 

Thanks for your interest. Please keep at least 5 of our team members in your prayers that are still missing luggage, they have all be wonderfully flexible and even joyful in the face of adversity.  I’m expecting great things this week! Blessings everybody!