5-3 and 5-4-2014 Final Day in Kenya and Travel

We had a hurried breakfast before the safari because the kitchen staff had to clean up from a rather loud group of about 25 that arrived after 10pm that was also pretty loud while having a meal around 4am before departing for wherever they went.  It made for a short night of fitful sleep.  At least for once in wasn’t ugly Americans, the group clearly was being noisy in Swahili! Our 6:45 scheduled meal turned into after 7am and we scrambled to get to the Nairobi National Game Park on the outskirts of town.  Our driver from during the week, Stephen and I paid the fees for our group and the van to enter the park.  We spotted some giraffes and zebras right away, but Stephen sped past them, much to the group’s dismay.  I knew what was up, he had been alerted to several lions nearby by other drivers over the CB radio.  People love to see giraffes, but they don’t realize if it’s their initial trip to Kenya that getting to get up close and personal with some lions doesn’t happen more than once every 3 or 4 trips.  I got some great pictures in the warm yellow early morning light with my 55-300mm Nikon zoom lens on my DSLR camera, but they seemed a little cloudy.I soon found out why.  I had taken the lens from the warmer drier room into the relatively cool and more humid van and condensation had formed inside the lens.  A good lens has 9 or more elements or lenses within it and this is not good.  If not dried out quickly, mold can form and render the lens ruined.  I removed it from the camera and it road in the sunshine on the dash the rest of the morning. I switched to my standard 18-55mm kit lens and continued shooting.  The good news is that with a 24MP camera like I have, I can crop and zoom in quite a bit on the rest of the pictures and get good results.  We saw almost every bird and animal I had ever seen at this park with the exceptions of the saddle-billed stork and the rhino.  Considering Nairobi had been getting rain, which scatters the animals to higher ground when water is plentiful and it means the grass and other vegetation is much taller and thicker making the animals harder to spot, we had a very successful morning indeed. 

 

After the safari, we went to the Veranda restaurant and gift shop as planned and had a great lunch.  Charles and Shirley had a dish made out of a huge avocado, Michelle had fired prawns and Stephen and I each had fish and chips.  We went back to the Little Sisters lodge around 2:30pm and waited for the arrival of the Salem team.  They ran a little late and got in around 4pm.  We loaded up our luggage and footlockers in a truck, said our fond farewells to Catherine and headed for the airport a little earlier than planned, around 6pm, because of reports of heavy traffic.  Getting though security was uneventful and we waited about 3 hours to board, sharing meals and stories with other teams at the Java House in the airport.  We took off on time around midnight, our next stop will be early Sunday morning in London.  Dinner was served about 45 minutes after takeoff and the choice was fish or beef. I had the beef, which was actually pretty good.  Then it was lights out, except for those who were reading.  I got a fair amount of sleep, but it was a little more difficult than it needed to be.  A large blonde German man, maybe in his 50’s, came and forced himself into the middle seat next to me.  He wanted more leg room.  He overflowed his seat in both directions.  He was a nice enough guy, but didn’t speak a word of English and I’m no whiz at Deutsch.  I had done it the right way, having gotten up at midnight Friday to choose my seat online.  I got to meet another character in my life. 

As I write this, we are about an hour and a half from London. The cabin lights have just been turned on and the crew is beginning to distribute special meals to passengers who requested them.  A small box breakfast can’t be too far behind.  I was right, the breakfast consisted of a croissant with tomato in it, a Frosted Flakes bar, strawberry yogurt and coffee.  I gave my yogurt to the German guy and another lady from Nairobi gave hers to him as well.  He won the lottery on this flight. 

We arrived at Heathrow about 5 minutes late after circling for about 15 minutes waiting for a landing slot.  Everyone cleared the heightened security smoothly this time and set about to having breakfast with old friends from past missions, shopping or just lazing around.  We have about 2 hours until we need to worry about a gate assignment and checking in for British Air Flight 195 to Houston.  More to follow and plenty of pictures soon after we return to Austin.  Thank you Jesus!

5-2-2014 The Kibera clinic finishes with a bang!

We had our usual breakfast of chicken sausage, cold cereal with hot milk, eggs to order by our cook, fruit, bread, juice and instant coffee or tea.  We were running a little early, so a stop was made at Java House for some real coffee for those that wished.  We arrived and setup the clinic in record time.  I did a devotion based on the one in the Portals of Prayer for today about happiness.  It was based on the Beatitudes and especially about “blessed are the poor in spirit”.  I modified it a bit to compare and contrast worldly happiness with the joy that we Christians have and share that is not based on circumstances but on our relationship with a loving God who gave us an empty tomb to ponder and be amazed by.  Our morning was very steady and we were at slightly over 300 patients in the clinic by noon.  Looming gray clouds threatened all day, but it never rained.  Knowing we would shut down a little early to celebrate the clinic with the volunteers after packing our gear, I never dreamed that we would be blessed with another day bigger than the previous one.  At a little after 4pm, we quit taking in any patients and ended the day at 586 and the week at 2711 people that got vision treatment and the Gospel.  125 people proclaimed Jesus as Lord and the angels are having a big celebration in heaven!

After packing up, we awarded our certificates of appreciation to our volunteers, the evangelists and Pastor James, with each getting their photo taken with me and the Pastor.  The congregation serenaded us with a blessing song and we sang the Doxology for them.  Simultaneous tearful and joyful goodbyes were said, hugs and promises to come back were said.  We loaded up our footlockers into a truck headed for Little Sisters.  We got back to Rosa Mystica, got cleaned up and were ready to walk to the Junction to eat at an Italian restaurant when a torrential downpour began.  We were blessed all week by rain holding off during the amazing clinic and I think the Lord wanted us to know that he had held it at bay for us.  We took 2 cabs the block and a half to the Junction and enjoyed a great meal with Catherine.  Some had baked lasagna, Catherine had a spring chicken, Shirley had veal, Michelle enjoyed a lobster and I had calamari and shrimp with chips (British for French fries).

I am finishing packing up because Charles, Michelle, Shirley and I will be doing a safari in the morning at the National Game Park and need to take our stuff with us.  Afterwards, we will lunch and shop at the Veranda restaurant and gift shop.  Evelyn, the Godly woman from the plane ride from London to Nairobi, has just called and is going to meet us, along with her husband, for lunch as well.  What a blessing that will be.  Howard, Martha and Jane will laze around tomorrow morning, shop at the Junction and will meet up with us later at Little Sisters before we depart for the airport.  I may have one more story before we leave Nairobi, depending on Internet access and how much time I have.  Otherwise, I expect to be able to make another post from Heathrow early Saturday morning London time.  We have had a dream clinic and I praise God that everyone worked well together and we all stayed healthy, despite all the ways one can fall ill from food or drink during any foreign travel.  Many miracles occurred this week and, even though we’re all dog tired, I am already getting excited about coming back to Nairobi in the fall to continue our ministry.  Thanks be to God!

5-1-2014 Thursday evening before bed, what a day!

We were able to get some good Starbucks type coffee at Java House on our way to the clinic this morning, what a nice change of pace from Nescafe.  Because of the May Day holiday, traffic was even less than the lighter than usual traffic of the school break had been so far.  Pastor James led a devotion after a nice song was sung by all and we got to work right away.  Once again, we only had around 250 patients by noon.  This time, I didn’t doubt God’s power to finish out the day and when He was done, we had served 577 patients.  Our grand total for the week is now over 2100 people who have been helped with vision problems and all have been prayed over individually and given a Gospel presentation. 

I have just returned with Howard and Martha from Catherine’s mother’s house for dinner.  Her brother, his wife, a daughter and a granddaughter were there and our driver Stephen joined us also.  The food was marvelous, with chapatti bread, spinach, a dish made from potatoes and peas about the consistency of mashed potatoes and greenish in color, some meat, green beans, rice and some other dishes.  It was serve yourself and we ate very well.  The only thing better than the meal was the fellowship.  A good time was had by all and our exhausted crew ended the night with me being asked to pray for Mama’s health concerns and for the group as a whole.  Afterwards, Mama finished the night off with a beautiful prayer in Swahili.  Even though we didn’t understand much of it, it was very powerful and it had an exquisite rhythm to it.  She is truly a woman of God.  Catherine later told us it was a sweet prayer beyond all measure.  What a special way to end a perfect evening!

The rest of the team went to the Junction Mall next to Rosa Mystica for dinner and some shopping with the exception of Jane.  She had eaten a big lunch late in the afternoon with the volunteers, a special treat indeed.  The Holy Spirit had also used her in a mighty way as she witnessed to many people in every situation she was in.  An unchurched man came to Jesus as his Lord and Savior during her time with him and she was on Cloud 9 after that.  I'm sure God moved in many more situations during the day among us, this is just one special one that I'm aware of.  What a blessing.

It’s been a long day and we have a very full one tomorrow, first running the clinic, then deciding when to shut down so that we see as many patients as possible while still allowing us to pack up all of our supplies and equipment, have an awards ceremony for our volunteers and still leave in time for Merrilee to be ready to leave our lodgings for the airport at 7pm for her flight to London and then back to the U.S. for her grandson's Confirmation this coming Sunday.  We will be on a safari Saturday morning at the local game park, will have a nice lunch and do some shopping and then will gather the teams up at Little Sisters (Daughters?, we keep hearing it both ways) of St. Joseph prior to our heading to the airport as a group.  More reports to follow as I have the time and Internet access.  Lights out!  I need some rest… Thank you, Jesus!

5-1-2014 Before breakfast, Thursday morning

The dinner last night was a nice break from the routine of the week.  I had been to this Brazilian steak house once before, but the others hadn’t, so it was nice to show them something new.  The meat was excellent and ranged from camel to pork sausage to chicken to lamb to beef ribs and others.  My favorite was the beef ribs, the meat fell off the bone and it was nice and juicy.  It was a good evening of fellowship with the team, Catherine and Shara.  Lots of laughs and a few memories.

Just about time to head down for breakfast.  Because it’s a national holiday, May Day, traffic should be very light, so the team is going to stop at Java House for some coffee to go.  In all of the lodgings, everywhere I have stayed in Kenya over the years, there is a thermos of hot water and instant tea or coffee nearby.  A cup of good strong coffee will be a nice treat on the way to work.  With the holiday, we are all excited that the clinic may be bigger than ever today.  I hope that proves to be the case.  Well, gotta start packing up.  Keep us in your prayers for a continued safe and blessed clinic.

4-30-2014 Yet another new high total for the clinic on Wednesday

Our day started as usual with breakfast at Rosa Mystica and the short ride to the clinic.  By the time noon rolled around, we had only seen about 250 people, well behind the pace that had been set on Tuesday.  And, after lunch, there was a definite lull when things ground to a halt for a while.  I would have been surprised if we had gotten to 400 patients for the whole day if I had to judge at that point. My attitude about the number of people we see on any given day at the clinic is that we not worry so much about the number, but that we love and serve each person that God brings us that day.  It was to everyone’s surprise that a small but steady stream of people began to come to the clinic and by the time we shut down, we had served 553 people, 8 more than Tuesday.  As I have noted here before, a well run clinic almost seems as if it’s not really all that busy.  Our total for the week now is at 1548.  The interview that Emmanuel and I had done for the radio station on Monday began airing this morning, Helen was out with the bullhorn once again and word of mouth probably helped us as well.  Our team all tried working in different facets of the clinic and things continued to roll.  Thanks be to God!

We are about to leave for our nice dinner at the Brazilian steak house, with Catherine, Shara and our driver Steven.  And, Howard, Martha and I will be having dinner at Catherine’s mother’s home tomorrow night, a real blessing since we showed her and her family around Texas 2 years ago during Catherine’s son’s graduation.  More to follow as I have the time.

4-30-2014 Early morning musings

Had a good, if a little short, night’s sleep.  Probably is due to the extended nap before dinner last night. Some random thoughts on the trip and the clinic so far are in order in the brief time I have before breakfast and packing up for our next work day. 

Yesterday, we began to swap our team members around the clinic a bit, to give each of them a new experience and also, in some cases, to switch between standing and sitting jobs.  Shirley spent some time helping with dispensing reading glasses, since the eye chart jobs she had been performing involved almost 100% standing and it gave her a chance to interact with the people a little more.  Merrilee has been on the eyechart, helped some in triage and helped with pulling the lenses to spell Martha.  Charles has been keeping an eye on the glasses assembly crew, helping in triage, fitting glasses and helping with traffic flow.  As the week goes on, those that have a heart for triage are all encouraged to give it an hour or two.  This station involves determining what kind of vision treatment we may be able to provide, but it has a large spiritual component, since we have conversations about each patient’s faith life.  We see a large number of Christians, but yesterday the numbers of Muslims began to swell due to word of mouth from Monday’s clinic.  Regardless of the outcome of any talks we have, we almost always are able to pray one on one with each person for any needs they may have identified or just to bless them.  This is a very powerful experience indeed for both parties.  Many of these prayers end in tears or in praising God for all of His blessings.

I’m sure we’ll move more of our people around to give them a different experience today.  The clinic is running so well, we can afford to experiment a bit and we can always go back to what was working if there are problems. 

Time to start getting ready.  More to follow!

4-29-2014 Tuesday was another big day at the clinic in many ways

I was right.  The majority of the team slept very well after the initial day of the clinic.  We had breakfast and were on the road at 7:30 to begin another day.  There were only a few people waiting this morning, unlike yesterday when there were reports of people queuing up at 6am.  We unlocked or footlockers, got the various stations setup and ready to go and then waited for Pastor James, the evangelists and the rest of the team to join us for a morning devotion.  We began with another Swahili song and then I did a reading from Acts 2:42-47, which is about the fellowship of the early church, the miracles that were performed and their number being added to daily.  I pointed out that every one of the things mentioned in this passage occurs at every clinic that we have conducted and had been evident already on Monday.  Eyesight was restored to the blind through surgeries that we will fund, we shared in great fellowship in many ways, both in our work and during our sporadic breaks.  The body of Christ had also grown through the 21 new believers that the Holy Spirit blessed us with on Monday.  Our team is truly blessed to be a part of this wonderful experience.  We closed with a prayer and the clinic was opened. 

By 10:30, we had already seen about 225 people at the registration table.  By the end of the day, we had served 545 people, leaving us just 5 short of 1,000 for the first two days.  Thank you, Jesus!  Of course, seeing large numbers of people is one thing that might be expected in a densely populated slum.  But a great deal of the credit for the success of our first two days at Kibera lies squarely on the preparation of the local congregation at the Springs of Life Lutheran Church.  When I first saw Pastor James on Sunday, I had asked if any of our friends from the other Nairobi churches where we have served in the past would be supplying us with volunteers, he was adamant that the whole clinic would be staffed only by volunteers from the Kibera church.  He said some of our friends might visit, but that this would be a partnership between our team and this church.  I was sad at first, because I wanted to see my other good friends.  But, after some thought, I realized that this was a large step for the people of this flock, since they had never been able in the past to entertain a clinic without some outside help.  Not only that, when the volunteers arrived Monday, all of them were in medical scrubs, a nice display of the teamwork that had been instilled in the young people since our last visit two years ago.  The high volume of patients we have already treated is a direct result of the commitment and dedication of the Pastor, the elders and the members have shown this week.  Our friend Helen has been in the neighborhood with a bullhorn and Emmanuel arranged for a local radio station to interview him in Swahili and me in English on Monday about the clinic.  By Monday afternoon, almost every facet of the clinic was being manned by the volunteers and our roles as team members were mostly relegated to helping solve bottlenecks, managing the traffic control and flow of the clinic and providing encouragement and any support that the volunteers required.  We never looked busy all day, which is the way a well-run clinic should look. In fact Pastor James commented that we weren’t moving people through quickly enough, which is what a first impression would tell you, but at the end of the day, a steady drip, drip, drip gets the job done.  What a blessing to have everyone pulling together from both our team and the church.

Three more member of Evelyn’s family were treated this afternoon.  I was able to get to know them, Nancy and her children, as I squired them around the clinic.  We had a nice discussion ranging from the ministry the she and Evelyn are a part of at their large church to personal situations that she was facing.  We prayed together in a corner over everything that was on her mind, it was a very moving experience.  I am looking forward to seeing Evelyn’s father tomorrow morning for a cataract exam and possible referral for surgery to correct it.  There were also several other situations today that always come to a team leader’s attention where we have to decide how much help we can give individuals out of our limited funds.  Sometime we agree to pay half for a procedure if the family and community can come up with the balance, thus stretching our resources further.  Other times, it’s a decision like whether to help a child versus maybe 4 cataract surgeries for adults.  I’m not sure Solomon could figure some of these out and really feel good about the decision either way it fell.  Please pray for guidance for me when these circumstances arise. 

We were surprised to find when we returned from work that our compound was experiencing a power failure.  I wasn’t concerned about the thought of cold showers or no lights, this has happened before.  I was concerned that we couldn’t recharge the four dead batteries for our eye exam equipment.  Rosa Mystica fired up a big generator and I got a cold shower and fell asleep for a brief nap to the drone of the generator.  I slept through my alarm and went down to dinner about 10 minutes late.  We later learned through Catherine that there had been a nationwide power failure caused by a substation going down.  Power was restored shortly after dinner. I already have two batteries ready to go and am hopeful that the other two will complete overnight.  Life in another country can get interesting, you learn to go with the flow from these trips, it’s a good lesson and builds character!

After work tomorrow night, we will be going to a Brazilian steakhouse for our one nice night out on the town and our friends Catherine and Shara will be joining us.  We will have a brief time after the clinic to shower and change, so if there is any blog posting tomorrow, it will probably be fairly terse and factual rather than my usual ramblings.  Blessings to all, please keep us in your prayers for a continued safe and effective mission.  Glory be to God!