Happy in Your Heart?

Well, here are a few updates and stories from over the last week.
This is Ashley writing this portion of the blog. The other day I was feeling a conviction to about focusing on some of patient’s physical problems and not their spiritual ones. Sometimes when I walk into a patient’s room I can tell from the start that the patient is different- that it will be an interesting encounter. Anyhow, I met an older Kipsigi lady who was concerned about her heart. She was a delightful lady with a wonderful smile. Upon finishing her exam I told her to rest assured that physically her heart was fine. I asked her if she was happy in her heart. She said that she was. Then I asked her if she had Jesus in her smart. She smiled most assuredly and said that she did. We were all very happy about this. What a reminder that this body we are in is temporal, but our spirits are eternal.
A short time there after I saw another patient who was very involved in a cult. However, he came to us for his medical care. We did the best for him as we good and I talked with him a little after his visit. The nurse asked me why would he come here and listen to us and believe our treatment if he believes nothing else we say. I told her to be thankful that he is coming here because he must be listening to or believe what we say, which we give us eve more opportunities to share in the future.
I have also noticed patients that come in w/ we defined scars from cuts on different parts of their body. I learned that this is where in traditional medicine people would have cuts in areas that hurt to help release whatever was causing their illness. It helps me because it shows where and for how long a patient has had pain in an area.
Another things is that people have very similar names here. For example, in a meeting the other day with only a few people 2 had the same first name and 2 others had the same first and last name. Then in clinic I saw 2 patients back to back with the same name.
We also had some neat experiences this past weekend. We were invited over to breakfast at people’s homes on consecutive mornings. On Saturday we and another family had a pancake breakfast with the Robert’s family, which was very good. The next morning we had breakfast with our neighbor, Ms. Barb. She has been here for about 20 years and it has become a tradition to have breakfast with Ms. Barb. She invites us over almost weekly, but this was the first week Sarah felt well enough to go. There were several other guests over and it was a very nice time of fellowship with good food. It felt very comfortable eating in her home.
Sarah has also developed a recent love of popcorn. Ms Barb was cooking it the other day so she went next door and Ms. Barb gave Sarah some, including a bag of microwave popcorn. The next night we were going to try to make it on the stove when Ms. Barb knocked on the window and said “popcorn night!”. She had made a big tub of popcorn for us. Last night we decided to make it on our own. We quickly learned that we were to put a lid on the pan on the stove! In the end it tasted great.
Sunday however was our first real cultural experience. One of the clinical officers is leaving for school and he invited us over for his going away ceremony at his church. It was quite an experience. There was a concrete slab covered with a tarp over sticks with church pew underneath. It was to last from 3 to 5. It actually started on time, but ran a little late. Some people showed up over an hour late. There must have been 100 people under this 20x20 tent with more seats and tarps for the ground being pulled up for additional guests. Most of the time was speeches from people representing different areas of his life. I spoke as I am the “incharge” doctor for the outpatient department. At the end was the cutting of the cake. Apparently having a cake for every ceremony has become a tradition. The cake was a plain round cake made with corn meal. (Actually it was 2 cakes- one for the church and one for hospital). The cutting of the cake was as orchestrated as a wedding ceremony. However, after cutting the cake, he chose different people to feed cake to. I was surprised to be one, and then Sarah and Maggie were called forward. When we went to leave at the end, the host asked us to have chai with them, which we did before we left. It was long, but it was a fun event. We were very honored to be asked to attend. Now as Sarah is beginning to feel better we hope to be able to do more of such events in the village in the future.