Happy Hallo-what?

It was a good week. Sarah had another good ultrasound. Not 100% sure of boy or girl, but we are pretty sure, but not telling yet. Maggie began speaking more and doing more of her own interpretive dance. Ashley was able to get back into the outpatient clinic where he had been spending a lot of his time.
We went to Nairobi once again. We had to purchase enough food to last us for 10 weeks roughly until our next shopping trip here. Quite the challenge. This was the first time we did not ride with cameras in hand as we still love the landscape, but did not encounter anything new to capture on film. It is still neat to see zebras out grazing as you drive by. On the way in we stopped in our usual pitstop, Narok. This town is the unofficial Maasi capital and about 1 1/2 hours from Tenwek. This day was different, however, because the Kenyan president was coming into town. We saw people up in tree and trying to get a good vantage point of the dirt soccer field stadium where his rally would be. We saw the band warming up (which ironically was wearing mostly blue, which is not one of the Kenyan national colors). Needless to say much more of the road was smoother and watered down for dust. We never saw the president, though, as we think he may have been flown in.
We also ran into something I had never experienced before on a dirt road, a traffic jam! We were stuck in a line (we were told 5 miles deep) of cars at one point. All of the Kenyan men got out of their cars and stood in the middle of the road looking. Then occasionally they’d run to their cars, restart them, and pull up a few feet and then get out again. After about 1 hour we were in open traffic again, but never discovered the reason for the traffic jam.
We finally arrived at the SP office, stopping on the way to drop off our passports for a 3 month extension on our visa while waiting for our work permit. When we got to SP, we saw some familiar faces, but as always met some new people as well. On gentleman we met commented on my Clemson hat and I quickly learned he was a USC fan who lived in Charlotte.
We ran lots of errands and went to several different places. We went to one store that sold home, childrens, and women’s clothing items. Very American in style products with a unique African touch. The things is the store is owned by some SP employees who have taught women to sew and make these items, and the money for each item goes back to the person who made the item.
We also went our usual stores and ate at some new places. We went to a unique place Saturday night. The menu consisted of French, Chinese, and Indian items (all of which were excellent). The real interesting thing was there was a large outdoor play area next to the outdoor tables, so your kids could play while you eat. It was so nice and convenient and the first meal we’ve had to ourselves in months.
It is amazing how God lines up everything perfectly. One of these days I’ll learn not to be amazed by this because 1) He does this all the time and 2) He is God. The day before we left for Nairobi I finally was able to speak with the head chaplain, who I’d been trying to find for weeks. We discussed the idea of purchasing TVs for the hospital. He then connected me with the head of the industrial department who came right over to do measurements so we’d know what to buy in Nairobi. I was in clinic a little late, but it happened to be that that kept me at the hospital long enough for industrial to give me the plans and specs for the TVs. We purchased them on Saturday.
Sunday when we wore up Sarah did not feel to well, so we rested at the guest house. Around noon Maggie and I went back out with our driver from the day before. Because the volume of our purchase, we had wait until Sunday to pick up the items, which we did. The gentleman I bought the cables from made me meet him outside of the store for our purchase. I was told that it was because he gave me and the hospital a discount, which his boss would not like because I was a “rich” white man. We then went and picked up the TVs. What a sight! It was took about 30 minutes to load the TVs into the van, which included moving and rearranging seats.
That afternoon some of the Sudan team was relaxing at the guest house watching the World Series, which was cool. Maggie and I went out to eat with some of the Sudan team and ran a few more errands.
Thankfully Monday AM Sarah was feeling much better and we were able to run our last errands and make the trip home. We filled the van with our supplies, groceries and meat (Imagine, 10 weeks worth of meat!). Fortunately another van was going out to Tenwek that day as well and it carried the TVs and supplies. When we did arrive home we had a mess because some of the meat and cheese boxes had leaked, but we finally were able to get everything cleaned up and were glad to be home safely.
On Tuesday it was back to work. The girls helped finish putting things away from the day before. There was a team here fitting wheelchairs for kids that needed them. They come out every couple of years. Prisoners in the midwest actually make the parts. It looked like a very special ministry. Our garden is growing well, but it has not rained for the last few days so the girls watered it for us. Maggie also played for awhile outside with sidewalk chalk.


Today, of course, is Halloween. When I asked people around the hospital if they knew what that was they had no idea, which was kinda nice. The kids here did dress up for playgroup. Maggie dressed like one of the girls from “Little House on the Prarie”. This afternoon was a party with games for all the MKs with costumes themed after “heros of the faith”.

For supper we went our neighbor Carol Spears house with some other folks and had a nice time. And yes, we did watch “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” when we came home tonight!

"God Knows What He Is Doing"

“God knows what he is doing.” That is what Sarah said the other day and is it ever true. Our missionary neighbor, Ms. Barb, has been dealing gracefully with the failing health of her father. She decided to go home and found a ticket, the last one for the next day out of Nairobi. Plus, a family was riding into town the next am to provide her with a ride into the city. Also, a friend our has her mother coming into town for her baby’s delivery. She was going to come into town on her own, but now our neighbor will be able to fly out with her. Ms. Barb also came over to use skype our computer to talk with her family and friends before she flew out. It was neat to see God work in this situation.
Peds has been a very interesting experience. It is fairly busy. I am learning a lot about malnutrition. It is also very difficult seeing such sick children. I had 2 children- one about 1 yr old and another about 2 mos old, on ventlators in the ICU, both of whom did not make it. We also had a 26wk gestation about 800g baby we cared for in the NICU this week. I had another baby in respiratory distress die the other day. The baby’s present so late. I learned the mom’s think everything as the baby can eat. When they can’t, they come in for help. It is also amazing to see the malnourished kids come in who are semiconscious and then be up talking and playing a few days later. I have one baby on the floor who is HIV+. I notice how the mom smiles every morning. One of the missionaries pulled us aside this AM after seeing her and told us the miraculous story of how this mom came to know the Lord and is now a living testimony of his love.
Sarah and Maggie paid a couple of visits to the NICU this week. They came up with Jenny Roberts to deliver us some much needed blankets one day. After church I had them come up to see our newest set of triplets (one born at home, one in transit, and one in the hospital!) Maggie especially enjoyed looking at the little babies.
We also praise God for more small prayers that we are seeing answered. We praise God for them and will give you more details about them in due time.
Sarah drove on her own to Bomet the other day and did great doing it. The only thing is we seem to have trouble getting into 3rd gear at times. We hope that with a few more trips to Nairobi and learning our way around to be able to borrow vehicles and do more driving on own own.
A few other things. Every morning walking in the little kids love to come and shake our hands on the way to school. At times it seems annoying, but Ms. Barb said if such a simple act makes there day, then that’s okay.
In the NICU the nurses have the radio playing tapes constantly (usually the same ones the other day). One day I heard “How Great Thou Art” followed by “Feliz Navidad” on the same tape. Only in Africa!
We also learned you always have to be on your toes here to step in. This week at church Ben Roberts got up to announce the speaker, but could not find him. He said pray for me and then began to preach!
Oh, for those of you who use quinine for restless leg syndrome, one of the soft drinks here has quinine in it if you are interested.
In one of the books we are reading it mentions how the locals gain their long earlobes. They start by placing a thorn into the ear of children and expand from there. Looking at one of my young Maasi patients I noticed something unusually. I finally figured it out, a thorn in her ear. Her dad then tried to teach me Maasi (yet another language to learn).
By the way, Saturday the 20th was Kenyatta day (the George Washington of Kenya), so a belated Happy Kenyatta Day!

Call to Prayer

Sarah and have been talking about prayer recently. I have been reading a devotional by Andrew Murray entitled The Secret of the Abiding Presence. The other day it was about intercessary prayer. It included a quote by Dr. J.R. Mott:
“We can in no better way serve the deepest interest of the churches than by multiplying the number of real intercessors, and by focusing the prayers of Christendom upon those great situations which demand the almighty working of the Spirit of God. Far more important and vital than any service we can render to missions is that of helping to release the superhuman energy of prayer, and, through uniting in this holy ministry true intercessors of all lands, to help the ushering in of a new era abounding in signs and wonders characteristic of the working of the living Christ. Immeasurably more important than any other work is the linking of all we do to the fountain of divine life and energy. The Christian world has not only a right to expect mission leaders to set forth the facts and methods of the work, but also a larger discovery of superhuman resources and a greater irradiation of spiritual power.”
When I read this it was one of those “God things” where I immediately felt led to share this. It was not only a reminder to me personally about the importance of prayer, but it made me want to urge all of you to pray for us. Not only us, but for missionaries everywhere. We need and rely on your prayers. For those of you who are faithfully praying for us, we do thank you.

Funny Stuff

Somethings just strike you as being funny, regardless of what the circumstances. Let me relay to you to conversations I had over the past week.
The other night I was on call and getting read to leave the hospital when I was asked to take a phone call that went something like this:
“Dr Ashley, are you on call tonight for medicine?”
“Yes”
“We need you up on the women’s medical ward” (which I was standing about 50ft from at the time- so why was I even called)
“Why, what is wrong?”
“We have a lady here stopped breathing.”
“What! What are you doing for her?”
“Well, right now we are clearing off her bed.”
“What, is she dead?”
“Oh yes, we quit trying to resuscitate here a little while ago. We just need someone to declare her dead.”
Later that same evening I was with a new intern and casualty and she was going through some patients for advice. She got to one gentleman and told me that he was sick earlier in the day, went to a local clinic and was give meds (for those interested- it was epinephrine), and was here because he is not feeling much better. She said she thought he looked pretty good now and wanted to know if he can go home. I asked “Well, what are his vitals and exam.” She replies “Oh, I haven’t checked any of that yet.”
I started inpatient peds this week so I can get caught up to speed on how that service functions here. Like everything else, it is very different than back home. Pretty much all the kids are HIV complication, anemia, malnutrition, rheumatic heart disease and meningitis. Plus I am learning to care for the sick little premies in the NICU, which is new for me. I feel, however, that I am learning quickly. Pray for me as I will be on my own running the service next week.
There are some twins in the NICU. I found it funny that the moms will designate one breast for each twin and no switching is allowed!
Maggie is growing everyday. This past week she started doing flips on her own on the trampoline (don’t work, it has a protective netting up around it.) She also bows her head down on her own when we pray.
Sarah is doing well. 16wks tomorrow. We hope to find out boy or girls soon. It is hard to realize how close Thanksgiving and Christmas are as there is no Wal-mart here to remind us!

Happy Moi Day!

Hello all-
This post will be a potpourri of things we have been experiences. We don’t really include as much of the day-by-day stuff now as things are kinda becoming routine around here.
Last week several interesting things happened with Ashley in clinic. It is easy to become frustrated about things here, but realize you need to step back, take a deep breath, and realize God is in control. Ashley had one of those days last week. It was already time to see patients in clinic when he arrived and he asked one of the nurses for help translating. She said “I’ll follow you as you follow Jesus!” She was saying this sincerely and had no idea what type of day Ashley was having, but it sure changed his perspective immediately.
Ashley also became convicted about wanting to do more for patients spiritually. He decided to ask each patient if he could pray with them about anything before they left. What a difference it makes! Rarely has anyone turned him down. Most folks ask for prayers for health, may others pray for unsaved children and alcoholics in the family. Praise God that one lady even wanted to pray to receive Christ as her Savior!
There were also for funny moments last week. Around 10:30 everyone noticed there was no chai. Well, apparently something happened with the hospital kitchen making chai late for all. Ashley was nervous about how everyone would react. He was told they would make an announcement over the hospital speakers when it was ready. (There ended up being no chai that day, but all survived).
Many people here eventually take a Christian name (which does not mean they are Christian). You may see their name spelled several different ways in their chart. One of the nurses here has the Christian name of “Kennyrogers”!
One day last week the EKG machine died write as the report was getting ready to be printed out. Who knows when we’ll have it back.
Ashley also had to fill out a government sick leave form for a patient. It had to be done in 4 copies!
Last week we finally went on our first safari. Safaris have to be scheduled months in advance and are fairly expensive. It was a much needed getaway for us. It is about 2 hours to the local game park. The resort is owned by the same company that has many 5-star hotels around the world and this place kept up with that reputation. We were their from Friday lunch until Sunday breakfast. The meals in are in the lodge and lunch is out by the pool. The entire complex is along the Mara river where it is fairly easy to see hippos. There are 2 game drives daily- One from about 6:30-8:30am and the other from 3:30-6:30pm. We were blessed to see so many different animals- giraffes, lions, leopards, rhinos, zebras, water buffalo, gazelles, ostriches and some we didn’t even know existed! We also got the great wildebeast migration. There were literally thousands of them around us! One thing we had the option of doing was visiting a Maasi village, which some of us did. We felt kinda strange as if we were invading their space, but they didn’t seem to mind. There were so many children- our hearts turned to their need for Jesus! Thankfully their are missionaries affiliated with here doing projects and church planting with the Maasi. Maggie loved the animals. She was pretending she was a hippo one day and now will do her arm and make noises pretending she is an elephant. We won’t go into much more detail about this other than do say that if you come out, we’ll set you up for one of these trips.
Today is actually a holiday- Moi Day- in honor of long time Kenyan President Moi. Apparently there are bunches of national holidays here. The only thing it really means for us is that Ashley did not have to go to work. We played with some of the local kids outside and Ashley finally planted the garden. (After we plowed and weeded it, it became dry and we were told not to plant until it rained, which it has for the last several days.) We also harvested a few of our first sweet potatoes! This made us very excited. It brings new light to when the Bible says how happy the Lord is when we bare fruit!
Okay all, Happy Moi Day and an early Happy Kenyatta Day (it’s on the 20th!)

Cell phone and Chameleons

Hey folks,
Do we have some more stories to tell? The other Ashley was invited to another going away party for one of the clinical officers going away to school. This one is going to ophthamology school so he may come back and help work with Dr. Roberts here. I was told to come by Casualty (ER) for chai at 10. Well, it was a little more than just that. It ended up being about a 1 hour ceremony with about 50 people present. Their was chai, mendazis, a fancy iced cake, and speeches. And never mind the patients, the curtain was just pulled around their bed. You can imagine the sound an older lady receiving oxygen behind a young man giving a farewell speech.
Ashley also had a malaria conference to attend the other day. It had some educational qualities but was very long. On the second day the participants teamed up and tested each other malaria (and yes, Ashley was negative!) It was funny that this course was led by a national team teaching people from several different hospitals and they would still have their cell phone go off during a lecture and they would walk around and take the call! Another thing here is that when you want to clap for someone, you don’t give around of applause. You hold your hand out far apart and on the signal given by a leader you all make one big loud clap.
We are also learning that scheduling things ahead here are a luxury. We have already had more than one occasion where we find out about a meeting we are to be at with less than 2 weeks notice, or people arbitrarily changing a meeting date at the last minute. This has been a little frustrating and is taking some getting used to.
The other day Ashley was counting the number of words he knew in Swahili and quickly realized it was about the same number that Maggie knows. No wonder she gets so frustrated when she tries to communicate!
On Saturday we had an exciting day. We were invited to our helper’s, Janet, house. Actually, she had inquired earlier if Ashley would be willing to help them build their house. They were moving from a traditional Kipsigi mud house to a wooden one. We were more than glad to help. The walk there was steep and long, taking us over an hour. It was a beautiful walk, however. Janet’s husband, Richard, met us along the way to show us to their home. When we arrived we were all slightly disappointed to learn that the carpenter and his team did not come, mostly likely afraid to work with us white folks. Well, it still ended up being a great day. Ashley and Richard were able to install the boards beneath a few sets of windows, but no other supplies were available. No power tools here! Hand saws and hammers. The handle of the hammer was literally like a lead pipe, which took some getting used to. Maggie also had a lot of fun playing with Janet’s 6 year old daughter, Mercy, and cousins. Janet fixed us a delicious lunch of rice, potatoes, beans and chapatis. We also were given a tour of their land and saw their fields and crops. Later in the afternoon we walked back with Janet as our guide most of the way. It is always humbling to see how people who have so little in earthly terms can be so happy and giving in Christ.
Sunday was a day where we really missed being at our home church in Greenwood, which we learned is not unusual for the local missionaries to have happen as well. That afternoon we spent outside planning to watch a local soccer game that broke out. Ashley was invited to play while Sarah spent some time talking with a friend while Maggie napped. The first soccer game was with the MK kids, the second was with some of the local kids. After this there was a football game (none of the Kenyans were interested in playing this). It was a fun Sunday afternoon.
Last night we attended our first station meeting. These happen occasionally an involve going over all of the non-medical business amongst the missionaries here. Needless to say, we were a little confused and often asked “what is this about?”
Ashley has had some interesting clinic experiences. The other day he had a mom come with her 7 year old child. Both were HIV positive. The mom was complaining of abdominal pain and on further investigation he learned the mom’s daughter died about 1 week earlier. The mom said the little boy had belly pain and a sore throat from crying so much for his sister. The sad part was that Ashley admitted the sister who died about a week earlier to the hospital. The mom said that they were Christians. How else could one deal with such a situation except through the love of Christ.
Later Ashley saw an older lady who was a long-time alcohol, along with a daughter who was as well. We found out that the lady was not a Christian and had quit drinking about 3 mos ago. We encourage her to “not be filled with wine, but to instead be filled with the Holy Spirit”. The lady said her other daughter was a Christian and that she wanted to read the Bible herself first. We felt encouraged that we would be able to share with this lady again.
On a lighter note, the other day we found a chameleon outside. We brought him home as a pet. He said in the kitchen to help us catch flies. We named him Leonard. You are only supposed to keep them for about 3 days before letting them back out and sure enough, around day 3 Leonard took off and left us.