"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!