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!)