McGee's in Kenya

A final blog?

2008-02-08T15:04:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
Where did we last leave off? It is hard to remember. Since we last wrote things have been in a little bit of a whirlwind. We planned to go Thursday a few weeks ago on vacation down to the coast for a week because it was going to be our last chance to go away as a family for a long time, plus, we needed it! Anyhow, with proposed rallies and such that week, we all felt it would be safer to leave on Tuesday, so in a whirlwind Sunday evening we changed reservations, flights, etc in a very short time and made everything happen.
The ride in for Sarah Monday morning to Nairobi was hard on the bumpy road, but we made it. Our time at the coast was good. We met some interesting people who we hope to stay in contact with in the future, namely another missionary couple here in Kenya and a family from Alaska.
We did see some sad things. The place we stayed at was at about 1/4 capacity, despite this being the high season, because people are afraid to come into the country. The coast, however, is so quiet and peaceful. Local boys on the beach say that their income is decreasing and costs of living are increasing. They showed us several hotels and resorts that are normally bustling that had no guests. The violence is affecting everyone in the country in some way or another.
We arrived back last Monday afternoon in Nairobi and began the shopping blitz. On the way into town from the airport we passed Uhuru Park where all of the proposed political protests and rallies are to take place. We were planning on this being our last trip into Nairobi before the baby is born. Then that Tuesday amongst all the things that we were doing we heard that Tenwek did not want us to come out on Thursday because of more proposed rallies. It was then determined that the best thing for us to do would be to fly out back towards Tenwek on Wednesday afternoon.
So, that is what we did. We hussled around Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning doing the last of our shopping. We had a 1 o’clock chartered flight with AIM (African Inland Mission) AIR. The plane was a small one-prop that couldn’t hold all of our groceries or supplies. We had to weigh every piece of luggage and box. We packed it so tight, with us aboard. It was only a 40 minute flight from Nairobi to the airstrip about 45 minutes away from Tenwek. The view was unbelievable. We flew over the Kibera slums that were so affected by violence, which was surreal to see. Maggie loved the flight. Plus, it gave a much needed reprieve from the brutal roads. When we arrived at the airstrip 2 cars were waiting for us to take us and our stuff back. After we flew in the pilot turned around and flew back with 2 other people to Tenwek, along with the rest of our stuff. We learned that both flights cleared the weight limit by 7 kilograms (about 15lbs). It was a miracle. We and all of our supplies arrived back safely. (I have lost enough weight since arriving here and if I hadn’t we may have had to leave something behind!)
The funny thing was that as we arrived back on Wednesday, we learned that the proposed rallies for the next day that people were fearful of had been cancelled. That is just how unpredictable things are. Things are still safe and quiet around Tenwek. Thursday I did a lot of administrative work and helped some around the house. Friday was my first full day back at work. The inpatient wards were the quietest they have been since I have been here, but the outpatient clinic is a little busier. We do have some visiting doctors and our new interns here, which is a tremendous blessing to help with the work load.
The weekend was quiet and a chance to relax. That Monday, however, we were greeted with some disturbing news. Some of the hospital employees of a particular tribe received threats the night before and had been moved to hiding. That morning the hospital decided to evacuate all the members of that tribe out of Tenwek, leaving us with 4 out of our 5 new interns and 3 of my 4 FP residents. Fortunately they were all evacuated safely.
That same day some other missionaries were returning to the compound coming through one of the towns where mobs and roadblocks appeared, causing 3 straight hours of navigating these hazards. Fortunately they arrived back to Tenwek safely.
Things were busy at the hospital with less staff, but were quiet and going well. We were consistently seeing arrow and gunshot wounds from outlying areas. Then Thursday violence broke out again as in the area nearby us a member of parliment was gunned down, prompting an outlash of retaliation in the local area with roadblocks and stores being closed. Some hospital staff were stranded in different areas, but fortunately all ended up returning safely.
All of these events made us realize that things were still very uncertain in our area. Although we felt very safe at Tenwek, Sarah and I began discussing whether or not we should stay. That evening there was a compound-wide meeting to discuss what we should do about visitors and the next day the missionaries for the country were going to meet to discuss safety issues and evacuation plans.
That evening Sarah said maybe we should call her parents to stop them incase they were ordering tickets. We wanted to wait until the meetings finished that weekend to decide what to do. When we called her mom (who we normally can get) we could not contact her. We then called her dad at his office, which we usually do not do. He said that their friend who would be traveling with them was ordering the tickets right then. If we had waited 5 more minutes we would have been too late!
Friday morning we asked to meet with one of the couples who would be representing Tenwek in the meetings that afternoon about safety and evacuation issues. When we discussed that we were trying to decide what to do, they told us that they felt we should leave. We agreed with this and began making preparations. I had a meeting with some of the hospital leaders a little while later who supported our decision. Everyone we talked with thought we were doing the right thing and said that they would likely leave as well if they were in our situation.
We broke the news to our househelpers who were very sad, but supportive of our decision. We then began the process of packing. We also began making arrangements for our return to the states. Within hours of letting people know this we received our tickets, had job offers, and Sarah an OB. The Lord was confirming this difficult decision.
Saturday began a long day of packing. Fortunately our house helpers came to help us, along with so many families and friends on the compound coming to help us in so many ways. By that afternoon I had to get out of the house, so some of us decided to join the expedition to the bat caves.
At the side of the Tenwek dam behind the hydroelectric plant there are some small bat caves. A large from the compound gathered to go down and explore. The group was spearheaded by our CEO, John Wright. It was so much fun. The kids who went were so excited and John built it up. He made sure as many of us as possible had headlamps. It was hilarious. The caves were only about 6 feet high and there were not that many bats, but one of the compound dogs flushed some more out.
After about 30 minutes of this he next took us into the hydroelectric plant for a short tour. It was very hot that afternoon, so some people decided to swim in the river. At first I was not going to, but decided why not. The water felt so good and it was lots of fun. I did not strip down like some of the local kids did.
After this excursion it was back to work. One of the things that was decided that afternoon was that we should sell as much of our food as possible to the other missionaries. As you know, only about a week or so earlier we had returned with enough food from Nairobi for about the next 3 months for not only us, but our family and guests as well. God had provided greatly for our colleagues. Some of them had not been to Nairobi since November and this was a great blessing. We moved all of these items to the basement of the house next door and set up a makeshift grocery story. This was a win-win for everyone involved.
Later that evening we had a birthday dinner for one of our friends. It was a great time to relax and reflect. We did some work later on that evening, but were very tired.
Sunday morning I woke up earlier. After church we returned and went back to work packing. Fortunately our friends were providing meals for us so we did not have to cook. We did some major packing that afternoon and began coordinating plans for our trip out. We decided to have a local driver load up our belongings on Monday morning and take them into Nairobi ahead of us. That meant we would have a lot of work to do. That evening we went to a going away that was held in our honor. It was nice to hear how the Lord had worked through us and that our decision to leave had been supported. They prayed over us and said if we were missionaries in Africa, why couldn’t we be missionaries back in the states as well? (Which we agreed with).
After the party we finished packing and weighting the boxes and had them ready for Monday morning. We finished around 1 AM. That morning, however, there was an event that was to take place an hour later- the Super Bowl. The White family had hooked up a satellite and were going to show the game live. I wanted to go, but was so exhausted I could not make it. A large crowd did attend.
A few hours later the sun was up and Donald, the local driver, came to pick up our belongings. Miraculously all the boxes and bags were able to fit into his car. The next to come was the most difficult. I went up to the hospital to meet with the interns, my last FP resident, and the outpatient staff. It was so hard to tell them that we were leaving, but they understood and were supportive. We told everyone that we did not know when or if we would return. However, if God made it as clear to return as He did for us to come out initially, it would be an easy decision.
That afternoon I met with the medical superintendent for a few hours to discuss issues and tie up loose ends. It was a good meeting. We also found out that we had a chartered flight scheduled for 4 o’clock the next afternoon, which would get us to Nairobi in plenty of time for our flight at around 11 PM. There was another station meeting that evening to discuss the results of the weekend meetings, but we did not attend so we could finish packing and rest.
Tuesday morning we woke and finished packing our last things and tying up loose ends. We finished everything at 1 o’clock right before lunch. I’m glad we did because as we sat down to eat, we received a call that our flight was coming early and we had to leave in 30 minutes! We ate quickly and gave out hugs and good byes before we were rushed off to the airstrip. The driver was allowed to borrow our friends’ car to give Sarah a smoother ride.
We were so happy that the last of our bags fit into the small Cessna nicely. The flight was safe, but I felt so sick once again. We got to Nairobi and were created by 2 of our driver friends from Samaritan’s Purse. One carried us and another carried our bags (20 in all). We arrived shortly thereafter at the international airport and we were the first one’s there for our flight. It took over an hour to weight and check our bags, but it was done with no problem and went very smoothly. We then went through immigration without any questions. We had the next couple of hours to eat and walk around before our flight. The airport was so quiet and empty it was almost creepy.
Once we boarded our flight it did not take long before we all fell asleep, and actually slept well. We freshened up in Amsterdam, but fortunately had a short, well timed lay-over. Maggie was much more active this flight, but still slept and was cooperative. When we arrived in Detroit I was dreading customs, but God was still in control. We went through immigration with no trouble. I quickly found an airport employee who got carts and helped to gather all of our bags, which all arrived safely. The customs officers heard our story and allowed us to pass through without checking a thing. The same guy who helped with our bags also helped to direct us to our next flight. What a blessing! We ate lunch and a few hours later we were in Richmond. All of our bags arrived.
Sarah’s mom and my parents were there to greet us. It was a nice reunion and Maggie was very happy. Miraculously we got all our belongings into the vehicles (and we quickly appreciated the smooth roads).
This began our transition to life in the states. I am contemplating job offers and we are praying about what to do next. We’ll likely stay with Sarah’s parents outside of Richmond for about a week, then head down to NC to go to Samaritan’s Purse to discuss things, then head down to Greenwood to settle back in. We know that this is not the end of our mission story and can’t wait to see where the Lord leads us next. How long we will be in Greenwood or in the states is still to be determined. Our minds are still jetlagged and in a whirlwind, but we know God is in control and we have so many family and friends that are willing to help us. We know that God will direct us and bless us during this time of transition. We’ll keep you all posted on where we will go next on this great adventure the Lord is leading us down.
Please continue to pray for us, our fellow missionaries, and for peace in Kenya.

Vacation Adventures

2008-01-25T10:45:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
Where did we last leave off? It is hard to remember. Since we last wrote things have been in a little bit of a whirlwind. We planned to go last Thursday on vacation down to the coast for a week because it was going to be our last chance to go away as a family for a long time, plus, we needed it! Anyhow, with proposed rallies and such last week, we all felt it would be safer to leave on Tuesday, so in a whirlwind Sunday evening we changed reservations, flights, etc in a very short time and made everything happen.
The ride in for Sarah Monday morning to Nairobi was hard on the bumpy road, but we made it. Our time at the coast was good. We met some interesting people who we hope to stay in contact with in the future, namely another missionary couple here in Kenya and a family from Alaska.
We did see some sad things. The place we stayed was at about 1/4 capacity, despite this being the high season, because people are afraid to come into the country. The coast, however, is so quiet and peaceful. Local boys on the beach say that their income is decreasing and costs of living are increasing. They showed us several hotels and resorts that are normally bustling that had no guests. The violence here is affecting everyone in the country in some way or another.
We arrived back on Monday afternoon in Nairobi and began the shopping blitz. On the way into town from the airport we passed Uhuru Park where all of the proposed political protests and rallies are to take place. We were planning on this being our last trip into Nairobi before the baby is born. Then on Tuesday amongst all the things that we were doing we heard that Tenwek did not want us to come out on Thursday because of more proposed rallies. It was then determined that the best thing for us to do would be to fly out of here back towards Tenwek on Wednesday afternoon.
So, that is what we did. We hussled around Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning doing the last of our shopping. We had a 1 o’clock chartered flight with AIM (African Inland Mission) AIR. The plane was a small one-prop that couldn’t hold all of our groceries or supplies. We had to weigh every piece of luggage and box. We packed it so tight, with us aboard. It was only a 40 minute flight from Nairobi to the airstrip about 45 minutes away from Tenwek. The view was unbelievable. We flew over the Kibera slums that were so affected by violence, which was surreal to see. Maggie loved the flight. Plus, it gave a much needed reprieve from the brutal roads. When we arrived at the airstrip 2 cars were waiting for us to take us back and our stuff. After we flew in the pilot turned around and flew back 2 other people to Tenwek, along with the rest of our stuff. We learned that both flights cleared the weight limit by 7 kilograms (about 15lbs). It was a miracle. We and all of our supplies arrived back safely. (I have lost enough weight since arriving here, if I hadn’t we may have had to leave something behind!)
The funny thing was that as we arrived back on Wednesday, we learned that the proposed rallies for the next day that people were fearful of had been cancelled. That is just how unpredictable things things are. Things are still safe and quiet around Tenwek. Thursday I did a lot of administrative work and helped some around the house. Today was my first full day back at work. The inpatient wards were the quietest they have been since I have been here, but the outpatient clinic is a little busier. We do have some visiting doctors and our new interns here, which is a tremendous blessing to help with the work load.
Continue to pray for peace in this land.

Refugee Relief

2008-01-13T03:16:00.000-08:00

Hey friends,
Today was one of the hottest days we’ve had here yet. Church was full, which it hasn’t been for several weeks for several reasons.
As things started to get back “to normal” this past week, we were all made aware of a new, and probably long-term, problem- displaced people, or refugees. There are an estimated 250,000 across Kenya currently. Many are around police stations. We were told that there were some in Bomet, but most had left. We sent one of our clinical officers out Wednesday morning to investigate this as we heard some of the people there were sick. When she returned with her info, we learned that most people had already been sent to other areas, but there was still a lady there with a 1 week old baby and 2 year old child. She was sick and they brought her into the clinic. I called Sarah and told her about the lady. Sarah quickly called around and helped to gather her some food and clothes. When she took them up to her, the lady was so happy she began crying.
While Sarah was doing this we had a large hospital task force meeting to determine how we can help the refugees. Apparently the Red Cross wanted us to help primarily with medical needs. We met for about 2 1/2 hours and decided we’d go to a camp with 700 refugees in the town of Mulot, which is about 1/2 hour away. We created a team of about 50 people that with community health’s leadership, would have a medical clinic, chaplains, educators, and give out much needed supplies.
That afternoon another doctor and myself began going through medicines and supplies to take out and Sarah called to organize people for a pill packing party. We’d decided at the meet to go out on Friday, less than 48 hours, so we had to get busy.
The next morning John Spriegel (who also has a public health background) went out with a few people on a fact-finding mission to Mulot. They discovered that most people were doing well physically and there were about 500, not 700. There was also a Catholic clinic and church near by that had about 100 refugees. When John returned we all met again that afternoon and it was decided to carry a much smaller team that provided mainly supplies. There were still several supplies to organize that night, so we had another, and much larger, pill-packing party.
Friday was the big day. I was so happy to be asked to go out with this team. It ended up being about 20 of us going out. We picked up blankets, soap, and a few other supplies in Bomet on the way. On the way there was a burnt car, a burnt kiosk, and rocks and barricade items along the road as signs of the violence from the days before. Otherwise things were like normal.
We finally arrived at the refugee camp. It was at the police station in the equivalent of a large empty pasture. We met the police officers who cleaned out someone’s living quarters for us to set up our small clinic. Once things were organized we went and addressed the groups, telling them what we were doing and why we were there. There seemed to only be about 300 people, but learned there were so many babies which made the number about 500. They were divided into 4 groups based on tribe, yet only set feet apart and got along well with each other. Each group had a leader. Apparently they had no physical belongings as most of them fled for there lives leaving their homes to burn days before.
We gave out the supplies by family and saw those who had medical needs. After this another guy and I took out a football and played with the kids for awhile while the adults were receiving instruction on future plans. The people overall seemed happy and content and were very grateful for our visit.
While most of the activities were going on, John and some of the team went and visited the Catholic clinic. He also went out and did some fact-finding at the other refugee sites. When the rest of us were getting ready to head out, we were given a snack of soda, chipati and sausage. It took a long time to get back because we were on a bus the eye team uses and people wanted to be dropped off all over Bomet to do errands. The town was so busy. I was fascinated by a random cow in the middle of town. How did he get there? We did arrive back in time for me to be on call that night. We then ate supper with some friends and rested.
Saturday was a big day, Sarah’s birthday! We did some things around the house as a family, including letting Maggie swim in her new swimming pool. We also planted and watered the plants around the house. Maggie then took a nap and Sarah and I sat outside, mainly to make sure no one or no thing accidently got into the pool. Later that afternoon Sarah had a tea in her honor with some of the ladies on the compound. When Maggie woke up she swam again and then we went and picked some more zucchinis from our garden. (It is looking much better thanks to the assistance of our helpers). That evening we had dinner again with some friends and rested.
Things continue to be calm overall around here, but there are still occasional isolated attacks. We remain safe and a group of our fellow missionaries went into Nairobi this weekend and we anxiously await their report.

A sense of calm

2008-01-08T02:06:00.000-08:00

We’ll friends, it seems as if a sense of calm is beginning to return to the land. Yesterday patients began returning to clinic as apparently the roads are beginning to open up. Some rock barricades are present, but unmanned. However, some are not traveling still for several reasons. One is because of tribal affiliations. Another is because the costs of travel is so high (about 3x normal) right now that many do not want to take transport in.
One of the missionaries went into Bomet yesterday and said the grocery store we usually shop at was open as usual and he felt very safe. My FP residents are requesting to begin the normal lecture schedule again so that they may resume a sense of normalcy.
I held my first regular Tuesday morning session with the residents today. It was the first we have had in weeks. We are also beginning our normal morning routine in the hospital this week. I was even able to go to administration today and take care of some business as everyone is back in the office.
There still remains some apprehension in the air. The large proposed nation wide rallies across the nation were cancelled today. Instead there are to be some peace negotiations today, with the 2 candidates having a face to face meeting scheduled for this Friday. Things seem calmer everyday, but only time will tell.
There are people station in different areas of the country now who have been displaced from their homes. In Nakuru, a town north of here, there are reported 100,000 refugees alone. We will let you know soon how you may help aid these people in the near future if you are interested.
Continue to pray for us as we are awaiting the status of our work permit. We are praying that we will know if it will come in soon so that we may make appropriate plans. So many are praying for us and Sarah commented on how everyday over the past week or so her devotional has pointed to scripture that reassures us of God’s provision and that he will provide us with an answer and direction as He always has in the past.
On other notes, Sarah and I have started going out and throwing the frisbee some. The locals have not wanted to play and have been doing their share of staring. We’ll have to join them in soon. Maggie is showing some signs of wanting to start potty training, but we will see. Today she went “swimming” in a tub in the backyard.
This morning I woke up late and did not have a chance to fix breakfast, which I need. As I walked up to the classroom at the hospital I smelled something. Chai and mandazis were sitting outside the main door. They were delivered for the surgery meeting which had been cancelled today. God had provided once again!

Chaos in Kenya

2008-01-06T11:42:00.000-08:00

Well, I haven’t said much about what has been going on with the election, and for good reason, mainly to keep people back home from unnecessarily worrying.
National elections are held here every 5 years. They are usually very peaceful. However politics are a very big, passionate subject here. People do not only get excited along party lines, but tribal lines as well. Tribal affiliations are very strong. To make things more confusing, there are 43 different tribes (I think that is right), that are in Kenya alone.
The election date was not announced until some time in October and it was held on Dec. 27th, which was a holiday. Up in the time surrounding the election there was rioting and violence amongst tribes trying to displace people and keep them from voting. None of it was aimed at Westerners. This, though, is the reason we did not go the Christmas conference we had written about earlier because there had been violence in on the towns near where the retreat was. Fortunately everything was okay there at the time of the retreat itself.
The election itself was peaceful, but as the votes came in the violence did as well as it was very close and the outcome was controversial. It lead to an eruption of violence through the country. I won’t say any more about the election itself- you can read about this on any of the news websites.
The violence has been terrible. It has been mainly in the larger cities, but there have been shooting, looting and burning in Bomet and Silibwet- the 2 towns near us. Things are very safe at Tenwek and security has been ramped up. Members of other tribes that work here intially went into hiding to protect themselves and their families. Some of our interns and nurses are away and cannot travel in because of violence and blockades people are setting up along the roads. Some of these are beginning to be opend up now. Some visiting staff have been told to delay their entry. Ones that did fly in are hanging out in Nairobi until it is deemed safe to ride or fly in here. One family had to delay their departure several days, but where finally able to fly out.
All of these events kept peoples New Year celebrations somber as curfews were in place in the big cities. There were also media bans on news in country for now as well. Gasoline is running out and no one wants to bring it in. The local dukas are running out of suppies as well. We had a get-together on the compound on new years eve, but the mood was different. Now some of the gas trucks are starting to get in and some businesses are beginning to open up.
It also affects the patients as well. The outpatient department has been eerily quiet as no one wants to come in. The inpatients cannot go out to get CT scans or if they are discharged they do not want to leave the hospital or cannot until family is able to arrive. We have had several patients walk in. One mom came in with her child after walking 50km and when the family arrived, the child collapsed and died. Last night I did not have any babies admitted to the NICU. I asked the OB team about the quiet night and they said there were many deliveries the night before. Unfortunatley, all the babies were and because ladies had obstructed labor and were not able to get in.
Fortunately, as things begin to quiet down, roads open up, and things attempt to begin to return to normal, we continue to Praise God for the safety we have had and pray that peace will be restored to this land.
It was reassuring to have a patient today say that he could not sleep. He said that he was not a Christian, but did want to be one. We shared with him that Christ could give him the peace that he needs. This was true reminder for all of us.

Christmas in Kenya

2008-01-06T11:40:00.000-08:00

Christmas Blog
We thought you’d all be interested in how Christmas was for us over here in Africa, so we’ll tell you all about it.
First of all, let us tell you what Christmas is like here for the Kenyans. From most that I talked to Christmas is a holiday, but not to the scale that it is for Westerners. It is not nearly as commercial. A small, practical gift from someone is very appreciated and there is very little, if any, decorations around here. This is much more Westernized in Nairobi. Most of the Kenyans spend time with family, having big meals and going to church on Christmas eve and/or Christmas day. Kenyans also celebrate another holiday, Boxing Day, on the 26th. Here that is the day when people open all the presents they have received.
The 24th is not a holiday, but the 25th and 26th are. This year the 27th was declared election day, so that was a holiday and then it was announced the 28th would be as well to give people a chance to rest and get back home after voting.
So this is how our Christmas went. The 24th was a very busy day. That AM I returned the drinks from the prison ministry to the dukas. We spent the day around the house fixing cookies and treats to give out to our neighbors as gifts. We also had dinner with Lisette and the Ganeys and afterwards had a Christmas eve service at the church. We took our time walking back with our friends and looking at the Christmas lights with our special holographic glasses we had received. We then came back and relaxed and watched “The Nativity Story” while drinking hot chocolate.
I worked on Christmas day itself. Fortunately things were fairly slow. A group of us had lunch at the Robert’s and then I finished up at the hospital. That afternoon we called and talked to our families and to some of our friends on Skype. It was fun.
I was off on the 26th. We spent the morning preparing for lunch with our house helpers and their families. They each gave Sarah a menu what things they’d like. We had 10 guests- our helpers, their husbands, children, and a few cousins. Because of house size constraints, we sat up and ate outside. We had a big meal. The menu was beans, rice, chipatis, sweet potato casserole, turkey, dressing, and gravy, along with dessert. After the meal Maggie and kids (all girls) blew bubbles and played with side walk chalk. The adults went in and watched Charlie Brown Christmas. I stayed outside and watched the girls eat popcorn while this was going on. We then went outside for desert, followed by us giving gifts, a prayer and then we released our guests (you have to tell your guests they are released before they will leave).
After all this Maggie took a nap and we cleaned up. Then we set out Maggie’s Christmas stuff. She was overwhelmed and appreciative of what she received. We then ate leftovers and rested.
On the 27th, well, all I could say is that for us it was a day of much needed rest. We did nothing but relax, which was nice.

Bomet Prison Ministry

2007-12-25T11:04:00.000-08:00

Let’s inform you about what came of the prison ministry event. As you know from previous blogs and emails we were scheduled to have a Christmas ministry event at the Bomet prison on December 23rd, which we did.
Saturday was a busy day of last minute preparations. We went with Carol Spears into town to gather a few last minute things. When we returned home we finished packing together items for the prisoner packets. I also called and talked with people to confirm that we were “a go” for Sunday, which we were.
Saturday afternoon I borrowed one of the missionaries vans to load up the gifts for the prisoners. Mike Ganey came down and helped me do this. We packed it so tight and saved the remainder for his car. We then drove up to the hospital dukas (shops) and picked up the cases of soda that we had ordered. We finished all this in time to get showers for the compound Christmas drop-in/party that evening. It was a very busy and tiring day.
Sunday AM I woke praying for the prisoners and the day ahead. Church ran long because it was a special Christmas service. After this Mike came down and we strapped the rest of the mattresses on top of his car. We were already a little behind schedule (We were doing this around 11:30AM and we were to meet at 1:30 to leave for the prison- about a 15 minute drive). As we finished loading we got a call that the food we ordered was ready at the restaurant. We finally got up there to pick up 2 roasted goats (they were in helper’s yard until Saturday!) and 200 samosas. When we arrived they asked where were our containers- which we were told would be provided. The owner cleaned out a bucket and milk container and found some bags to put things in. We finally got loaded and headed out. I looked behind me and Mike was gone. He ended up picking up some people at the main hospital gate and dropped them off along the way. We got to the prison and were pleased to see that the tents and chairs were all set up and ready to go. Some prisoners were allowed to come out and help us unload things so fortunately we were able to do that quickly and got back to Tenwek giving us just enough time to get back and help load everyone up. I exchanged vehicles and drove our neighbor, Ms. Faith’s, car so I could get her gas in town. Just pulling onto the main hill it stalled out, so we assumed it ran out of gas. I let it coast back into the lawn and went and borrowed another vehicle. All of us from here met, prayed, and loaded into cars and headed out.
At 2:10 we arrived at the prison (only 10 minutes late!) The team from the Mosop orphanage met us there. They did some cooking and helped contribute to the gifts. We quickly made some last minute preparations and the program began. As soon as it started it began to rain and drizzled the entire afternoon (which is a symbol of blessing in Kisigis culture). We had the meal first (goat, chipati, samosa, oranges and soda). After that we had several people speak, some from the prison and some from Tenwek. One of the head guards who was drunk spoke and finally had to be drug off. The prison choir danced and sang. Next a team from Tenwek did a few songs and Dr. Russ White delivered a dynamic sermon. Several people accepted Christ as their Savior. I was called up several times to speak because in this culture it is very important for the person leading an event to be recognized. I was presented by the prison with chipati making table that was made by the prisoners as a gift (the others were sold that day). After the program portion the prisoners made a semi-circle and we gave out the gifts to the prisoners (at this point the rain stopped). They each received a mattress, 2 blankets, sandals, and a personal hygiene kit. We also gave bags of flour to the workers. After this we said good-bye and we headed out.
It was a very good day. I found out yesterday that when we left at 5PM the prisoners requested to go to bed early and were locked in their cells at 5:30 to sleep on their new gifts.
Thanks for the prayers and support of you back home who were able to help with this project!

Cows! and Christmas stuff

2007-12-25T05:17:00.000-08:00

This is the latest since our last update- due to internet issues we are late getting this posted.
Tuesday was a great day. Most of the missionaries were still away at their retreat, so it was quiet here. I had a meeting with the outpatient department that morning and spent the rest of the morning doing administrative types of things. It was so good to get “caught up”.
That afternoon I was up at the hospital taking care of business when I got a call from Sarah. I did not know what was wrong. She said cows had gotten in the backyard and were going for our neighbors plants and bushes. She had tried to shoo them, but they would not move. I ran home in my dress clothes (fortunately wearing crocs) through the rain and found a metal rod the kids had been playing with laying in a neighbors yard. I grabbed it and saw Sarah outside with an umbrella. I was able to get the cows to move, but they would go the wrong direction. I got one to go the right way, then I went after the next one. I got it turned back around, but it started bucking and heading towards Sarah. She got out of the way and the cow eventually turned off. After I got these 2 out of the way, Sarah said there was another. Sure enough, he was chowing down in the garden. I trampled across the field and got him out. All of the commotion woke Maggie from her nap. She is already a fan of cows, but this episode had her mesmerized. She was out on the porch with Sarah and saying “Dad ah Moo” repeatedly. After this initial commotion another showed up in the yard. I went and ran him off and Maggie came out to watch, but quickly decided to go inside and watch from there. The episode was over, but Maggie continued to recount the tale, even until the next morning.
We had a nice dinner that night as well. Our friends, the Alterman’s, were getting ready to leave the country and since they will gone before Christmas, they decided to have us over for a ham dinner, which was great. Most of all the people left at the compound (very few) came over for the dinner, which ended up being a lot of fun.
On Wednesday we woke up with the plan of taking our Christmas photo. I was off work because it was Kenya’s independence day (our house helpers did not even know this, which is common for most of the locals). John Wright, our interim CEO, was at the dinner the night before and told us about some wonderful brownies that he would have made the next day. We were going to have our picture made in his backyard, so he had us to get him some cocoa for the brownies, which were great. We got our picture in front of a large poinsetta. Here they are all over the compound growing from a plant like ones back home into small trees. They are beautiful.
At lunch most of the house helpers were working, but were all alone. Sarah asked our helper’s if they wanted to invite one of their fellow helpers over for lunch, which they did. They ate inside at our table and Maggie helped eat their food. Sarah fixed them ugali and they loved watching her do it.

Later that afternoon I went to work in the garden. I haven’t been able to do that as much as I would have liked, but it is a good break. Our vegetables are making progress, but unfortunately so are our weeds. Sarah came up and helped me and she unearthed some more sweet potatoes. I worked hard, but you couldn’t see much progress. Our helpers looked at it later and asked where had I worked. We’ve decided that we need to hire a part-time gardener, which we are planning to do.
Wednesday evening everyone arrived back safely to Tenwek. It was good to see our friends and we visited almost every family on the compound because we had to return our keys.
Thursday and Friday were long hard days. Work in general was busy and several people were off. I also had to deal with some difficult issues, such as people who did not show up to work even when they were scheduled to do so. They felt there reasons were legitimate and know they made mistakes. Fortunately, at least as far as I know, no patients suffered from this. I hate getting involved in these situations.
That Friday evening was quiet. Maggie went to sleep and I was on call. Sarah spent the evening at our neighbor’s, Ms. Faith, helping her decorate wedding cakes for the area Bishop’s (and head of the hospital board) daughter’s wedding. She made 5 different cakes in all. They had a lot of fun and are getting to be good friends.
Saturday was a day of shopping in Bomet. One of the visiting OB’s had never been to the “big city” so he rode along. John Kaguthi went with us as well. He is my newest family practice resident. He arrived Thursday night and we took him into town to get some supplies. Our purpose for going in was to buy supplies for the prison ministry. The workers were so helpful at the store and had even ordered supplies from us remembering our visit and inquiring about prices from about a month prior. Thankfully one of our fellow doctors happened to be there in his van and he was able to help us get everything loaded. Pulling into the parking area at the main grocery story is hard as there are large mud puddles. This time I finally got the car stuck and had to put it in 4-wheel drive, which I had never done before and was fun. We stored the supplies we bought in Ms. Barb’s apartment as she is away on furlough.
That evening we had dinner with our friends Lisette, the Ganey’s, and Carol Spears. Sarah hosted with pizza here and we had dessert around a fireplace in Carol’s back yard. It was very relaxing and a lot of fun. John, the new FP, joined us as well.
Sunday was what it was meant to be, a day of rest. The entire offering at church went to help support the prison ministry, which was a tremendous blessing. That afternoon after naps Sarah made us and some of our neighbors great milkshakes with the new blender we got on our last trip to Nairobi. After that I played football with some of the locals, which was fun. Then we ate leftover’s and I helped Mike Ganey decorate sugar cookies that he was taking to an orphanage meeting the next day.
Monday it was back to work. I was also trying to get some of the prison stuff together. God has been so obvious as He has been orchestrating all this. We started last week looking for a tent but had not been able to find one. Some people here had a connection in nearby Kericho and were able to find one. It is so hard to do now because of parties and December (like June back home) weddings. What an answered prayer.
Thursday night was the staff Christmas party for the hospital. It was an experience. We had to bring our own silverware (which was okay) and we had traditional Kenyan food from the hospital restaurant. People filled in the back of the room, not leaving a chair empty. As soon as Sarah and Maggie got up 2 guys came and sat by me. In traditional fashion it began about
45 minutes late. It was funny because we were in the meeting room with a big podium and microphone, but the blessing was whispered by someone at the back of the room near the food, but people knew when he prayed because at amen the table was swarmed! The program lasted several hours with speakers and singing. We enjoyed the portion we were able to stay for.
A few other tidbits from the last few weeks.
I learned that when patients receive tube feeds sometimes we run out of the feeding material, so it is supplemented with egg nog! (I thought that was rather seasonal.)
The other day one of my outpatient nurses looked concerned. When I inquired, she said that signs labeling doors in the outpatient department were being changed. It is all by numbers, but the workers in the clinic did not know this was happening and were still referring to old numbers. People were being sent everywhere. Some people were evening standing in the bathroom waiting to receive their medicine!
We continue to see the Lord work. I had another patient this week who when I asked her about prayer requests told me she wanted to be saved, without any prompting on my part. Another sign of the Spirit moving. I also have learned that people aren’t that different after all wherever you are. For example, I had a patient the other day in the ward who said he just started going to church when he became sick. (How many times have I seen this back home?)
Maggie and Sarah have been doing some Christmas activities. Sarah is helping people decorate and making cookies of her own. Maggie was invited to make a gingerbread house with the MK school kids. This was a first for all of us. Sarah made sure that Maggie’s house consisted of things that Maggie could eat and would not be a choking hazard. We think her house looks great! Just an FYI- Maggie was very cute dancing with maraca in hand to the David Crowder Band’s version of Feliz Navidad the other night!

"Uh oh, Kimbo"

2007-12-11T03:10:00.000-08:00

Here is the latest since last time.
Well, our adventures in Nairobi continued. On Friday we went to some markets and did some shopping. We met our friends the Ganey’s who were in town and had dinner with them. Saturday was great because the guesthouse was quiet and we rested most of the day. We had lunch there, packed, and didn’t go out until around 4:30. It was good to rest. We talked with one of our friends from here about helping us to find a car, which he said he would. Then we had one of those “God things”. Sarah’s sister sent us 3 large packages to Nairobi for Christmas. She told us to open them when they arrived which we did. Sarah almost cried when she looked in. Not because the customs agents had ripped most things open, but because of what was in side. There were maternity clothes just like Sarah needed, but had not asked anyone for. There were also some things she wanted specifically for Maggie and had been looking for, but had been unable to find. She also did not mention this to anyone and it was in the box as well. God is so good! We met the Ganey’s again and did some running around and then went out to eat and came back to rest for a long Sunday, which involved last minute errands and hitting the road as early as possible to get back to Tenwek.

A view into the Rift Valley outside of Nairobi
Monday was a great day for me to rest and spend time at home doing some administrative tasks. I’ll admit, it is the first I have slept in and stayed home for a day in several weeks. It felt good to get several things accomplished and be at home for a day.

Maggie having fun
Tuesday it was back to work. Not very eventful. Wednesday we had our monthly long term doctors meeting. It feels good to be able to put in what I feel is valuable input and to have my colleagues say that I am doing job. Encouragement for each other is something that is really needed around here.
Thursday was a good day. I’ll admit it is easy to get frustrated at times and today was one of those days. After some time though I started getting some things accomplished. I also chaired another outpatient task force team meeting today. We do this once a month. I went to go to the administrative conference, but was told someone else was meeting. Long story short, we decided to meet at another venue, the open air dining area at the hospital restaurant. It was great! We sat around, drank Cokes, and openly discussed issues. It felt so informal, but we got so much accomplished and at the end everyone was happy and felt the same way. I think that we may continue to meet this way in the future.
We had another funny incident on Thursday. Sarah says someone stole 200 shillings (about $3.00) from our kitchen. Sarah said the money was on the counter and a little girl wandered in the kitchen and her nanny went after her. The helpers were in different portions of the house and when Sarah asked about the money later, it was gone. Everyone was very concerned. Our helpers were even going through the trash looking for the money. Everyone reached the conclusion that the nanny must have taken the money. This made several people upset. Sarah was going to confront the lady the next day. Then later that evening we were greasing a pan to make brownies and she said “Look.” In the lid of the Kimbo (our equivalent of Crisco) was a 200 KSH bill stuck to the lid. It must have fallen there and no one new it. We are glad we had not confronted this nanny!
Christmas time is busy around here as well. It is not as commercial as back in the states, but there are parties and teas for different groups around the hospital. Several of the houses do have lights up, which brings back feelings of home. There are no decorations in the hospital itself because people just do not do that here. On Friday Sarah helped to put on a Christmas tea for all of the missionary househelpers. Sarah said it was a lot of fun and they all appreciated it.

Our home decorated for Christmas
Friday night we were getting ready to have supper at a friends house and we got a phone call. There had been another RTA (road traffic accident). We couldn’t believe it. My friend Mike Ganey, a surgeon, and I walked up. Thankfully there were only about 7-8 victims and the most major injury (at least at that point) was an open humerus fracture. The folks that did arrive all helped out and we were done in less than an hour.
Over the weekend I was on pediatric call. I had good interns working with me and since I have a little more experience now rounds were not nearly as bad as before. I had 3 babies to die at delivery on Sunday, which is something you cannot get used to.
Monday was a relaxing day. Almost all of the missionaries on the compound had left to go to their annual Christmas meeting, which we did not have to attend and decided not to for many reasons. The compound was so quiet with many people gone. The White’s had not left yet, so we loaded Maggie up into the wagon with her lantern and we rode her up to their house to see their outdoor lights. We’ll go out to see the rest when other people are home.

The White's house (much brighter in person)
It is also customary here to leave a set of your house keys with a neighbor when you are going out of town. Needless to say with everyone leaving, we received quite a number of keys when everyone left. The next morning Sarah told me it was funny as all the househelpers came by our house to pick up their keys.
A few other things. There is no such thing as a short office visit here, at least for me. My average time in a room is about 30 minutes (put I have no one pressuring me to hurry up, which is nice as well!) I am also overwhelmed by how many resources there are back in the states. I was reading a US medical journal about different sorts of imaging available for heart disease. Here was are considered advanced because we can get an x-ray and most of the times and EKG!
I was reminded of an important point the other day that I actually heard recently in a sermon. We do not convert anyone. We merely witness, but God does the changing of the heart (Some sow, some water, but God receives the increase). I had to remember this when I shared the gospel with a patient the other day, but he ended up being more concerned about getting his medicine and going home. I realized that it was up to the Lord, not me, to change his heart.

Turkey and dressing (and monkeys!)

2007-11-30T10:44:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,
We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. And yes, for those of you who asked, you can buy turkey in Kenya. Thanksgiving Day itself was rather interesting. First of all, it was not a holiday here and was a regular day of work. Fortunately for me it and the rest of the week were already scheduled off, so I did not have to work Thanksgiving. Sarah unfortunately was sick and rested most of the day. Maggie and I hung out around the house and starting constructing our artificial tree some friends gave us. We did have a visitor join us. His name is Sat (pronounced like cot, but w/ an S). He is a pediatric resident from Walter Reed in Washington, DC. He is spending some time at Kericho and we met him at the HIV meeting there a few weeks ago. We are glad he was able to come and join us. Around lunch time when everyone was napping I was able to pull up the rest of our sweet potatoes from the garden. They were a popular item the last couple of days as everyone was wanting them to cook with. That evening we had a compound wide Thanksgiving dinner which everyone contributed to. All of the traditional food was there, with the inclusion of a great seaweed salad from our Japanese nurse friend Anna. Maggie was a little impatient seeing the food, but having to wait to eat (our table ate last because we came in last in a Thanksgiving trivia game, but that’s another story). After dinner there was singing, a movie for kids, and a football game shown in the auditorium. (The kids movie was our copy of Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving, which we also shown to the locals at Wed AM devotionals to teach them what Thanksgiving is about). We didn’t stay for this as it was getting late. When we got home our neighbor, Ms. Barb, hung out with us and we finally got her a copy of our photos from the nursing school graduation.
Friday morning fortunately Sarah woke feeling much better, so we quickly backed for a weekend trip to Nakuru. This is about a 3 hour drive from us and home of the World Gospel Mission headquarters. We were invited to go there with our friend’s, the Robert’s family. I was happy Sarah was able to see the beautiful teafields along the way. About half way we stopped and had lunch at a little cottage-style hotel called “Ray’s Place”. We ate a picnic lunch on their back porch. It was a beautiful area and quiet little hotel. We then got back on the road. As we entered Nakuru we stopped at the Africa Gospel Church’s Baby Center. This is a baby orphanage and first of it’s kind. It was created with the intension of promoting adoption, but we learned that adoption is not accepted here. Family is very important here and people feel “why would you want to take someone’s baby away from them and put them in your family”. One of the missionary couples at Tenwek are the first and only family to adopt a baby so far. It will take time to change mindsets. Now the baby’s are getting up to near 2 years in age, so the center is making huge expansions planning on having to house 3 and 4 year olds soon. The facility is very nice and has (1 think) about 30 babies now. I was asked to examine about 5 of them, some sick and some new babies who have not been seen. Maggie enjoyed being around a bunch of kids her age.

After this we met with the couple that are the country directors for World Gospel Mission, the Vanderhoofs. They showed us around town for a little while and the Roberts went to their home and we went to Margie’s, the WGM accountant, home (she had MacGyver on DVD!). We unloaded and then all went to the Vanderhoofs. A game of croquet broke out in their back yard which was a lot of fun. We then ate pizza and had leftover Thanksgiving deserts.
Saturday AM we woke up and after running a few quick errands in town went to the Lake Nakura National Park. This would be the site of our second safari in Kenya. When we arrived at the park, which was at the edge of the city (the second largest in Kenya), we immediately saw monkeys at play. We then drove up to the building where Ben and I went to pay for everyone. From past experience I told the girls when we got out to roll up their windows so a monkey wouldn’t get in. They laughed. While we were inside we heard loud screaming. We ran out and saw a monkey running off with a bag. Apparently a large male monkey jumped up onto the passangers side window. They tried to shoo it away, but it snarled, jumped in and grapped a bag of trail mix. Jenny yelled at it in Swahili, but to no avail. The monkey had what it wanted and ran off. I offered to retrieve the food, but they said that was okay because the monkeys had their hands all in it.

After this exciting start we headed out. Unlike our last safari, on this one you drove yourself and could do what you liked. The main animals here were flamingoes (it was a lake), storks, pelicans, water buffalo, zebras, and rhinos. There were other animals as well.

We also got to see some lions. Around lunch time we drove past a waterfall and got out at a picnic area, which was nothing more than a clearing with rest rooms. We ate cautiously looking for animals. When we were about done Ben yelled “baboons”. After the morning incident, we quickly grabbed up everything with kids screaming. Jenny tried to get her youngest in while still strapped in the stroller. Sarah got Maggie and I got the pecan tassies and jumped in. I then got back out and helped Ben. We were able to keep the baboons at bay long enough to gather everything and get out okay. The park rangers even came up and helped us. All in all it was a fun day and a beautiful park. After this we all went to a hotel in town to swim with the kids. The water was very cold. They also had soft-serve ice cream, which is rare here. It was so good, we even sat in the rain to eat it. We then did some shopping and went with the Vanderhoofs to a restaurant for dinner.
The next AM we went to the Vanderhoofs for breakfast and then they drove us to the top of the Nakuru crater. It was huge and apparently the second largest of its type in the world. After this we headed back. We stopped at a place called Taidy’s on the way back and grabbed a snack (strange being in the middle of a teafield at a restaurant showing soccer on a flat screen TV). We also bought some veggies and fruit along the way. We just had to slow up and the car was swarmed with sellers. Very convenient.

When we arrived back at Tenwek later that afternoon we had more fun in store. We gathered with some of our friends for our own Thanksgiving dinner, but called it a Christmas kickoff as their house was decorated and had Christmas music playing. Many people were away, so after this all the families left on the compound came over for dessert and fellowship. We had a special time of prayer over Ms. Barb as she would be leaving on Monday for furlough. When we got home that night Sarah helped her until way past 11 and again the next morning. She will be missed while she is away.
On Monday we were back to work. I had a frustrating morning as I went to the IT department to work on a new hospital form and ,long story short, an editing session took almost 3 hours. That day we did not finish rounding until around 4. When I got home we had fun, however, as we did our Christmas decorating. We were given a tree earlier and have accumulated some accessories, including ones sent to us in the mail, thanks.
I am seeing more and more people now in clinic who are in with me for follow-up visits. It is so neat to see improvement in many of them. I even had a patient ask me to pray with them before they left before I could even ask.
Still tired from our previous excursion, we loaded back up on Wednesday for a trip into Nairobi. It did not bother Maggie as she began to smile when she was able to get back into her car seat. It was a long, dusty ride. The dust was so bad at times we had to come to complete stops to let it clear. Our driver got lost in Nairobi, after telling us he knew where he was going. I then got a phone call from Tenwek saying the meeting we had come in for the next day had just been cancelled. I was very frustrated at first, but decided to look at it as a chance for our family to relax together. We arrived at the SP office and talked with one of the leaders there. We talked with her about doing Operation Christmas Child. It is new here, but she said she would do what she could to let us help get involved next Spring! We came into the guest house and rested. We then went out to eat with more workers here going back into Sudan. One was a lady we met last time who we got to know and were very glad to see her again. We got talking about Operation Christmas Child and learned that she used to be the financial director for OCC. We sat around and talked and shared stories about OCC. We don’t know why all this happened, but we are excited that this may help to open up new doors for us to have increased involvement with this ministry in the future. Please pray for this!
Thursday was now a free day for us, so we went to the giraffe center. This is a place that was founded in the 1970’s as a haven for a nearly extinct breed of giraffe, the Rothschild (there are 3 varieties, Rothschild, reticulated, and Maasi).

It now serves as an educational center to teach Kenyan school children about conservation and the environment. We had so much fun. You can feed the giraffes and they eat right out of your hand. We then went to part of the Karen Blixen estate for lunch. It was set up and felt like you were in British East Africa in the 1910’s. It was nice and relaxing. (Rumor has it that this was where Teddy Roosevelt stayed to come and hunt in Africa.). We then went into downtown to go looking at a particular store. The downtown area has big buildings and is very crowded.
Okay, that is our journey thus far. December is going to be very busy for us. Please pray for our stamina then and for the prison project coming up near Christmas. We will fill you in on the rest of our journeys soon, but wanted to share this with you for now.

Accidents and Acceptance

2007-11-19T09:42:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday was a day none of around here are likely to forget anytime soon. As we sat down to lunch I got a phone call that I was needed up at outpatient because there had been a bus wreck. I quick ran off not knowing what to expect. When I walked in it was absolute chaos. Casualty was so full of patients that you could hardly move. We started to move people to the OR recovery area and it quickly became like a scene from a horror move. People were rolling in bloody with all sorts of trauma. The initially chaos began to slow down after about an hour. I helped triage patients for surgery and procedures and then began the slow process of suturing wounds and deciding who to admit and who to discharge. All doctors, nurses and other staff that were around were asked to come up and help. I worked for about 9 hours straight, as did so many others. Not only did medical people pitch in, but so did other volunteers. A surgeon's wife fixed food for everyone to eat that night, the CEO bought everyone sodas, and our neighbor ,Ms Barb, ran around helping however she could, including putting candy in people’s mouths so they would not become hypoglycemic. Sarah helped by watching the kids of a family all day so both parents could be at the hospital. Things wound down around 11PM with some families showing up wanting to go to the make-shift morgue to identify family members. By the end of the day the floor was covered with blood.
Apparently the bus was the African version of a Greyhound and had between 50-60 people on board. Apparently 7 died on the scene and another 7 died that day at the hospital. The bus was traveling down a hill and around a curve and lost control in the rain, going off the road and into a river bed. Apparently several other wrecks have occurred in the past at the same spot.

Waking up Monday morning we quickly realized it was not all a bad dream. The recovery room still held surgical patients from the night before. All the wards were full with surgical and orthopedic patients scattered throughout. During the course of the week another 7-10 people have died, with an ICU full of patients still on vents. Dealing with the wreck has made everyone tired. National media came out Monday for interviews. Over 40 surgeries have been performed. Plus it has made for some tough decisions. Patients code but we have no ventilator to place them on because all the machines are being used. It has been a trying time.
There have been some good things to happen over the past week. It never ceases to amaze me when people accept the Lord’s free gift of salvation. We continue to see suicide attempts come in who have not heard of Christ and upon us speaking to them want to be saved. I cannot know there hearts, but when you see the smile on their faces the next day it says alot. I had a patient in clinic who asked for strength and to grow in his faith as he was saved in clinic 2 months earlier. I had other retired teacher who came through and said he was a student at Tenwek’s high school and then came back their to teach. It was a neat situation.
Tuesday was a day to get away from Tenwek for awhile. Dr. John Spriegel, the medical superintendent, and I, along with a pharmacist, rode to the city of Kericho for a day for an HIV conference. It was sponsored by PEPFAR. This is the main US aid program enacted by President Bush to pay for medications and care for AIDs patients in Africa. It was announced in the state of the union the same year he first talked about the war against terror. It began in 2004 and is in several African countries, with Kenya receiving the most support. Needless to say many locals are afraid of what will happen if the funding stops. The conference itself featured a speaker from the NIH and was very informative.
Kericho was beautiful. It is one of the unofficial tea capitals. The ride up featured rolling mountainside covered with tea fields. Around here tea is grown by locals and sold to buying centers. There large corporations own the fields and hire workers (which I was told is one step above poverty). The conference was in the Kericho Tea Hotel. It seemed like a place that would have been stunning 30 years ago, but was now run down and needed major renovations. Our afternoon was highlighted by a political fanatic who was dressed in a military uniform and had a big homemade banner for his party. He was crazy, but not threatening. He even made it up onto the roof.

I noticed 2 other things about Kenyan culture while at Kericho. One was what I have heard called the “Kenyan Pause”. When a Kenyan speaks English, he or she may stop at any point in the sentence and pause, which takes some getting used to. There is also the issue of photography. We have mentioned this some earlier, but I’ve learned photographers are a staple around here. They will show up at any gathering of people and take photos, regardless of what is going on at the time. Then a little while later they will show up with photos of you which they want you to buy. Then at the end of any gathering it is almost understood that you will all gather for a group photo before leaving. This is something else that is funny to me.
On the way John and I discussed many things, including his vision for the future for Tenwek, including distance education and satellite clinic sites. We also discussed our need to determine who will fill future leadership roles here, especially with all of the medical people leaving on furlough this summer. Pray for us as I will need direction in which roles to take.
We did have an encouraging event this week. You may have read in the last email about a possible ministry opportunity being with the local prison and of the orphanage’s desire to do something as well. I went and spoke with the interim pastor of our church about this and he said that was funny that I asked about this because he had just received an email from a missionary on furlough asking about what was going on with the prison here. He was excited about the opportunity of us going out there. We planned to go out the next AM and speak to the head of the prison face to face, which we did. We also had a lady from the orphanage meet us out there as well. It was quite a visit. When we arrived we went into a waiting area outside of the main prison quarters. It was there that the prisoners were constructing furniture for sale. I learned that several

of the guards were licensed in other areas and taught there skills to the prisoners so they could become certified themselves when they were released. When we entered the prison itself we saw that another group of prisoners were building the new prison barracks. We then met the head of the prison. He was a believer and 3 of the guards were pastors. Our meeting opened with prayer and after much discussion we decided on a fellowship with the prisoners on Sunday Dec 23rd after church. The tentative plans are for us to fix a meal and have it with prisoners and staff, then have a service with preaching and singing and then to give out gifts. It was suggested we do mattresses, blankets, and even maybe spoons, sandals, and person hygiene items. There are about 50 prisoners currently with a max of 150 capacity. There are also about 80 guards. We all felt very encouraged about the possibility of this ministry. Please pray for us as we make plans to do this.
Sarah also had a repeat u/s this week to confirm the gender and now we know that we are having a boy. We are very excited. Sarah is 21 weeks on Nov 18th and doing great now. She is also experimenting more in the kitchen. She had a dream about Krispy Kreme doughnuts, so this week she made homemade donuts, which were great! She also occasionally will drive into and run errands in Bomet.
A few other things from around here. There is no such thing as patient privacy, especially when you are sharing a bed with another patient. It is usually quite funny when neighboring patients will turn around and help give you the history of the patient.
Also, we were glad to see that the first of the televisions were installed in the outpatient department this week showing the Jesus film in Swahili. It seemed that the patients were really focusing on it. We also learned that there may be copies of the film available here in Kipsigis as well.

It’s hard to imagine that Thanksgiving is this week. We’ll tell you all of our adventurous first African Thanksgiving soon! Please do keep all of us in your prayers here as we have been experiencing a rollercoaster of emotion recently. Thank you all for your prayerful support.

Prayers, Play-dough, and Playing

2007-11-11T00:13:00.000-08:00

So many things to recount and tell over what has happened and what the Lord has done since we last talked. Last Saturday was the Tenwek nursing school graduation. This was the 20th one, so that tells you the school has been around for awhile. I was honored when our neighbor, Ms. Barb, asked me if I would take pictures at the graduation. She is normally the unofficial photographer around here, but as she is one of the leaders in the school, she was participating in the ceremony and could not do the photography. It started at 10:30AM Saturday morning at Tewnek Africa Gospel Church. It is the first

event I have been to here that started on time, which was told it would. There when it started, the church was only a quarter full. The entire ceremony ended around 12:30. Cars and vans full of people were arriving throughout, with people walking in as the procession out was occurring. By the end the church was standing room only. The cars of people coming in were decorated with flower branches. Vendors were walking around with snacks and drinks to sell afterwards. There were also people selling congratulation medallions made of ribbon and Christmas garland. Family members would walk up front and place these on people throughout the ceremony. The other photographers there were bolder than me, even walking up onto the stage to get pictures. After the ceremony families would just picnic where ever there was a clearing in the church yard. I also walked around with Ms. Barb to take group photos and photos of her with each of the graduates. It was a fun and interesting day.
Last Sunday a new member of the Tenwek family was born. Our neighbors, the Alterman’s, had a baby girl born by repeat c-section. Everyone is doing well. The pediatrician and his wife were with Heidi at the delivery, so Sarah got up early to watch their kids. Sarah also got to check Heidi’s private room on the OB ward, which was nice. It had us thinking about making plans for our delivery. (The halfway point is tomorrow- 20 weeks- praise the Lord!)
Last Sunday was also the first time in weeks that we got to take a quiet walk as a family. It was very nice and a chance to discuss several different things. One of the main things we are were discussing is our reason for being here, especially in regards to ministry outside of the hospital itself. We really desire to get involved with at least one of the 5 orphanages in the area, but every time we try to go something happens so we wonder if that is what we are to do or not. Operation Christmas Child is also a young ministry and it would thrill us tremendously to help coordinate that ministry in this area. We currently trying to talk with leadership in Nairobi about this. We also know that VBS used to be a big ministry here and we’d even like to do that or help bring teams over that would like to do this. There is a prison in Bomet and we’ve even talked about doing some ministry there. God has been faithful to us and we know that he’ll show us what to do, but pray for us to be patient and be shown what it is that we are supposed to do. We are slowing continuing to learn about things, people, places, and the ropes one has to go through to make things happen here.
My schedule has been a little busier lately. There are no medicine volunteers this month and as our internist is the medical superintendent I have been trying to help to rounds and work in the outpatient clinic. I had the opportunity to speak with the med supp, Dr. John Spriegel, for quite a while the other week. We were discussing some medical things, but also long term plans for the hospital, which include another large addition within the next 5 years and even possibly dialysis (we see so many patients that need this, including a 23 year old who died of renal failure this week. The sad thing is he came here, when his home town was actually closer to a hospital that offered dialysis). But with such thing, there will also be the need of more equipment and more doctors. He said there are so many needs and volunteers come and say they want to help, but get home and forget about things here. Therefore keep your eyes out for a email coming soon that will include a Christmas wish list for us involving much of the ministry here.
Another thing that has made things busier is related to politics. The Ministry of Health in Kenya can place workers (i.e. doctors) anywhere they wish. This past week one of our residents had an accident where his infant son was burned in kitchen. His wife is going to stay at home with the child, but she is the only doctor at the nearby government hospital. The MOH felt that we should provide someone to take her place. We technically did not have to do this, but the MOH could take any our Kenyan doctors and move their full time if they wished. We felt it in our best interest, and as a ministry opportunity, to help them with this request, which has made thing a littly busier for the rest of us.
This past Monday was a very “God” day. We try to tell own interns and students that they can talk with patients about spiritual things and do not have to wait for a chaplain to come by. After talking about this we had a young lady on the floor who had tried to kill herself for several reasons, mostly family related. We told her we loved her and asked her about Jesus, who she new nothing about. We shared the gospel with her and she accepted right there. We noticed for the rest of the week she had a much more pleasant expression on her face. This was the second suicide attempt we’ve had to accept Christ during rounds in the last several days. The same afternoon that this young girl came to Christ I had another interesting experience in clinic. Upon finishing up a patient visit I asked a lady if she had any prayer requests. One that the mentioned was that she wanted to “get saved”. I asked her she meant and she said she new it was a good thing to do. We shared the gospel message with her and explained what “being saved” meant. She prayed then to receive Christ! A reminder that we never know how or when the Spirit is moving!
A funny moment occurred this week in clinic. I noticed one of the nurses hanging a 2008 poster-style calendar. The post was promoting a political party. The bad thing is the national elections, including for president, will occur on Dec 27th. The date of the election was only decided on about 1-2 weeks ago. I told the nurse she’d be fired back in the states for doing that, but she said that people liked that party here and things would be okay. But I also learned not to wear orange into Nairobi because it was the color for that party (which is another long story which if you’d like to ask me about I’ll tell you later!)
One of our missionary friends who was a nurse in the states finally got her Kenyan RN this past week- after 15 months of paper work and orientation. A surprise party was held for her. At the party we met a visit orthopedist who is from North Carolina and actually did training with some orthopedists we knew in Greenwood, one of which goes to our home church. Another small world moment.
We had our first official dinner with visiting guests this week. It was fun to finally do that. One of our guests was a visiting surgeon from Samaritan’s Purse who we met earlier in Boone. The funny thing was that the next night we all decided to get together again at someone else’s house.
Today we did get our first trip to an orphanage. We were so excited to go! We went with another missionary family from here, the Bemm’s, who is in charge of the orphanage ministry. On the way we stopped in Bomet to buy 2 oranges for each of the kids. The drive was to the town of Sotik and was only about 30 minutes away. When we arrived the kids were

eating sugar cane, a Saturday treat. There were 60 boys and girls there from preschool age to teenagers. We were concerned how Maggie would do, but she liked the kids and they liked her. Sarah led a few games with the younger kids, but had a hard time with communication. Maggie liked playing bean bag toss. I helped to organize a soccer game with some of the older kids. It was very humbling. We did all this out in a big field with uneven terrain, bushes, thorns and holes, but it

didn’t slow them down. After about an hour or so of play, we brought everyone up for a devotional and then gave them oranges. The kids were well mannered and appreciative. The orphanage leader fixed us chai and mendazi as a treat (they usually fix lunch, but we informed them earlier that we would not be able to stay long). We then came back through Bomet for a few more things and headed home.
One of those “God things” happened there as well. We mentioned at a meeting a few weeks back about doing a prison Christmas ministry, but nothing more was said. I was thinking about it the other day and coming through Bomet Chuck Bemm mentioned it as well. Then when we arrived at the orphanage the leader there, Elijah, told us he and some of the “mommas” there wanted to a meal and gifts for the prisoners! It seems as though God is orchestrating something. Pray for us in wisdom in what to do and as I try to speak with the pastor here this week about organizing something.
The rest of Saturday afternoon was relaxing. After lunch with the Bemms we took Maggie down to the trampoline. She showed us how she can flip, but is still learning to jump. One of the head surgeons, Russ White, walked by and we talked for a little while. He asked me if it was okay if he placed in the CMDA (Christian Medical and Dental Association) journal our need for more FP doctors. I said please. We then discussed the overwhelming need for more doctors because as of May to June most will be on furlough and I will be the only staff doctor for the outpatient department and for the medical and pediatric wards. Plus we will have lost our intern coordinator, schedule makes, and medical superintendent. We know God will provide, but please help us in praying that these gaps are filled.
A few other fun things. Sarah and Maggie made play-dough this week. Maggie loves playing with it. She also is quite

the dancer now. It is rather entertaining to put some music on and watch her go. She also can now say “Barb”, the name of our neighbor and will yell it at her even from across campus if she sees her.
The other day Sarah heard a faucet running in the house and didn’t know where it was from. It was our ceiling! Apparently some of the gutters were clogged on our roof and during a heavy rain water came through an about 3 foot piece of wall in our bedroom. Fortunately nothing was damaged. The industrial dept cleared the gutters and said it would help with this problem. They will work on the roof and ceiling itself this next week.
As we close, let me leave you with a verse to think about- Ecclesiastes 9:10 “Whatever your hands find to do, do it with all of your might”. This was read at the nursing school graduation and I haven’t quit thinking about it. Let us all remember, we don’t know how much time here we have, but with time we do have and in whatever we do, let’s do it the best we can and to God’s glory!

Happy Hallo-what?

2007-10-31T11:55:00.001-07:00

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"

2007-10-22T11:44:00.000-07:00

“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

2007-10-15T11:15:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-13T01:34:00.001-07:00

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!

2007-10-10T05:47:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-03T04:01:00.000-07:00

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.

Happy in Your Heart?

2007-09-25T11:20:00.000-07:00

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.

Interesting tidbits

2007-09-19T11:07:00.000-07:00

Thought we'd take a time out to share a few interesting things.
The temperature here is about the same year round as we have said before (50's in evening/AM and 70's during the day). When we first arrived we saw several folks here building fires in their fireplace. We thought that was a little silly. Well, after a good rain the other day we looked at each other and said "let's start a fire". We got a few pieces of firewood and boy is it hard to burn. We spent over 30 minutes the other night trying and didn't get it started. One of our guests brought over some kerosene to help, but we refused and said it was cheating. Our helper even set up the wood in a way she knew would burn. Well, let's just say our new game at night is "Who can get the fire started?".
We also had a neat experience the other day. We have spent some time with one of the local drivers. He has been at Tenwek all of his life. Edna Boroff was one of the first nurse here years ago. We have been reading her book about Tenwek. Our driver said that he was one of the first people delivered by her. We thought this was neat. Driving here is a privilege. It is difficult to get a licence. You have to take a course and it is expensive. Our SP driver Raymond said if your car slips one inch backward when sitting on a hill you fail. Our driver is so good that he says everyone he has helped to teach drive had passed their test first time.
Just some interesting tidbits.

There and Back Again

2007-09-19T10:57:00.000-07:00

What a crazy past few weeks. Last Wednesday Maggie did have her playgroup. The theme was the letter “c” and the kids listened to classical music and did have the cupcakes Sarah had made the day before. Maggie also did finger painting for her craft.
Ashley spent another day in the outpatient department yesterday AM after his long term doctors meeting (those here for 6 mos or longer). Many topics were discussed and being that we have been here for a month now, Ashley was better able to understand things being discussed and had some input of his own. On item of concern is in regards to clinical officers (COs). These are our PA equivalents who do a lot of staffing in the outpatient departments, which Ashley in unofficially now in charge of. Over the last week several have left for different reasons, putting us in a bit of bind for workers. We also have lost 2 of our OB docs recently, so pray that God will will ing the gaps where needed.
Around lunch time one of the other volunteer docs tooks Ashley on a tour of the pediatric facilities since he was on peds call for the first time last night. It was a little bit overwhelming as pediatrics is an entirely different animal here. Lots of malnutrition issues with different ways of solving it. Plus most of the kids, like the adults, are real sick. The Neonatal ICU was something else. Sure, there were wooden cribs and rigged up incubators, but the technology and the things that are able to be done there are amazing. Ashley was told that some 25-26 week born babies survive and do well.
After lunch Ashley sat through his second and final day of infection control meetings. He almost gave himself whiplash trying to keep his head up and stay away. Warm room, big lunch, no lights and quiet speakers don’t make for a good combination. The info he learned was fairly informative and will be useful in the future.
Wednesday evening Ashley was on his first peds call. It ended up being okay. He did have lots of questions when there were admissions. Sarah and our helper, Janet made spinach ravioli- from scratch- it was so good! We took some to our neighbors and hung out with them and their family. (Even though Ashley takes call from home, there is a way to forward all calls to another house, so you can go out and visit). We sat around and talked. Ashley tried passion fruit for the first time. He liked it, but Sarah did not. We were also given a lesson on how to drive and operate their car.
Last Thursday was a much needed day off for Ashley. To start the morning however, Ashley met with 2 of the 3 FP residents that are here now. It was a very informative meeting. Ashley learned he has a lot do, not the least being setting up their schedule for this year as soon as possible. After the meeting Ashley loaded Maggie up in the backpack and went for a long hike. They went down to the river and then into the surrounding village area where some of the staff and workers live. It was a busy and quiet area with colorful houses, little outhouses, and scattered cows and donkeys. We also ventured down some small side trials and even had some locals offer us direction. Maggie called the cows dogs and told a donkey “bye” when we walked on.
That afternoon was the big event, out first time driving around on our own. All of the cars are manuals and most are 4-wheel drive. The only thing is everything is set up on the opposite site of the car. Finding all the gears was little tricky. Plus, it was a diesel, which was a first for us. Most of the missions cars come from Gibralter. I thought this was odd, but they a toyota dealership that specializes in providing cars for missions and NGOs. They know how to do the paperwork and shipping. We borrowed our neighbors car to drive into Bomet, which is only about 3-4 miles away. The entrance to Tenwek is crowded, so driving here is the hardest. Driving in town is easy. He had our share of stares, especially when we would speak to folks from out the window. We had to constantly remember to stay on the left and had to deal with the large potholes. It will take some getting used driving here, but all in all was okay. Ashley drove into town and Sarah drove back. We carried our two helpers along with our neighbor’s, Peter. We only had to ask 2 taxis (mutatus) to move out of the road for us and the motorcycles drive like crazy (but we are in a very big car!) People also “hoot” their horns a lot, but you can’t at Tenwek, so we flash lights (which led to us hitting the wipers on by mistake several times).
While in town we went to the local Duka where Sarah and Janet picked out some fabric. Janet is a seamstress as well and is going to make some maternity clothes. Peter and I went to the security offices to pick up some boxes for the hospital. He and I also went to a farming supply store. Several folks around Tenwek have gardens and we found a plot earlier this week that is not in use. When we saw the seeds and supplies, we decided to go for it. While the men did farming stuff, the ladies went to grocery store. We had orders for 2 other people. Of note, hoes and rakes are purchased without handles. However, we found the handles we needed at the grocer! This grocery store sells ice cream as well. As some things here are really cheap, the ice cream is fairly expensive.
That evening we picked up some items from the hospital restuarant to fix with leftovers. We distributed our groceries and borrowed some DVDs from some friends for a nice relaxing evening.
Last Friday was another chance to rest up some. That afternoon Ashley began to tackle the garden. It was quite a task. No one had tended to it for several months. Janet used to work for its former owners, so she helped show us what plot was ours (and it was neither of the ones that had been some what cleared off. A lot of weeding was done initially. We have never received so many stares and comments (all good) from the locals. After some initially clearing, we were surprised to discover several things already growing, including celery, sweet potatoes, parsley, rosemary, chives, secuma wiki (like collards), and pineapple! Some was ready to harvest. Maggie helped supervise the activities.
That evening we had our second kipiganga. It was pizza them this time. It was a lot of fun as the World Gospel Mission (WGM) field meeting for Kenya was being held here at Tenwek. We saw some folks we had met previously from the states and Ashley got to speak with some folks from Kigoma, Tanzania, which is where he spent time during med school. It was an enjoyable evening. We also got to know several of the visiting MDs, including an orthopedist who left he practice to do training at missions all over the world- with his own money! Another OB was here who offered to train Ashley in doing C-sections. Sarah was also glad to meet him as he is supposed to be here in the spring around the time of our delivery.
Saturday AM Sarah was feeling pretty good, so we went with a group to a local tea factory. We packed (literally) into the car and went for the short ride. It was a nice factory and very interesting. Obviously OSHA was not involved as we were able to walk right up to the machinery and equipment. Several folks bought tea at the end, but we held off.
Lunch was with all the WGM people again. That afternoon Sarah and Maggie took a much needed nap and Ashley went with a family who is visiting on a hike to the top of Motego, the local mountain. It was beautiful walk with views of tea fields, huts, and even see Tenwek from a distance. It was about a 3 hour total hike. We met several kids who followed us on the way and wanted to have their pictures taken. Our parents even called on the cell phone and Ashley had crystal clear reception on the top of the mountain!
That evening we met with a large group at the guest house to have “Navajo Flat Bread”. It was very good and a good time.
Church was good last Sunday. After 20 years of meeting, this week the initial steps were implemented to give the church a formal name! It rained that afternoon so we took some naps. Our friends from South Carolina invited us over for a birthday party for the husband of the couple, Chris. It was a nice time of fellowship. Maggie colored him a picture as a gift which quickly went up on the bare walls of their apartment. Their are some German students here and it was interesting talk to one of them about how they have Aldi grocery stores just like we do in the states (we thought this was neat).
Last Monday was another hard day of work. Ashley spent the entire day working in the outpatient departments (Monday is usually the busiest day). He is starting to get into the routine a little more each day. That evening he worked on a lecture to do for his residents for their learning time.
Last Tuesday was another day of outpatient in the morning. The girls played on the trampoline and ventured around seeing the locals. They are building relationships with the ladies who sell produce at the front gates and were waiting their for Ashley today when he got off work.
This afternoon Ashley walked in on a sad case in casualty. A local hospital sent over a woman who had a car wreck about 2 weeks ago. She had several broken bones and was now so bad she would likely have an amputation. The ER resident said it was the work case he had seen and one of the veterans here said it was in his top 10. It makes who ask why would some one let this happen? Another reminder of how blessed we are, at home and here. After this Ashley had his first outpatient task force meeting. It was good for several reasons- a chance to meet more people. to see how a meeting was run, and t lear what is going on in the outpatient department. It sounds like several good changes are in store. As Ashley will be the day to day directory, fortunately he does not yet have to chair this committee.
The next day we loaded the car for our second trip to Nairobi. We were joined by a local pastor who was going to visit a local bishop who was very sick in the hospital. It was amazing this time through how much larger the little towns appeared. No animals on this trip other than the occasional gazelle. We did get pictures of baboons coming into the city. We stopped by the WGM office on the way in and then were dropped off at the Samaritan’s Purse office. There we met up with our friend Raymond who was our driver when we first came out. It was fun talking with him. We were dropped off at a shopping center where we could eat lunch and then do some shopping at the Nakumatt. Not only did we have our own list, but several folks at Tenwek had “mini-lists” they gave us of items to purchase as well. Raymond had to get to the airport, so we left around 5 and went back to the warehouse. He gave us the number to order for delivery pizza (we’ve had better) and we hung out with other folks at the guesthouse. This time we met some girls from Canada who were going to work along the coast and one on vacation from Uganda.
The next morning Raymond dropped the girls (and the girl from Uganda) back off at another Nakumatt to do more shopping and then took Ashley to the hotel where his meeting was (the main reason for our trip to Nairobi). The hotel was very nice. The meeting was for INFAMED (the institute for family medicine). I was not even very sure as to what this group was at first. It was group affiliated with mission hospitals that spearheaded to the effort to start family medicine in Kenya. Now they family medicine is a real entity, this group is now more of a support service, providing money to hospitals, educational course (such as ALSO), and scholarships. It was a small meeting, but some interesting people where there- reps from other hospital, local professors and docs, and reps from MAP international. It was very beneficial for Ashley and only ran about 1 1/2 hours late.
After this Raymond took Ashley to the mall with the girls. It was 4 stories and had several US style stores (such as an Apple computer store), but some that were uniquely African as well. Sarah went to a nice beauty shop that the other missionary ladies go to. She was able to get a neck massage, pedicure, and hot tea along with her hair cut. After this we all walked around and had a driver pick up us. It was a little frustrating because he was waiting for us for about 45 minutes at the wrong location and then had to stop twice to put water in the radiator. To top this off, we splashed thru a mud puddle that got mud on all 3 of us (we laughed about it later). We then ate outdoors at a very good italian restaurant.
When we arrived to the guesthouse, our director from Samaritan Purse, had already arrived. We were meeting there because he was bringing back a child from the SP Children’s Heart Project. This is a ministry that takes children who need heart surgery to the US for their procedure, while putting up the family and covering all expenses. This child was the son of Maasi (one of the local tribes) missionaries who serve in Tanzania. This child was actually diagnosed at Tenwek and we’d been praying for him and here he was with our boss (small world!) We got to meet him and his family, plus catch up with our boss, Scott.
Scott was going to fly out to Tenwek originally, but he took the opportunity to ride back by car with us. We made a few more last minute stops Friday morning, grabbed lunch and hit the road. We made a few more stops this time on the way back to take pics and since we weren’t as rushed. We stopped at the Rift Valley tourist traps, plus looked for Pride Rock that helped inspire “The Lion King” (we think we found it). We did see some giraffes in the distance, but nothing up close.
When we arrived we pretty much hung out with Scott all weekend. Ashley toured him around the hospital and we took hikes and walked around. He stayed over late talking with us, plus networked with the local missionaries about what SP could do here. He had fun with Maggie- they get along great. We appreciated his visit. It is always good to see a familiar face from back home and good for someone to see first hand what you are experiencing. One of the best things was that he brought a big bag of goodies and supplies from home (we still don’t know how they got so many things into one bag!)
Scott left Monday morning and it was back to the same old routine. Mondays are the busiest day of clinic. Ashley saw so many HIV patients that day- old, young, male, female. He is beginning to learn a little more daily on their care. He saw a young girl with HIV covered from head to toe with chickenpox.
The girls had a fun day, which included Maggie playing on the trampoline. She is beginning to learn to count. She does fairly well from 1 to 3. She is doing well with one nap a day and sleeping better at night.
Today was another day. Ashley to clinic and the girls doing their routine. Sarah was able to get an U/S today and we were blessed that the visiting OB doc was there and came in with us. We also received 2 packages today with food, which was fun!
Ashley is learning a little more every day about his roles here and starting understand more and more about what he can do. Sarah is also starting to learn some things that she may be able to begin doing as well.
One note of Kenyan culture, guys grab each others hands here and it is acceptable (walking as friends, in providing direction, etc.) However, you are not allowed to touch your wife in public. It finally happened- the other day one of the clinic workers grabbed Ashley’s hand to take him into a room. It was scary at first, but he survived!

"Day by Day"

2007-09-05T11:07:00.000-07:00

(Note: This was to be post on 9/3/07

Hello Friends,
It has been about a week since we wrote you last. You have today off for Labor Day, but for us it was an ordinary day. Today marks the 4 week mark for us at Tenwek. Names are starting to become easier to remember and faces easier to recognize. Day to day things are beginning to become a little more routine. However, doing things like smelling garlic in the kitchen reminds us at times of our favorite restaurants back home.
Ashley went for his first real “run” this week. The altitude is still a factor but the scenery is so beautiful.
Maggie has also made some new Kenyan friends who live nearby. The youngest is Angela (about the same age as Maggie). Amaurice is the oldest and she has a twin brother, Alan. They have another brother, Duncan, and sister Allie. Maggie and the kids like to play ball, read books and walk around exploring together. Maggie also began attending a weekly play group with some of the other MKs which she seems to enjoy.
Avacados are bountiful here. There are several trees growing around the compound. Sarah bought 3 huge ones for the equivalent of a few cents each. She says the same ones back home would cost several dollars. Then the next day one of the helpers on the compound brought Sarah several more that he picked out of a tree. This made for some good guacamole.
Yesterday Sarah reached the 10 week mark in her pregnancy. The ultrasonographer here offered to do an ultrasound for us last week. We took him up on the offer and the dates and measurements matched exactly. It is such a blessing to our baby’s little heart beat. Sarah is still battling sickness, but is managing to battle through. On the day she ran out of her nausea medicine one the local doctors found his huge stash of the same drug (although it is from Bangladesh) and gave it to Sarah. Praise the Lord.
Ashley is beginning to settle into the medical thing here, but some things are still difficult. He had 3 unsuccessful codes in one day. However, he did have one successful one yesterday. He also has to make difficult choices such as who gets to be one of the 2 ventilators and who does not. This past weekend Ashley was on call and on Sunday had to round by himself, which took almost 5 hours. However, on an early morning trip to the ICU on the nurses stepped away and sat with another nurse and began singing “Nothing but the blood of Jesus”. This is truly what these patients needed to hear. They said that they did this early every morning.
The locals are very sensitive to changes in the weather. It may be in the low 50s and we will be in a long sleeve shirt while some of the locals are in jackets in ski masks. One of the ICU nurses wears a parka almost every morning!
This past week we received several letters and packages of goodies from back home. This was a true blessing. We are also able to use Skype now, so if you have computer with this, look us up. The only thing is we are having trouble buying more minutes. We also have the Mac up and running wireless online, which is a huge blessing. We are still having some issues withe sending pictures, which we hope to resolve soon.
Ashley is starting to fall into his leadership roles. He actually got to meet with a few of his residents today and set up meeting times to review some educational materials with them. The OB service as struggling as several attendings are gone at once. Ashley had to impromptu help revise the schedule to make sure this service was covered. Also several of the outpatient workers left recently, leaving big gaps in coverage. Ashley will be working in the outpatient sector all month. Fortunately, an ER resident from the states started work today which will help with things in casualty.
Sarah helped one of our workers load about one hundred pounds of wood up onto here head to take home for firewood, which was amazing. We also had to let one of our workers be set to working only 2 instead of 5 days a week, which was difficult to do, but had to be done because there is just not enough work for 2 people here full time right now.
We are thankful for and love our friends and family back home. Pictures coming soon. The internet is slow tonight. Hopefully it will be up and running well before 3AM when the Clemson/FSU game will air here online. We hope you all had a great labor day weekend. God bless.

Rocks and Responsibility

2007-08-26T12:01:00.000-07:00

The week has gone okay. It is hard for Ashley to still be patient with the pace of things. He is doing a little better every day. We are thankful he had Thursday and Friday off this week. On Thursday Ashley took Maggie on a walk down to the base of the river dam at Tenwek. It was a beautiful, steep walk. That afternoon we took our first trip into the town of Bomet. It was the typical developing country small town. There were dirt roads and lots of small buildings and roadside stands. The grocery store was surprisingly nice. It had only 2 types of cereal, but it carried ice cream and Tabasco sauce. We also saw that there is a bank with ATM and post office in town. It is only about 4 miles from Tenwek. When we returned we were sitting on the front porch a chameleon fell out of the tree, kind of random. Thursday evening we had breakfast for supper. Afterwards Ashley and one of the other doctors went outside for awhile and threw around the Frisbee.

Friday was a big day. Sarah is still very sick, but praise the Lord she felt well enough to go on a hike Friday morning. We all walked down to the “rickety” bridge at little ways down from the dam. It was a beautiful walk, nicer than most parks back home. Maggie made the trip exciting as she was on Ashley’s back in the backpack and would firmly grab hold of a tree without him knowing. When we arrived to the bridge we knew why he had the name it did. The bridge consist of posts and planks crossing a swift river. The gaps between the board were easily enough for a leg to fall through. Needless to say, we did not take Maggie across the bridge and we were pleased to know that a work team would be coming in replace the bridge soon.

For lunch Friday we ate samosa (seasoned meat pockets) from the hospital, mmm… Afterwards Ashley met with the national coordinator for family practice in Kenya. Along with him was his wife and a visitor who is a recent FP grad who actually is friends with some of our good friends from our residency. The session was fairly overwhelming as it was a chance for Ashley to learn the Kenyan medical system, a review of what family practice means in Kenya, and what his responsibilities would be as coordinator at Tenwek.

Family Practice is very different here as it is more inpatient oriented than anywhere else. There is also a large amount of surgery the residents are supposed to be able to do. In Kenya, a medical degree is a bachelors degree earned after 6 years of school after high school. Then a one year internship is completed. Then the young doctor must work for at least 2 years before he can apply for a residency, which is a master’s program. Therefore, it has be connect to a university and requires research and some in class training. The program is fairly new in Kenya with the first national graduates anticipated in December. Tenwek currently has 3 third year residents. They are very smart and hard working. We will be getting a new resident here in January. The position as coordinator is fairly intimidating as Ashley’s counterparts were involved at faculty positions at other programs and universities before coming here. Ashley also learned a lot about people and that the work here is much like living out one’s faith, especially requiring a lot of humility. The Kenyan people are very good at reading people and seeing if they are sincere or arrogant, which is a good thing and something else that will help all of us remember to ben

After this Ashley quickly met with World Gospel Mission regional coordinator who helped Ashley with the Mac. Praise the Lord he was able to get online with it, but we are still having issues with wireless connections at our house. After this the folks that Ashley met with that afternoon all ate at our house for supper, along with another couple.

Next we went to a praise and worship service at the Africa Gospel Church near us. It held about 1000 people and is a beautiful church. The locals sang for awhile, and then the mission team from Pittsburg performed. It was nice be with our friends joining the locals in worship.

Saturday morning Ashley met with FP folks again for just a few minutes to upload some documents onto his computer. We then took Maggie to a birthday party for one of her 3 year old friends. It was fairly similar to a party in the states and Maggie seemed to have a good time. That afternoon we rested. While the girls took a nap Ashley planted and an avacado seed, our first plant in Africa! We have been anticipating this for over a week as it took us this long to get a pot. One of our workers was able to buy the only small one she could find in the town next to us. But we had to borrow the gardening tool from a neighbor to complete the task. That evening we ate pizza and borrowed some movies from our neighbors video library.

Today was church and this afternoon it was rainy. That kept the neighboring kids playing inside and allowed us all to take a nice nap. This evening we had a cookout at a neighbors house. It was a bring your own meat party. We then had a special time of celebration. We read the passage of scripture where the Israelites set a pile of stone after crossing the Jordan in remembrance of what the Lord had done for them. We did the same thing with each family placing a stone in a pile and telling of something that the Lord had done in the past year. It was encouraging to hear everyone’s stories. They all had their struggles, but in the end all saw that God was, and will be, faithful.

Here is a praise report. We left our car behind to be sold by Sarah’s grandfather. The other day we realized it was time to make another payment. Later that day we found out the car had sold, and for more than we had originally asked. We have our struggles, but saw this as another example of God confirming us being here.

2 examples of everyday life here that you may find interesting. The first is keys. Every door here has a key. And there are plenty of keys to go around. The problem lies in the keys are not marked well and it is hard to know what goes where. For example, we have 3 different locked doors to our home. We were given keys to 2 doors, but nobody knew where the other key was. One day Ashley went through a pile of extra keys in the house and found 2 keys to the door. Then at the hospital the other week Ashley needed a piece of equipment in the hospital. He had to go to the nursing office and find the nurse in charge that weekend who found the nurse in charge of the keys. She then had a pile of what appeared to be over 100 keys. Fortunately, we were able to find the right one.

The second example is about water. Tenwek is blessed with having filtered, running water. However, most still do not find the water suitable for drinking. It also has chemical in it used for filtering. Some gets left behind and it is not harmful, but “gunks” up your hair. For drinking water we use rain water. It is collected in big containers from off the roofs. Almost every day we gather a container of water which we boil for about 20 minutes. We then cool it and place it in a filter tank. We then place our filtered water in a big cooler that we keep, ready for drinking.

Thank you for your prayer and continue to pray for us. Sarah in 9 weeks today. Praise the Lord!

A Bit of Frustration

2007-08-20T11:07:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
This is Ashley writing. Praise God that today Sarah has a good day sickness wise. Pray for her that she will feel well enough to help with a local VBS coming up this Thursday. She would really like to go if she feels up to it. We had lunch at another young family’s house. He is in the middle of surgery residency and she is a mom of a 2 year old who is to deliver again in November. We had an excellent supper tonight. Sarah found some big potatoes a man was selling so we had baked potatoes with seasoned pork loin.
I had a long day at work. After helping round on some of the inpatient service, I went to help over in casualty, which is what the ER is called here. It has 7 beds and 2 nurses. At first I helped the CO (PA equivalent) with a few difficult patients. I am still getting used to the pace of receiving back labs and orders slower than I am used to. The sick children bothered me the most. I saw a 4 year old boy with a large neck mass. He will probably be okay. Then I a saw an 18 month old, which is Maggie's age. This baby was going to have a cleft palate repair at a local hospital and on the table seized and has not been responsive for 3 days. It was hard to hold back tears as I gave some orders and asked for the chaplain to come in. Another things is that there is no such thing as a consult, but people can just show up with papers from another hospital. Lots of folks come here in bad shape expecting to be healed. Fortunately here these patients will hear the Gospel message. There were a few other frustrations, but I am sure they are things that I will get used to in the future.

A Little Encouragement

2007-08-20T11:05:00.000-07:00

Wednesday night we had our first Kipangi. This is basically a big covered-dish meal. Traditionally one is held monthly. All of the missionaries and visiting work teams were there. Sarah fixed pies and had our helpers make cookies. BBQ beef was the main ingredient. It was hard to meet everybody. We are quickly learning that there are constantly people in and out of this place.

Work has been okay for Ashley. He is battling the slow pace of things in the wards, such a the time it takes to receive lab results, but he is starting to learn his way around. He is also beginning to build relationships with other staff members. It occasionally gets discouraging for him thinking “what am I doing just seeing all of these patients”. However he began reading the chaplains notes in the charts which made him smile. They says things such as “ I prayed and provided encouragement from the Bible” or “I shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with this patient”. The other day Ashley had a patient who he and the surgeons decided should go to hospice care. He asked the patient is she knew if she would go to heaven if she died. She did not know for sure. The chaplain shared the gospel with her earlier, but she was not ready to surrender her life with Christ. The next day Ashley asked her if she was ready then. The nurse then led her in a prayer to receive the hope of Jesus Christ. What a blessing! He also had patients smile and thanks him the other day as they left the hospital, which made his day.

Sarah has been building relationships with her workers. They talk a lot and when they go to have their “chai” (tea) time, she invites them to sit at the table with her. The other day the girls were discussing a wedding they were going to and Sarah shared about ours and showed them the wedding album. They are all very thankful for the growing friendship.

Maggie is becoming more well known around the facility. She is playing more now with the other kids, but native and Mks and seems to enjoy it. She also is sleeping better now through the night.

This weekend Ashley has been on call. It has not been that busy, but he has had to stay around the house to answer the phone. Some of the patients have been intimidating, but he is learning to do the best he can with the resources he has available.

Saturday night we had our first guests over- 2 couples. One is a couple from near home, Anderson, SC. They are a pair of FP’s, one of which Ashley went to college with (small world). The other is a couple from Massachusetts. They are 1 year into a 2 year commitment. He recently finished surgery residency and she is a nurse. We all pitched in on food and had a good time of just sitting around and talking with one another. We love our colleagues here, but these folks are the closest to our age.

Getting Started

2007-08-20T10:53:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are with another story. The week has been kind of slow thus far. Ashley oriented some more Monday and began work on Tuesday morning. It was very chaotic at first with so many people seeing folks on the wards. There are about 20 people in the men’s ward and women’s ward each. There are clinical officers (like a PA), medical officers (MD’s), interns, residents, and attending. Here Ashley is an attending physican. There are 4 medical attending and 4 surgical attending on staff.
Sarah is continuing to battle morning sickness, but appears to be doing better each day. Sarah is having the workers help her relearn her crocheting. Things get quiet at times here at night. After Maggie goes to bed we will watch an episode of Little House or the Cosby Show on our TV that is connected to our computer. It almost makes us forget where we are at times. We are quickly getting used to sleeping under the mosquito net.
There are volunteer teams in and out of here all the time. The Maryland prayer team left earlier this week. 2 more teams are coming later this week. Currently there is a team here working with the surgeons on esophageal cancer. It is very prevalent in Kenya, Iran, and China. Tenwek is one of the main centers working on this with research going on as well. The team here developed a machine that will freeze cancer in the esophagus (cryOtherapy). It is experimental, but appears to be working well.
The patients on the wards are very sick. About one adult dies daily. Several sick children died yesterday. Almost half of the adults Ashley sees on the floor have HIV and everyone gets tested (don’t worry, we are very careful with everyone).
It has been raining a lot in the afternoons and some at night. The temp stays about the same year round. We do not have heating or air and are very comfortable. A couple next door says that in one year there indoor thermometer’s highest reading was 72 and lowest was 67.
Every morning the medical staff has an educational session at 8AM. On Wednesday there are devotionals. Today Ashley was able to participate in his first long-term doctors meeting, which really helped to catch him up on the inner workings on the hospital.
Sarah is making our shopping list for Nairobi. Several folks are going in and out of there this weekend everyone offers to get things for people. We are beginning to learn what we need more and less of. It is difficult trying to plan so far ahead. For example, we doubled our egg order this week. (We order our eggs from one of the orphanages around and they deliver them on Tuesdays). In addition to the folks that come by and sell their fruits and veggies at the door, people are now beginning to bring us their crafts as well (baskets, ornamental gourds, etc.) We have bought a few.
Some of the carpenters on campus have build us some much needed shelves in our home. Labors in Kenya work for 8 hours a day for 6 and ½ days (or just 5 days and work more on those days).
We are working on getting pictures posted. The other computer has them for now and we are having trouble getting it on the internet. But don’t worry, we are taking pictures. The internet is such a blessing as although it is slow, it does allow us to connect with our family, friends, and the outside world. Keep writing because we do read things even if we don’t reply right away.

Hellos and Good-byes

2007-08-13T13:17:00.000-07:00

Well, we are here in Kenya. As you have probably noticed, it has taken us awhile to post our first blog. Let us recount our first days here and we'll tell you why.

Leaving home was bitter sweet. We were so glad to have our family to see us off, but it was hard to tell them good-bye. It is great, though, to have all of their prayers and support. It was especially good to have them help us with all of our baggage at the airport. We had 20 bags to check. I will not say how much it cost to send them, but thankfully the cost was about 25% less than we expected. We also arrived with only about one other person in line, which was a blessing. The ride to the airport was more stressful with a caravan of 6 cars traveling together through heavy Atlanta traffic!

Once we said our good-byes, we traveled through security without a hitch (which is rare as we normally get stopped). We credit part of this to the fact that one of the workers there was not feeling well and Ashley made small talk with him making sure he was okay as we nonchalantly grabbed our bags and headed on through.

The first flight was a full 8 hour trip to Amsterdam, which went okay. Maggie did well, just wanting to get out and explore. We carried Maggie's babyjogger on the plane, so we were the last to get off as we had to let everyone clear out to get it (but we were some of the first on!) It was the middle of the night US time when we arrived, so we walked around in a daze for about one our. Security in Amsterdam went smooth and we boarded our next 8 hour flight to Nairobi. This flight harder as we all wanted to sleep and it was hard forlittle Maggie to get comfortable. We also got to meet a few other missionaries on the flight.

We were happy when we finally deplaned in Nairobi. We found our way to immigration and when through getting our visas and stamps. When we told the agent what we were doing, she said "Thank you for coming to help us". We have never had that experience and it made us smile.

The luggage carousel was a madhouse, but Ashley squeezed in and would gather a bag or two at a time. Sarah stood by and guarded the 10 trolleys we had gathered to place our belongs on. Whenever she turned her head, someone would walk off with an empty one, which made us laugh. Some folks in line recognized our bags and would help set them off for us as well. Miraculously, all 20 bags arrived safely and without a scratch. Some of the airport works helped gather all our bags (stacked on 5 carts instead of 10). When we told the customs agent what we were doing, he said okay and let us walk through without checking a bag. The luggage caravan then proceeded outside. This was an answered prayer as we had no idea how we would get all these bags moved on our own.

We then met the lady who came to pick us up. She had the driver pull around right to where we were standing and load our bags. One van was for us and our overnight belongings. The next van held all our other items. Everything fit! We quickly became friends with the folks who came to get us (We'll omit names for now until we clear it with them that it is okay to use them.

We quickly became introduced to a little culture as a security officer came up to our driver and said we could not park where we were. He informed him that there was no other place to park and no signs saying we could not park there. It was obvious that the officer wanted a bribe to brush this off. Fortunately, the folks we work with do not believe in giving bribes. The driver politely stated his case and said he would even stay in jail overnight if he needed to. The officer finally let us go. A battle won!

Sleepy and hungry, we meander through the dark streets around Nairobi looking for a place to eat. We ended up at the Nairobi Java House, which is owned by Americans. The food was great, like most American menus! We took our food and went up to the Samaritan's Purse guest house. It was relatively new, but had no telephone access yet. We met two young guys from the states who were working in Sudan rebuilding churches. They were nice and quickly took up to Maggie. We ate our meal and a euphoric daze went to bed.

The next AM we grabbed some toast in the kitchen and shortly headed out to the NakuMatt to do our shopping. Our friend who met us had already done some shopping the day before, but needed us to help to the rest. First, she and Ashley grabbed some excellent coffee and we set out. This store was very nice and like a Walmart Super Center on steroids, it had everything! We shopped for about 3 hours. Ashley's job was to entertain Maggie. We then went to another JavaHouse for lunch and picked up our meat at the butcher (they know folks from the hospital and were very nice and helpful). While Ashley got the meat loaded in coolers, Sarah purchased fresh produce at another store. We bought ALOT- mainly to get started up, plus because most folks buy things for 6 weeks at a time, which is a little hard to do the first time.

Exhausted, we finally loaded up in the van to go to Tenwek. What a beautiful drive! It was about 4 hours over rough roads that passed through a few small towns (literally). We were disappointed that we did not get to go to an amusement park before we came, but most of the roads made up for it! Maggie laughed and thought it was great. We passed by the Rift Valley. It had several lookouts that reminded me of the Blue Ridge parkway, except there were also tourist traps along the way (which we did not stop at as we were in a hurry to get to Tenwek. Along the way we say baboons. They were trying to take corn away from vendors who were selling it on a stick. We were told they are very aggressive. We did not get our cameras out in time to get a picture of this. We did slow down when we saw giraffes. They were incredible! The folks who have lived here for years tell us that seeing them never gets old. We also saw gazelles and zebras in the distance as well. We got out at a gas station and stretched our legs 3 hours into the trip. We we got back on the
road, the sun began to set. It was gorgeous, so much so that the driver even wanted us to get out and take pictures!

Driving in the night is dangerous, as there are very few lights and people and animals in the road. Praise God we arrive just as it turned dark. As we pulled into the property and headed to our home, it was too dark to tell much, except we knew we weren't in Kansas anymore. There was a sign from our neighbor welcoming us to our new apartment. We were also greeted by our bags stacked inside (they had arrived earlier). Thankful one of the workers had already put Maggie's crib together for us. We were told to eat and go to sleep and do nothing else. A few folks came a greeted us. It was about 7:30 PM local time when we arrived (we are 7 hrs ahead of EST). Needless to say we were a bit overwhelmed. Maggie thought it was great sleeping under a mosquito net, though.

The next day (Tuesday) was our first full day at Tenwek. We slept in a litte and when we got going a first task was to tell some of the local house helpers what they could do for us. House help is very common here. Everyone has at least one, if not two full time workers. They are very knowledgeable and make day to day living here more bearable. Our workers quickly came in and started helping to set up the kitchen for us as we began to unpack bags. Some of the missionaries came by and helped as well. The worker typically help M-F from about 9 to 4 or 5. As we said we currently have two (Janet and Regina) and are trying to decided if we need to keep two workers in the future.

Breakfast is held, but so far does not seem to be that important. Neither is dinner. Lunch is the big meal of the day. For our first few days we were scheduled to eat lunch in different homes. Our first day we ate a home of a surgeon and his family who have been here for about 10 years. The next day we at the hospital resturant. We met with other short term volunteers and ate some local food, which was very good. Lunch is from 1 to 2. Chai (tea with milk) time in an import daily event. Here most things stop around 10AM for this.

People here also get going early (awake around 5-6AM and go to bed around 9). With jet lag, this is taking some getting used to. We have not had a full tour of the compound yet, but everyone here is very friendly. Locals come to the door daily offering produce for sell, which our workers determine if we need to purchase or not. The local missionaries usually congregate outside and visit one anothers house, which is nice. Everyone here is helpful and friendly. We were also provided with a host family, who take care of us and are making sure we are getting oriented to things daily. The other volunteers and missionaries say it takes about 1 month to get adjusted, but in the meantime to take one day at a time, which is what we are doing.

There are also lot of young kids here at Tenwek. Most are home schooled and they try to follow the Kenyan system. We cannot remember all the months, but we know that they are off for April and August. They play together all the time and make is most inquisative.

Life here does have its hassles we have learned. For example, we have a washer, but it has a mind of its own when it wants to work. You also have to be cautious of using the correct outlet because the 110 and 220 volt sockets are side by side.

Ashley begins work next week. He doesn't know much of what he will be doing specificially yet. However we do know that he is going to be in charge of the family medicine residency program be coordinating the outpatient continuity clinic, and coordinating care in the
emergency room.

We also have another big change here. We learned right before we left that we are going to have another baby. Sarah has been pushing through this great and continuing to adapt to life here in Africa.

We will load some pictures soon, so stay posted!

August 10th-12th
On Friday we took our official tour of the Tenwek compound. It is fairly large, but we should learn our way around quickly. We still have not ventured out to the dukas (little shops) or buildings surrounding us, but that will come with time. Ashley then met with one of the intenal medicine doctors who offered to tour him around the hospital. It was an impressive, extensive tour that also provided opportunities to meet several people and learn the little nuances of how to get things done around here. It was good for Ashley and has him feeling more at ease about starting work.

Friday night we had dinner with a couple from Alabama, so it was good to meet up with some Southerners. The reason we say that is most of the missionaries we have met here thus far are from up north or the Midwest, which is okay. For dinner we had pizza, which was good but still tasted different from that back home.

Saturdays appear to be quiet days around here. Morning sickness got the best of Sarah, so she rested, as did Maggie as Ashley relaxed around the house. Everyone does meals on their own on the weekend with no househelp, unless you need them for a special reason. After lunch we went for a walk. We were going to get on line with the hospital but learned that our frustrations with the internet were due to problems with the main server in Nairobi, not with us. Ashley toured us through the main education building at the hospital. It is new and very nice. He claimed his new cubby/office space. We then walked Maggie down to the covered area that has a basketball goal and played “ball”. She enjoyed this, as well as bouncing on the trampoline. Tenwek was given a gift that had to be used for a racquetball court, so we got to see it, which was nice. The MK’s use it for PE when it is rainy.

After this we came home and Sarah was craving fried rice, so she fixed her first real meal in Africa, which was very good (even though we did not have paprika for the white sauce). After this we met with some friends near by who invited us over to meet the prayer team. This team is from Maryland, actually right near where Sarah used to live (small world). They were composed of different people from a church there. One of the ladies used to a nurse years ago here and shared some great stories. We then shared our hearts with one another had a great time of prayer. We all felt very encouraged after this. We prayed specifically for Sarah and her morning sickness. She left rejuvenated, as we all did. We then hung out with the young couple who had us over. They have been here for a year, but had many of the same questions and struggles here early on that we do now.

Sunday morning came and prayer was answered. Sarah felt well enough to make it to and through the entire service. (We made a special point of thanking the prayer team after service!) The service was good. It was held in a building here at the hospital and is very nice. It was half missionary/ half local and conducted in English. It was from 9 to 11. It was so good to be able to rest and worship and reflect on the goodness of the Lord. A local pastor spoke about standing in the gap and the importance of prayer. Most of the music was done by one of the main surgeons here.

We are looking forward to starting our second week here. We are wanting to start working with an orphanage as several are around and many do this on weekends. We will pray about this and try to get involved once we get a little more settled in. Ashley starts work with call and we began having our own meals, so the next week should be more indicative of what everyday life will be like around here.

5 more days and counting!

2007-07-30T07:44:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
I'm sure you are all wondering "when are the the McGee's going to update their blog?". Well, today is the day. We want to give you all a quick update on what is going on. We are on the last leg of our journey before we fly out on Saturday. A few weeks ago we had an excellent farewell party in Johnston at Ashley's sister's house, followed by a commisioning at Ashley's home church the next day. We then spent a few weeks in Petersburg, VA at Sarah's parents house. There we packed (and packed), which is harder than you may think. Ashley also took his board exam. Maggie was able to experience her first water park (we'll have to load some photos later.
Last week we headed down to Greensboro, NC to spend some time with Sarah's grandparents. Last night we made it in to Atlanta to spend some time with Sarah's sister. This will be our base of command until we fly out.
Pray for us that we will be able to relax and enjoy our time here, but that we will also be able to get all of the last minute things accomplished that we need to before we leave.
Check back with us again soon for next stage in our journey!

"On the move"

2007-07-06T19:38:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,
We hope that this blog finds you all doing well. We are sorry that it is taken so long to get this blog set up. We are still in the process of setting it up. We have been on the move and still moving. Here is a little update with what is going on in our lives...

Ashley graduated from the residency program on June 23rd and we moved out of our home on the 24th. Yes, our home has sold! We are so excited. The Lord has definitely had His hand in this whole process. After we moved out of our home on the 24th we spent a week at the beach with Ashley's parents. Then Ashley had a CME to attend this past week at Kiawah Island in SC. We are now in Johnston, SC with Ashley's parents and plan to head up to Sarah's parents home in Petersburg, VA this weekend sometime. Ashley will be taking his boards up in Virginia and Maggie and I plan to pack for Kenya. We leave for Kenya on August 4th. We are on the move and doing well. We are excited about Kenya and can't wait to get over there but we are enjoying our time with each other as a family and the special time we get to spend with our family and friends here in the US.

We will keep everyone posted on what the Lord is doing in our lives and hopefully you will let us know what the Lord is doing in yours.

God Bless