News From Our Medical Camp
I was telling the team yesterday that one day in Kenya is like a week. The reason for this is “sensory overload”. As you drive through the country everything that you see is unusual and out of the ordinary. Some things are just beyond belief. Because of this your eyes are looking more intently and your mind is trying to take it all in. After hours and hours of this you become tired and you don’t know why. What scene it is.
Today we jumped in the van an rode off to visit our children’s center in the Kibera Slums. The Kibera slums is a place that you can’t describe to people, you just have to be there. To smell the smells and see the situation. Every time we go in my heart goes out to the 1.3 million people who call this place there home. Tens of thousands of children were born in this place and it is the only life they know. The poverty rate here is practically 100% and the infant mortality rate is staggering. Open sewers, bad water, bad food, cramped living conditions and roaming bands of thieves make this one of the most dangerous places on earth. When we go into the slums we always stop by the police station pick up several soldiers who are there to protect us. Honestly I never feel unsafe but the Kenya government requires an escort to avoid “international incidences”.
After a 10 minute drive and a 10 minute walk through the maze of shanty houses we come to our Kibera Kids center. There 125 kids are waiting for us; washed and fed and loved and full of the Love of Jesus. What a blessing it is to be a part of caring for and saving these kids. Again I want to thank all of you who give regularly to the Children’s feeding fund that enables us to send money every month to buy food for these kids. Believe me it is a worthwhile investment.
After visiting Kibera we went straight over the Lenana School. School is not in session in August and yet there were about 150 kids waiting to greet us at the fence. We had marvellous fellowship with the teachers of they school. They are teaching at this school as volunteers. Most of them are waiting for jobs to open up in the Kenyan school system and some of them have waited for over 5 years. We were able to give all 16 of them a $25 gift, which might not sound like much to us, but it is a month’s salary for them. Our team participated in feeding the kids. They scooped getheri (a mixture of beans, corn, carrots and potatoes) out of a gigantic pan into the cups of each of the children. Then two-thirds of them came back for more. After this they sang songs and quoted poems and scripture verses for us. One of the songs was an “ode to Valerie”. They sang of how much they loved her and prayed for her. It was so sweet.
We are back at our Guest House now and about to go out for an Indian dinner with the entire WorldCOMP leadership team. Most of them have been working all day to set up for our next medical camp in a region called Kayole. Tomorrow we will be back, hard at it, in medical camp.
Please pray for the repair of our ultrasound machine. The technician called and said there was more damage than we thought and that it would take $1200 to fix it. We asked him to work on it a hard as he could, because there are now a large number of people waiting for the procedure. Another thing is that we needs God’s blessing on the repair process because things can so easily go wrong in the repair of these kinds of things. We are trusting God.
God bless you my friends. Your prayers are appreciated.
Richard