THE LAST WORD:
Our team is now at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam for our 4 ½ hour layover. It is so wonderful to be headed home to the people we love and “our own beds”. I know that “foxes have holes and birds have their nests, but theirs no place like your own bed.” Forgive me for the misquote of scripture to make my point! I hope your admiration will go out to the 7 brave Americans who joined me on this mission. They paid their own way. They have endured a very hard pace. They had no time to adjust to the time change. We hit the road running and have been running up to this very moment. All of them have “endured hardship as good soldiers of the Lord Jesus Christ”. The have poured themselves out as an offering to the Lord and not a one of them has complained about the grueling pace, the hard beds, the dogs barking all night, the minor stomach irritations or the major change in their diet. I will say however, that that more than one of them are looking forward to a good chef’s salad.
Our team, along with a wonderful team of compassionate Kenyan Medics, has seen and treated over 8500 people. Britta Carson and Dr. Phil Miles personally saw about 1000 each. No kidding! We have seen the plight of the poor and the suffering and we have done what we could to help them and to show them the Love of the Lord. We have loved and been loved by the people of Kenya and all of the team members are now taking about “the next time”.
I want to thank all of you who followed our journey with interest and lifted us up in your prayers. You really made a difference! We spend so much time talking about the good things that happen when we pray, but we are always unaware of the bad things that didn’t happen because we prayed. God has been with us. He has provided, He has guided, He has protected and He has given us strength. Praise be to our God! Thank you especially for praying for the Ultrasound machine. It went through a very difficult journey, but it is working perfectly. For the time being it will be housed in one of the clinics of one of our partner organizations, called “Viva Africa”, where it will provide ultrasound images for people who could never afford an ultrasound here in Kenya.
At the end of our budget we left several thousand dollars in the bank in Kenya. Next week, the Kenya team will hold three follow up medical camps for the kids we serve in the slums of Kibera, Dandora, and Dagoretti. The large amount of medication that we bought will go to a number of community clinics who are our partners in this work. All of them have scant resources and very little medication. When we come to Kenya, their medical staff works with us in the field and we provide vital medications to their facilities.
We will be back and our plan is to do two medical camps in 2014 that are two weeks in duration. In the mean time we continue to provide resources to feed 500 slum children daily, to give microfinance loans to widows, to educate and improve the lives of our boys at the Shikusa Detention Center, to assist families who are affected by AIDS, to dig wells and to provide a number of other services to the poor.
I am so thankful for all our funding partners. We make every dollar count. No one takes a salary from your contributions. They go entirely to our projects. Please consider becoming one of our funding partners. You may give on line through our website at: www.worldcompkenya.com/ways-to-give or you may send your contributions to WorldComp Kenya, 7758 Earl Ave NW, Seatttle, WA 98117 (Your contributions are tax-deductible).
I leave you now with one final “Thank You”.
Blessings to you and your family,
Richard