Hello My Friends:
Yesterday I had a marvelous meeting with Ben Sterciuc. Ben is a Professor in the Nursing School at Northwest University. He is also the campus pastor for the new Elevation Church on the campus.
Both Ben and I had an incredible sense that God has brought us together for “such a time as this”. We have entered into a partnership which I believe will bear incredible fruit for the future.
Each year Northwest University takes their 4th year Graduating Nursing class out to the field for a month of practicum. They made a decision several months ago that God was leading them to stop sending their nursed all over the place and to invest in a single nation so that they can develop long term relationships and bear fruit in that nation. Well it just so happens that that nation is Kenya.
Ben has been to Kenya and he has a relationship with a pastor in Shoreline who is a Masai. Though he has been to Kenya he does not have the necessary connections to effectively put together an itinerary for the students who will be going. They are booked for several days a week in Nairboi Hospitals, but aside from that they have no idea where they should go or how they are going to get there. After a few minutes of discussion with me, he was relieved of a great burden, as he saw that our organization has practically everything they need to get established in Kenya.
So here’s the deal: Beginning on February 7th, 2014 WorldCOMP will begin hosting the Northwest University Nurses Practicum each year (Valerie and I will be in Kenya at this time). Our staff in Kenya will make arrangements for their housing, pick them up at the airport, provide transportation, and create opportunities for them to serve in Kenya. Aside from their duties in the local hospitals, we will bring them into Kibera, Lenana and to Western Kenya: Shikusa, the Kakamega Hospital and the Cooperative Care Hospital run by PATH in Nairobi. Our staff will also set up a medical mini-camp in an area of great need in which they can practice their skills. It sounds like a lot, but basically we will just provide them with transportation, a full time WorldCOMP driver and an itinerary.
This is going to open up a lot of things for us here locally. In a week or so I will be meeting with the board of a new Non-Profit that has been started called Vital Solutions: www.vitalsol.com that has been started up with a view toward starting a clinic in Masai Country in an area that where there are no medical services for 100 kilometers around.
How about all all that?
Richard