ONLY IN KENYA
Only in Kenya would you see an eight-year-old girl bring her 8-month-old brother to a medical camp without her parents. Actually it was totally cute to listen to her describe her little brother’s cough. There are many children who came to our camp for medical treatment without their parents and no one thought anything of it.
This is our fourth year on the grounds of the PEFA Church in Kayole (in the Eastern part of Nairobi). Even at 5:30 in the morning the traffic was so terrible that it took us 3 hours to get to the camp. The camp was due to open at 7am and we arrived at 8:30. But no problem, the veterans of the church had the doors open and they were registering people without us and getting them seated. There was a very large crowd today but this is, without a doubt, the best-organized camp we’ve had. Very nice for a change because confusion is usually the order of the day on our first day of camp. My favorite thing to do is to go around and greet the children. They get of kick out of shaking the hand of an Mzungu (white man). Sometimes they look at their hand after shaking mine to make sure some of the “white” didn’t rub off.
It was a relaxing day until I volunteered to go into the city to buy some medication that we had run out of. It takes a lot of patience to minister in Nairobi. Here’s how it went:
Fight your way through 2 hours of traffic
Order your medications in one place
Pay for them in another place
Pick them up in another place
Wait for them to fill your order (in slow motion)
Check your entire order to make sure it is right
Wait for them to box your order (also in slow motion)
And then fight your way back through 2 hours of traffic back to the camp.
I left the camp fresh and happy and returned exhausted.
Such is life, but we are really doing something meaningful and significant here.
We are saving lives. Again the Kayole outreach team was praying for people and many people accepted Christ while they were waiting to get their prescriptions filled. It’s so wonderful!
Blessing to all of you back home and thanks for keeping me in your prayers. I have been in perfect health while here in Kenya and I know it’s because of your prayers.
More tomorrow.
Richard