Jesus Weeps

My heart is really heavy because there is a critically ill baby in the nursery now.  She is about a month old and is from a city about 2 hours from here.  She became ill very suddenly with a temperature and her mom brought her to the local hospital.  From there she was transferred to Tenwek and was diagnosed with meningitis.  She is now on a ventilator and very very sick.  Her mother and I have become friends while she sits in the hallway outside the nursery.  It is so painful for her to be in nursery while all the other mothers are breastfeeding their babies and she can not even hold her child.  Words are so inadequate even though Mom does speak English.  What do you say?  We have prayed many times together and implored Jesus to heal her baby.  She believes this with all of her heart and is waiting for a miracle. I, too, want to believe this and yet in my head I question whether it is possible and if possible what damage will have been done to this child's brain.  Oh, that I had this mother's hope.  So we keep praying and weeping together.

Mosop

It has been awhile since I have written and so I will try and fill you in on what I have been doing.  This visit has again been different from those in the past.  I find that I am spending a lot of time renewing and deepening relationships that have formed over the years.  This is the beauty of returning to the same place year after year.  Yesterday I returned to the orphanage that is called Mosop.  As you can see there was an eager group of youngsters waiting for Bible quizzing to begin.  This year they are studying parts of the book of Matthew. Kenyan children can memorize like nothing I have ever seen before!   For Bible quizzing the children are divided into teams with coaches who meet with them weekly.  During their time together they learn about the story for the week as well as reciting the verses they have memorized each week. The goal is to memorize 60 verses to receive a prize. Each month there is also a contest between the teams complete with buzzers to determine  which team wins the final prize.  If any of you did Bible sword drills when you were young this is very similar to it.  Yesterday was a team competition; buzzers and all!  Teams of four participated while the others patiently watched and clapped for their team.  Excitement reigned!

I think I wrote about Mosop last year but let me fill you in. It is an orphanage where 157 children are currently living.  Another 100 or so come to the Mosop school each day from the community.  Mosop also now houses a "college" to train pre school teachers who will teach in the baby schools.  I really feel like it is well run.  The children call this home until they are 18 and off into the world. However, they reassured me that if they have no extended family they are always welcome to come back and call Mosop home.  

While I was there I met the nurse, Diana, who runs the dispensary. She lives next door to the dispensary and is on call 24/7 for 257 kids, the college, and the surrounding community!  She is even equipped to deliver babies!  What a devoted soul!

Graduation Singing

Rosa's Party

Happy Monday!  Oh, I forgot that the Panthers lost…not a happy Monday in North Carolina.  There are a lot of Bronco fans here so this might be a rough day for us too.  We could have watched the game at 2:30 AM but decided against it.   Perhaps we had a premonition!   More likely we were lazy!   One of the men Face-timed with his son in Charlotte who projected his computer on the game.  Then the father here projected his computer onto the wall for a giant screen. The wonders of modern technology sure made a lot of people happy here!  

On Saturday, Marv posted a picture of the nursing graduation and told you that we had gone to Rosa's party.   Let me tell you the story of how this happened.  It begins in 2009 on my first trip to Tenwek.  An elderly (probably about my age now!) long term missionary called our apartment and asked me to come with a friend to her house.  When we got there she told us about a young Rwandan refugee widow who had six children and had come to her asking for help and hopefully for a job.  My friend and I agreed to provide support for the child who would be starting the equivalent of our high school and also to give some support to the family.   At that time Mary, the mother, did not know that we were the donors and in fact she did not know this for many years to come.  Over the years the mother became a trusted employee for several of the missionaries and I came to know her well.  A couple of years ago she did find out that Marv and I were supporting her children and has been very grateful.  We always heard how the children were doing but we never had the opportunity to meet them as they were away at school or at school around here during the day.  This all changed on Saturday.   

We were invited to Rosa's graduation party from the chaplaincy program here at Tenwek. What a joyous day it was!  What a beautiful young woman she is, and what a proud mother Mary is!  How very special that we were able to be a part of this celebration after all these years!  We were here at the right time!  Now we're  praying that Rosa is able to find a job either as a chaplain at the hospital or in a local church; especially we are hoping for a paying job as many churches are not able to pay their pastors.

We almost felt like proud grandparents!

Celebration

Tenwek Africa Gospel Church

Sometimes you just show up at the right time!  We were invited to the graduation ceremonies for the chaplaincy school and the nursing school at the African Gospel Church.  As we suspected it was a long celebration!  What was a wonderful surprise was being invited to “Rosa’s” party.  More about that later.

Here are some of the pictures of this celebration:

Nightingale pledge and candle ceremony by the nursing class

The educational missions at Tenwek continue to grow with more to come!

For more information check out this web site:

http://www.tenwekhospital.org/training/school-of-nursing

Marv

Post call Rx

Kenyan Chai

  

Kenyan chai is the preferred treatment after multiple sleep interruptions and is used to treat almost any symptom!

Blankets

I have not heard the name Trump in days and it is great! Guess what?  The Kenyans are not preoccupied with our election and the results of the Iowa caucus!  They do have their own politics to be sure!  We have no TV or radio for 5 weeks. Our music is via iPod and is of our own choosing.   This is quite relaxing and interestingly.  I really do not miss the campaign rhetoric .  Even the Super Bowl is of little consequence.  I will admit that there are a few Bronco fans here and so we are trying to hold the Panther banner high.  If we want to watch the Super Bowl we will have to stream it or connect via Facebook with someone in the US.  We will have to do that at 2:30 AM and so I am undecided as to whether I will participate!   I hate to admit it but I may be dreaming about a Panther victory rather than viewing it!

This morning, I delivered the 100 baby blankets that friends in Wilmington helped me make.  We make them extra small so that they just fit over babies in incubators and tiny beds. The head nurse is always happy to see new colorful blankets arrive to replace many of the rags they use. Nothing is thrown away until it completely falls apart.  Many thanks to Peg, Nancy and Beth for  making this project possible.

Marv is on his first night call tonight.  Hopefully it will not be too bad and he can ease into this.  It gets a bit more difficult to get up in the middle of the night as you age!  He is  really enjoying the students and residents that are on the OB service.