Follow up

I hope this letter finds you well as summer is ending and the fall season is beginning. I wanted to say thank you for your support during my stay in Africa; through prayers, keeping up to date with my blog, or by financial means. I had a great adventure in Kenya and brought back many stories, pictures, and a new perspective. Let me know if you want to catch up and I’ll share those more in detail with you!

In the two months abroad, I spent about five weeks in a village called Sigoti in the upper Nyakach region of Kenya (only a few miles away from the equator and Lake Victoria). In the village I wore many hats and played a variety of roles. I volunteered in the local hospital, called Nyabondo, along side nursing students and cared for many patients with advanced HIV/AIDS in the medical/surgical unit. I also volunteered at the government run clinic in the village. There I gave many injections as a treatment for malaria, tested for HIV, was a pharmacist for a day, and sat in on HIV counseling. Both places were very eye opening for me as I saw the struggle to provide good care for patients with extremely scarce resources.

In the village it is a very taboo topic to talk about sex, even sex education. Because of this and the high frequency of teenage pregnancy, we gave a talk on the physical and moral consequences of premarital sex. We discussed the different sexually transmitted infections, how valued each girl is, the importance of purity, ways to say no, how to deal with sexual harassment, and different forms of protection. The girls really opened up with this us and shared their struggles about how sex becomes a means to provide for themselves financially, and requested to have more meetings about this during our stay.

My fellow nurse, Laura, and I went door to door in the village seeing people who had health concerns and wanted to see “the nurses”. We found that in the clinic and hospital, patients are given very little education about what is wrong with them. Their interactions with the doctors and nurses is that they are given a pill and being told to take it with no further explanation about what they are being treated for or how the medication will affect them. Laura and I talked with each person about their symptoms, looked up their medication, provided information on what they were diagnosed with, what their medication is for, how to take it, and then gave them ways to help with their health problem besides medication such as diet change, exercise, stretching, etc. This was one of my favorite roles because it gave us an opportunity to sit for an hour or two just getting to know our “patients”, provide education, pray with them, and then check up with them each week to see if they were improving. We also ran a small health day where we checked blood sugars to screen for diabetes, checked blood pressures, handed out deworming tablets and vitamins. We found that the majority of people we saw had high blood pressure to which we gave education and referred them to the appropriate clinic to start on medication if needed.

At times it felt like we were not needed nor doing much for the community. Kenya as a whole is a developing country and has a long way to go before it is able to change or obtain better resources. When I was feeling a little down at the end of the trip I read and reflected on Matthew 26:6-13 which is the story of the woman at Bethany who poured expensive perfume on Jesus’ head, to which the disciples chastised her for wasting such an expensive perfume and doing such a silly deed. Jesus thought the action was great and it helped to prepare him for his burial. From that story, I learned that even though some tasks I did in Africa seemed silly or had little effect on the whole picture, God had placed me over there for a reason and with a specific purpose which may seem small to me but I know he has a bigger plan for those things than what I may have been able to see.

I made a lot of friends, became a part of the Okall family, developed long lasting relationships, learned a lot about the African culture and struggles, and had a lot of fun along the way. I was able to go on a boat ride on Lake Victoria, visit the equator, walk through Kibera (the largest slum in Nairobi), see the President and Prime minister, go on a safari, spend a few days on the beach in Mombasa, and escort a 4 year old and her grandmother back to the states to be reunited with their mother/daughter over here in America.

Now that I am back in America, I started my job at the University of Kansas Hospital as a nurse, moved into a new house with two girls who graduated with me in May, and am spending a lot of time getting used to the transition from being a student to being a “professional”. I would love to spend more time talking with you about my trip and sharing pictures with you, in person or by email. Just let me know.

Thank you so much again for your support and if you want to continue to support the area that I worked with in Africa you can visit http://www.alumeimports.com and buy merchandise from local artisans who I personally met or visit http://daladevelopment.org to see how to support the development program in the village.

Tourist time

Hello everyone-

Just to catch everyone up to speed, we left the Village and are now doing a little bit of touring before coming home. We are currently at the coast, Mombasa, for the week.

To end our time in the village, we did not have to teach the youth at church but we did have to sing in front of the whole congregation. We choose the song, Jesus Loves me and failed miserably... the whole church laughed at our efforts because we did so bad and couldnt stop laughing through the whole thing. I think it is safe to say that they wont ask visitors to "bless" the church with singing after our preformance.

We did a second health day where Laura and I taught about the importance of breast self examinations, not feeding babies breast milk when the mother is HIV positive, taught basic CPR, bandaging of wounds, and the hemlich manuver for choking. I think that it went well.

On our last day in the Village, Vivian decided to hand over a package of rat poisening that she had bought to use to commit suicide with. Laura and I talked with her about it and then told Dan about it so that he could talk to her a little more indepth about it as well. He had a good conversation with her because a lot of her stress is from her living situation which Dan is familiar with, since it is his family that Vivian is staying with. Vivian was upset that Laura and I told Dan about the rat poisening but then we explained that we needed to make sure that she was safe because we cared about her. I also asked if she had a good conversation with Dan to which she replied that she did and asked her if it was all in all a good thing that we told him and she said yes... so we ended it all on good terms.

Once we made it back to Nairobi, we went to the giraffe center and fed and kissed some giraffes, we also went to the animal orphanage and saw some baby elephants. The next day we went to an ostrich resort and got to ride a real ostrich!!! It was so bizarre, but really fun!

I am a bit distracted as I am watching Germany vs. Uraguay play the third place game in the world cup. I think I will go for now but I will be back in the states before you know it!

With love,
Christy

Happy 4th of July!!!

Hello-

I know, I know, it's well over due for a post. We have been quite busy traveling as well as working here in the village so I am not sure where to begin.

On the travel side of things, when we were escorting the youthgroup to Nairobi to catch their plane back to the U.S.A. we stopped by a safari park called Masai Mara. Here we spent the night in tents that made me feel like we were in a resort due to my basic view of living these days. The tents had electricity, a toilet inside, and shower that came from the sky. It was heaven. In the morning when we got to the safari grounds we were able to see lots of elephants, wildebeasts, worthogs, impalas, ostriches, and the wonderful find of a female lion feasting on a freshly killed wildebeast. We were able to get as close as about 10 feet from any given animal and it was really amazing to see (for those that are concerned about safety, don't worry all of us made it out with no injuries or attacks). Just outside the park we saw zebras and a couple giraffes that were right up next to our car, they are sooo tall!!!
A couple of days ago we were also able to go to a town called Kisumu which is about an hour or two (depending on how much the matatu you are in stops) away from the village. We went there to have a day to relax and we went out on Lake Victoria in a boat called a meli for an hour. On this hour trip we were garunteed that if we did not see a hippo we would get 500 shillings off of the cost of the boat ride (about $6.25 USD from a trip that in total cost $25 for all 4 of us). Luckily.. we saw hippos and lots of them. They were also quite close to our boat which made me a tiny bit nervous only because of all the documentaries i have watched on how aggressive hippos can be but not worries... still safe and sound. In Kisumu we had a lovely meal in a hotel that specialized in western and german food. It was the first time that I have eaten cheese since I have been in Kenya and the meal was one of the most satisfying meals I have had in a long time. It was quite the treat and we all cleaned our plates! After lunch we took a car ride for about 20 minutes to see the equator. It was pretty hot and was a point just marked with a big sphere with a sign wrapped around it that said equator. Those are the main things that we have done traveling wise besides visiting relatives in villages near the village we stay in. We leave the village on Tuesday to return to Nairobi to pick up 3 other people who will be staying with Dan and Emily for a couple of months, and then all of us will go to the coast, Mombasa, before Laura and I return home.

Work wise, we have continued to volunteer at the local hosptial and clinic. The hospital remains the same where there is not a lot of use for us but it is a great learning experience and great to figure out what resources it provides so that we can better communicate to the community where they can go for more specific health concerns. And the hospital does a great job of teaching us about disease process and how they have to make due with their limited resources.

The clinic is very understaffed and always has a huge line. Laura and I were asked if we were willing to see patients, diagnose them, and prescribe medicine in order to get more patients through faster. We explained to them that in America, only doctors can do those things and that even if we could, we have limited knowledge on tropical diseases such as malaria and typhoid which are seen quite frequently. It is very grey as to what the nurse's actual role is, but as far as we have been explained, the doctor is the one that is supposed to see patients and prescribe but since they do not have a doctor, the nurses are the ones who take on that role. We have also noticed taht if anyone comes in with any symptom of fever, headache, chills, stomach pain, diarrhea, loss of appetite, or stiff neck, they are automatically diagnosed with Malaria and given medication to treat them for it. I doubt that most people that are diagnosed with malaria actually have it but that is what you get for putting someone not educated properly in a particular position. I am not putting down these nurses because they do a lot and know a lot, but I think many problems are overlooked just because they were not educated to be doctors, they were educated to be nurses.
Laura and my role at the clinic has been a very random role where one day we might be a lab tech testing for HIV and malaria and the next day in the pharmacy counting and dispensing medications and the next sitting with the nurse who is diagnosing and giving injections when necessary. We had a good talk with one of the nurses on Friday where we explained to her that the patients in our village have medications and have no idea how to take them or what they are for so they are in need of more teaching when they are given medication. This was one of the most intimidating nurses in the clinic so it was a bit nerve racking to confront her, but she accepted what we said very well and started more thoroughly educating her patients.

Highlights at the clinic-

*we saw a birth which was conducted fully by one nurse and no one else was in the room except for Laura and I who were merely watching (or more specifically trying not to pass out). I think only words and gestures can fully explain the process, so remind me in person, but in short, there was a lot of blood which just fell onto the floor and sprayed everywhere, after the baby came out it was immediately taken by the feet and hung upside down by the nurse and smacked on the butt to make it cry (for medical people... there was meconium all over the baby so laura and I were fearing that the baby was going to inhale it from crying)and then the baby was placed on a spare bed and left there while the nurse attended to the mother. The mother was briefly brushed off and sent to bed (blood still all over her) for one hour to rest and then she would get up to wash herself up.

*there is no electricity in this hospital

*We brought a girl in from our village with a 105.1 degree fever who was admitted to the hospital and the mother was the one who had to by the IV set and medicine from a local "pharmacy" before she was treated. There is not food provided for the patients so all parents or relatives have to take care of their family member's needs. (the girl had malaria and recovered quite well but it was an eye opening night seeing the process from the patients perspective).

Life in the village has been great. We had a health day today where we screened people's blood sugar, blood pressure, supplied them with vitamins, and gave advice and education where there was need. We found about 60% of the people we tested, had hypertension and only 1 that was at high risk for diabetes.
Tomorrow will be day two of our health day where we will screen those who did not get screened today and then we will also teach on breast health and basic first aid.

Our family we live with here is fine. Vivian seems to be happier with life and starting to fit in with the family more. I think that she may have been confused with what was expected of her and being yelled at for not doing the things that were not clearly stated... which added to the stress of relocating, being a highschooler, and having no biological parents. The other kids are doing great as well and so are Dan's parents and sister. I don't think I mentioned this before, but we live in a house with 11 people total, meaning that there is always something going on.

Tomorrow is a big day. Laura and I were asked today if we could preach in church tomorrow to which we declined and said we would teach the youth instead. So if you could pray for us that would be wonderful, because both Laura and I do not do well with public speaking and then there is a huge language barrier to overcome. After church we are going to do the part two of the health day as explained above, and then the fun begins. WE are having an American Cup futbol tournament in honor of the 4th of July, we will be preparing guacamole for everyone (they have never had it before but to make guacamole for 11 people... it only costs about $1 USD for all of the supplies and they LOVE it), and then finishing the night by introducing everyone to s'mores.

I think this post is long enough but I hope to be able to communicate again soon. Thanks for supporting me through reading this and praying for me!!!

I will be home to tell you all stories in person before you know it.

With love,

Christy

Village life

Hello all!!

I have now been away from Nairobi and in the village living life for 2 weeks... i think it's about time to update. Luckily i am able to use the lap top of the youth pastor that is staying with us until the end of this week because internet access is extremely limited here in the village.

Goodness, how do I even begin to update on what has been going on. Well to start out Kenyans are amazing and welcoming people. Their whole goal is to make us feel so at home that we will not feel homesick or leave. The whole entire village came to shake our hands and drink tea with us immediately upon arrival. They also broke out into song about doing God's work and prayed over us many times. They see visitors as blessings and we are encouraged to go into each persons house just to "bless them" by visiting with them for a few minutes.

For the first week of our stay Laura and I started our mission by doing home visits for people who requested to see us. We have seen many cases of hypertension and arthritis. Our main purpose is education and observation for these people. When they are seen at the clinic they are given medicine and told to take it and go away because they have what they need and are not given an explaination about what they have and what they can do to help themselves besides taking medicine. So Laura and I have been looking at what medications they were given mixed with what their symptoms are and then educating them on what the disease process is and what they can do to help themselves. The fun part about this that nothing is rushed in Kenya. We will sit and chat for an hour before even looking at symptoms and physical problems. So we are having a chance to get actually get to know our patients and when we are done we get to pray for them and they pray for us. Its a pretty sweet deal.

This last week we have been going to the hospital in Nyabondo which is about a 20 minute motorcycle ride from our village. It is different then the U.S. for sure. I sometimes wonder how people do not suffer from massive infections due to the lack of resources and reusing items that should not be reused. The entire hosptial has one doctor and is run almost completely by nursing students. On the ward I am working on, we have between 1-2 registered nurses and 10 nursing students for 20 patients. There is no systematic method of doing anything such as handing out medications that I can tell, but whoever wants to pass meds does. I'm not sure how things are not over looked frequently. Laura and I are a little discouraged working in the hospital because we are not really needed because the nursing students are ample and have a method for doing things that works. But we just got approved to work in the local clinic where I know we will be doing more hands on things because they are extremely understaffed and dont have nursing students like the private hospital that we are currently at.

On the village life side of things, we are doing a lot of mentoring and working with girls of the village. Their main struggle is finding money to pay for their schooling, and if they cannot find this money they are forced to marry early and most likely in an unhappy marriage. We recently found out that is it pretty common for girls to have to have sex to pay for their schooling... which is heart wrenching. So we are chatting with them from time to time about how God views them and his plan for sex in their life, teaching about the consequences of having sex out of marriage, and just letting them know they have value and options other then sex for money.

I also have a little friend named Vivian who lives in my house that has been opening up to me a lot about some serious issues such as the fact that she is 16 and has a kid, she has lost both of her parents, and is very unhappy with life and wants to give up. I dont know what to say a lot of times but I know God put us together for a reason and is having her open up to me for a reason so I would like prayer to know how to talk to her and to be patient with her. I would like prayer that she would know that she is loved and that she does not need to take her own life.


Whew... enough serious stuff. We found out that we didnt properly filter water once and so I might have some worms which im pretty excited about ha ha. Dont worry its easy to get de-wormed. I have almost mastered the squatty potty but occasionally my feet get wet. I have been a little sick this week... but its not unbearable. And I am a pro at taking freezing cold showers out of a bucket in the middle of the night. The nun at the hospital we are working at offered to send 60 cows to America as a bridal price for Laura and I because she does not want us to go back to the states. So... I guess I'm worth 30 cows which is pretty sweet, i think? And we go on safari this weekend, I'm so excited!!!!

Hope everyone is well, you are all in my prayers.

Thankfulness

Long time, no talk, right? We found a internet spot that costs 5 shillings per minute and has a super fast connection speed. FYI 80 shillings is about 1 dollar. We are waiting on dan to run some errands giving us more time to browse the internet.


Yesterday after I posted, we met with some congo refugees in Kenya. Man oh man was that an eye opening experience. We traveled an hour or so on a long bus ride and walked through a street full of roaming goats and chickens and arrived at this tiny blue garage door. There was a smaller door and we walked inside. It was kinda like an apartment complex with community bathrooms. We walked up to the second level and to the end and into the Congonese apartment which was a room the size of my bed room at home, with one large bed and 11 faces staring back at us. This family has been pretty well off in the congo, one was a businessman selling gold and diamonds and the wife was a seamstress when the country went into civil war. This family has 4 kids of their own and has "adopted" three others who were orphaned and also looks after the younger siblings. They just wanted to have some fellowship with us because two of the siblings are over in america and go to Dan and Emily's old church. They wanted to sit and talk to us about their journey to Kenya and then wanted to know about how we got to kenya.
Everything was spoken in swahili so we had dan translate for us. All i can say is that i was holding back tears the whole time. 8 of the 11 actually live in this small room together and 3 stay at their church. I just feel blessed with what I have been given and know that nothing is really secure in this world, one day you can have a solid job and the next, nothing.

Emily is seeing if the woman of the family would be interested in stitching bags for her online store to sell so that they will have some form of profit and potentially can use the profit to start their own business. This is realistic due to the dad's work in business before they left the congo.

We have now been in Kenya for 5 days, our skin is turning dark, I have a small sunburn on my back, and we know a few survival words in Swahili. Kenya and I are getting along just great.

Each day we have been in Nairobi we have gone to town for various errands and to meet with friends. A task that would take an American 30 minutes to an hour to accomplish, takes us an entire day due to limited access to transportation and lots of walking! The city of Nairobi is incredible due to the amount of noise, pollution, dirt, and dense population. We were driving home in a matatu last night and we looked out the window and Emily asked us if it was raining up ahead but Laura and I both saw that it was not the case, smog was just laying like a blanket over the city and making visibility almost impossible. After spending the whole day in the city, we blew black boogers out of our noses for sure!

Today is a national holiday, the day they became a republic. We went to the down town soccer arena and saw the president and prime minister speak. I couldnt tell you what he said due to his thick accent, but it was great to be a part of something the citizens valued.

Here I saw a great example of community that this country has. A small child walked off from her mother in the big stadium and into a large crowd. A few men took the child and turned her around and pointed her back in the direction of her mother. I was relieved to see the community looking out for each other's backs.

Another thing that I am seeing here is hospitality and the ability to give generously even when you do not have much yourself. We are welcomed into friend's and family's houses which are already over crowded and busy and welcomed to stay there for hours and a meal is usually prepared for us. I am inspired to take a lesson from those over here and learn how to give more generously with my time and tallents.

I wrote a large blog yesterday, but the internet crashed when i was publishing it, so this is an abbreviated version. We are heading to the village on Saturday with the youth group and will probably not have access to internet quite so frequently.

With this week our team of Dan, Emily, Laura, and I have done lots of errands but we have started to truly get to know one another and form a great relationship.

I need to go now but I will post again as soon as I have access.
Thanks for reading and praying!

Jambo

Hello all-

I hope this post finds you well. After an extremely long trip, Laura and I arrived in Kenya safely. We were picked up from the airport by Dan and Emily and are staying in an apartment in Nairobi until Saturday. This apartment a brand new apartment that Dan's brother, June, and his wife Lilian live in. There is one more girl staying with us while her college is on strike and her name is Sylvia but goes by the name Sly. The day we arrived and got settled in, we went on a walk through the streets to a near by shopping center. We passed a few slums on the way and the biggest slum in the world is located close by our apartment. Its called Kibera. There are approximately 800ppl/km in this slum. After returning from our walk we watched some Kenyan and Mexican soap operas until dinner was ready, and it was great. After dinner I had my first experience taking a splash shower. The apartment has a shower but the water is freezing cold so Emily boiled some water for me, stuck it in a bucket, and told me to have at it. After the shower, Laura and I crashed for the evening, nested together in one bed sharing the same mosquito net. It was cute and felt amazing having a bed after sleeping on the hard floor of an airport and seats of the plane.

Today we had breakfast and then went to down town Nairobi to run some errands. It rained all day, so we put on our little rain coats and started walking to find a Matatu which is the public transportation here... and the drivers are what we might call "confident" or "fearless". Dan said that drivers generally follow the rules of the roads but the Matatu driver's blood boils and they do everything they can to break the rules of the road and drive fast. No worries, we are all still alive and well! Nairobi is a constant bustle of people and traffic which never slows down. It was amazing. Laura and I were glad we had Dan and Emily to lead us and make decisions for us because we would be completely lost without them.

We are spending our time in Nairobi until next Saturday when a youth group is coming in town and going with us to the village. Our original plans changed due to the amount of rain that is still going on here making traveling even more hectic to and from the village.

Thanks for reading and praying for us. Please continue to pray for safety, health, and opportunities for us to be used for the Lord's will while we are over here.

-Christy