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.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Thursday, June 3, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
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!
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!
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