It is hard to believe that two-and-a-half months have passed since our last e-mail update. Whoever came up with the bumper sticker "No Hurry in Africa" must not have lived in Nairobi!
I am glad to report that we have survived the appendicitis season! Both Rebekah and Mindy have fully recovered from their appendectomies. Unfortunately, the medical emergencies continued taking on different forms:
One of our Turkana families had to leave Kenya and start their furlough early when the wife developed severe abdominal pain. She also flew in to Nairobi for tests which were inconclusive. Please remember Kathy Ham and her family in prayer.
One morning before heading out the door, we received a phone call from Gary & Judy Woods as they headed to Nairobi Hospital. Gary was due to teach in a Maasai village later that day but only got a few kilometers from their house in Karen when he had an accident on his motorcycle. His elbow was pretty much shattered with one bone fragment breaking through his skin. Suzie and I spent the day at the hospital with the Woods as Gary's arm was examined, x-rayed, and as a surgeon was consulted. We were glad that we were both in town so we could be there to support our colleagues and friends. (It was Gary & Judy who sat with Suzie through Rebekah's surgery in March while I picked up Lauren at school.) Gary and Judy need your prayers through Gary's long period of recovery and physical therapy as the bones mend and he slowly works to regain use of his arm.
* As we worked to set up our CMF Office in a new location, I noticed one of our Kenyan friends, George, was not his usual cheerful self. When I asked how he and his family were doing, he revealed the source of his despair. His younger brother, David (in his early 20's), had an abrupt change in mental status and was suddenly hearing voices telling him not to eat because someone was trying to poison him, etc. The family brought him to a Catholic mission hospital where they ruled out cerebral malaria and other potential physical causes of his illness. The hospital recommended David be transferred to a small mental health hospital not far from our new office. The Gichina family was without means to settle the $50 bill with the mission hospital let alone pay the deposit of $200 required for admission to the mental health facility.
They needed a miracle, and despite the fact that we had an office to move, I felt this was an important test of priorities for me. The office move could wait a day or two. I wasn't so sure that David could. I helped the family move David to the recommended hospital, and he was seen by a capable Kenyan psychiatrist.
Many tests and a CT scan later, he was diagnosed with brain atrophy caused by organo-phosphorus poisoning. David is a university trained veterinarian who deals with chemicals as he sprays animals with insecticides. He also is exposed to harmful chemicals when he sprays the crops on his family farm by hand. He was put on some anti-psychotic drugs in hopes that they would help him return to normal as his brain slowly recovers from its injury. Within a week, he was showing significant improvement. He will likely need to continue taking meds for his condition for at least six months, but his prospects for recovery are good. Please pray for David that his brain would heal so that he can live a normal life. The Gichina family is a strong family of faith in our Lord, and they are giving God the glory for answered prayer. And George, a skilled carpenter and plumber who is helping us get set up in our new office, has his spring back in his step!
Other answered prayers include:
The arrival of our brand new Landcruiser AMBULANCE for our clinic system! Please join us in thanking God for this generous gift provided through the Muskogee Morning Rotary Club, Muskogee, Oklahoma. Our friend, Dr. Tim Holder, persevered through several years of fund raising and red tape to make this a reality! Thanks also to several churches who helped the Rotary Club reach its goal. We also appreciate Rotary International's generous decision to match the funds raised by our friends in Muskogee.
We have indeed moved the office and are settling into our new location nicely. It took awhile to get the phones working so we didn't have to keep running up and down stairs to answer the phone! Thanks for your prayers as we made this move.
Thanks to your prayer support, I have survived the test of my first weeks as field business administrator. And I thought I had a lot of e-mail to keep up with before! It has been a crash course including visits to government offices with requests to renew work permits for CMF personnel in Kenya. I feel the weight of the new responsibility of keeping up with the myriad of details necessary to provide for the ongoing functioning of our field team of about 14 families and individuals in Kenya. Summer is an especially busy time as the number of field visitors and interns increases dramatically.
Our interns arrived in good shape on June 5th after the long flight to get here. They came with great attitudes and an eagerness to participate and learn about medical missions. Suzie took them on a week of intensive training while visiting five of our eight clinics to launch them into their summer experience. They will spend several weeks of the summer on their own working together as a team under the supervision of our national partners who keep the clinic system up-and-running.
We are blessed to have a dear friend and supporter, Jan Taylor, and her cousin, Teri Youngblood, here visiting us for a couple weeks from Tennessee. They have been great sports as they squeeze into our Landcruiser with nine other people for a rough bush drive! Jan and Teri have been encouraging, and their presence has prompted us to take a few days of "off" time together enjoying the sites of Kenya.
Items for Prayer:
- Please pray for wisdom as we balance our roles and make tough day-to-day decisions about when to intervene and when to acknowledge our limits. This is really one of the most difficult things about life here. There are so many desperate needs all around us that we cannot begin to respond to them all.
- Please pray for David Gichina's continued recovery. (And, let me know by return e-mail if you would like to help with his hospital bills. To be honest, we are financially stretched to the limit right now both with our field budget and our personal resources. In faith that God will provide and convicted that this was 'the right thing to do', we have put nearly $1,000 into his care.)
- Pray for our interns that they would stay healthy, function well together as a team, learn to lean further on God, and get a better idea of our Lord's call on their lives.
* And finally, would you pray for Suzie as she prepares to participate in a short-term mission trip to assess the needs in Kabul, Afghanistan? Southeast Christian Church asked Suzie to join a team of doctors from around the USA on this two-week trip beginning about the 21st of July. Southeast is providing Suzie's airfare. This will be the church's third trip to offer humanitarian medical assistance in an effort to step through the open door which now exists in a previously closed off country. Suzie and I are convinced that God is opening doors to broaden our view of the world. In our first ten years here, we did not step foot outside of Kenya! (except for stateside furloughs) The girls and I will stay in Nairobi. I will continue with the CMF office and see that our interns have a good finish to their summer.
Thank you for your prayers which empower and sustain us as God hears and answers each of your petitions and praises on our behalf.
Your Grateful Partners in Christ,
Dave & Suzie
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