Sunday began, of course, with church. This Sunday was the last Sunday at the original church. Next week we will launch “Jerusalem”, which is the name of the new church plant. I love to watch Kenyans worship. They are so filled with joy, as they sing to the Lord, dancing all the while. From the oldest to the youngest, all were involved. The children were especially excited by our presence, as they ran to say hello. They have this mix of shyness, but never wanting to be more than a few feet from your side. They won’t always look you straight in the eye, but they’ll eagerly grab your hand or jump in your lap.
About an hour and a half in (though it hardly felt that long), the children left the main church to go outside for children’s church. Elijah is the name of their teacher, and he’s an amazing young man, with an incredible heart for the Lord and a wonderful way about the kids. Most kids don’t have bibles, so Elijah tells them a bible story and then he has them recite verses so they can memorize. Each week he gives prizes to kids who remember the lesson from the last week. The kids are excited to learn the bible. They memorize, recite, and eagerly want to tell back the story (though I’m sure the prize helps, ha, ha).
When bible time was over, we simply played with the kids, maybe 50 of them. They were eager to play our games and we quickly became human jungle gyms. As we began to walk toward home, they all followed as if we were the piped piper with a sweet song. Even the littlest followed along for about a mile, not wanting to be left behind. With almost no worldly treasures to their name, these may be some of the most loving and happy kids I’ve ever met. Kids are just kids, anywhere in the world, no matter the poverty. They just want to give and receive love… and play. 🙂
Our matatu (van) came to collect us and we joined the adults at the site of the new church. I only wish I had the bandwidth to upload photos of this beautiful place. I can’t image anyone seeing a view like this and not feeling the awe of a creator God, eager to bless his children with the world’s beauty. We prayed over this holy place, in both English and Swahili, and then prayer-walked the entire perimeter of the property. We asked that God would protect and bless this place and all who enter there.
The last hours of daylight were spent again with many beautiful children who followed us back to camp. There’s John and Joseph, Lucy and Sarah, Mary and Julius, and a handful more. Again how I wish I would share photos of these precious ones. You’ll have to stay tuned for that. 🙂 But we played soccer with some beach balls and just horsed around. We sang songs together until dark and then ended the day looking together at the millions of stars in the Kenyan sky. There are serious perks of no electricity! It was an extremely busy but wonderful day.
Today, we visited the school in the morning and held clinic in the afternoon. About 130 kids attend Camp Brethren School. We joined them as they were receiving their porridge and taught them lessons and a craft. We can’t say enough about the wonderful teachers, dedicated to caring for and teaching these children. They do an incredible job and are a true gift. Andy and Kelly stayed behind to learn more about the school and how they teach while the rest of us headed back to clinic.
I was again impressed with the quality of the Camp Brethren Clinic in spite of so many limitations. The pharmacy is currently quite stocked with a healthy variety of treatments, and most of the tests you’d require for basic primary care can be done onsite in the lab. We got to hear a great deal about the maternal child health program and its tremendous progress in the last two years. Mary, George, and Peter worked their magic caring for patients, while Francis and I dispensed drugs, and Cindy and Phil got a chance to talk to many of the waiting patients. Cindy and Phil set out to share with the patients about Jesus, but it quickly turned into the patients sharing with them all God had done in their lives. The new found faith of this community has completely transformed it. We heard from patients and staff about the impact that Camp Brethen’s presence has had on their lives and their community.
I spent the greater part of the afternoon, conducting my clinical assessment. This place has so much potential and is well on its way. Mary’s dream is that it someday may evolve into a substantial medical center in the area. To many, access to care is entirely a transportation issue. Many will walk an hour just to the clinic. Navasha or Kijabe, where there are more sophisticated medical facilities (at least by Kenyan standards), would be impossible. The growth of this facility will continue to bless this community.
At the heart of the clinic is the maternal child health program I mentioned a few paragraphs ago. Over dinner we had the opportunity to talk to Peter, who for two years has specialized in this area in Eburru, as part of a community health outreach program sponsored by Kijabe Hospital. He shared with us that 80% of women deliver their babies at home, primarily because until the new maternity ward at the clinic opened, they had nowhere else to go. Due to lack of education and care, it is common that babies will not even make it to their first year. However, in the past two years, the education provided by this program has dramatically changed those odds. Women are taught everything from nutrition, to basic child care, to breast feeding, and how to identify if their child is ill. So many things we take for granted as common knowledge are foreign here, simply because women have never been told. They also use these opportunities to get mamas to bring in their other children, their husbands, and learn about other things such as HIV prevention and contraception. A healthier Eburru is beginning through this program.
However, the challenge is this: Kijabe Hospital has reassigned Peter elsewhere. The passion he feels toward this program was evident in every word, but he only gets to Eburru now on rare occasions. George and Mary have tried to pick up many of these responsibilities, but each with other full time jobs, this quite difficult. This is why we’ve been trying to raise money for a full time nurse. This nurse can be onsite and on-call for emergencies (like the motorbike accident that pulled Mary out of bed last night at 1AM) or for routine care like the maternal child health program.
There are two things changing Eburru right now… a growing faith in Jesus and Education. Seems pretty logical… and so very simple. Your support, be it prayer or funding, is helping this to happen. An entire community is being transformed. I’m excited to be a part of it. Are you?
I guess I’ll close with a challenge. Not all of us are called to Eburru, but each of us is called somewhere. How are you transforming your community, the lives of those around you, today? Everything in Eburru is changing because of the dream of one couple and 14 people from Northern Virginia. Don’t get stuck in the monotony. Big or small… have a dream… and go make it happen.
With that, goodnight from Eburru. Love you and miss you all!
Anjanette (and the team)
