Generations Part 1

    Returning to Kenya year after year has been such an interesting blessing.  My first trip was in 1992 with my parents, sister, and her future husband.  It was as far out of my comfort zone that 13 year old me had ever been.  I didn't particularly "enjoy" it at the time, yet upon arriving back home, I was keenly aware that I missed it already.  It was as though the first little bit of my heart was divided and deposited for future interest.  In a beautiful coming-around saga, the now 18-year-old daughter of my sister and her husband was able to join us for her first visit to Kenya this summer.  She did much better getting out of her comfort zone than I did on my first round.  She brought her guitar and led us all in singing praises to God (and a little Taylor Swift sometimes too). 

    We also were honored with the gift of another family member on this trip- Michael's dad! Someone graciously pointed out the unique situation of us having 3 generations together.  We are grateful and encouraged by his willingness to go and endure with us.  

    The first 2 weeks, Michael and his medical resident were working at several rural Maasai clinics he had never been to before.  The director of these clinics is a wonderful Maasai friend named John Sankok. He told us that they were able to serve 334 people in that time.  One patient in particular stands out as a case to share.  She was a girl with Rheumatic Heart Disease.  The early diagnosis at the rural clinic will afford her the opportunity to treat this disease with medicine monthly.  The treatment does not just affect her heart for now, but Lord willing, it will allow her heart to function properly when it is time for her to have children of her own.  Too many young women go untreated for RHD in Sub-Saharan Africa and the loss of life is often doubled in pregnancy.  Simple penicillin might allow this girl and a future generation of her future family to praise God too.

                                        below: the clinic staff at Mara Rianta CMF health clinic

                                

              below: a realistic danger for the clinic staff walking home from work here- a resident elephant is the evening traffic jam you don't want to get caught in

(she makes it very difficult for farms and gardens to keep fresh vegetables growing)

The Mara River:

 

 Below:: Daktari's one medical lecture if he could give just one to the Tenwek trainees-         Antibiotic Stewardship

   I arrived in Narok with the family for one week and then we migrated to the next county to visit Tenwek Mission Hospital for only a few days of inpatient hospital rounding and teaching.  Mainly we just wanted to reconnect and visit.  In just a few short days, we felt so very blessed by the old friends there who welcomed us back "home" and made us feel so much seen and loved.  Someone once said, "We all enter the world looking for someone who is looking for us".  Here at Tenwek we feel very much "looked at" by our community ("seen" is a better way of saying that, but it depends on the day if we feel looked at or seen) Sometimes we wish that nobody was looking at us or for us, for that matter.  But for this time it was a big blessing.  We not only felt seen but felt like we can also see things more clearly here.  

    The girls called their experiences "eye opening".  I was delighted to have open eyes for some of the generations of new medical staff that have risen up in the past 10 years.  We had Kenyan medical students and interns in 2013 and 2014 who are now bearing so much fruit at Tenwek by heading up the new oncology department, now practicing daktaris, training in surgical residency, neuro-surgery even, and carrying on as the attending medicine consultant for the inpatient medical wards.  We have no words but thanksgiving and praise to God for all the evidence of His faithfulness to all generations, especially to our 3 generations this summer.