Advent

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I usually do my best thinking on scraps of worthless paper.  This faded folded piece of red construction paper was tucked in my purse one day a while back when I was taking a lady to the hospital.  Jotting down my observations back then, this is what I pull out today:

A 2^nd hand McDonalds uniform shirt delights and even entices me in the emergency room (called “casualty” here).  A Maasai woman in spectacular bling bling of beads and shiny silver on age old stretched out ear lobes, shaven head, black wrinkled skin like tar-pits swallowing an old dinosaur.  Who will save us from this body of death?

Crowded, quiet, curious, stares at the white lady.  Yes, even I have a body of death too.  We are bound by corruption inherited through our cells and genes and traditions and systemic oppressions. 

Daktari has been blazing bright in his work.  He is alone now.  And the suffering of his patients day after day after day has taken a toll.  He calls them the 20-20-20 club.  The 20 yr old woman with a CD-4 count of 20 (advanced AIDS) and she is typically 20 weeks pregnant: they come in frequently and do poorly.

Who will save us from this soul crushing fatalism that is life in Africa?

Mama said there’d be days like this.

And even Jesus said in this world we’d have trouble.  But here’s one thing that’s True too:  He will never leave us.  So we don’t give up on Him.

Now you know how to pray for us I hope.   I promise to be more merry and bright in the next post.  Watch for it.  Wait for it.  Don’t give up on me either.

November

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I love America. 

I love drinking tap water.

I love living in a Norman Rockwell. Or a Grandma Moses.

I love seasons in America.  Pumpkin season hits us with irony.  For one, we don’t do Halloween and two, just a few weeks ago in Kenya a nameless family member in Daktari’s house requested that we “take a break” from eating pumpkins for a while.  We eat them as vegetables in Kenya.  Not lattes.  We also eat a lot of cabbage.

At least there is no cabbage flavor craze in America too. 

I love Americans. I know how to navigate expected cultural norms and behaviors.  I can read people here  (Not that it takes a rocket scientist to read what many Americans are thinking).   Living cross culturally allows one to engage extra neurons at all times just trying to understand what’s going on.  It’s nice to relax that muscle a little and just sit back to enjoy the show-

Leaves blowing and long shadows, the slanted light at noon and where daylight is unnaturally shortened in one fell swoop of mass confusion called “fall back”.  Even the crickets seem to disoriented as to what time to chirp. Our life on the equator doesn’t get this same kind of seasonal drama and beauty.  We do get beauty, and drama, and seasons of wet or dry, but not this concoction of October in East Tennessee.   Fall used to make me kind of depressive and feeling like something good was going away too fast, but this time it just looks golden.

We have been in the US so that daktari could take an infectious diseases board exam. 

As he studied for it, I made an important non-medical discovery:

My discontent will not be bound by continents.  As a traveler who has lived overseas, there will be dings and dents in my shell wherever I go. In our home culture I carry traits from my host culture, and in my host culture we carry our home culture more than we can even realize.   That might explain why they say that missionaries are most content when they are on the airplane.

Recently we were walking in a pasture at our family’s farm when Little Miss told me “I don’t want to go in there cause there’s cow p**p there”.  Ah ha.  She too will always have an element of discontent.  Perhaps St. Paul learned the secret to being content whatever the circumstances, but I my friends, I have mastered the mad skill of discontent no matter how golden the circumstances.   Walking in fields of gold, Canaan land, our Nahala.  Then bam! Cow poop.  There’s a lot of optimists in the Daktari farm family and they’d say “ah, smells like money”.  There’s a lot of realist in me and I say “Well, it does happen”.

In Kenya I long for things at "home" in America and in America, things aren't all that perfect either, come to find out.

The struggle is to see Beauty that is right in front of us but hidden from view.   

In Kenya, when we go on safari, I always pray for open eyes to see the wonder and beauty of creation, alert to the intricacies.  Sometimes we find the most beautiful bird in all the world perched on bare branches against the sky- the Lilac Breasted Roller.  Sometimes we find a pride of lions camouflaged in the tall grass right beneath our feet.  You don’t see these things by default because only grace will allow it.  And if I pray for eyes to see what beauty God has for me each day, I end up surprised at the amazing interactions with people that I get to have.  In Kenya, a day without relating to people is like a day un-lived.  There is amazing beauty in relationships.

But Beauty is not my natural bent either.  I have to request the grace to find it.  The contrary nature of my heart is not contrite usually.  I am trained to think “yeah, but” as a pre-fix on my responses. Ever since that Fall in the Garden, I've got snake venom in my eye.  I tend to see the bad over the good.  And I have the dastardly pride to feel superior for my critical viewpoint.  Yes, I’m a flop in many departments of my soul. 

But here’s the Good News:  God loves me.  And my heart is being wooed by this persistent Love that is not shocked by my failings nor jaded by my weak recoveries.  I believe that God is neither naïve nor jaded and still chooses to love me.  That is grace.  That is why we are returning back to Africa this week, neither (too) naïve nor jaded (quite yet), and profoundly trusting in God’s love for us to be enough. 

And out of that grace, contentment is born in all circumstances. 

We fly out Nov.14.

Daktari Kids on One Year

saying goodbye last year

Good goodbyes help us make good hellos.

One year ago yesterday we flew away from the homeland.  Everything was awesome.  Until Man-Cub realized this was good bye.  A cousin and grandparents stood there in the new E concourse at the world's best airport watching as we approached the x ray and metal detector  and his heart broke out like a cup of pocket change.  Then we were all in tears.  They waved until we were out of sight. 

And a big metal bird carried us away to the land of our sojourn. 

Man-Cub and Little Miss "Free years old" have been thriving though.  There have been lots of changes and developments in their tender little hearts over the past year.  And (just) one broken arm and two lost teeth.

As they flip and jump off of "Mt. Ever-blanket" on the couch, I conduct a little interview on this past year in Kenya. 
Man-Cub, how long have you been in Kenya?  a year.
How old are you now?  6.  That's sita in Kiswahili.
What is your school like?  I am in first grade.  4 kids in my class.  "Aunt" Erin is our teacher.  She's my best buddy Cooper's mom.
Where is your school?  In somebody's basement, that is the Chupp's house.
How do you get to school?  Walk.  About 30 meters or so.

What do you like about Kenya?
Man-Cub:There is a lot of space to run.  There are some of the same things here like tractors, trucks, and milkshakes and bananas.  But the bananas are sweeter.

Little Miss what do you like in Kenya? Horses!  Horseback riding! And I saw a camel once in Nairobi.  There was nobody on it.  We were in the car but I wanted to ride it.
What else? Books.  Peter-Pan.  Tinkerbell. 
Okay.  What fun things do you do here? Play with Ellie.

What does your dad do?  Go to work.  Eat lunch.  And heal the people.
 Who heals people, Little Miss?  Jesus.
What does Jesus want us to do?  Be kind.

Man-Cub, what is your favorite thing to do here?  Play.
How often do you go outside? Everyday for five hours at least.  We go in the car about once a week.
What do your mom and dad do? Computer work.  And talk to people.
Oh, I see.
What did you do yesterday morning?  We went to a robber boy's house.  He's 7.  His nickname was Osama.  His real name though is Emmanuel.  We talked to him and gave him forgiveness and a Bible.  We told him to call himself Emmanuel.
Anything else? We told him God loves him.  And God is with us.
Were you glad you did that?  Yea.  Cause that's our job to do that cause we are missionaries.

What is something difficult for you here? Something that is difficult is I have to make new friends and leave the others in America.
Is there anything you don't like about Kenya? That there's not many toys to buy cause they break too easily.
Oh, do you think you might run out of toys? nnnn...(laughing) no!
Tell me, where are you going in October? WE ARE GOING TO AMERICA for 2 weeks!
That sounds great. Is your dad taking his Infectious Diseases board exam? Yes.       


So thanks everyone, for praying us through this first year.  We do depend so much on the God Who Hears our prayers.  Please continue to lift us up for protection, mercy, and that the Gospel will be known.  Here is a prayer called "Eli's Song" that was written by Rich Mullins. You can pray it for these kids.  Especially for Emmanuel across the river.

O Eli
There's a sanctity in your innocence

A certain beauty and no uncertain strength
That brings me to the faith
I don't know if I
If I am climbing to or falling in

But it comes like grace from your tiny hands
When I hold you in mine
And I pray that the eyes
Of your heart

Shine bright
With the hope to which you're called
And may you know with all the saints
The height, the depth, the width, and the length

Of the love of God
O Eli
There's a joy in your sweet abandon
Like the cowgirl ballerina

Leaves that ride
The wild and holy bucking wind that the sky
Sent through you to blow away these walls I've built
That leave me free to be a child

And I pray that the eyes
Of your heart
Shine bright
With the hope to which you're called

And may you know with all the saints
The height, the depth, the width, and the length
Of the love of God
O Eli

There's a joy in your sweet abandon
Like the cowgirl ballerina
Leaves that ride
The wild and holy bucking wind that the sky .

  

The missionary kids first day of school. Cinderella is in preschool.

 

 

Daktari wa damu

Welcome back to Daktari Cases.  These cases are NOT Ebola Virus Disease, and there are not (yet) any cases in Kenya.  We rejoice with Kent Brantley and Nancy Writebol in their recovery, and continue to remember those who are suffering in West Africa, and the brave men and women who are serving them.

No, today’s cases are examples of some mystery cases that I’ve seen of late that have ended up being outside my areas of expertise.  Life here stretches beyond your predetermined boundaries in many respects, and here are a couple of stories to illustrate.

John is a 52-year-old man from the other side of Nairobi with a 3-year history of a rash.  This itchy outbreak began on his hands and progressed to involve the entirety of his upper body, trunk, and lower extremities.  He had been seen at many health facilities, given many empiric treatments, and even had some response to topical steroids.  He had also variously been diagnosed with fungal infections of the skin and even leprosy, or a WTDNOS (weird tropical disease not otherwise specified), and that’s how he ended up coming to my attention at Tenwek.

 

After a glance and a gasp, I put on my gloves and had a feel.  A wise dermatologist once told me this, “If you know what it is, you don’t have to touch it.  If you don’t know what it is, for heaven’s sake, don’t touch it.”  Well, I once again ignored this good advice, and through this exam discovered that he had lymphadenopathy (swollen lymph nodes, lumps and bumps all over his body).

So, thinking there must be more here than meets the eye, and assuming it’s an indolent and potentially treatable disease, I rang over to my friends the surgeons to send off a skin biopsy.  “Tissue is the issue,” they say.  Anyhow, it turned out to be a Cutaneous T-cell Lymphoma, otherwise known as mycosis fungoides.  It turns out, since 1806 we have been mislabeling this slow-growing lymphoma as an infectious disease.  And if you’re going to get a lymphoma, this is one of the kinder gentler, and even treatable in Kenya ones.  And the treatment (here): nitrogen mustard.  If that sounds to you like a gas that killed people in trenches in World War 2, I think you’re right.

Our next patient is named Mary.  She is a 56-year-old Massai lady referred to me by my friends in an outlying clinic.  An aside, I get to go out to these clinics usually about one day per month, and it’s awesome: there’s no electricity, no running water, it’s just your wits and your stethoscope, and a handful of medicines.

Back to the story, this lady has a 1 month history of headache, with a pain in her left side “that is growing.”   So, I ask “what do you mean, ‘it is growing.’” At which she replies, “feel this.”  Protruding from the left upper quadrant of her abdomen is a subcutaneous American football.  But I’m not fooled, there’s not a real football in there, this is a massive spleen.  Ah, massive splenomegaly, the hallmark of many tropical infectious diseases.  This is a slide from a really smart guy from Mayo Clinic who taught us in Greece at the CMDA conference.

So, I ordered a complete blood count, and this is what we found.  So, I’m astonished by all of these results.  But most startling is her hematocrit.  We live in a land of chronic anemia, and it’s not surprising to see a patient walk into the hospital with some general malaise and a hematocrit of 7%.  This lady has a hematocrit of 70%.  She has the red blood cells of at least 3 Massai ladies.  This is abnormal.  The disease is called polycythemia vera.  It’s a myeloproliferative disorder (confusion in the bone marrow that makes too many red blood cells, and can be a precursor to leukemia).  And the treatment?  Very high-tech and modern: blood-letting, also known as serial phlebotomy.  It reduces the risk of stroke, the blood gets so thick it stops up the blood vessels in the brain.  So, once per week we are removing a unit of blood and keeping an eye on her blood counts.

These stories are ironic on many levels.  And that’s why this entry is called Daktari wa damu: the doctor of blood.

out of orbit

Do you remember motorcycle carnival rides where all the motorcycles ride around and around making lots of noise and lots of little children feel so happy and tough at the same time?

Bomet, our town, looks about like that except the ride spun out of orbit and all the colorful pleather and chrome scattered everywhere.

Motorbike taxis are a main source of income for young men these days.  They are also the main source of orthopedic patients at the hospital.  Driving a car on the highway amongst them can feel like a bird flying in a swarm of bees.

Sometimes the wind here is so strong that I feel like the whole planet is being flung out of orbit on one of those carnival rides.  Or maybe it’s just on the far reaches of a seasonal eclipse around the sun.

You know, we are just right below the equator so when seasons change we are the reverse of you “northerners”  (Did you ever think you’d be called that? Don’t worry I would never call Georgians and Tennesseans and Alabamians by that northerner term usually affixed to a prefix).

Yes, things are often the reverse of “normal” here.  And we are in the southern half of the world now where People are people through people.  That is, Africa is to relationships as North America is to individualism.  Mother T. used to say “loneliness is the leprosy of the West”.  Poverty of relationships is indeed true poverty. 

So I am indeed blessed and thankful in this upside down place.  While nothing good comes in the news out of Africa these days let me tell you, people here are people because of relationships with people.  I can stay holed up in isolation of the different house we’ve just moved into and try to locate where the heck is the scotch tape in this place- or I can walk 50 yards (45 meters), to the shops and shake hands with 10 people who all ask how I’m doing, how is my home, how are my kids, and where am I going. 

I am thankful for the wildness of an African rain that commands such respect all humanity stops together in our tracks until she passes by.  I am thankful for the beauty of obtrusively orange honeysuckle vines climbing over an otherwise gray stone building. It’s like Tennessee orange wisteria, ya’ll.  And I’m thankful for the stark rainbow of colors that African women wear like a kaleidoscope of beautiful black, brown, and boldness.  I like to see their reactions when I try to wear some of that funkytown.  We could say it’s good for building relationships perhaps.

So wild and out of control, that’s kinda what you hear about Africa isn’t it?  The idol of control is not worshipped here anyways.  Maybe that’s why I like it so much.  Maybe I find comfort in the ambiguity of plans as long as everyone is happy.

Can I ask you a favor?  Will you speak kindly and sincerely to someone in the store or on your street today?  Can you alleviate the loneliness of your neighbor by just showing up in your humanness too?  It might be off your normal orbit, but that could be truly a beautiful and wild ride.

To our readers, please pray for our friend Kent Brantley, a physician living and working in Liberia amidst the Ebola virus outbreak.  He has contracted this deadly virus.  He is a husband and father.

These are stories of tragedies.

Joseph was a young man of 28, a husband and father as well.  He suffered a motorcycle accident and a fractured femur (long bone in your thigh), an everyday story here.  His leg got infected, and when we first saw him, he was hanging on to life by a thin thread.

"There is a stat consult from ortho" I heard walking through the ICU on a Thursday morning.  And then he lost his pulse.  We coded him intermittently for about four hours, buffering in boluses the overwhelming death that was coming.  This young man was a fighter, and despite the failure of almost all his organs, he pulled through the day.

Like clockwork, the organs that failed him returned: he awoke (brain) started breathing on his own (lungs) maintaining his blood pressure (heart) making urine (kidneys) and blood cells (bone marrow).  It was a marvel of the created human body, like a re-do Garden of Eden.  We took this picture to illustrate this moment.

Because we knew he would never walk, the femur was gone, we found this wheelchair, complete with the hand crank, and the tires to handle the African village life.  We put it together in anticipation.

But this isn't the Garden and I warned you that these are stories of tragedies.  After four weeks in the ICU, Joseph was unable to get enough nutrition to rebuild his strength.  Over the course of about a week he wasted away, the will was gone, or was it his strength?  He died on my weekend off.






This is a man named Richard, and his children (all 7 of them).  The setting for this story is about 2 hours' drive off the paved road, a road I got to take because of the work that Katie does with a women's group called Tabitha Ministry.  The backstory is one that I'm all-too-familiar-with from Tenwek.  His wife suffered complications in pregnancy and died giving birth to these twins 2 years ago.  He is a widower, and with his community and with his mother-in-law he cares for these children.




We got invited to a ceremony to dedicate a house given to him by some donors from the US.  Mud and sticks and tin roof and all.  That's me (the white guy) in a somewhat-ridiculous African shirt that the Tabitha ladies gave to me.

The weight of tragedy that we see in everyday life at the hospital is the greatest challenge of living here.  Often I wonder, "what's going to happen to these people?" and without an answer I move on to the next patient in line.  Here's a community, a church, that has joined together to support this man in his tragedy.  We have a great deal to learn about community, about suffering, and endurance, and about hoping in the resurrection.  And these are our teachers.




And so, when we don't know what to do, or what to say, we speak the Good News, that God rescues sinners from death.  We treat the sick with compassion and thus fight an insurrection against the powers of this world: sickness and suffering,  and we plant a little bit of that news in this African soil.

a view from driving by

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 Hiking up a dirt road with motorbikes whizzing by, their loud music flattens out with space.  So to, time and distance make my stories feel flattened like that.  They were too sharp, too dangerous to publish earlier.  So today we have invited some guest bloggers to give you a glimpse of what it looks like to visit Daktari life.  Here's what they have to say:

A few years ago at our beloved home church in Birmingham, Alabama we had the privilege of meeting Mike and Katie Davis—connecting immediately because we both have strong family ties to Kingston, Tennessee—we worshipped together, celebrated welcoming Annie to the world and were sad when they moved to Jonesboro, TN but kept in touch as we could via Facebook.  As our family made a big decision last January to spend a month in Kenya, we reached out to Katie to ask for advice, guidance and prayers as we navigated this mission trip with 3 teenage girls.  Katie was 100% joyous in her response…in fact, her very response was “My first time to Africa was when I was 13, just be ready for them to fall in love with this place!”  Midway through our trip, our family descended into Tenwek—smack on top of this amazing, dear family.  Mike is changing lives, touching families and stretching his heart and brain to negotiate the medical needs, wants, challenges and successes at Tenwek Hospital.  Katie is changing lives, touching families and stretching her heart and brain to negotiate cross cultural dynamics, kids’ lives and now…our unwieldy family.  With grace, calm and welcome, the Davis family absorbed us into their mission lives here.  I’ve posted some on facebook (Rachel Estes)about this rhythm but want to share some here.  To a family with constantly hungry teenagers, I’m noticing Mike and Katie anticipate, savor and celebrate food.  Each bit of food is deeply and intimately connected to someone’s life here.  Joseph is selling eggs to have funds for an orphanage…Amos walks two hours to sell carrots on Sundays for his school fees…every piece of food is a story.  That translates into this family.  If you finish all the eggs on Friday, you need to wait until Tuesday for Joseph to come…what a concept for our American-paced family.  Meals are about relationships and connecting…savored and enjoyed.  If there is something from this whole mission that we bring home to our house, I pray it will be this anticipating, savoring and celebrating of food.  I’m watching Katie connect in the community through ministries that have her driving far away on bumpy dirt roads…bringing the Bible story (yes, the WHOLE BIBLE) to a gathering of women on a Saturday morning-she helps connect the neighborhood kids with activities, she weaves people together to strengthen the community and she does it with beauty and God’s love.  Driving us out to an orphanage today, Katie spent her own time and energy making sure that our family had a very Kenyan experience.  Mike comes home for lunch with prayers of joy and of sorrow for those whom he serves at the hospital.  He knows their stories, their families and despite many sad moments, he sees miracles. 

Mike and Katie, Josiah and Annie are having their hearts broken and widened by all they are experiencing here…they are changing lives…those they serve and their own.  What a blessing for this community and all future communities in which they serve this family will bring.  Below are three reflections from my daughters:

We went to the hospital to check out what is going on there, there were many sick people there and we saw all the doctors and nurses working diligently to help each person.  Every day Mike comes home and tells us what happy, crazy, or sad thing that happened that day. While Mike is working day AND night to help the residents of Tenwek hospital, Katie is working to keep the kids happy. Yesterday the whole neighborhood was over at her house and she managed to keep all the kids engaged (which did not look easy!) and she seemed calm the whole time. They both work really hard at their VERY different demanding jobs and still come home to their kids with a big smile on their face.

-       Lydia Estes (12)

I have loved getting the amazing opportunity to spend time here in Tenwek. Learning their amazing way of life, from their great relationships with their community, to their always-helping hearts and hands. I have loved getting to help many parts of Kenya, so it was fun to see another side of Kenya in a more day-to-day lifestyle. It was really cool just to see what its like to live in Kenya. I am truly blessed to have gotten this experience with this great family.

-        Isabel Estes (14)

Today my family and I went to an orphanage in rural Bomet. When we first got there some of the kids were lined up to shake our hands and greet us. We then got a tour of the place and almost everywhere you looked you had an amazing view of the land and mountains. My two sisters and I each shared a scripture verse with the kids. After all this we went outside and played with them for almost two hours. I played volleyball with some of the older kids which was really fun while my parents were turning the jumprope for some of the younger kids. We then went down the road a ways and had chai with the pastor who ran the orphanage and his family and we talked about the joys and challenges of running an orphanage. He then invited us to go back tomorrow and play volleyball at the high school where he taught.

                                                              -      Virginia Estes (16)