Saturday in Nairobi

Hello Prayer Warriors,

I guess you are wondering what happened to the attachment from last night's e-mail. Well I wonder myself. It must be the dial up connection that didn't allow it to go through. If I can post pictures to my blog tomorrow, then I will send a link.,otherwise it will have to wait until I return home. So sorry....

Today we held a medical clinic in Muthiga, a village in Nairobi. After driving up red very muddy, rocky hills and mountains here, I don't think I will ever complain about a road in Maryland again. Pastor Imboumi calls them "bone breakers". By the way, we are at 8,000 feet elevation here. No one on the team has been bothered by it, though.

Each day in clinic is an adventure . We always go in with a plan and know we must be "semper gumby". What is that you ask? It means that things are always changing so we must be very patient and very flexible. But the good news is that through this process God is changing us. He is refining us and will give us a peace about things that used to give us anxiety. We learn to relinquish control to God, our father in Heaven. Today it was the pharmacy again that we had to revise. We were seeing both adults and children and set up 4 provider stations and Dr. Karen G, Amanda-RN, Anna- RN and Hugh-RN saw patients and prescribed medications. I believe they saw over 70 patients and prayed for them as well.

Ariel, Katie and Lauren rotated between registration and taking patient history's and working with one of the providers. Each one of them are growing more confident with their skills and most important to me is the love that I see in them for the people. They are truly sharing the love that Jesus shared with the people. Some removed stitches, treated parasites (intestinal worms), bacterial infections, many skin infections and lacerations just to name a few.

Ed worked and played (and evangelized) with the children and I understand they just loved him. Hazen assisted Diane in the pharmacy, which is one of the busiest places to work here.

Something to behold is the smile on the face of a 46 year old woman, nearing the end of her life (average life span of a woman here is 48 yrs), when she puts on a pair of glasses and can see clearly! We had the joy of seeing that on quite a few faces.

Again today I was "floating" team leader, which means that I took the reponsibility of managing the clinic, medical consultant and floating to whichever station needed assistance to keep things moving smoothly. For those of you who know me well, you know how I multi-task.

At the end of clinic we were treated to African tribal music with drums and chanting/singing which involved clapping and jumping and was very lively! What a way to end a day!

You will be pleased to know that my luggage was delivered to the convent here today. Sister Bonnie sent a paid driver to the airport and he was there for 8 1/2 hrs just to retrieve my luggage! What a wonderful patient man. He made it possible for me to have clean clothes and other things. But you know that God has supplied all my needs through my wonderful teamates who gave me clothes, protein bars to eat, shoes, etc and I didn't even need to go shopping.

Praise God that nobody has been sick We are very strict about what we eat and we treat our own drinking water. Since we have followed this policy we have an almost 0% sick rate.

Tomorrow is the Lord's day and I am excited that we will be singing and Hazen will play his guitar. Hazen will also preach and Ariel will share her testimony. They will do this through a Swahilli translator, which is not always easy. Please pray for the team again tomorrow.

Please send me or the team an e-mail if you can dear family and friends as we are praying for you too daily.

We Love you all and miss you!

May God richly bless you,

Karen (McClure) and the Kenya Team