Onto Kisumu

We just had a great visit withe Martha and Al Fleming in Nairobi! What great hosts they were! Laundry, real washer and dryers! Hot showers, great food and conversation in an amazing setting, and powerful worship in a small congregation. Nairobi was a great stop for us thanks to them. We have traveled onto Kisumu where Danny's friend has a clinic. It was a long bumpy bus ride to Kisumu! On the way here, we witnessed much of the burnt out stores, houses, and churches from the uprising after the election. It was quite sobering to see. We also observed communities of IDP's, internally displaced people who are living under plastic sheeting supplied by the UN. Not enough shelter for this chillier rainy season that Kisumu is now experiencing. Once arriving in the city center of Kisumu it was exciting to see crowds of people selling and buying in the market, out and about with their businesses and operating normally again after so much strife. The news is filled with the struggles of a coalition government trying to pick a cabinet and make this new constitution work. People here just want peace and for their politicians to work this out in a timely manner so that peace is possible. The clinic that Danny's friend, Dr. Bonyo in Akron built with the help of Ohio University is located 6 km off the main road in the middle of the village where Bonyo was raised. The clinic is named in memory of his mom, Mama Pilista Bonyo Memorial Health Center. It is a structure just waiting for furniture and supplies. We hope to be working at the clinic for the next couple of weeks.
The organization we are currently with is called Care-Kenya. Check out the link below and see what it is all about. www.care-kenya.org

Church in Nairobi, Kenya

We went to church with the Flemings. They are a part of a small church that is held in a ten year old kindergarten mission center that is run by a Japanese mission couple who are also the pastors of this church. It is an interesting combination. They have partnered with a Kenyan pastor and the congregation is made up of about 100 people, Kenyan children (their main goal for reaching), Kenyan adults from a variety of economic classes, ex pats from America and Ireland, and Japanese families, quite diverse! It was great. The music was great with an overhead projector and piano. We were in a small room. All spoken in English. One of the announcements and prayer requests was that a group of teenage boys requested that the church start a youth ministry and that there would be a meeting after church to discuss this idea! After church we participated in fellowship with tea and bread and then I went to the youth ministry meeting! It was great. There were about 20 kids in attendance and another group of about 7 young adults who were also interested in forming a group. I shared ideas and asked the youth questions about what they wanted in this youth ministry. It was GREAT to be talking youth ministry again. I thought I was done with that call on my life, but I am not. It still gets me excited to talk to the teens here who are not very different from teens in the states. When they went around and introduced themselves some where shy and awkward, others were outgoing and smiley, just like Mentor youth They need your prayers in helping to get a youth ministry started in their community. These kids need a group to belong to, many live in the slums with many temptations for living a different life other than Christianity surrounding them. The five boys who grew up in this church, live in the slums and walk to church without their parents and want to know more about Jesus and how to make good choices.

On to Kenya

We have stayed in Tanzania much longer than we anticipated. We were
truly blessed by our stay there but it was time to move on. As I
write, we are on a bus to Nariobi, Kenya where we suppose to start
this year of African adventure. We are being hosted by Carol
Chenoweth's family who work in Naibori wiht USAID. Carol is a member
of Mentor UMC who made me a great bag out of African fabric that I
have been using on a regular basis. The political unrest in Kenya has
been settled and we are going to travel to Kisumu to see the clinic
that Danny's friend and colleague Bonyo has started. We hope to also
visit a UMC mission at the Maua Methodist Hospital.

We ended our time in Tanzania in the Moshi/Arusha area where we were
hosted by Mwimbe's family the Kamm's. They were amazing hosts and
more friendships were made. We spent three days on safari with more
photos than are reasonable to post on our blog. But now, back to our
purpose for travel, visiting mission sites and discovering the need
for aid work in Africa.

Mt. Kilimanjaro

We ran into this, Mt. Kilimanjaro, on the way to safari and Kenya!

Final Days in Mvumi

Kathy preached again this week, twice! Palm Sunday is one of her
favorite Sundays and she preached in the morning with a translator and
then in the evening to the secondary school who all speak some level
of english, so no translator. Kathy was very energized to be
preaching and doing a form of youth ministry again. Here are a couple
of photos.

We have left Mvumi, Tanzania. It was not easy to leave new friends
after six weeks of working and living with people. As you can tell by
past blog entries, we have loved our time in the village of Mvumi and
working with the hospital staff and other people and missionaries in
the community. The hospital has been frustrating at times, a full
learning experience. We have built friendships that will last a
lifetime as well as friends we may never see again. In November of
2007, the Anglican Diocese here in Tanzania had a day of prayer for
Mvumi Hospital. People have shared that they see our being here for
six weeks an answer to those prayers. Tanzania has been an answer to
our prayers as we changed plans in early January from Kenya as our
original destination and point of entry for Africa. As we move on we
will head to Uganda, via animal safari and possible Kenya. Let the
adventures and the prayers continue!

Women in line for vaccination of new babies at Mvumi Hospital.
Someone coming by "ambulance" to the Out Patient Department at Mvumi Hospital.

Preaching in Africa

Here is a photo of Kathy preaching on Sunday. It was a three hour
service, started at 10:00 and finished at 1:00! About 5 offerings,
tons of dancing and singing that was wonderful! Drums and guitars
hooked up to car batteries and speakers, the time really did go
fast! This was Kathy's first time using a translator. It seems to
have gone well! Kathy is scheduled to preach again on Palm Sunday
morning at the same church, St. Andrews Anglican Church in Mvumi and
that same evening for the Anglican Secondary school in town.

Our Mvumi Experience

It has been very interesting working here in Mvumi. We are learning
much about how to run a clinical program. Hopefully we will learn
from some of the mistakes others have made. Danny and I have said all
along about this year, that we will hopefully be smarter about how to
start or run or rehab a clinic. We hope that it will be true. It has
already been an exciting two months. As great as life is for us to be
in Mvumi, it is hard for the local people to live here. People are
working hard in the fields, carrying and drinking not so clean water,
and hungry people are relying on the weather for food. People work
hard to live here and they live in basic shelters without running
water or electricity. Local people live in mud houses with either sod
or tin roofs.

Kathy has been working in the office with the payroll. People at the
hospital are living on between $2-$15 a day, paying taxes, a form of
social security, and even saving money through a program that the
hospital provides. Housing is provided by the hospital for their
employees. The patients, the people in the village are making much
less, depending on selling in the market and odd jobs for employment.
There is good news. There has been a reduction in malaria because
more people have mosquito nets.

Kathy is excited to be preparing for preaching this Sunday, March 2nd
at an Anglican church in Mvumi. She is also going to be preaching at
a youth service on the evening of Palm Sunday, March 16th at the Mvumi
Anglican Boarding School here in the village.

Danny meeting with a patient at Mvumi Hospital.
Danny teaching the clinical officers/medical students.
Our house in Mvumi, Tanzania.