Dear friends,
Thank you for your continued prayers for our Kenya go-ers. Praise God that all of the team members are well! The team has many blog entries ready to share, but the wireless connection and the electricity have been problematic in order to upload them. Please be patient; they are saved and will be forthcoming.
The following information was communicated through phone calls from team members:
*On Friday the team cared for 500 people
*Saturday is the final day of the medical clinic
*On Sunday the team will worship with our sisters and brothers in Kenya
*Their days have been exhausting but grace filled
Prayer requests from team members are:
*continued protection, stamina, and joy in their ministry
*open hearts among the people they serve and that Jesus is honored in all that they do
*for mercy and understanding for the people they will have to turn away on Saturday due to time constraints (hundreds of people have been showing up beyond what they can see).
The photo of people waiting in line was from Casey Peters, who is a nurse from Dover, NH. She is a member of the LCMS Mercy Medical team serving with our 5 go-ers.
Praying with you,
matthew beish
Friday, June 13, 2014
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Wed June 11
First off we’d like to thank everyone for all your prayers! We are so blessed to be in in Kenya and we truly appreciate all our senders!
Secondly, thank you for your patience with the blog, Wi-Fi and electricity are spotty to say the least and although we try to post daily, we are often limited by things outside our control.
The last two days have been exhausting, but also very exciting. Every day is an adventure in Africa: yesterday the bus got stuck and we all walked the next mile to the clinic. But since we began our clinic, we have seen over 500 people! There were over 100 more people waiting for treatment today, and they have reservations to be seen first tomorrow morning. We’ve seen everything from asthma attacks and gangrene, to malaria and infected ulcers! HIV testing has also been made available to anyone desiring it and it has been a highly sought after test. Recently we’ve been supplied with additional medications and drugs, which has allowed our providers to treat more patients and allowed the pharmacy to distribute more medications to the patients who need them most.
It took us a while to get in the flow of things, but our team has made tremendous progress and the flow of the clinic (from vitals, to triage, to the providers, and finally to the pharmacy or treatment area) has vastly improved. Our team as a whole is very unified and we gather for daily prayer, song, and devotional after dinner. The team covers a lot of age groups, yet everyone interacts with everyone else and the members of OSLC have really made some great friendships!
Hank has been the team “bouncer” as people in line like to cut. Kyle has been doing vitals. Dr. Butler and Marie are making diagnoses and performing treatments on the necessary patients. Lynn has been very effective working in the pharmacy.
Thanks again for all your prayers and support! Please pray for the health of the team as a few members (none of whom are from OSLC) have had some nausea and fevers. Also your continued prayers for our evangelism efforts at the clinic would be much appreciated! We love you all and thank God for you!
Sincerely,
Marie, Katie, Lynn, Hank, Kyle
First off we’d like to thank everyone for all your prayers! We are so blessed to be in in Kenya and we truly appreciate all our senders!
Secondly, thank you for your patience with the blog, Wi-Fi and electricity are spotty to say the least and although we try to post daily, we are often limited by things outside our control.
The last two days have been exhausting, but also very exciting. Every day is an adventure in Africa: yesterday the bus got stuck and we all walked the next mile to the clinic. But since we began our clinic, we have seen over 500 people! There were over 100 more people waiting for treatment today, and they have reservations to be seen first tomorrow morning. We’ve seen everything from asthma attacks and gangrene, to malaria and infected ulcers! HIV testing has also been made available to anyone desiring it and it has been a highly sought after test. Recently we’ve been supplied with additional medications and drugs, which has allowed our providers to treat more patients and allowed the pharmacy to distribute more medications to the patients who need them most.
It took us a while to get in the flow of things, but our team has made tremendous progress and the flow of the clinic (from vitals, to triage, to the providers, and finally to the pharmacy or treatment area) has vastly improved. Our team as a whole is very unified and we gather for daily prayer, song, and devotional after dinner. The team covers a lot of age groups, yet everyone interacts with everyone else and the members of OSLC have really made some great friendships!
Hank has been the team “bouncer” as people in line like to cut. Kyle has been doing vitals. Dr. Butler and Marie are making diagnoses and performing treatments on the necessary patients. Lynn has been very effective working in the pharmacy.
Thanks again for all your prayers and support! Please pray for the health of the team as a few members (none of whom are from OSLC) have had some nausea and fevers. Also your continued prayers for our evangelism efforts at the clinic would be much appreciated! We love you all and thank God for you!
Sincerely,
Marie, Katie, Lynn, Hank, Kyle
A Belated Monday June 9
I am typing without my glasses. Bear with me.
We had a great day today, (Monday) learning the set up we will be dealing with tomorrow. We met the beautiful children at the school. We had a chance to walk around in the village and meet some of the people. Being a gardener I was very interested in the crops being grown. The people here plant corn and beans together (just like our native people). Women were shelling beans and finely chopping collard greens. I told the woman that collards are extremely healthy. At least in this area, it appears that people are able to grow enough food to sustain life. The soil and weather both seem to cooperative with that.
Tomorrow is the first clinic. Right now it looks like I will be helping in the pharmacy. Marie and Katy were reviewing the medicine list. I did recognize a few things, having given them to my cats.
Lynn
Today (Monday) was a very exciting day as we prepare our first day of clinical work tomorrow.
We will be basing our work out of a few spare classrooms at Luanda Doho Primary School. After meeting the school's principal, they held an assembly for us, during which they greeted us with an original "welcoming chant." Than after introducing ourselves, the entire school (700 students) walked single file to shake all of our hands (some of them even double-dipped). Never in my life have I hugged as many people in one outing as I did in Bolivia and never in my life have I shaken as many hands as I did today in Kenya (I don't know if I'll ever break that record again).
After that heart-wrenching and hand-aching experience ;) we traveled in groups through the nearby neighborhood sharing the gospel, inviting people to the clinic, praying for them, and simply enjoying fellowship together! It was a very nice experience as all the locals were overly inviting and gracious with allowing total strangers into their homes. One family we met had the team pastor pray over their son who has experienced numerous seizures so far in his three years of life and we were blessed in our opportunity to pray for his life.
I am typing without my glasses. Bear with me.
We had a great day today, (Monday) learning the set up we will be dealing with tomorrow. We met the beautiful children at the school. We had a chance to walk around in the village and meet some of the people. Being a gardener I was very interested in the crops being grown. The people here plant corn and beans together (just like our native people). Women were shelling beans and finely chopping collard greens. I told the woman that collards are extremely healthy. At least in this area, it appears that people are able to grow enough food to sustain life. The soil and weather both seem to cooperative with that.
Tomorrow is the first clinic. Right now it looks like I will be helping in the pharmacy. Marie and Katy were reviewing the medicine list. I did recognize a few things, having given them to my cats.
Lynn
Today (Monday) was a very exciting day as we prepare our first day of clinical work tomorrow.
We will be basing our work out of a few spare classrooms at Luanda Doho Primary School. After meeting the school's principal, they held an assembly for us, during which they greeted us with an original "welcoming chant." Than after introducing ourselves, the entire school (700 students) walked single file to shake all of our hands (some of them even double-dipped). Never in my life have I hugged as many people in one outing as I did in Bolivia and never in my life have I shaken as many hands as I did today in Kenya (I don't know if I'll ever break that record again).
After that heart-wrenching and hand-aching experience ;) we traveled in groups through the nearby neighborhood sharing the gospel, inviting people to the clinic, praying for them, and simply enjoying fellowship together! It was a very nice experience as all the locals were overly inviting and gracious with allowing total strangers into their homes. One family we met had the team pastor pray over their son who has experienced numerous seizures so far in his three years of life and we were blessed in our opportunity to pray for his life.
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Medical Clinic Update from Tuesday via a phone call from Katie Butler
Dear friends,
The Kenya Mission team is having trouble with internet connections and therefore has not been able to post many photos or blog entries. Please pray that the internet will be more consistent so that they can post updates.
Katie Butler called her husband Scott today and relayed the good news that the team members are healthy and well.
The Kenya Mission team is having trouble with internet connections and therefore has not been able to post many photos or blog entries. Please pray that the internet will be more consistent so that they can post updates.
Katie Butler called her husband Scott today and relayed the good news that the team members are healthy and well.
Today (Tuesday) was the first day of clinic. You learn to expect the unexpected on mission trips and the 8:00 a.m. clinic opening became an 11:00 a.m. opening as the vehicle they were traveling to the clinic in became stuck in the mud! Though many pushed and tried to fix the situation, they eventually abandoned it in favor of walking the rest of the way (someone rescued it later that day).
The team registered about 350 people today, but because of the late start, saw at least 300. Diagnosing was hard given the limited equipment and a lot of conversations were focused on providing instructions as to where to go for care and what type should be sought out. Later in the day, they also made house calls to pray with people.
As for the team, everybody is doing well and she marveled how God has brought together the perfect group, cohesive and contributing in wonderful and varied ways. She has had a fitting sidekick in Marie, working to see patients together. Kyle was taking vitals, nonstop all day. Lynn has been a multi talented resource, even jumping in to free the van from the mud! And Hank remains a rock, bringing order to chaos in managing the inflow of people.
For prayer requests, she asked for stamina for the team and prayers for those being seen, many who are very sick and in great spiritual need.
Thank you for praying for our Kenya go-ers! Please continue to pray for them and for all the people that God will bring into their paths this week at the medical clinic.
God bless you all,
matthew beish
Monday, June 9
We had a great day learning the set up we will be dealing
with tomorrow (Tuesday). We met the beautiful
children at the school. We had a chance to walk around in the village and meet
some of the people. Being a gardener I was very interested in the crops being grown. The people here plant corn and beans
together. Women were shelling beans and finely chopping collard greens. At least in this area, it appears that people
are able to grow enough food to sustain life. The soil and weather both seem to
cooperate with that. Tomorrow is the
first clinic. Right now it looks like I
will be helping in the pharmacy. Marie
and Katie were reviewing the medicine list.
I did recognize a few things, having given them to my cats.
Thank you for your prayers for our team and our brothers and
sisters here in Kenya,
Lynn
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