Snapshots of This last Week

Here are some pictures from this last week. It was an extremely busy one, with some big highs and some big lows. Here are some of the highs and a look at some day-to-day life in our clinic and village.

One of my friends, Ruth, recently had her fourth baby. A sweet little girl named Chepchirchir. I had the privilege of helping in the delivery. She had some complications and wound up needing some extra care. Here Ruth talks about how thankful she is for access to good care when complications such as hers arise. I'm bonding with little Chepchirchir.



During lunch one day in town I decided to snap a picture of the very popular lunch plate of chicken and chips.

More than a decade ago our clinic actually originally started with dental services. A dentist from the USA came and taught some of our villagers how to pull teeth under a mango tree. From there, health care has blossomed in Kipkaren. This week a dream came true as we were given a dental chair/unit by some generous caring people with the non-profit Spanda. We will now be able to expand our current services (deep cleaning and extractions) to offer dental fillings as well. We are pretty excited! The chair/unit will be installed early next week.

Unfortunately we see a lot of wounds in our village. Children here do household chores, just like kids in America. Only the household chores in Kenya often involve sharp instruments for tasks like cutting grass for cows, chopping firewood etc. This little boy wacked his finger with a machete. The nurse who was on call had a very difficult time managing him and the wound so she called me for backup. It took nearly an hour to get the wound closed. His mother, auntie, and grandmother were all in the treatment room. There came one point where everyone was yelling while he was screaming and I was sweating! I asked everybody to stop and take a deep breath. I told the boy that we would wait to proceed until he was ready; and if we needed to wait until the sun went down, that was okay with me. The women all looked at me in disbelief. I explained that he needed to know that he had some control in the situation and we weren't just pinning him down to torture him. A minute later he relaxed and gave me his hand. This picture was taken two days later when he came for a wound check. I've refrained from posting the close-up of the finger.

Well that's it for now. We are actually on our way to America for a few months. Yesterday we made the drive to Nairobi, and tonight we fly to London, then on to CA. We would appreciate your prayers for a safe and smooth journey.