Greetings from Kenya

We finally arrived in Kisumu yesterday morning!  And, although from a logical standpoint, this city should seem unfamiliar in every way, my heart can’t help but feel that there is a strange, but welcomed, familiarity to it. Perhaps part of it is the Kenyan culture, so welcoming and hospitable.  And perhaps another part of it is that I was meant to be here for this exact moment. 

Straight from the airport, we were able to go to one of the local churches for Sunday service.  Although the majority of the first half was in Swahili (so we were not able to understand what was being said), the music and dancing touches and lifts your heart in a way that few other things in life do.    I am very much looking forward to next Sunday.

From there, Desmond (who is an incredible long-term missionary from Ireland that leads the Care & Compassion ministry, caring for the those infected by HIV/AIDS) and I went to the hospital to visit the patients that Christ’s Hope sponsor there.  Nothing could have prepared me for the conditions that await these patients, at a government sponsored hospital none the less.  It is extremely dirty and there are just rows of beds in each room and, because there are not enough beds, many of the beds have 2 people to a bed.  Some of the patients are even sharing beds with others that have contagious diseases, which could potentially infect their bed mates (this can be a huge deal when their immune systems are already suppressed  because of  HIV/AIDS).  And then, once a patient is admitted into the hospital, the doctors and nurses will only take care of their medical issues (and this isn’t always a certainty) and will do nothing to provide for the basic life needs, like bathing them, feeding the patients that can’t feed themselves, or taking the ones that can’t walk to the restrooms.  They rely on the family and friends to take care of them while they are in the hospital, and unfortunately, many do not have family members to take care of them… leaving them alone and unattended, and eventually discharged because of it.  And, unfortunately medical care is often times very late.  We were able to visit one young man, Otino, twice yesterday and the second time we saw him, his health had decreased rapidly.  We were able to pray, plead really, for God to perform a miracle in this man’s life and to provide a continued strength for his aunt who had been taking amazing care of him.  We found out this morning that it was not in the Lord’s will for Otino to stay with us here on Earth, so our prayers now have changed to those of comfort and peace for his aunt.  It’s heartbreaking to watch and to know how common Otino’s story is here.

But, the amazing thing is that there are so many glimmers of hope in the midst of the darkness.  His light can be seen shining out of so many situations, like the women that tirelessly stay by their loved ones’ sides night and day to take care of them, or the ones that are there to take care of their loved one but are willing to jump in to take care of another patient that they don’t even know, simply because they do not have anyone to care for them.  We see His face in the children, smiles beaming, running up to us just to wrap their tiny little arms around us.  And He was there today, in the dozens of HIV positive patients, many crippled, speaking of God’s overwhelming love and their thankfulness for each day that He provides life for them.  And the joy, how I wish you could all experience the joy beaming out of them as they speak of His goodness.  I was reading in Psalms 34:4-5 this morning and could not help but smile as they talked, because it was such a perfect summary for so many of their testimonies:

I sought the LORD, and he answered me;
   he delivered me from all my fears.
Those who look to him are radiant;
   their faces are never covered with shame

These are people that have relied on God to help them overcome the societal shame and stigma that HIV has in this area, to admit that they are sick and to begin to take their ARVs meds (for HIV) so that they can live.  And radiant is the perfect description of these wonderful people!

On a lighter note, one of my new favorite locals, Dennis, took me and a guy from Germany, Jonathan, to the Market today. Boy, what an experience that was!  It is a huge market with small little booths of people selling fruits and vegetable everywhere!  And, since there are not  very many mezungoos (white people) that come through there, everyone wanted to greet us and shake our hands and the children were either so excited to see us or had a surprised look on their faces like they had no idea what to think of us.  In fact, I walked up to one little boy to say hi and he ran to his mom crying because he was so scared of me! I asked one of the guys standing nearby why he was scared and he said because he’d never seen a mezungoo up close.  We found out later that sometimes the parents will tell misbehaving kids that the mezungoos will eat them if they are not good.  No wonder they were terrified!

As I had suspected and mentioned in my last post, both days so far have been filled with both a heaviness at the heartbreaking stories and events we are experiencing and a joyful celebration at what God is clearly doing here.  I expect that the rest of the trip will be like that as well.  Because of that, it does take a bit of digesting and does make it slightly difficult to put these experiences into words, but  I will try to write a couple more blogs while I am here so that you all can experience a part of this as well. And hopefully pictures will be on their way too!  In the mean time, thank you so much for your prayers for these Kenyan people.  We can all feel them and know that they are making a big difference.