Dear Friends and Family,

Warm and loving greetings to you on this Valentine's Day. May you be reminded today of the lover of our soul. The One who is with us no matter where we are, what we do, or what we believe. The One who loves us always.

This is also our one year anniversary in Kenya. We arrived at 6:00am on Feb. 14th 1998. In some ways we can't believe it has only been one year and in other ways it seems we have always been here. We are very grateful that we are here and that you continuously love, support and pray for us. Thank you, you have helped to make this year a growing, exciting, learning, challenging and rewarding year.

Our schedules are becoming busier and busier and thus our opportunity to communicate weekly seems to be vanishing. We will email you as often as time permits. Actually, I have found emailing you very beneficial to me. It helps to share our experiences, difficulties, joys, concerns and especially our prayer requests. What a privilege it is to be bonded together as Brothers and Sisters in Christ and to know that you care for and share with us even when we are 8000 miles apart.

A quick update on the situation here in Maua and the funeral of the man who died in London. Maua is peaceful and slowly but surely the Somali's are returning to Maua. It appears that most people in Maua and the surrounding area realized they needed the Somali people here and generally have been pleased to see them return. There is an undercurrent of mistrust and feeling that the Somali's cause many problems but generally everyone realizes that business is much improved by and with the Somali's.

The funeral took place last Sat, Jan 30, 1999. The Government seemed determined that this event would remain peaceful and sent police and military persons from all around this area. The man who had seemed determined to cause problems was put under house arrest and warned that he would be responsible for any problems that happened. Eight bus loads of university students accompanied the 50 - 60 car processional from Nairobi to Tigania, his home. Generally here university students are enlisted to cause chaos but with the many security forces they were unsuccessful. There was some "chaos" when a miraa truck driver knocked down two people in a town about 15 miles from here (there were to be no miraa trucks on the road that day). But again, peace won out due to quick police intervention. Once the burial happened everyone here seemed confident that the problem was over.

I thought I might share a story that was referred to in the newspaper and is circulating in this area about the death of this man. About 100 years ago when the different groups here were fighting for land and cattle there was a woman from Tigania that did not have a child until she was quite old. She died in child birth but had a healthy son. He grew to be a giant (unusually tall, big, and strong) and able to fight against a large number of the Tigania enemies single handed.

Once after a battle he was injured on his way home when a long, thin, sharp piece of wood punctured his leg from the sole of his foot almost to the knee. Somehow he was able to get home. There he stayed alone.

For some reason none of the people came to help him. His leg became infected and he was dying. He called the entire village to his home before he died. He asked them to bring their weapons as he would bless them before he died. The entire village showed up, as he was highly respected and what he requested always happened. He took all the weapons and laid they behind him and then rather than a blessing he cursed the people and stated they would never have a giant from Tigania again. He then killed himself. In recent years there have been some tragic deaths among "giants" from Tigania. Recently a MP(Minister of Parliament) from Tigania that was becoming quite powerful, though still young, was killed in a tragic accident. A young business man from Tigania that was very successful in Nairobi was found dead in his home. And now this young man died as he was on the verge of becoming the Kenyan "miraa giant". Certainly not everyone believes in this curse or any curse, but there are many people here that believe unless something is done to remove the curse, there will never be a "giant" from Tigania.

Bill is quite busy. He is the Maua coordinator for work teams which takes a great deal of time. Then his work with accounting, general computer fix it man and the computer lab keeps him on the run.

My teaching has started and I am definitely keeping out of trouble.

Almost all my free time is spent preparing classes. This week and part of next I am teaching daily on Intensive Care Nursing and then I teach classes on Teaching Methodology. Actually preparing those classes has helped me be a better teacher, I pray. I am also preparing my classes for Set B, our brand new class that begins March 1, 1999. Thus far I have prepared lessons on Basic Nursing (temperature control, taking and recording temperature, nursing interventions for a patient with an abnormal temperature, taking and recording pulse, respirations and blood pressure, etc.), Sociology and Anthropology, and the Nursing Process.

The nursing process is a problem solving method that is used by nurses to individualize nursing and to make it creative and holistic. Part of the nursing process is to make an individualized care plan for each patient. Until coming here I was not a fan of the nursing process. Nursing care plans seemed like just another thing that took oodles of nursing time away from patient care. However, here I have found it a vital and crucial part of my teaching. When I saw I was assigned to teach 6 sessions on the Nursing Process I had to laugh. But as I was preparing the first session I suddenly had an "Aha!" In the US nursing is patient focused or oriented. Because of the severe shortage of nurses here I realized that the nurses are task oriented. The difference is phenomenal in the day to day care of patients. But this new realization will help me to try to help my students to become more patient oriented while completing the tasks that must be accomplished daily. I don't have a notion how to do this so yes it is a prayer request. I am thankful I understand this and am looking forward to what lies ahead.

Thank you so much for your prayers for my mom and my brother. My mom is in much less pain. My brother's heart converted to a normal rate on medication so he will not need cardiac shock treatment. For both these we are rejoicing and praising God.

"Faith is traveling hopefully rather than arriving."

Continuing on the journey,

Jerri and Bill

You can answer this letter at savuto@MAF.org

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