01 JUNE, 2000
Subject:
Dearest Friends and Family,
Greetings to each of you in the name of Jesus Christ, the Light of the
world.
Yes, there is light in Maua, but not because of electricity. Our
electricity is truly off 12 hours a day, six days a week, for 6
months. But there is light and the light is from the Light of the
world and has illuminated the truth and surely after so long the truth
is known and is victorious, and indeed has begun to set us free.
On Wednesday 31 May 2000 the "Pastoral Committee" met again. Again
the accusers refused to attend and thus the charges were dropped
against Sr. Mubichi and she will resume work immediately. Well, not
immediately due to safety factors, but she will return. What she
stands for is already present at the Maua Methodist Hospital School of
Nursing and for that we are praising God! The Presiding Bishop will
come next Sat. June 10th for a meeting with all the students and
tutors. Along with that wonderful news, Presiding Bishop is doing all
in his power to stop any interference from the local church leaders in
the running of the hospital or school. They tried to "purchase" a
court order to stop Sr. Mubichi from returning to work, but were not
successful! God is good!
Thus there is cause for celebration and continued prayer. First, let
me thank each of you that have prayed so long and hard for Sr.
Mubichi, the school, hospital, Presiding Bishop, and Bill and I. Your
prayers have been answered. Certainly, we have done some "happy
dancing" since 31 May 2000, but after so many months there are many
areas that need reconciliation. First, we need to shine some light on
the lies that have abounded for so long and then as a community and a
church we need to reconcile and begin to trust each other again. That
will only be possible with God's love and forgiveness and we all need
large doses of both. Thus, I ask for your continued prayers while
praising God for the beginning of the end to what seemed to be a very
long struggle.
I wish all of you could have been in Meru this past Wednesday. I wish
you could have been with Sr. Mubichi and experienced first hand the
type of person she is. She has been such an example of God's love,
strength, and mercy. She has had more lies, hatred, and evil directed
toward her than any person I have ever known, and yet she has
continued to stand for the truth, integrity, and above all, love. To
be with her is inspirational, to work under her is a great privilege,
to be her friend is a gift from God. What a blessing God has given
the school and hospital, the students, and this community. What a
blessing God has given me. We thank God that she has been willing to
persevere and now will resume her position. She has taken all this
grief because she stood up for what is right against leaders who
thought a woman would never dare question much less go against their
evil demands. God is good and we certainly give Him all the praise
and honor and glory.
The street boys program continues to go well. Nine more students (7
boys and two girls) started school this past week. After Abrahim's
success at finding sponsors for the first group, Bill immediately said
we would pay for eight more students if Abrahim could find sponsors.
The speed at which this was done was simply astounding and he found
nine sponsors so we paid for nine students. Ten of the children that
are going to school come daily to the center to receive food. (There
are 20 now that are being fed at the center.) With this nine going to
school there are now a total of 19 in school. We are so excited and
so grateful that we can work with Abrahim and his program. Please
pray for these young boys and girls. Thank you from the bottom of our
hearts and the bottom of their hearts for your help.
This past week, I had my first experience with malaria. In our three
mission assignments (Belize, Central American; Jos, Nigeria; and Maua)
Bill and I have never had malaria though all three areas were in
malaria zones. Since Belize, Bill has not been able to take a malaria
prophylactic due to severe side effects. I took prophylactics in
Belize, Jos and for 9 months here. However, after nine months I had
serious side effects and stopped. We have always felt especially
blessed and though we are very careful, we felt we must have some
natural immunity.
The Friday before last, I awoke with what I assumed was a 24 hour
gastro-intestinal flu. Normally in Maua, anyone with nausea,
vomiting, diarrhea, headache, fever, joint pain, confusion, coma or a
wide variety of other symptoms would be tested for malaria and 98% of
the time would be positive. However, with my history I was not
tested. The next day I felt some better but Sunday I awoke with
severe nausea and was tested and was positive. I finished the
treatment yesterday. It was hard to decide which was worse --- the
illness or the treatment.
I had hoped I would never have malaria, but there is good in every
situation. I will certainly understand better when my colleagues,
friends, and neighbors have malaria. Because it is so common here,
usually people are tested, given treatment, and expected to be at work
the next day. Though I did work all last week, I did find time for
daily naps as I was always exhausted and usually felt sick at my
stomach. I would have happily given up eating but as a nurse, knew
better.
I think at any one time probably at least 1/4 to 1/6 of our staff
would have malaria. The cost of malaria to the productivity of this
country, the number of deaths, especially between the ages of birth
and five years (72 daily in Kenya), the amount of money spent on
treatment, and the physical toll on the human body are enormous. It
is amazing to me what we, humankind, can do in the year 2000 and what
we cannot do, but surely if the countries with the resources wanted to
eliminate malaria, they/we could!
We have had so many wonderful emails this past week from you. Thank
you for your far reaching love and prayers. We can never adequately
thank you but please know our hearts are filled with gratitude and
love for you. In the past, I have tried to answer most personal
emails, but with the electricity outages, I just cannot find the time.
Thank you for understanding!
More light than ever,
Jerri and Bill
You can answer this letter at
savuto@MAF.org
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