K E N Y A A F R I C A

Dear Friends and Family,

As I sit at our computer, it is pouring rain outside. The rainy season is fully here with rains not only at night but on and off all day. Many of the rains are very, very hard and throughout Maua town there are standing pools of water. I'm sure the number of patients we see with malaria will increase significantly.

I'm back supervising students on the medical unit. Right now I have four senior students that are preparing to do their ward management Kenya Council of Nursing assessment. It has been a great challenge to help the students understand the breadth and depth of management. I also am supervising 4 students in the Outpatient clinic which I find extremely challenging. Along with that I have been busy invigilating exams for Set Z, grading exams for Set A and writing exam questions for Set A and Set Y.

Bill had thought he would begin working with Glory Mwenda in the accounting office this past week, working on a computerized payroll system, but there were so many other things that had to be accomplished first, he will begin Monday. To his great distress, the two computers that he thought were fixed in Nairobi do not work here. He has spent much time trying to sort that out. Please keep him in your prayers.

This past weekend three medical students from Ireland (they come here as part of their training and work at the hospital) went home with one of the nursing students, Kuranga. When they reached his home, about 25 Km from Maua, they found his 14 year old brother so ill he could not stand up. The boy had been coughing, having night sweats and fevers for several weeks. For the last week he had been unwilling or unable to eat. The family did not have money to bring him here. The medical students immediately brought him to the hospital and paid for his admission. Everyone felt like he would improve and do well. That was Sunday. On Mon. his condition deteriorated and he went to surgery to have a tube placed in his lung to drain the fluid. Tuesday afternoon around 2pm he died. The school was called to tell his brother, Kuranga. Florence Mubichi, the Principal Tutor, called the Chaplain and they told him. Kuranga was completely devastated and as he sobbed he kept saying "it's poverty that kills us, it's poverty". How true that is. Poverty and the utter lack of resources makes life so difficult and death so easy.

Fri. was the burial. The family usually leaves the body in the morgue, if there is one, until arrangements can be made. Friday the family hired a Land Rover to bring the wooden coffin that had been made and to pick up the body and transport it to their village for the service and burial on their land. Traditionally, people meet at the morgue and pray for the family and the dead before the body is taken. Thus at 11:30am many of our students and all the nursing school staff met at the morgue and waited for the vehicle and then for the body to be dressed and placed in the wooden coffin. After the coffin was placed in the vehicle, the chaplain began to pray. It began drizzling as we all stood silently in the tall grass. It was a very long prayer. When it ended Kuranga and the friends that had accompanied him and his best friend from here got into the Land Rover to return to his village. One tutor, one student, the chaplain and the administrator drove in a hospital vehicle to attend the burial on our behalf. The vehicles had red ribbons tied on them to signify that they were transporting the body and family and friends. The students and staff had donated money to help with the funeral expenses (the cost of the morgue, hiring a vehicle, buying or making the coffin and then feeding people who attend the burial). How I wished I could have donated money for him to be seen by a doctor weeks before rather than to help his family bury him. The lack of resources in this area is staggering and the effects are enormous. How can we as Christians make a difference. I don't have any answers but I hope you will join me in praying about this.

The next day I went to early morning report on the medical unit. After report we were making rounds on the male unit and all the trained staff wanted me to see one patient. A 32 year old man that had come in with cerebral malaria, a bleeding ulcer, and anemia and who everyone thought would die. He had been unconscious for days, vomiting blood, running a fever as high as 105 degrees. Each nurse told me a story of how she had cared for him and had worried or thought he would die in the next minute. The day before he had awakened and was able to talk, his fever had broken and he was no longer vomiting blood. Each nurse told me how thrilled she was and how good God was. Certainly, this was a miracle. As I stood listening to the nurses and watching this patient, I found myself thinking about Kuranga's brother, who was in the bed next to this man.

Later that morning I heard a great deal of laughter and shouts of joy on the male ward and I went to see what was happening. The nurses were getting this patient up in a chair and they were all so delighted. As I walked onto the unit they motioned for me to come quickly and see that he was up and doing well. Their joy was amazing to me. Over and over they praised God for this miracle. As I stood in their midst I too was overwhelmed by joy for this man. I realized that these nurses who literally see death almost daily are much more attuned at looking for miracles than I am. My sorrow over the death of Kuranga's brother was not allowing me to see any joy. I am so grateful to the three nurses on the medical unit who helped me to re-focus my thoughts and actually experience joy in the midst of sorrow.

Joy and sorrow. To balance both and find ways that honestly help people to over come the poverty and lack of resources that they face daily. The disparity between the haves and the have nots is too great.

The peace of God be with you,

Jerri and Bill

You can answer this letter at savuto@MAF.org

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