Jambo

This is a rare privilege. I'm getting to post on the blog, which is normally Kristen's area. I guess that my number of future blog posts will depend on my performance here over the next two weeks. We'll see how it goes.

Because of a break in language school for the month of December, Kristen and I made the tough decision to spend the month apart. She will be staying to continue tutoring in Spanish, while I spend the month in Kenya. We felt that it was a good opportunity to serve some very needy people during this holiday season, and a chance to keep up my surgical and clinical skills until we can get started in Peru.

Last Sunday I arrived in Nairobi after about a 30 hour travel time with several stops along the way. It was quite a trip. I met up with my younger brother Will at about midnight in the Nairobi airport where we were picked up by our friend John, a missionary ophthalmologist who has been working in Kenya for a little over a year now. We were all pretty exhausted and spent a quick night's sleep in a small motel before getting on the road towards Bomet, a small town about 3 hours northwest of the capital city.

Bomet is home to a wonderful mission hospital called Tenwek. The work at Tenwek started in 1935 with a physician named Dr. Ernest Steury. It is now a 300 bed hospital that serves hundreds of thousands of Kipsigi and Masai people in the Rift Valley Province.  They many different medical specialties here, and the eye department was started in 1997. Dr. John Cropsey is currently in charge of the eye clinic while his partner Dr. Ben Roberts is on HMA in the US.

Since arriving, John, Will and I have been very busy with clinic and with surgeries. We have seen a wide variety of patients, and have done many different types of operations. We are grateful that the Lord has allowed us to restore vision to many who have been blinded by various diseases. We have done cataract surgeries, glaucoma surgeries, corneal transplants, pediatric eye surgeries, and a variety of trauma surgeries.

The patients have also heard presentations of the gospel, and we have begun the morning with hymn singing several times already (mostly in Swahili). I have learned a lot from John and his team of assistants and nurses. They are all wonderful. John is a talented surgeon, and a very encouraging brother in Christ. I believe that this will prove to be a very valuable experience to have had as we begin to set up eye care in Peru.

It will be hard to be away from Kristen during Christmas this year. This will be our first Christmas apart since we got married. We surely don't plan to make it a pattern, but it is good to remember that we have a Savior who knows our struggles, and who has experienced all of them and more. He has been our comforter. He knows separation and loneliness, and he experienced them for us. Even though we can't celebrate together, we do celebrate this Christmas, and praise God for the unspeakable gift of his Son.

On a final note, please pray for a 13 year old boy named Vincent. I just saw him today and he has a severe blinding disease that has been destroying his eyes for 2 years now. It is very advanced we are going to do everything that we can, but he will need a miracle to save his vision. Thankfully we serve a God who gives sight to blind men. We pray that he will do it again here for Vincent.

Pictures from the week (sorry if a few of them gross anyone out):

Front gate Tenwek Hospital

Operating Room

Post-operative ward

Seeing patients in clinic

Operating with Joyce

One of our corneal surgery patients

Corneal scar

Corneal transplant after surgery

Blinding white cataract

Cataract gone, new lens going in

All finished