CHURCH

Today at church not only did we both get asked to give an impromptu testimony, but I was also asked to teach Young Women's!

I did get some pictures though and a short video.






A year or so ago we ordered some CTR ("Choose The Right") rings for geocaching, but I was glad that I had them instead to give to the Eldoret branch as even the Nairobi distribution center does not have everything. Can you see his CTR ring?

Insights into Persecution

We were sitting in gospel doctrine the past few weeks and talking about the persecutions in Missouri and I start to think about how to explain to Kenyans about what the persecutions must have been like when one of them pipes up that, "Yes, that is like when we had elections here in Kenya in Dec. 2007 ......

Then I think, maybe they understand this part of history better than I do.

We had a discussion the other night where several Kenyans told us about their experiences during the 2007 violence....

See http://www.alertnet.org/db/crisisprofiles/KE_VIO.htm

*this blog has been edited for personal safety.

Another day at work in the hospital

Today we have another 42 year old female with cough, hotness of body (fever), headache, stomach ache, diarrhea, and altered mental status coming from an endemic area for malaria, a family member has tuberculosis, we suspect typhoid or meningitis or pneumonia or malaria or tuberculosis or leishmaniasis (leishma-what??) or another infection of some kind, we have a done a lumbar puncture which was negative for meningitis, an x-ray which is negative for pneumonia, blood smears which are negative for malaria, sputum tests which are negative for tuberculosis (by the way, none of which tests we trust the results to truly rule out disease), we are treating with the only two antibiotics we have available in the hospital (one of which is generic and thus may be produced in someone's garage and may not contain any antibiotics at all), the patient is getting worse and may die any day now.

Dr. S., what do you think?

(Uhhhhhh) Good job, let's move on to the next patient.

Alright, the next patient is a known HIV patient with no immune system at all who presents with ....

Where We Live

We live in the servants quarters which is a one room...um...room, I guess. It is behind the carport of one of the houses. There is a bed and a desk and a chair and a a couple of shelves and, well that's about it.



Our bathroom is 3 by 4 feet, you can shower on the toilet, and you have to go outside to get to it.

Our shower is heated, of course, but only if you run the water very slowly through the showerhead water heater.

We live in a complex of four houses all occupied by the IU Kenya Program, with another 7 houses nearby also all occupied by the IU Kenya Program.




We have a pool at one of the houses nearby but it has been 60 to 70 degrees and rainy most days.

We all eat lunch and dinner together in a big mess hall and kitchen attached to one of the houses. We also have fireside chats in the front room of one of the houses.



We are not far from the hospital and the church is a little further away but reachable by a 30 minute walk.

The main downtown area is just past the hospital.

By: the Bear