Leaving Kenya

It is hard to believe that my time in Kenya is coming to a close as I leave on Sunday to come home. The week has been packed with excitement and a lot of emotions. I had the privilege to visit somany children and parents in the hospital, witness the incredible workof the surgeons, and enjoy the wonderful hospitality of so many here in Kenya.

I believe that what we are doing at St. Vincent is making an incredible impact on the work at Bethany both financially and also from a support perspective. They are so encouraged that students, parents, and teachers are so involved in their work.

This trip would not have been possible without the support andecouragement of a lot of people. The staff of St. Vincent have been behind this project from the start and their work with the students really got this project going. Their professionalism, talents, and commitment to their faith has allowed me to be out of the school for such a long time. The parents of our community continue to humble me with their genorosity. As soon as I mentioned the trip, everyone started to ask: "How can I help". All of the gifts have been so well received. To the students of St. Vincent - your words, actions, prayers, and support continue to inspire me and I hope you know how much you have inspired the doctors and patients here in Kenya. I have told them that you will continue to pray for them. Our Director ofEducation, Mr. Paulter and our Oakville Superintendent, Mrs. Tessari, have also provided tremdous support to allow this to happen. Finally,and most importantly, I thank my wife Sarah and my daughter Fiona whoI have missed terribly while here. I can't wait to see them.

I am down in the Masai Mara right now for a quick safari to end the trip. As everyone says: you can't go to Africa without going on safari! I will be taking photos of as many amazing animals as I can.

I look forward to seeing everyone next week and sharing more storiesthan I was able to post on this blog.

Sincere thanks to everyone for following the blog. I may post fromNairobi airport on Sunday if I can.

Exciting and Turbulent Times

Each time I post I recognize that I am reporting on conversations that seem to be going in many directions from Bethany Kids itself and the medical work taking place there, to the opportunities to expand through the education of local surgeons to practice around Kenya and East Africa (and possibly beyond), to the suggestion of the takeover of a hospital in Mombasa to set up a satellite clinic, to the discussion about Joytown and the improvements that are required there, to the expansion of the existing facilities at Bethany which is associated with Kijabe Hospital.

I understand that this sounds like a lot of different directions in which it is not possible to go everyone at once. However, as I sit around the table, join these groups on tours and visit the hospital, I am in awe of the inspiration, dedication, and the creativity of ideas that are shared. The partnership between IF (spina bifida hydrocephalus), Samaratin's Purse, Africa Inland Missions, etc. spark interesting ideas about how to improve care and make a larger impact on the children here.

Bethany is coming to a point where change is necessary in one way or another. As I mentioned in my previous visit to the ward, children and mothers are occupying every available bed in every room and hallway. Increased capacity is required to service these children from all over east Africa: Kenya, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and possibly beyond. This may come in the form of an expansion to the existing facility to add more wards and beds. The problem there is that the building and land is actually owned by Kijabe Hospital and not Bethany. Another option is the purchase of land and the building of an autonomous facility. That requires more than simply money.

Expanding the capacity by using other hospitals such as Mombasa is an option to alleviate the overwhelming numbers. The takeover of Joytown could also provide another medical location attached to the school so that children can receive medical attention and schooling during the rehab process. There are many options and they are all being explored. The reality is expansion is required in order to continue to meet the needs. Careful consideration and evaluation is on-going. From this perspective, it is an exciting time for me to be here to take part in the discussions, especially the ones involving schools and education.

Thank you for your on-going prayers of support.

Somalia and Bethany

Somalia is the country immediately to the north of Kenya along the Indian Ocean. In fact, you may recognize the name of the country as coming up in the news a lot recently with tankers being hijacked and driven up to Somalia. The country has been involved in a bitter war involving rival clans since 1991. Fighting has involved one clan against the other as the UN has attempted to intervene on many occasions brokering peace deals and power sharing between the clans that have worked temporarily before war erupts again. The capital of Somalia is Mogadishu which has been a battleground for a long time. The movie 'Black Hawk Down' is set in the streets of Mogadishu. The country is widely recognized around Africa as the most dangerous place on the continent.

Because of the on-going wars, many people have been forced from their homes to escape the fighting and end up in refugee camps. Refugee camps as places to seek refuge from the fighting and many people have been living there since 1991. The close proximity of Kenya to some of the camps has meant that many Somalis have ended up in Northern Kenya. The reputation of Bethany Kids as a place for medical intervention for children means that many Somalis have come to Bethany seeking help for their children.

Currently, 40% of the children and parents at Bethany Kids are Somali. Somalia is a country in which 99.9% of the population are Muslim. When they come to Bethany, they know that they are coming to a Christian hospital for care. While some Somalis at Bethany are tolerant and respectful of prayer as Mercy makes her rounds, we witnessed others who did everything they could to disrupt prayer. We were visiting one ward in which there were two Somali women, a Somali man, and a Masi man. The Somali man was very kind and accommodating when it came time to pray, but the two women started shouting at each other across the room in order to disrupt prayer. Mercy tried to show one of the children the bible and the child recoiled from it as if it were diseased as the women shouted. One woman would not shake my hand and stared at me with daggers the whole time I was in the room. In another ward, as soon as prayer began, one of the Somali women picked up her mobile and started speaking in Somali as loud as possible.

Mercy told us that this is quite frequent, that they want to disrupt her, but she carries on. Her message and mandate is simple: continue to love and care for everyone. When the women and children go back to their camps or Somali, at least their experience with Christians (for many of whom it would be their first time ever meeting a Christian) would be one of caring and love for them and their children. Though the Kenyan government adds a small amount of money to medical intervention for Kenyans, the doctors operate, treat, and rehabilitate the Somalis without any money whatsoever because the children need the care.

Many of the Somalis also object to having their photo taken because they feel that the capturing of their image is stealing a piece of their soul. Though some Kenyans feel this way too, Mercy told us that this is something that is less and less a belief of the people.

We met some Somalis who were very willing to speak with us and their English was good. One man named Al Kadir Ali Mou'hed and his daughter were in Bethany as his daughter was recovering from an operation to repair her club feet and other internal difficulties. He was very willing to share with us his experiences of living in a refugee camp and caring for his disabled daughter having been there since the war broke out in 1991 along with stories about life inside the camp and the tribalism that went along with that. He said that despite world views, the United States is highly regarded within the camps as trying to help the people of Somalia while the EU makes applications for refugee status difficult. He also shared his gratitude to the doctors and staff at Bethany and to the people of Kenya for opening their doors to them so his daughter could receive the medical attention she needed. Al Kadir Ali Mou'hed also shared his dream to one day make it to Toronto. The city of Toronto has the largest population of Somalis outside of Somalia itself. The next biggest Somali population in North America is Minneapolis Minnesota. I found that interesting.

We spoke with another Somali woman who was so delighted that her one month old was being given the treatment he needed. We talked at length about Toronto again, as she has many relatives living there. As a displaced person, she also said that she dreams of one day ending up there with her child.

I have some photographs attached of the Somalis I met at Bethany who agreed to be photographed. Some of the photos are just of the children because the mothers did not want their picutre taken but were happy to have their child's photo taken. I was able to take pictures and immediately share the image on my digital screen with them which they usually laughed at which was fun.

Photos from the Operating Room

In the Operating Room

Dr. Patey and I were invited into the operating room to witness some of the surgeries that take place. While I appreciated the invitation, I must admit that I wasn’t sure about witnessing first hand. However, I accepted and before I knew it I was in blue scrubs from head to toe with a mask across my face (yes - that's me in the scrubs in the photo above holding the boy's hand). Dr. Bransford was performing the surgeries that morning. We met him in the operating room as he reviewed the day’s caseload and prioritized each surgery. We were allowed to take photos, some of which I have posted here.

We went into a post-operation recovery area first (ironically) where children were having their bandages re-dressed. The surgeon has to take part in this process though so three children were brought into the room crying. The nurses were amazing at calming them down and getting them prepared to have their issues addressed.

The first girl whose bandages were re-done was the small Masi child who I told you about in a previous post who had her feet amputated after a fire. She was calm and really cute as the doctors removed the bandages and re-dressed her leg which really did look quite good in my non-medical opinion. The next child we attended to I actually got involved with. This young man suffered from a fairly serious burn that affected half of his face, shoulders, and arm and had been at Bethany for over two weeks so this re-dressing was another of many that have taken place in between. As Dr. Bransford cleaned the boy and prepared him for another bandage, he started to move around because of the discomfort. Dr. Bransford asked me to come over and hold the boy’s hand as he continued. The boy gripped tightly onto my hand and I rubbed his wrist with my thumb as they worked on him. I talked to him as best I could while Dr. Bransford worked, but I don’t know if he only spoke Swahili because he didn’t respond. He did, however, calm down and relaxed enough to allow the doctors to finish his new bandages. As he was treating the boy, Dr. Bransford told us a story of a man and another boy from Nairobi who was in Bethany recently. The boy had suffered a similar burn from a fire but he had gone without any medical treatment of any kind for 6 weeks before he arrived at Bethany. While this may seem neglectful, the man simply could not afford to take his child to the hospital because he didn’t have any money. Eventually he heard about the work being done here at Bethany. He took whatever money he could and brought him in to the hospital. This is such a foreign concept to us in Ontario with our health care coverage. There is health care here in Kenya for as little as $5 a month for situations requiring hospital stays, but even that is out of reach for many people.

The third child we attended to was a young girl from Mogadishu in Somalia. She was having her leg cast removed so it could be re-treated and then re-cast. The doctors were able to remove some of the damage to her leg that had been caused by a missile in the Somali capital. We had met her and her father the day before. They are the ones in the photo with me that I posted yesterday.

Dr. Patey and I then followed Dr. Bransford into the operating room. The surgery we would witness was on a young infant girl with spina bifida. I had never witnessed a surgery before first hand and saw all of the prep that goes into preparing for such work. The girl had a growth on her lower back from spina bifida which the surgeons were going to work on. I could go into more detail about the specifics of what they had to do, but suffice to say the result was incredible. The growth was quite large when the child was wheeled in but by the time the surgeons were finished, it was reduced significantly to the point where besides the stitching, it would be barely noticable.

Spina bifia does sometimes also mean neurological difficulties because of the swelling on the spine and all of the nerves that run to our brain go up the spine. However, when treated early, while spina bifida cannot be ‘cured’, the surgery can prevent it from getting any worse and progressing any more. In most of these cases, the child can go on to lead normal lives with minimal disruption and discomfort. I don’t know how the child who we witnessed today would work out, but from what I saw and from what Dr. Bransford suggested, it was a successful surgery.

I didn’t anticipate getting the opportunity to witness surgeries and get into that part of the hospital but I am grateful for having done so. It really put a perspective on what the surgeons do for the children. I was grateful for the perspective on the wards with Mercy, but seeing the doctors at work really put the whole experience in perspective. I had the chance to visit with many children and parents on the ward to get to know them personally, then also had the privilege of witnessing how the doctors do their work.

Obviously getting into the operating room was a huge privilege (Dr. Patey said he never gets into the OR at the hospital he works at in Kingston!) and the invitation was extended because the doctors were so moved by the support and encouragement of the St. Vincent community. They send their thanks and best wishes!

Gifts from St. Vincent

As you can read in my post below, Mercy was so grateful for the crayons, books, markers, bibles, etc. Here are a few shots of the Canada paddles which were quite a hit in one of the wards!

St. Vincent’s Gifts for Bethany

About half way through our visit Mercy took us to her Chaplain’s office to pick up some crayons for the children. She told me that she was down to the last of the crayons and colouring books which the children love and showed me the small woven bowl in which broken crayons were strewn. “There are no more green crayons” she said. “I’m not sure why...” We had already agreed to meet again in the afternoon because I had told her that I had a few things for her for the children at Bethany from the St. Vincent community. She was not prepared for what I would late walk in with.

I hauled all of the items that so many members of our community had given me in the weeks leading up to my departure into one large woven bag (the kind of bag that would hold firewood or coal). I separated the colouring books into one bag, the pencils, erasers, markers, and sharpeners into another, books for reading into another, balls and paddles into another, the games, and the small copies of the New Testament written in plain language and 16 CDs of the New Testament that had been read and recorded that I brought over in my suitcase and packed them all carefully into the large bag. I hauled the bag down the red clay path to the main road and along the road into the hospital to meet Mercy. I am so thankful for the fact that the hospital is downhill from the house I am staying because the air is so thin at 7300 ft above sea level that exertion takes the breath away!

I met Mercy and we went into her office and I unpacked everything in front of her so that she would know what everything was. The look on her face when I started pulling out the books and balls was incredible. She put her hand over her mouth and watched as I kept reaching in and pulling out new things for the children. By the time I pulled out the 25 packs of crayons that I brought over, her eyes welled up with tears. She claimed that the arrival and timing of these gifts was a miracle of sorts because she didn’t know what she was going to do as they ran out of everything. She talked about putting her faith in the Lord though as the provider and saw our contribution as another example of being provided for when needed most. She was delighted by the Canada stickers, pens, and paddles (which were a huge hit on the ward – see the photos attached!), and was really thankful for the pocket sized versions of the New Testament and the CDs of the New Testament being read aloud. I signed the inside of every book and bible: To – Bethany Kids, From – St. Vincent Catholic Elementary School, Oakville, Ontario, Canada, Date – Nov. 19th, 2008.

I have some soccer balls that have been earmarked for the local school which I know are going to be a huge hit. Soccer is massively popular here in Kenya and I am delighted to report that here in Africa, Arsenal is by far the most supported Premiership team. I just had to mention that. Thank you so much for all of the contributions of the generous gifts for these children. It meant more to them and to Mercy who has dedicated herself to caring for them then we could have imagined when we started to collect a few things for me to bring over. The good thing for me is despite a few items I’ve purchased for my wife Sarah and Fiona, my suitcase is going to be very light coming home. It will be a big change from being personally responsible for three suitcases with ventilators, drugs, and children’s items on the way over to bringing back one half empty case. Please see the attached photos of some of the children holding onto the Canada paddles Mercy gave them. They really were a big hit!

I put up two posts with photos so don't forget to scroll down after you've finished with this post to read about my trip around the hospital with Mercy, the Hospital's Chaplain.