Sunday Jan 2, 2011

Jambo Rafiki,
That is hello friend in swahili.  We send Happy New Year Wishes and hope all of you are now recovered from your big New Year's Eve events. Katie and I forgot that it was even New Years eve while we were traveling until one of the flight attendants asked Katie if she wanted a coffee just before landing in Nairobi so she could be nice and awake for the partying to come. We heard some fireworks off in the distance but were too tired to even stay up until midnight. So we will say Happy New Year on another night that we stay up until midnight later in the year or we will watch the ball drop on our video from 2006 ( i put that in the for the Rauschs who laugh at our celebrating new years any time of the night we want with our video).
We are just back from Kenyan Church service. It is a 2 hour service that is very festive with lots of singing and movement.  We were particularly excited that the first song we sang was from Revelations service at Spring Valley Pres- How Great is our God!  It was fun to know the words by heart and to sing loudly, being drowned out by the even louder Kenyans.  It reminded me how we are all one in Christ- that here we are on the other side of the world singing the same songs about our God.  We then sang a number of songs in Swahili with lots of clapping and motions. We caught on quickly- just like doing the Electric Slide if you are not from the South. The sermon was about Sanctification and then we had communion. They sang Lord Make Me a Sanctuary which also reminded us of home.  Katie went off with the one of the mission moms who we met for breakfast to help out with Sunday school for the 4 and 5 year olds. She commented on how well behaved the children were and that they taught about Jesus birth since this was the first sunday they had class since Christmas. 
Later today we are going to walk down the hill to the entrance of the compound and take some photos that we hope to post so you can see this unique place.  It has changed some since we have been here- they have built a new operating room (they call it the operating theater) and the old operating room is now used for upper endoscopy as they have now a permanent gastroenterologist. This is really helpful as there is so much esophageal cancer here compared to in the US. They think it is because the Kenyans mostly cook on charcoal fires and the fumes seem to be toxic to the esophagus. The other new building is for a CT scan machine but it is not up and running yet, still in boxes. So for now we just have plain xray. 
The biggest two changes since being here in 2006 are that almost everyone has a cellphone- and i mean everyone. The cell service is so cheap here that even though most of the natives have no running water or electricity they have cells. They walk to churchs and schools to charge them.  The other is that many natives now have motorcycles- they put 3-4 people on them at one time, often little children. So you can imagine that has really increased the number of orthopedic injuries and head trauma. I also noticed that since they are not walking as much, people seem a little less emaciated, but that is relative. The Kenyans are all still extremely thin.
Tomorrow will be our first day of medical work. We walked around the hospital yesterday just to give Katie a tour of the medical wards so she could find me as she will be off on her own and i noticed it is incredibly busy right now at the hospital. Almost all beds had 2 people per bed (they put one with head at top of bed and one with feet at top) and every ICU bed was full with overflow into recovery. There were quadruplets born a few days ago who are in the peds ward- the mom came in thinking she was full term with one baby only to find out she was 28-29 weeks with 4. That would be a real surprise but the babies and mom are apparently doing well.
Thank you all for your notes and comments. Our email is not working well so this blog really is the best way to reach us.  Kim - sorry about the Badgers, we just heard the news. Hope you will all stay warm, we really enjoyed skyping with the Robertson gang on Christmas morning.  Janice- they need you here with all the hand injuries, maybe you will come with me next time.  Jenny- thanks for the notes and bible verses you sent with me. They have given me inspiration and strength.  Dad, Andrew and Allie- glad you are doing well without us.
Next blog i will have to tell you about the boy in the Nairobi airport laying on the ground who reminded us of Andrew.
Take care and thanks again for keeping in touch
Love Tracy