What a Day!: 10-22

Today was an insane day for a number of reasons. Number one: Triage at the clinic in Mathare North seemed like total chaos. There were probably around 200 people all clustered around waiting to be seen. Unfortunately we were just holding a morning clinic (from 9:00-12:00). This meant that we stopped taking new patients around 11:00. Since we had to turn people away, people would come up and plead with us to see their loved ones. Heartbreaking.

This was particularly frustrating because we wanted to stay all day and serve everyone in Mathare North because it was the last clinic day there. In fact, I would have been happy to stay all night and serve everyone in Mathare. When we had to start turning people away, I just emotionally shut down. When a woman asked me to see her mom who had fallen down and injured her side, I asked her if she was bleeding. She said no. We received strict instructions from Robert that we weren’t taking anyone else. Therefore, I had to tell her, “Poli sana.” (I’m very sorry).

This caused me to really have a logic/emotion crisis in my mind. The logical side of me loves fairness. We stopped the line off at family number 40. Number 41 was turned away. That lady was essentially number 41. To keep order, we had to say no. If we let number 41 in, number 42 would want to be seen too. The situation wasn’t fair to that mom who had fallen down and hurt herself. But, turning her away was the fair thing for the group as a whole.

And then I wondered what Jesus would have done. I immediately thought of Mark 1:29-34 where Jesus stayed up late into the night healing a whole town. He could have healed number 41. But, then again, he could have healed all of Mathare North. And he could have stayed up all night doing it taking time to talk to each person. However, I realize that Jesus is God. We are merely humans at the clinic. Doing our best with what we've got. After turning people away, I was deeply saddened, but thankful for my ability to logically think through things. I understand the value of keeping order. The medical team had to leave at a certain time. It stinks that we couldn’t help all those people in Mathare North, but we helped quite a number of them. I know the community is very thankful for the medical help that was provided. And God is the ultimate healer anyway. He knows the needs of his people and he is always faithful.

So the first half of my day wasn’t so great. After work, we went to Roselyn so Leann could run and Julie and I could chill/nap/read/talk outside. We all find therapy in our own ways. Afterwards we went to Java for coffee and dinner. We continued our Bible study on Hebrews.

I was reading Hebrews 4 aloud at our table. Two ladies at the booth next to us heard what we were reading and one of them came over. Her name was Naomi and she works at the UN. She said that it was rare to see anyone reading the Bible at Java and she was curious. She told us about her ministry at the UN. She works with legal documents but also evangelizes and holds church services aimed at street kids. Basically, Naomi is a stud. She told us that she was going to be giving a short devotional and prayer at a lunch for the President of Kenya and his big-wigs on Tuesday!

After hearing this, Julie led us in prayer for her. At this point, the other lady at the table came over and told us her name was Jane. We told them what we were doing in Kenya and Jane chimed in that she knows Mary Kamau! They went to school together!

Naomi invited us over to her house for some chai. Naturally, we obliged. It was about 7:00 and pitch black outside. We followed her car down a few streets to a big fancy gate. A guard let us in and we parked in front of a gorgeous house complete with fountain. As we walked inside we passed by a huge winding wooden staircase. We made our way to the sitting room where we ate a second dinner and chatted over chai.

It was so much fun. We discussed our various ministries and encouraged one another.  At the end of our evening we took a picture together and watched Naomi’s son perform “How Great is Our God” at his church (it was recorded). We had to leave at 8:30 to get home by 9:00, but naturally at 8:30 Naomi popped in this video for us to watch. After awkwardly fast forwarding for about 10 min, she called in her son to find the correct spot for us. He found it in about 5 seconds. We watched for another 15 min. At the end of the day we took a picture together. It was fantastic. We made it home by 9:30.