It seems this trip to Kenya went very quickly. I will just share some of the things we accomplished this trip. Jackie Scott was with me the first half and Mindy Miller, a PFC board member, was with me the second half. Both of these women are strong in their faith and came to serve the PFC team and not to be served. They left the PFC team in Kenya better equipped to serve the people of East Africa. I am grateful to both of them. Highlights from the trip:
1. Jackie had brought with her many Christian books and tapes for the team's spiritual development. Jackie had the fundi (carpenter) build a bookselve for all the team's books and tapes. She organized them by category and Mindy completed the task of numbering all the books creating a library check-out system. This also helps us know what books and tapes we can bring to add to the library.
2. Cris and Gary from Parsons had sent hundreds of Crocs for the children in Pakishon. When Cris was there she saw first hand the need for the children to have shoes to prevent the jiggers from attacking their feet. The conditions are very harsh in this area and shoes don't last long. The Crocs are a perfect shoe for these children. Pastor Hirbo was with us in Nairobi this trip and we packed the shoes for him to take to the children! They will have them for Christmas.
3. Several people sent money for the children of Nick and Charles to have a Christmas meal at the Partners for Care house. David my sheep given to me by Sam's mom was sacrificed for the occasion. The PFC team took the vans to bring all the children to the PFC house. Moses and others cooked all day preparing food. We had given each child a new outfit and a pair of new shoes for Christmas. Some of the little ones insisted on leaving the tags on their clothes showing they were new!
4. We spent a lot of time on the implementation of the mHealth program. It is hard to explain how excited Dr. Vincent and his medical team are about mHealth. The bonus from using mHealth is that all the patients who either come to the clinic or are seen in the field will have an electronic medical record. We have really just begun to understand all the benefits of mHealth. None of the medical team had any problem using the devises. Dr. Vincent even put all his medical books into the devise to use as references. We met with the head of the Community Health Workers. She is helping us to reach all the CHWs in Marurui slum which is our catchment area. These 98 CHWs will spread the word about mHealth.
5. While at the medical mission conference last month I found some unique community health teaching tools. The same company that made Evangelism cube have recently released malaria and HIV/AIDS teaching cubes. The cubes are excellent teaching tools. We are doing a small study using pre and post tests to determine if the cubes increase a person's knowledge and behavior change. We gave a set of the cubes to the head community worker. She would like to see the thousands of community health workers have a set of them.
6. When Bridgette and I were stranded during the ash over Europe delay we were put at the Inter-Continential Hotel for a couple nights. We learned they along with hotels in Kenya throw out the uneaten food at night. Bridgette has a dream that someday the uneaten food will be given to the children who are hungry. I have been working with Bill Boling, Atlanta Food Bank and Maurice from the Glodal Foodnetworking to learn the process for establishing a food bank in Kenya. I met this time with two key people in Kenya who could help make a food bank a reality....will keep you updates.
Good trip, good progress. God is good.
Connie
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