A week in the life of a missionary

~ an excerpt from the newsletter for Dan and Jen Davis, ELI missionaries in Kipkaren, Kenya

Last week, during staff devotions, David Tarus, our director, admonished us not to forget that many in our community struggle with heavy physical, emotional and spiritual burdens. The lives of many people directly connected to Empowering Lives have been transformed in many ways – extra income has freed people from living on a knife’s edge financially, family planning means parents have enough time, energy and resources for their children, accountability in a community seeking to follow Jesus’ teachings is beginning to elevate the status of women… But most of these changes have yet to permeate the outside community. Tarus encouraged us to look for ways to reach out to our neighbors, to be missionaries in our neighborhood. He urged us not settle in to our comfortable existence, ignoring the hurting people around us.

As a case in point, he spoke of a woman named Tecla and her family. Tecla has been drinking alcohol for some years now. Her two youngest children are extreme examples of neglect. When a staff member visited three weeks ago she found the children alone, sitting in their own diarrhea. The older of the two, a girl named Jesang, is 3. She cannot walk and talks very little; she has not developed simply because she does not receive the love, care and food she needs.

The younger child is a one year old who I first met when he came to the clinic with a burn last month. His mother had no plans to treat him, but two of her neighbors found the boy as they walked to the market, and took him and his mother to the clinic straight away. He had second degree burns all over his legs and groin, yet he sat without expression as Kiptoo the nurse cleaned and dressed his burns and gave him a penicillin injection. As far as that baby knew, he was hopeless – after awhile, you give up crying if no one answers.

Tarus’ question was, “Why hadn’t his cries been answered by us?”

Fast forward to this week’s staff meeting—Tarus asked what the highlights of people’s weekends had been; many came as a result of people responding to the needs in our community. Several mothers from the Children’s Home had gone to visit Tecla and her family and have made plans to bring her children to play here at the Children’s Home a few days a week. Another group of people had gone to a harambee – a gathering of people in the community to raise funds for something. In this case, it was medical school fees for a young woman from across the river. She made it into medical school, but her mother is a widow (her father died recently at 39 years old). If this woman was not able to raise her fees to enter, she would have lost her place and would not have had a second chance to become a doctor. The community rallied to raise 2/3 of what she needed for her first year. The other 3rd was made up by the end of the day!

Two other teammates (Juli and Adele) and I shared as our highlight, a visit we made to Hannah. She is the woman we have written about who has a massive tumor in her face. The tumor is inoperable and has destroyed the bone in her face. On one of my visits to her, her husband handed me a small packet containing 3 teeth – they had fallen out as the tumor invaded her mouth more each week. Her eyes are being forced out and her nose is stretched so that seeing, talking, swallowing and even breathing are becoming more and more difficult. You can imagine the pain this tumor is causing her. I feel extremely inadequate in this situation. Morphine is a help, but truly all I can do is pray and be with her. Her family is doing an outstanding job of taking care of her. Though she is wasting as her body shuts down and she is too weak to move much in bed, she has not even a hint of a bed sore. Her daughters take time to massage her with Vaseline every day and her skin shines. Her hair is neat and her clothes and sheets are clean. More than this, her spirit is light. When she talks, she is thanking God for the life he has given her, for her children, for her home, for us her visitors! Praise God for the care and love Hannah is receiving from her family in these, her last days, and for the fact that God is enabling her to “finish her race” well.

The last two weeks have been full of other events as well. Last Friday, I went to the graduation of our 8th group of Traditional Birth Attendants. Most mothers in Kenya deliver their babies at home, under the supervision of an experienced woman from the community. Every week for the past 3 months, someone from the clinic has gone on Wednesday afternoon to teach these birth attendants some anatomy and physiology, what to do in obstetrical emergencies, when to refer, how to do prenatal care so you catch potential problems early, etc. Of 48 who started the program, only 23 made it to graduation. It’s an intense study and most of these women have never been to school before. We crammed in a tiny church as rain poured down on the tin roof and more onlookers huddled under umbrellas around the windows to recognize their accomplishment - a once-in-a-lifetime event for these mothers and grandmothers.

On Monday, I accidentally delivered a baby by myself. A mother of 6 came in at around 11am. Her water had broken the morning before and the baby was now in distress. His heart rate was low and there was meconium evident (in other words, the baby had had the poop scared out of him!) After we started an IV, Magan, the other nurse headed out to see other patients, warning that things can move really quickly for a woman who has had several other children. The woman was alone, so she had nobody but me to sit with her through the rest of her difficult, albeit short, labor. Suddenly she was pushing, ignoring my pleas to wait until she was dilated further. I yelled a few desperate, but (I hoped) confident-sounding calls for Magan as a very messy baby boy slipped into my arms. This prompted the mom to start yelling “Daktari!” (doctor!). I was waiting as long as I could to cut the cord since I was quite contaminated by a certain little someone who had been swimming in his meconium for awhile. I was also preoccupied with suctioning him out as soon as his mouth and nose appeared, while also dodging the mother’s hands, who in her state was not happy about this intrusion. Thankfully, Magan arrived just in time to do the honors. Mother and baby were doing well half an hour later when I left to take a shower, and she walked home later that same evening. Hopefully, I will see them again in a couple weeks when he comes for his immunizations and I am firmly in my comfort zone as far as mothers and babies are concerned.