Hospital Visits

Tuesday morning I met up with the children’s chaplain at 8. She was in a Bible study for anyone that wanted to come that works in the children’s ward. I sat in for that. It was very encouraging to study the word with them. After that we started making rounds visiting patients. I was a little nervous about this because I don’t deal with sickness too well and I don’t speak Swahili but it went great. Most of the children had spinal bifida from what I could tell. There were also some teeny tiny babies there.

Chaplain Mercy made name cards for each of the new children that had arrived and I gave the kids stickers. Then one of us prayed for everyone in the room. After a few hours I told Mercy that my dad worked in hospitals as a pastor as well and she said I must take after him because I did a great job. That was very encouraging for me because I was definitely out of my comfort zone!

Mercy had to go see someone for counseling so she asked me to finish two rooms on the main hall by myself. I was a little uncomfortable with this because some of the mothers do not speak English. I thought, how am I going to spend time in two rooms interacting with people for the length of time it will take her to counsel someone!! In the first room there were 4 mothers with their children, I visited and prayed with them and it went by pretty fast. The next room there was only one boy and his mother. He is a teenager. I thought this room would go by really quickly, as well, since there was only one child. I wasn’t sure what I would do next but God was faithful…they spoke English!

David is a 16-year-old boy who is disabled and lives at a disabled children’s school called Joy Town. He has four sisters. His mother, Elizabeth, was very sweet. One of the first things they shared with me was that David had a sponsor in Michigan. I told them I sponsored a little girl in Uganda and they said, “God bless you. Thank you.” I just love how people can be so grateful even when you aren’t directly helping them but you are helping someone in Africa. I visited with them for quite awhile before Mercy came for me.

After that we visited the children in the Amazing Baby Centre then I went back home. After lunch I went to a Bible study with Megan. They were interviewing one of the ladies who has been at Kijabe for 34 years and is getting ready to move back to the states next month. I really enjoyed hearing her story. They have an amazing testimony.

We had visitors from Samaritan’s Purse in Boone, NC over for dinner. They are touring a few of the hospitals in Kenya that they have doctors at. I enjoyed visiting with them.