Cleft Lip Surgery

Last week I took a team of Surgeon’s and crew up to a town whose sole purpose was to do cleft lips on mostly children. I’m not able to disclose the location, but suffice it to say that it’s an area that’s very closed to most outsider’s. We arrived there on Sunday and that evening yet were doing evaluations of the candidates for the surgeries. Since I was to stay with the group for the week I made myself useful and became the person doing the registrations and paperwork along with taking pictures for their records.

The funding is through a program called Bethany Kids and in order to secure the funding there is a lot of documentation that needs to happen along with pictures of the before and after for the records.

Some of the small children were difficult to see with such deformed faces, lips, and teeth. It was really an amazing site to see. But the most interesting was probably the teen girls. They came very beautifully dressed, but very hesitant as to what to expect. You could tell that they were really not sure if this was the thing that could change their lives. People told us that it does. It was really heart wrenching. Fixing a cleft lip is such a visible thing which you can tell by some of the pictures below. In the end we did 69 surgeries.

It was quite a dangerous area to be in for us, but the town really protected us well. We were there on their invite and they had armed guards with us everywhere we went. Even if we walked off to one side someone was there with an AK 47 to follow us.

It ended up being a very interesting week. The Dr’s have started a relationship with this town that is such a positive thing that I think there will be quite a bit more opportunities for these kinds of trips which is very good news. It’s an area that has been relatively abandoned and forgotten by the outside world. An area with a definite need for us to continue praying about. I felt privileged to be a part of the week and look forward to being able to return on another trip.

Khartoum trip with Samaritan's Purse

A few weeks ago I had an interesting week. I ended up in Khartoum, Sudan for much of the week flying around visiting the Samaritan’s Purse projects. Unfortunately it’s very difficult to take pictures as security has a major presence and in general it’s not legal to take pictures, especially at the airports. I didn’t feel like getting my camera taken away so decided that I’d just have to write more this time around.

Khartoum was quite different than when we used to live there in 1994-95! Back then it was much more primitive with few restaurants and hotels around. Today it is a bustling city with many restaurants, more than twice the vehicles so traffic is sometimes pretty bad, and some very nice hotels and businesses. There is even a pretty nice “shopping mall” with a grocery store in it. How fun to go back and see those changes. I was also able to renew some acquaintances from back then which was good.
From Khartoum we flew out to the Darfur area (Nyala) to do a visit there. Even with all of the political upheaval of the ICC and the indictment of President Bashir we were still able to obtain permissions to get around which was amazing. We also visited Kauda which is where SP has had some long term projects.

Here are the two airplanes we were flying on our trip. We spent a few hours there and then returned back to Khartoum. The next day we departed Khartoum for Juba. Spent a few hours there and then flew over to a small village called Yei for the night. Here are a few pictures to show what Yei is like. It’s another SP base where they have a workshop for the church building program. So far we have built more than 250 churches. It’s an amazing program!

The next day I had the privilege of being part of an Operation Christmas Child distribution. (The shoebox gifts) It was at an orphanage way out in the bush and all I can say is it was really a moving experience. The excitement in the kids was amazing. It’s so cool that the gospel is handed out with these gifts. Here are a few more pictures of that.

We returned then to Nairobi on Thursday. It was a good trip.

Catching up....

Ok, I'm trying again to get caught up! I apologize for the way the layout has been with the pictures etc.! I'm still fumbling thru! Does anyone have a "Dummies Guide for Blogging?" :) Ok, I'm not sure how the pictures will come up, but I will explain. The white tent is one of the churches we have been attending. It is one of 5 churches that has been started from the one church we attended 13 years ago - Nairobi Chapel. We have visited 2 of them so far. The singing group is "Jars of Clay". They came to Nairobi about a month ago and did the worship for us at church. They also gave 2 concerts in the city that weekend. Then a few pictures of the airplanes Kurt is flying - and lastly the addition to our family - "Twix".

Game Park Weekend

Well, we finally took the time to go out with some friends to one of the closet game reserves and tented camps, called Sweet Waters. It was about a 2 1/2 hour drive from Nairobi. We left early Sat morning, stopped at Mt. Kenya National Park, then ate at a place called Tree Trout Restaurant. That was so interesting! It literally is a restaurant in a big tree - kind of like the Swiss Family Robinson! They raise trout there, so they had all the pools there that we could see the different stages. Then we arrived at the game park/camp in early evening. THis camp is centered around a watering hole in the middle of the game reserve. Our tents (that were covered with thatch roofs) surrounded the one side of the watering hole, so you could see the animals coming and going. Our tents had electric, running water and our own bathrooms! Then there was a Lodge type place where their is a dining hall, lounge area and store etc. Really nice for the middle of no where! :) In the morning we went on a game drive (we could go in our own car) saw lions, warthogs, gazelles, zebra, giraffe, rhino, hippo etc. Then came back had lunch and then swam. It was pretty cool to have the pool right there where you could still watch the animals come and go to the watering hole. It nice and peaceful there too. It was a nice get away!

We also finally got a "real" pet! We learned of the KPCA (like the SPCA in the US) so we went there and Micah picked out a kitten. He named it "Twix" as it has the white with different shades of gray. He is very tame and extremely playful! He goes everywhere with Micah around the house.

Kurt has been busy flying and has one more trip of pictures he'd like to get on here yet. Sunday he leaves for a week with a group of doctors to do cleft palate surgeries - so more to come on that! :)

Mal wal kon radio tower

A couple of weeks ago I was able to fly out to a small village in western Sudan called Mal wal kon. We had on board about 30 sections of radio tower and all of the equipment for a mission who is setting up the tower for Christian broadcasts into the Darfur area of Sudan. The idea is to broadcast on a single frequency and sell small very inexpensive receivers that will only get that one frequency. In other words when you turn the radio on you just have one radio station that it'll receive. What a great way to focus the gospel I thought! People in villages like this are thirsty for news and things outside of their environment and will listen. Especially when it's in their own language. There will also be news broadcasts included in each day's message.

Lots of kids came out to see the airplane and watch us unload. Women were out across from the airstrip at the borehole getting water for the evening.

Since it was late in the day we stayed at the village for the night. It was a very simple compound made of mud houses and thatched roofs. The missionary ladies had "ordered out" from a local restaurant. Well, that is they had to supply them with bowls and containers for the ful (beans and lentils) which we dipped bread in. There was also a little meat. It tasted very good, then I had an open air shower (under the stars) which felt absolutely wonderful before going to bed.

This is pretty typical of many of our trips. Sometimes we spend overnights, but many times we return home for the night. Many more pictures and stories to come.