Tenwek Primary Boarding School

By -

God is in all things and in the details!  God has ordained connections and meetings and friendships this trip.  When He is involved, things get exciting and so a large project, all of a sudden (ha, ha), came up - you go with it!

Edna, one of the Chaplains at Tenwek hospital and she runs the Dorcas Sewing Ministry, told me a story about her water filter that I gave her two years ago and a headmaster at a local boarding school - well, things got into motion!  Many children were coming down with Typhoid Fever, which is life-threatening, from the drinking water and becoming very ill, and many have been hospitalized.  The headmaster wanted to figure out how to get this under control and filter the water for the children, thus, our water filter comes into play!

There are 540 children at this Primary School with 17 staff!  So, I started with (2) 100-liter containers and drilled 4 holes per container and then drilled out 10 buckets (20-liter/5-gallon pails) for dispensing the water.  We connected 4 buckets per large tank and had 2 spare for overflow.  I've attached a short video so you can see some of the children at lunch time.  As it turned out - it was a great success!  They (557 people) are receiving clean water for the first time!!  They all say, "Thank you and may God Bless you!!" - The school is considering advertising this new feature/benefit for the children to prospective students!

"I can do everything through him who gives me strength."

-Philippians 4:13

Goofing around in the lunch line!
The set-up



There's always a jokester in the crowd!



Popular posts from this blog

First Week

By -
Image
 I arrived safely after an arduous journey.  I did get questioned at customs again and needed to pay a Tarif but it was a reasonable rate this time.  I have been without internet until yesterday so I apologize for a late update. My first week was quite busy in clinic as I screened patients for upcoming surgeries.  We has some late nights but it is great to be back serving the Kenyans.  I have performed multiple biopsies on various tumors.  Unfortunately there is no pathologist here so the biopsies can take up to 3 weeks for results.  We will make daily calls to try to move up the cases urgently. This patient was ecstatic!  He was diagnosed with severe hearing loss in both ears.  I fit him with a digital hearing aid and he was able to hear clear for the first time in years!  They live 5 hours away and were so blessed! This is a typical thyroid goiter for this region.  She underwent evaluation of her vocal cords in preparation for upc...
Read more

First Week October 2024

By -
Image
Continued political battles in Kenya are monopolizing politician's time rather than more pressing issues of the economy and healthy care.  The impeachment process of the depute passed in the parliament and will  be voted on in the Senate this week.  In the meantime, the economy continues to struggle with high cost of living leaving the poor to struggle to afford basic necessities.  The hospitals have been left struggling due to slow release of funds from the Government.  Tenwek is in a state of major strain from loss of back payments and now reduced daily income as patients are uninsured and lack funds to pay for services.  Its a mess! Somehow God has continued to provide for the needy and this last week I saw many ENT patients and operated for 2.5 days.  The patients have heart breaking stories of delayed care.  So many suffering of treatable diseases.  This week I performed several tonsillectomies, endoscopic sinus surgery, and several biop...
Read more

Second week March 2024

By -
Image
 This has been a different kind of trip so far.  I have taken many biopsies of obvious tumors and I am still waiting for results.  The national health insurance NHIF has also been more difficult to work with on this trip.  In the past we would have approvals for surgeries within 48 hrs but now we are waiting weeks.  They are refusing coverage many times requiring us to resubmit and wait again.  Despite these hurdles I know God is in everything and we have been working at a steady pace.  I operated 3 days this week performing a number of small cases including repair of an ear drum, tonsillectomies, ear tubes, tracheostomies, removal of a nasal mass and endoscopic nasal polyp removal.  Everyone has done well which is a blessing from the Lord in this environment.    My general surgery resident in ENT clinic         Preparing for tonsillectomy                       ...
Read more