First week!

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I arrived to Tenwek safely Sunday evening after a 30 hour journey. Wow! they are in a serious drought right now. The water level is very low here and power shortages are 3-4 times a day and always at night.  there is not enough water to run the hydroelectric plant so they are drawing from the government power source which has scheduled brown outs. It gets pretty dark around here so if you don't always have a flashlight on hand you can get pretty lost.

I have been very busy in outpatient clinic. There are many patients coming from "far" to be reviewed. We have seen 2 emergencies in clinic where our patients lost consciousness- one from nasal bleeding and the other from alcohol related hypotension and hypoglycemia. The problems have been variable including simple things like acid reflux, allergy, tonsillitis to a number of cancers, HIV related Kaposi's sarcoma, airway difficulties in children. Among the stream of patients we have had time to pray with each one and one patient has committed his Life to the Lord!

I have had one operating theater day where we performed tonsillectomy on a child, laryngoscopy and biopsies on several cancer patients, and oral biopsy on a vascular mass likely a Kaposi's sarcoma.  Everyone did well and amazingly we were able to get all the equipment working well. Praise the Lord.  We are still working on coordinating the care on a 16 year old male with advanced papillary thyroid cancer. We are praying for God's will here as he has very advanced disease and surgical resection could leave him with swallowing and breathing difficulties.

Thank you for all the prayers. I feel as if I am in His strong arms and he hears my prayers.

Psalm 138 "I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart; before the gods I will sing your praise. I will bow down toward your holy temple and will praise your name for your love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word. WHEN I CALLED, YOU ANSWERED ME, YOU MADE ME BOLD AND STOUTHEARTED."

Chase


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