Turkana update (northern Kenya mission)

[Maria]

Furah na Amani! Joy and Peace!

Hello from Africa! I’m sorry that I didn’t update you sooner on the
August OCMC teaching team to northern Kenya! Nearly as soon as I
returned from that trip we started working on preparations for the
October OCMC medical mission to Tanzania, and things got away from me.
Please forgive me!

I was asked by OCMC administration to travel to northern Kenya to
begin a health care needs assessment for the region, to explore what
OCMC might be able to do in terms of future healthcare outreach to the
area, and was also invited to participate in the teaching team that
was going on in Lodwar, Kenya at the same time. Father Martin Ritsi,
the Executive Director of OCMC, and Alex Goodwin, the Communications
Director for OCMC, were also on location to visit some of the towns
where Father Martin has ministered, and also to work on a film about
missions in Africa. Most importantly, Fr. Martin had been invited to
participate in the baptism of 110 people who wished to become
Orthodox. Michael Pagedas, my fellow missionary, and I were invited to
go with Father Martin, Alex, and Rob, a videographer from Chicago, to
the village where the baptism took place. It was quite an adventure!

Michael and I stepped off the plane in Lodwar to find Fr. Martin and
his colleagues waiting for us. We jumped into the SUV and immediately
headed out into what looked, to me, like wilderness. For hours we
traveled a road of sand, distinguishable from the rest of the sandy
ground only by the tire marks of other vehicles. In the distance,
mountains guided our driver to our destination, but most of the
geography looked indistinguishable to me. A bright, beautiful blue sky
with a few clouds stretched out in front of us, but in all directions
the ground was dry, brown, sandy, with a few thorny trees or bushes
scattered about. At one point I thought I saw a grove of trees
surrounding a huge pond of beautiful, clear water—it was a mirage!

After three and a half hours we arrived at our destination, a small
village where Fr. Martin and other OCMC teaching teams had visited
before. We were warmly greeted, introduced, and then we got to work!
Fr. Martin suggested I start by talking to some local women, so with
the help of one of the Lodwar priests to translate, I began
interviewing women with children. I spoke to the village midwife, who
laughed at me when I asked her how many babies she delivers every
year. She gave me a big grin and said, “two.” As a labor and delivery
nurse, of course I was very interested in maternity and pediatric
care. I asked her and the other women some questions about what they
felt their biggest health care concerns were, and what they would like
to see change in their community, if we could help them. I was
surprised that the answer I heard over and over was, “We need food.”
The drought in the Horn of Africa is having an impact in northern
Kenya, though the famine is not as severe there as it is in Ethiopia
or Somalia. But northern Kenya remains largely inaccessible due to
lack of infrastructure and good roads, and though food aid does come
to the villages, it is sporadic and the quantity of food is not
sufficient for the number of people who need it. Moreover, what the
women told me was that although they sometimes had access to medicine
from NGOs and religious organizations, they don’t have enough food to
be able to take the mediation properly; that is, with food. I
discussed this problem with a local nurse who ministers to people in
the area, and he confirmed what the women told me. He said that people
come to him for help, and he can give them medicine, but when they ask
for food he isn’t able to do much. He seemed very caring for his
people, and that he wished that he could do more. I felt a great
respect for him that he was working in such difficult circumstances,
doing the best he could in a terrible situation.

At one point I asked the women and children if they had any questions
for me. One woman asked me how to deal with a retained placenta after
childbirth, which is apparently one of the most common problems women
face in the villages. I asked a few questions and discovered that many
times women do not breastfeed their infants immediately, if the baby
is born at night. They wait until the next morning to feed for the
first time. A true retained placenta is a situation that requires
transporting the mother to a medical facility, which I made sure to
explain. But as a step toward prevention, I taught the women about the
benefits of nursing infants immediately after birth in order to
promote contraction of the uterus and expulsion of the placenta, not
to mention the health benefits to the infant! We also talked about how
to massage the uterus to help it contract, and I made sure to
emphasize not to pull on the umbilical cord to get the placenta to
come out. It was amazing to me how much simple health education was
needed in this community. It’s one thing to read about it—it’s another
to talk to women in person and to realize that the “expert” midwife in
the community, the only person to whom 90% of women turn to in order
to safely delivery their children, has no formal education related to
biology or medical care. I did ask the midwife what she does when she
needs to transport a woman or child to a clinic or hospital for
medical care. She said that someone runs ten kilometers to the nearest
medical outpost to notify someone, and that if there is nobody at that
outpost, that she builds a stretcher out of sticks and a blanket, and
drags the woman the ten to fifteen kilometers to the other, bigger
hospital. Sometimes, she said, she has a donkey and can get the donkey
to drag the stretcher.

The other part of my healthcare assessment was to talk to local
government officials and NGOs about the needs of the community in and
around Lodwar. The top five healthcare concerns for the region, as
identified by the government, are these: prevention/treatment of
malnutrition (the rate is 24% of all children, in 2011), prevention/
response to cholera, to increase the number of deliveries attended by
skilled birth attendants (90% occur in the home without any skilled
attendant), to improve immunization coverage for children, and to
reduce the prevalence of HIV and AIDS in the region.

My overall assessment for OCMC is that if and when we send
missionaries to the Lodwar area to work in healthcare, there is a lot
of healthcare education that can and needs to be accomplished, along
with supporting the goals of the government healthcare officers. The
information I gathered from local officials seemed consistent with
what I heard from local people, and one of the biggest challenges for
the government is recruitment and retention of healthcare workers to
live and work in the area, since the cost of living is so high and the
environment so harsh. I will admit, I was very intimidated about the
idea of possibly serving in such a remote, hot, dry climate, and being
so far from the healthcare resources I would want as “backup.” But
then again, this is why it is so important for us to be ministering in
Christ’s name—to go to the people others cannot or do not wish to
serve. Christ doesn’t tell us only to minister where it’s pleasant, or
convenient, or even where it’s safe. I pray that in the coming years I
can help OCMC to develop a plan to begin addressing some of the
medical needs of these communities, and in the meantime I ask for your
prayers for the people of Lodwar and the surrounding region.

The joyful and uplifting part of the trip, for me, was witnessing the
celebration of the first Orthodox liturgy in one of these remote
villages, and to be there to help welcome 110 souls into the Church.
The baptism took place after a liturgy, in a river that appeared
overnight after a surprise rainstorm. While Fr. Martin stood waist-
deep in muddy water, baptizing men, women, and children, and as our
film and camera crew documented the event, I sat on the riverbank with
some children and prayed for those who were beginning their new life
in Christ. I had a beautiful view of Father Martin, a line of faithful
waiting patiently in the water for their turn, and of camels standing
under palm trees on the other side of the river, looking on. A couple
of children sat with me, and started to mimic me as I made the sign of
the cross at each submersion—three for each new Christian. It was fun
to teach the kids how to participate in the service, and to pray with
them. Glory to God for that day!

The final part of the trip involved participating in the OCMC teaching
team. A group of American Orthodox had come to Lodwar to do religious
instruction, at the invitation of the local clergy and their hierarch.
I had never participated in or met an OCMC teaching team, and I was
delighted to have fellowship with all of them, but especially to see
how well prepared they were to share the faith with other members of
the Church. Most of the people who attended the week long “camp” at
the church are considered leaders in their own church communities in
other villages, so the instruction they receive on the faith will be
carried back to their home parishes. Some of the men who attended are
catechists, preparing their brothers and sisters for baptism when a
priest comes to their area, and leading lay services until a priest
visits and can celebrate liturgy. Other attendees were mothers with
babies, grandmothers and grandfathers, young unmarried women—we had a
wide variety of participants! They asked wonderful questions, and paid
very close attention to the team members and their translators. They
also made the team feel very welcome, singing and dancing songs of
celebration, and worshiping with the team twice every day. The kids in
the community loved playing with the team members, and I think the
team members enjoyed playing with the kids even more! The Church is
relatively young in Lodwar—the senior priest has only been there for
four years, and the church building is about that old, too. In four
years they have grown from a single church and priest to eleven
communities and three priests. A church sponsored elementary school
started a couple of years ago, and provides education and a mid-day
meal to 250 students, with plans to expand to accept more children
every year. Many of the team members this year are repeating team
members who visited Lodwar in the past and have returned out of their
great affection for the community and a calling to continue to support
the Church in that area. I can understand why they feel that way, and
pray that many of the team members continue to return, and possibly
consider staying and joining me in long term service!

That’s a VERY long update, and I apologize. There’s just no way to
communicate everything that happened in the two weeks I was in Kenya,
but I wanted to try to give you just a glimpse of my experience.

Thank you for your continued support of me, both financial and
prayerful, which is allowing me to do God’s work here. I am truly
grateful to you, and to our Lord for the opportunity to have visited
northern Kenya, and I hope and pray to return there again.

In Christ,

Maria

P.S. The next update on the October medical mission will be out later
this month!