From Heather:

Thank you for your prayers! We had smooth travels the whole way. Sunday night we spent the night in Nairobi at the Mennonite Guest House. On our drive from the airport Dan noticed that people (including our driver) didn’t stop for red lights. The driver said they stop sometimes, depending on how they feel about it. But not usually at night because of the greater risk of being carjacked!

We did our grocery shopping Monday morning with Tenwek missionaries and friends, Ben and Jenny Roberts, had a great lunch at Amani (a boutique and restaurant run by former refugee women), and then an amazing four hour drive out of Nairobi and on to Tenwek. It felt like driving through the pages of National Geographic.

Whatever road you drive down, big or small, there is a constant flow of pedestrians on either side of you. And animals. Sometimes donkeys pulling a cart. Or a person pulling a cart. And even a man on a bicycle, loaded down with packages, holding on to the back of a semi, “hitching” a ride.

The poverty is striking. We drove by slums, and slum-shops. Even constructions signs “Slow Down - Men at Work” are homemade.

The compound is different than I thought. We are not in any kind of a gated community. Tenwek is just a small village and we are a part of it. The home we are staying in is right on the road, and people are walking up and down all day. We had countless people stop and talk to our help (Peris cooks and Sammary cleans and does laundry), and we bought pineapple, avacados and baskets from various people who came to the door. I’m sure thankful for Peris and Sammary who speak the language and bargain for me!

The kids are slowly getting over this bug that they got, but we would love for everyone to adjust to Africa time! Last night Cade was up ALL night and then went to bed at 2 p.m. today. Everyone is a little off, so your prayers for that would be much appreciated.

From Dan:

Clinic today was very busy – the care here is very different – sort of do the best minimal exam for the most people. Surgically between Ben and myself we did surgery on 5 kids and 6 adults and saw a bunch of people in clinic in between surgeries. The people are very grateful and patient. We basically work until its time to shut down and people who don’t get seen wait until the next day. If you saw everyone that needed it and that showed up you could probably go 24/7 in the clinic and 24/7 in the OR.

The scrub nurse prays for every patient right before surgery starts and I have had to use skills from the old days and have had to operate with instruments I don’t normally use – but everything went well today. Mostly pediatric glaucoma, cataracts, trauma, adult cataracts and strabismus.

I am really tired from jet lag and surgery but will try to get some pictures posted as soon as possible.

Thanks for your prayers,
Dan, Heather, and the kids