Saturday on the Rift

The weekend, and not a moment too soon.

First, a story of the kind of miracle that happens at places like RVA. And more often than we notice, I'm sure. Today was outreach day, where groups of students go out into the community to serve in various ways, from orphanage visits to trash pick-up. One group planted trees and was attacked by a swarm of bees. I talked to the nurse who received them back in the infirmary, and she estimated that at least 15 girls and both staff members accompanying them had multiple stings, some up to 20 on one person. BUT . . . the only two kids who were not stung were the only two kids with severe allergy to bee stings.

Julia and Acacia also planted trees, but in a different place, at a primary school in old Kijabe town. Which is pretty cool for at least two reasons. Acacia planting acacia trees in her new home country of Kenya, and Julia planting any trees anywhere because she has a particular affinity for trees, and has read Wangari Maathai's autobiography (amazing Kenyan woman who won the Nobel Peace Prize for the Greenbelt Movement to reforest Kenya).

Caleb's varsity soccer team went to a prison in Naivasha and played a match against the inmates. Which seemed to be fun, though I'm just glad that no one was injured, as I think of grown men and a walled compound and a dirt pitch . . . Jack's JV soccer team stayed here and played against a team from the on-station Moffat Bible College, young African aspiring pastors, which is sort of an ironic contrast to the prisoners I guess, and afterwards they had lunch together. JV won 4 to 2, with Jack scoring both of the second half goals. Which is sort of amazing because he was clearly frustrated with himself and not playing his best first half, and Scott gave him a half-time pep talk. So I guess it shows that Scott knows how to give half-time pep talks.

Scott and I are both on call, and paediatrics has been eerily calm. Scott however is covering ICU as well and though the day was quite reasonable he's dealing with a victim of a road traffic accident now. His highlight today was sending home a young woman after a month of antibiotics cured her of a brain abscess incurred when her husband tried to kill her with a machete. Our 650 gram 25-week preemie is alive and breathing, and today started on the whopping amount of a half a cc of milk every two hours. Interesting case of my week, a 3-year-old who was admitted with ascites (fluid in the abdomen) that turned out to be secondary to abdominal TB, and a 6 year old who was admitted multiple times in his life for vomiting, whom I didn't take seriously as he looked quite well until I SAW the basin full of fluid he threw up ... who turned out to have lived all those six years with an intestinal malrotation. Thankful for our paeds surgery partners!

And this week, we are glad to be safely in Africa rather than DC! My mom has had an earthquake, a hurricane, zoning issues which threaten her livelihood, then massive flooding that seeped into her basement for the first time ever, not to mention the high alert for terrorist attacks tomorrow. Kijabe seems rather calm by comparison.

Lastly, we made pizza in our new oven Friday night. A few neighbors stopped for tastes as they walked by, and we roped one young lady in for the evening, plus our WHM team mates Jessica and Anna, so it felt almost like a Bundibugyo evening. Only cold. And no obekekuni. As we always say, there's a reason a hundred missionary families live here, and one in Bundi.

After an spiritually and emotionally draining week, I'm thankful for the weekend, even if we are on call. And Man U is winning to boot.