Praise and Grace

This morning we woke up to a cacophony of bird-and-rooster song, showered, dressed up, and went to church.

KCMC started as a missionary hospital by the Lutherans, and although it’s now a public hospital, there are still some evidences of religious life – it contains a “Christian Medical College,” and two of the anesthesia students we met last night are nuns, and there’s a large octagonal chapel right in the center of the compound, with its walls partly open to the courtyards. That’s where there was an interdenominational Christian/Protestant communion service in (mostly) English at 8 am, so we went to that one and were warmly welcomed. Music was supplied by a fantastic group of singers backed up by an electric keyboard, drums, 2 guitars, and lots of clapping. A small laptop projected the words onto a screen behind the altar – the music was sort of general Protestant praise worship with an African flavor. My favorite was a short song called “Mambo Sawasawa,” which translated roughly to “When it seems hard, remember that God is on his throne, and just by knowing that, things are already better.” With lots of repetition we caught onto the songs quickly, although it’s sure not what our kids are used to.

After about 30-45 minutes of just singing and praises and even dancing, there was a layman’s sermon based on scriptures from Ephesians and John – basically his message was about developing and strengthening one’s spiritual life/self (in contrast to the material self) through faith, study, prayer and joy. It gave me lots to think about and his sincerity was contagious. There was a communion service after that for the Lutherans in the congregation, and an offertory, and introduction of visitors, and lots more singing, and then everyone processed into the circular courtyard surrounding a great tree and joined hands for a final grace.

After church we tried to decide what to do for breakfast, since we didn’t have any food yet, and we headed back towards the doctor’s compound and met a beautiful young Malaysian woman from the island of Borneo who had been at the church service, and who offered to show us around and to make us breakfast. Who can refuse an offer like that? On top of that her name is Grace, which somehow seemed perfect. She is a third year medical student in the UK at Newcastle doing a 9-week rotation here at KCMC, and she brought us back to her cottage which she shares with 7 other medical students (from the Netherlands, Ireland, and England), and she whipped up an amazing breakfast of tomato omelet, sautéed eggplant, spinach greens with red onion, and pasta, plus papaya juice and cookies she’d made the day before, and we were SO grateful. After our meal we walked down to the shops and she showed us where she likes to buy groceries, some good restaurants, and the internet café (which sadly, was having a power outage at the moment). We bought some groceries, including Jacob’s new favorite beverage, bubble-gum flavored Parmalat milk (!!) and some eggs, Kenyan rice, and vegetables, and on our way back to the compound we literally ran into the HVO family that we’re replacing and they invited us (and Grace) to dinner tonight at the town’s best Indian restaurant, which is named (oddly enough) El Rancho, so that they can fill us in on what we need to know, before they head home to the US.

This afternoon has been pleasantly spent with naps, more card-playing, going on runs, and taking some photos outside. And trying to find internet! People tell us that the internet service is very slow (dialup in some places; not working in the cottages) and hard to find, generally not available in the evenings – so don’t be surprised if you don’t hear from us every day. We will do our best but might not be able to post as often as we’d like.