Jigger Clinic Follow Up

Thursday was definitely a highlight for me. It was jigger clinic follow up day. We are so blessed to have been able to engage with that project....

[We helped Charlton out by drawing water for the day, Kenyan style]

The teams met at the compound around 9:30 and after debriefing, we loaded the van and into the van. Meaning, bins of shoes and tables and chairs went onto the roof, and people and bags and sodas and snacks went into the van. Tara and Cody willingly offered to ride on the roof with the paraphenalia...

We drove from our village to a neighboring one about 10 minutes away. We got to the church and set up. The plan was for Brent and Cody to help out with the teams that donned masks and backpack sprayers and walk thru the village spraying homes there.

Tara and I would assist the team that stayed at the church and fit people with shoes.

Natasha stayed and helped me get set up. We had 3 young men helping us,

Nashon who was an excellent translater, and two others who understood English pretty well. 

The people were there, crowding in.

Many bare black feet or almost bare. 

Many sandals that would have been in my landfill looong ago..

One of the first things I said to Natasha as we were setting up was, 

"This puts a whole new perspective on shoe shopping."

We had three sheets of names for this particular village. Patients that had been treated at the jigger clinic held in this village a week earlier. I donned gloves and my helpers began calling out names.
First of all they wanted me to call out the names, but I said no, no. You see, even simple names are pronounced and accented very differently.  They wouldn't have even recognized their own name!

So I relied on the black voices to do the calling, and soon I had my first person sitting on the bench in front of me. I wiped the dust from the bottom of his foot and judged the size, called out to Tara the size number and after a couple attempts, we had him fitted with a pair of shoes.

Little boys, little girls, big boys, big girls. 

Mamas and Wasai (older men) all with black eyes.

All with dirty feet.

All with a heart that feels the same things you and I feel.

All with a hole in their heart that can only be filled with Jesus...Just like you and me.

And as I wiped feet and slipped shoes on each of their feet,

I would always look into their eyes and often would cry out to Jesus for their souls. 

We worked for over 4 hours inspecting feet and fitting shoes.

Feet that still had jiggers had to be seen by Wanda or Charlton for jigger treatment. 

One older man came in with not only shoes on, but socks as well. I sat in front of him as he took off his shoes. I immediately noticed the dire condition of his socks. Appearing wet and moldy and with a smell that made me think about the extra masks left by the spray team. I guessed him as an 8, and came back with the shoes and after trying to slip a shoe over that horrible sock, I knew what I needed to do. I asked my translater to have him remove his socks. And then I felt bad.

The smell went to stench of oozing flesh and blood. His feet and toes were actually deformed from the jiggers.

There were obviously still jiggers at work. I knew i could'nt fit those feet into shoes and so I told him he would need to be seen by Charlton, who would treat and remove those remaining jiggers.
It was not a quick ordeal and I noticed he was still there an hour or two later.

Charlton working at this man's feet....

Poor man...I don't think anyone, not even an older Kenyan man, wakes up in the morning and says, "I hope that my feet smell like oozing rotting flesh today." My heart goes out, because I say regardless of skin color, poverty level, Kenyan or American, our basic human emotional needs are all the same. Or am I wrong?

How did I get so blessed? But Kenya is reinforcing in my mind that 'more is not always more', sometimes, (can I say often) "less is more"?

We finished up just before 3:00, though I have a ferocious hard time keeping track of time here, even a hard time knowing which day of the month it is...But I do know we finished up on time-yay!!

We piled all the bins and paraphenalia back into and on top of the van. The native teams filled the inside of the van and

the Rosenberry clan and Wanda(Mama Charlton) and Cosmos( 69 yr old Kenyan brother) climbed the ladder and rode home on top of the bins on top of the van!! 
Charlton drove cautiously and we arrived safely back at the compound after feeling the energy from the sun on our face and the wind in our hair. Ahh!

After we got back to the clinic, Charlton and Wanda set our family up with basins of bleach water and brushes and we had a good old foot scrubbing and checking for jiggers on our own feet.

We all, except for Tara, pulled at least one off, some of us two. 

Mama Charlton is an amazing woman that I quickly came to love. She came from Kentucky to this village in April, and offers basic health and hygience to the people that come to her clinic each week. I watched her. Her heart is here. She loves the people. Her hands touch the black skin and she offers hope with her love. I believe with all my heart that people sense the love. That they feel the touch of Jesus flowing from her. I can!

And so it was that I found it an honor to scrub her feet at the end of the day.

Later that afternoon, Marc and Cindy left for a hospital 1.5 hours away to get a spider bite checked out. The day before, Marc had gotten, what he researched to be a brown recluse spider bite on his calf. They had treated it with charcoal and also a garlic/baking soda poultice. But today as he talked to his American doctor, he was encouraged to see a doctor asap, so they left hurriedly.

Our family continued with the plan to eat supper with Charlton and Natasha. We were doing a neat little thing of high, low and thankful, where we went around the circle and each shared about our day in those 3 categories. It was Amber's turn when we were interrupted with a disturbance outside. Someone was yelling and it seemed to be getting closer.

We looked out the window and there was a piki coming into the yard with what first appeared to be a medical emergency. It didn't take long to realize maybe it was a spiritual emergency as well. An 18 year old girl, who was apparently demon possessed. I have never seen anything like it. I can't even make myself write out the details. I will say, it took 4 strong men to hold her down on the ground. Charlton, Brent and Wanda were there, holding and praying and the girl lay struggling and yelling. 

And Natasha and I stood on the veranda, alternately watching, crying out to Jesus, singing, comforting the little ones, reminding them that God is stronger and we don't need to be afraid.

This went on for some time until the men decided to load her into the van and transport her to Salona Medical Ctr, which is about 10 minutes away. The men carried her to the van and held her down as the van drove away.

Natasha and I were the only adults who stayed behind with all the wazunga(white)children-16 of them.

I pulled out my mega pack of glow sticks...Thank you Jesus! The attention was diverted as the children, most of them for the very first time, excitedly snapped and banded glow sticks into bracelets. They had a grand time, pitching those glowing rings into the African night sky. 

Our trio returned about an hour or so later with the report that the woman had been sedated. But they were exhausted. We continued our circle of high, low and thankful, all agreeing that we now had a new low. Not a fun thing to see, but also not a bad thing for our family to experience. 

We all were aware that this was our last time together, because we were planning to leave 8ish in the morning. None of us were excited about that. In fact, there were tears and hugs, knowing quite well that we may never see each other again...here.

As we got ready for bed that night, Cody said it well "we have only known Sweazy's for one week, but it feels like we've been friends for a long time".

He was right. It wasn't something that we had planned on. It wasn't anything that we had expected. It just happened. Or did it? I will just say "thank you God, it feels like a gift". 

We went to bed-our last night in the village....already!? Knowing that it would feel good to be with Marlin and Darla again.