Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Community Health trip to the Pokot People

Last Friday our family had a big adventure. We went on my second community health trip to visit a village among the Pokot people group, which is one of the most rural and most unreached people groups in Kenya.
Pokot lady

They were also the group of people that have been fighting off and on with the Marakwet people, who are the ones who live around us in Kapsowar. There is currently peace between them, but I just heard a story today of one of the lady's that I work with whose brother was killed by the Pokots. Also on the road down to the village, which is an extremely treacherous road at times where you are literally driving over big rocks on the side of a mountain, we saw the remnants of the houses in a village that were burned by Pokot raiders and many people died. In spite of this tension, when I mentioned that I wanted to go minister to them and do a health clinic I had plenty of people who wanted to come with me to help. One of them was a local Kenyan missionary whose target area is among the Pokot people. Praise the Lord for laborers sent to this difficult field.
Kyle and Musa

It all started when I took care of a little 6 month old Pokot boy who was very sick with meningitis. We were not sure if he was going to make it at first, but through prayer, God miraculously brought him back from being unconscious and near death to playful and smiling. I found out his parents (Samual and Mama Musa) were Pokot new believers and I also met their local missionary pastor (Stephen) who was visiting them in the hospital.
Missionary Stephen and Isaac

Before they left the hospital I told them, "Why don't I just come to you to do baby Musa's follow-up visit?" They were very excited to hear this and told their local church who must have then told the whole surrounding community because when we came to do this "follow-up visit" I found about 100 more patients wanting to be seen.
Clinic

Of course, I kind of figured this would happen so I did bring along some medicines and we had a great time. We started our clinic with a time of singing, preaching and prayer. I gave a gospel presentation as well as the other chaplain that came with me and we had quite a few raise their hands to accept Christ. Praise the Lord. We did the clinic at the little church where the missionary pastor serves so they will be able to follow-up. They face many difficulties as you can imagine and one of them is that we found out they only have 1 Bible in their Pokot language for the whole village. We are planning to go back and find more ways to help. Where we were has no access to health care for many miles away.
Sick lady on road

On the way to get to where the church was we were actually flagged down by a very enthusiastic young man who was screaming, "Stop! Is there a doctor in the car? This woman is dying." And so we stopped and treated a lady right there on the side of the road. At the end of the day I found out she was already starting to feel better. Can you imagine, though? What are the chances that we would be passing by at just the right time? God is so good and He gets all the glory.
Jude and Pokot hut

Vanessa and the boys had a good time as well. They enjoyed playing and visiting with the other moms and kids during the clinic. I really enjoyed having them there with me and I think when we go the next time we will stay longer than just one day since we had to leave at 5am and didn't get back until after dark.
Hudson with a bow and arrow
So please be praying for the Pokot people and our ministry to them. God is doing wonderful things among them.