First Update From Kenya!

Hey everyone,

I'm sorry it took us a little longer than expected to send a text message back to the US. We has some problems getting the cell phone to work. But obviously we are here and we are safe. We spent the day yesterday with Shadrack doing orientation, exchanging money, gathering supplies and preparing for the work ahead. Last night for New Years we went to the REM center around 8pm for something called Kesha. Kesha is an all-night prayer service that churches in Kenya do for their New Year's celebration. It was a blast! Even though he was not feeling well Jim delivered a great sermon. I (chad) gave the closing prayer for the church to end 2008 and we danced and sang songs to ring in the new year.

Today we got our first real dose of Mitumba Slum. The team split up into two groups. Group One was Chad, Kristi and April. We went with Shadrack to meet with the Chemist (Phamacist) about gathering medical supplies. This was a very fruitful meeting. We are purchasing nearly $1000 in medicine for the clinic and the phamacy is going to provide us with a pharmacy worker to help us with the clinic. Group Two was Jim, Kim and Amy. They went into Mitumba to tour the slum, play soccer with the children and see all of the projects that REM is working on in the community. After converging for lunch we took a quick walk around to recap the REM projects as a team. For those of you that have contributed funding for the new orphanage...you will be shocked. It is incredible! It is quite possibly the most impressive building in Mitumba. We were able to see the new well that was dug for the orphanage. Shadrack showed us an incredible new technique they've employed for recycling plastic bottles and purifying water by using solar energy. It works so well and is so cheap that they've found a way to obtain custom labels so they can sell the clean water as "REM WATER" to citizens of Mitumba at a reduced rate. The Italians have been working hard on a recylcing program. Andrew, an Italian dentist leaves tomorrow, but he has been a pleasure to work with. He and his wife were married in Mitumba in December. Nika, his wife is a doctor and she has layed the groundwork for the medical work we are doing. She saw many children and even prepared a medicine cabinet that we will put to use and hopefully build onto before we leave.

There are many new buildings that have been built since 2006. Shadrack would like us to help finish the orphanage as well as build a new 2-story dining hall. That's right, we've found a way to build two story buildings are of steel gurders and rods.

We're rounding out the day at the at the cyber cafe and planning out how our medical clinic will go.

Shadrack is expecting 2000 people to be served at the medical clinic before we leave. That's a lot more than we think we can handle...so we're praying, and we hope you do too.

Please also keep Jim in your prayers, he was not feeling well on the flight over and he is still not feeling well. He took part of the day off today to rest and he claims to be feeling better, but we still need to continue praying for his health. There is so much that needs to be done and Jim can be an integral part of that work if his health improves.

I'll try to keep everyone posted regularly, but we have to go to a cyber cafe for updates...there is no internet at the YMCA.

May God Bless You Big!

Dr. Kenyan Chad