Wanted

I’ve been home for several days now and have been trying to get my words together, but they elude me. I’ve been asked multiple times… “how was your trip.” “Great,” is my typical answer….how can I encompass in a few words what it was like to be back in the land I love and fell in love. Enchanting, mesmerizing, enthralling…they would all describe it better. I’ve been trying to get my words together…so here we go.

Simply put, these past two weeks have been pure bliss…I never quite knew what it was like to be in love with a place until I went there. But now I understand completely. Every breeze rustling the leaves, every rain drop, ever flower, smiling face and dirt path is captivating. I just truly love it there.

The night we arrived at the City of Hope followed a nine hour bus ride from the heart of Nairobi past the Great Rift Valley, through the tea fields of Kericho to the border town of Sirari. There our friend Zephaniah picked us up and we headed down the bumpy dirt road to Ntagacha…home. When we arrived it was dark, but I could see a huge mass bobbing and twisting…it was the children awaiting our arrival. No more did we step out of the truck, we were mobbed. In the glare of the headlights I couldn’t see a thing, but I knew they were my kids! We had both been waiting for that moment for the last two years.

The next ten days were really a whirlwind! Mwita spent the entire time from morning until night taking photos and video footage for the upcoming projects he is working on. I spent my time renewing friendships and realizing my dream of working in the Tumaini Medical Center.

I remember so clearly walking up to the medical center the first day and was elated to see patients waiting to be seen. That building had stood empty for years, but now it was being put to use. My hours spent praying there had paid off. The best part of all to me is that the very room I prayed in over three years ago is now the room that the doctors are using to consult their patients…that very room out of all the ones to choose from is the functioning part of the hospital!

There are three medical staff working there right now, and to me they are the best in the world! Ben is the residing doctor, Joseph is a nurse midwife and Dennis, a nurse. They are my heroes. They start early in the morning as patients come before heading to the fields, they work into the evening and jump out of bed at the faintest knock on their door. Delivering babies in the dark of the night, saving patients with deep cuts from bleeding out, giving epinephrine just in time to a young boy in anaphylactic shock and providing medicine to countless persons suffering from malaria. Morning to night they do it all! I am so impressed with their dedication to the people of Ntagacha.

When I first arrived and walked down the longest corridor of the hospital the watchman turned and looked at me and said, “look, here is your hospital.” I smiled because he was repeating what I had said countless times in the past. Mine. But something stirred inside of me because it was not that at all. This place had nothing to do with me, and that was ok. Not mine, but theirs.

The most exciting part of my trip was to see how the Tanzanian people had taken over the City of Hope! They were the doctors, managers, administrators, builders, teachers, mechanics and tractor drivers! It was all them! They were happy to see us and more than excited to have us work alongside them, but they did not need us. They had taken the initiative. It had become their City. The children were thrilled to see me, but they did not need me. There were enough things in place! I was not needed, but I was wanted and that was perfect to me!!!

Pioneering is never easy, and Mwita and I were there in the pioneering stage. We were there when we needed to be the jacks of all trades. Here and there we went. Sometimes I had more responsibility than I thought I knew how to handle. I think there could have been nothing more rewarding that seeing what I saw on this trip. That, to me, was the greatest gift I could have received. The City is running like a well-oiled machine.

After spending that first day in the medical center I went home and found myself sitting on the porch later that evening. I sat there watching the rain fall until it splashed and soaked into the red earth. I breathed deep that clean, fresh air and smiled from ear to ear. I was greatly wanted, but not needed. Oh just perfect to me!