African Missionaries

 

 

Dearest Friends and Family,

 

 

God’s timing is so amazing and as I sit to write this email, I am truly overwhelmed by His grace, mercy and love in all circumstances.

 

GREAT NEWS:  This past week we received such wonderful news.  The Methodist Healthcare System in Memphis, Tennessee has chosen Maua Methodist Hospital to receive their Living Award for Inspiration in Faith and Health. “The Living Awards honor individuals and organizations that profoundly impact faith and health locally and globally. The awards program has existed since 1979 and the event itself has become a highly anticipated event in the Memphis community.”  Mr. Mailutha, our new CEO, has been invited and will have his way paid to attend the Awards Ceremony and receive the award on behalf of Maua Methodist Hospital .  To say we are all “happy dancing” is an understatement.

 

We are so grateful to Stanley and Mary Gitari who were in Memphis and Germantown, Tennessee in November 2009 and talked to the Methodist Healthcare Foundation. We are sure their presentation laid the ground work for our receiving this special award.  We are also thankful to Dr. Susan Hillibert, who came with a team in 2008 and then has led teams from Germantown UMC last year and will this year.  We know Susan has been instrumental in our receiving the award and we are so thankful for all her work on our behalf.  We know there are others who have played a role in this and we can only praise God for them and His goodness.

 

Difficult News:  On the Sunday, 23 May, after I sent my last email to you, the national newspaper published a long list of nurses that had been accepted by the Government for employment.  (The Government hospitals pay better than we can!)  As I had told you previously, sixteen nurses had already left the hospital or given their resignation since February 2010.   Twenty-eight of those names on the latest list in the newspaper were Maua Methodist Hospital nurses bringing the total of nurses resigning to 44.  We had a total of 101 nurses for a 275 bed hospital, large Out-patient/Emergency Unit, the Maternity and Child Health Unit and Palliative Care Program.  That leaves us with a total of 57 nurses and it takes that many just for nights.  When I heard this news I was devastated.  On the following Tuesday I was with the Nursing Officer In-Charge, Mary Gitari, and her Deputy, Rose Mutwiri.  I was close to tears but Mary and Rose were filled with faith and hope and encouraged me to get my act together and trust in God.  Mary shared that God had reminded her of three Bible stories to help her through this time.  The first story she shared with me was from 1 Kings 17: 7 – 24 about the widow that fed Elijah when he asked her and thus her jar of flour was not used up and her jar of oil never ran out. 

 

I was so inspired by Mary and Rose and in the next few days found many words of encouragement from the Bible – my favorite was Proverbs 3: 5 - 6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, never rely on what you think you know; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your path straight.”  For you see 56 nurses, and that includes the all of us, is not enough – it is impossible. Matthew 19: 26 “Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

 

Sr. Gitari asked the nurses to give us their resignation letters so we could prepare.  To our sorrow this past Wednesday thirteen nurses resigned effective that day and most of them were on duty that day.  So what does that look like to those of us here?  Medical Ward had 16 nurses and now has 7; Maternity Ward had 22 nurses and now has 13; Surgical Ward had 18 nurses and now has 7; Goede Wing had 7 nurses and now has 3, and Pediatric Ward had 14 nurses and now has 9.  The Nurses In-charges of the Wards have made out about 5 different schedules for this week.  Every time they completed one, someone else resigned and they began all over again.

 

On Thursday morning after Chapel Sr. Gitari and Mr. Munga’thia, our Administrator, talked to all the nurses that were left.  The Hospital Management Team was in an emergency meeting to deal with all the resignations.  They asked the nurses to brainstorm and come up with ideas.  They also asked if the nurses wanted locums hired immediately or would they like to give up two days off a month with pay.  All the nurses voted to give up the days off.  Those who are on leave will be called back.  Goede Wing was closed and their patients moved to the Medical Ward.  I’ve never seen such determination.  The nurses that are here have committed to do what is necessary to provide good care.  Fortunately our census is down some.  God does provide in the most amazing ways!

 

Please pray with us as we all work together to make this happen.  God’s goodness and timing in sending us word about the

Award in Memphis was such an incredible encouragement as we face the difficulties of losing so many staff.  But know we are not down, we are not discouraged, we are not crushed – we know God loves this hospital and has been with us since it was founded in 1928 and will be with us now.  And if He is with us, who can be against us???

 

NURSES DAY :  In the midst of all the resignations, Maua Methodist Hospital celebrated Nurses Day on Friday 28 May.  It started around 9am with games and fun in the School of Nursing field.  It started with a Cat, Walk competition; Hide and Seek; Jump Rope Competition and then individual and team races:  100 meter, 200 meter and then 400 meter relay – races for females and then males.  We then moved to the Chapel for tea and talks by Mary Gitari, Mr. Mailutha, the CEO, Dr. Inoti, the Medical Officer In-charge and myself.  I had been asked to talk about Nursing Professionalism and had fun preparing my talk.  Between these talks we danced and sang and tried to solve some very interesting riddles. 

                 

Nurses racing in their uniforms (very fast          (Lt- Rt.) Mary Gitari , Nurse from District Hospital, Dr. Inoti, Mr. Mailutha,

        

We then had lunch followed by a talk by our Guest of Honor, who represented the Provincial Nursing Officer from Embu.  He talked about the nurses’ role with clients with Chronic Diseases and complimented MMH nurses for their dedication and hard work.  He shared that throughout Eastern Province , MMH is known for its good nursing care and hard working nurses.  He stated that other hospitals used us as their benchmark.  Then we heard from the nurse who was representing the Nyambene District Hospital .  She stated that the district hospital was improving but everyone knew that MMH nurses were timely to work, worked a full day, and provided the best nursing care in the region.

             

           Nurses dancing together                   Mary Gitari, Janet Mwalimu and Mr. Gitari, our Guest Speaker

 

Our final talk of the day was from Janet Mwalimu, who was the Nursing Officer In-charge when I first came to work at MMH in 1998.  She is an incredible person and one of the most compassionate and hard working nurses I have ever known.  In her talk she shared that she was asked by the church to come be the Nursing Officer In-Charge in 1977, leaving her nursing job at Nairobi Hospital (one of the three hospitals in the country that provides all services but charges fees much like US hospitals.)  She came to Maua as she felt called by God.  She served as NOIC from 1977 through 2003, 26 years.  At that time it took almost two days to travel from Nairobi to Maua (250 miles), almost one day to travel between Meru and Maua which is only 30 miles apart.  The hospital had no electricity or running water and there were four registered nurses working at the hospital.  As we listened we realized how fortunate we were and though we have many challenges there are always challenges and God has always been, is, and always will be faithful.

 

We ended the day with dancing and awards for the winners of the competitions and gifts for everyone who participated.  It was a great day and as I walked home around 5:15pm I was so thankful to be a nurse at Maua Methodist Hospital . 

 

Our first team arrived last night, Saturday 5 June.  The team is from FUMC Canadian, Texas , a small town near the Texas/Oklahoma border in the Panhandle.  Rev. Danny Sanders is leading the team of 9 and we are so thankful to have them here.  They will be working on the staff flats, helping to paint the Pediatric Ward and building an AIDS Orphan’s home.  Today the team went to the Ki-Swahili worship service and visited the children’s SS class.  This is their first time to Maua and they are so excited and are such a great team.

    

(Back Row Lt – Rt) Michael, David, Dale and Rich

(Front Row Lt – Rt) Joshua, Danny, Macy, Katie and Meredith

 

PRAYER REQUESTS:

1.                   Our nursing shortage

2.                   We just heard this coming Tuesday, 8 June will be our annual full hospital assessment by the NHIF assessors.  This assessment determines our daily rebate to pay for those patients who have the National Hospital Insurance Fund.  It determines the level of quality provided and is why MMH has a Quality Improvement Officer, my job.   

3.                   Thank God for this wonderful award from the Methodist Healthcare System in Memphis, Tennessee and for its timing.

4.                   The 10 mission work teams that will be with us this summer – their safety, the help and hope they will provide the hospital and community and their experience of serving the people of Maua and Kenya .

 

In His grip,

 

Jerri & Bill Savuto
 

 

Dear Friends and Family,

 

 

During our first week back at work I met with my Hospital Quality Improvement Team to receive a feed-back regarding how things went over the last 5+ months and to learn about all they did.  I was greatly pleased and amazed by what was accomplished.  In November our full hospital assessment was done, scored, and sent to the National Hospital Fund Quality Program.  The In-patient, Out-patient and Community Perception Surveys were done, the data collated, reports written and sent to the Hospital Management Team.  Those are two of my very big responsibilities so I was so thankful.  I also did a full hospital round to check in and see who was still working here, how things were going in each of the hospital units, and the progress of many projects I had left to be done.  It was so good to see the staff and greet them personally and see what had been accomplished.  I was pleased but ever reminded that I do live and work in Africa and things don’t happen as quickly as I always think or hope they will.

 

There is a new extension on our Burns Unit with new toilets and two new showers with warm/hot water, office space for Claudia Freund, a mission partner and Occupational Therapist from Germany who has been responsible for this project, a storage room and a fenced in area for the patients/mothers where they can wash their own or children’s clothes and be outside in the sun.  There is a burns nurse who took me all around the unit and talked to me about the patients. 

 

I could fill all my emails with patient stories but I don’t’ think you would read them for too long.  I do, however, want to tell you about four of the patients in the burns unit, three women and one child.  One of the women, a 38 year old mother of 3 has burns on her face, neck and right arm.  Her face is improving but it was seriously burned and her arm may need grafting.  She is an epileptic and was fixing a meal over an open fire, the way 95 – 99% of our women cook in this area, when she had a seizure and fell face first into the fire. Just this week her husband sent word to her in the hospital that he had taken a new wife as he needed help at home.  Another 17 year old female is also epileptic and was cooking a pot of soup over an open fire.  She had a seizure and fell and hit two rocks that were around the fire cooking soup.  This spilled the hot soup all over her arm which is seriously burned. 

 

The third woman is 30 years old and has a 7 month old baby.  She also has 2 other children, her first born in 2003 and the second in 2004.  After the second child’s birth she developed weakness on her left side which worsened after the third baby’s birth.  She is hardly able to use her left hand and can only drag her left foot when she walks. Her husband and his brother have been in a dispute regarding land.  Recently her brother-in-law’s son came over and raped her and set her skirt on fire to get even with his uncle.  Due to the weakness she has on her left side she was unable to quickly untie her skirt and thus the burns on her right thigh, buttocks and hand.  Her 7 month old baby was holding on to her skirt at the time and has burns on his fingers. (Setting people on fire is not common here.)  After her nephew raped and set her on fire, he called the husband to say what he had done.  When the husband came home he said her problems were too much for him and she would have to go to her parents as he would do nothing for her or his son.  She limped to the local Chief Camp but they refused to help her and she then limped to her parent’s home, carrying her son and literally dragging her left leg.  With each step of the four miles she traveled, the pain of her burns must have been severe. She slept that night with her grandmother and her father brought her to the hospital at 4pm the next day.  (No treatment for those deep, painful burns.)  She first said her husband had raped her as she believed he needed to be held responsible for the bill rather than her own father.  However, this past week when the police came she told the truth and why she had lied.  They now have the rapist in prison.

 

The fourth burns patient is a two year old child who has burns on his left arm, left leg and abdomen.  His left arm will need grafting.  His mother had left him with some older children and he had fallen into hot water. The child’s mother had been married and had four miscarriages in three years.  It seemed she could not deliver a live baby so her husband chased her away.  She went to live with her parents but soon, according to her story, her father chased her away.  She began doing wash for some woman in the village (by hand in the local river) and ultimately was able to rent a tiny room in Maua.  She met a man who said he wanted to marry her.  Soon she was pregnant and the man disappeared and has never seen his son.  She had the baby and is on her own, no family, no money and a baby who is burned and will be in the hospital for at least a month or more.  She must be with the child in our hospital so she cannot work.

 

Four women whose lives have been changed forever.  Two of those burns could have been prevented if the women were taking medication for their epilepsy.  The medication is actually free at the Government dispensary so our burns nurse has been talking to them regarding always having and taking their medication. (It sounds like a no brainer but in fact, to travel to the dispensary, to see a physician or Clinical Officer, to keep their epilepsy in control is very difficult for our local women.) The third woman is an innocent victim of greed, anger and hate.  The fourth woman again is an innocent victim of ignorance and pride.  All the women have no money to pay their bill.  Thankfully the hospital provides care regardless of their ability to pay.  The two married women have been abandoned by their husbands.  Too many problems to deal with and the need to be taken care of are the reasons the husband’s give but regardless of reason those women are now alone, abandoned by their husbands, the person we would expect at their side.

 

I am not including pictures of these women as it would be quite traumatic for you.  I know as I go about my work suddenly I can see one of these women and her burns and find myself praying and often crying.  Please pray for them – for all of them and all those I haven’t told you about.  I have returned to the burns unit on several occasions.  I usually find the women talking together, smiling at me (except for the woman who burned her face as she cannot smile) and on one occasion I found three of them laughing over something that had happened.  As I watched them I wondered if I could laugh at anything in their situation.  The 30 year old mother was breastfeeding her baby which causes her to lie in such an awkward and seemingly uncomfortable position but when I finished praying for her she turned her head and with a big smile thanked me profusely.  It is clear that Jesus Christ is in the midst of these women and the other patient’s in our burns unit.  I am so grateful for His presence and His love and for their knowledge of Him.  If they aren’t depressed and giving up, then you and I certainly shouldn’t for indeed God stands beside each of us and when we are able to trust Him and obey Him, He can do the impossible.

 

(From past emails to your!)  July 17^th 2007 I had the incredible experience and privilege to help a young woman receive a wheelchair and attend the ceremony in Athiru Gaiti to give her that wheelchair.  Mr. Gitari had told Bill and me about a family in desperate need.  The mother, Florence, was paraplegic.  She had three children ages 1, 4 and 7 years.  They lived in a very small home but had been evicted and were searching for a new home.  The husband, who is a faithful man, can do little work as he must stay close to home to help his wife.  He carries her to the toilet and helps her with the care of the children and cooking.  He is responsible for all the shopping and work.  Mr. Gitari wanted to purchase a wheelchair for her.  When we heard the story we immediately said that we would pay for the wheel chair from gifts from faithful supporters.  The wheelchair was made in Kenya for the rough and hilly terrain in our area. 

 

Six of us went to the Methodist Church in Athiru Gaiti and there we were met by the Women's Fellowship and leaders of the church, community, and Florence, her husband, 4 year old Kelvin, and 17 month old, Erastus.  Their 7 year old son, Nathan, was at school.  Florence had been brought to the church in a wheelbarrow by her husband.  When we arrived she and her two children were sitting on the ground.  Her husband was returning the wheelbarrow to the owner.                                                                                                                                             

         

After speeches and prayers, song and introductions, Florence was then lifted into her wheelchair and with a smile I will never forget, she wheeled herself over to the women who were dancing and singing with joy, and shook their hands.  It was probably the first time Florence had been independent in years

                                 

Florence and her youngest son after receiving her wheelchair           Florence , her family, Jerri and their new house

 

In September of 2007 a mission work team from Midland, Texas built a home for this wonderful family.  But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. 

 

Following the wheelchair ceremony we all walked to see where Florence and family were living.  Someone was renting them a tiny house that was so small the wheelchair couldn’t get through the door nor was there room for all five of them at one time.  Florence’s husband said they had a very small piece of land but no money.  Mr. Gitari promised they would have a new home.  The hospital gave a small amount of money to help the husband build a house.  When we visited again a few months later the house that was being built.  When we saw it we were speechless.  It was so small Florence could not have turned around with her wheelchair nor gotten through the door.  Right there it was decided a home would be built for her like the AIDS Orphans homes.  This was announced by Mr. Gitari and met with shouts of joy and thanksgiving.

 

Just a few months later that home was built and dedicated.  During the dedication ceremony Florence’s husband shared that never in his life had he ever dreamed he could live in such a wonderful home (2 rooms 10’ x 20’ wooden structure with cement floor, glass in the windows and a steel roof.)  Many years before he had built a small house on his land but when it flooded the house was washed away.  They had been chased away from so many homes in the last years as neighbors would only allow them as squatters for a few days on their land. Her husband had a letter written asking for help that he had given to so many people and churches.  Then one day he met Mr. Gitari, the hospital Outreach Department In-charge, and gave him the letter.  That day he saw God.  He said over and over that he could never express his gratitude to the team and he would be forever grateful to them, the hospital, Mr. Gitari and God.

 

I had so wanted to find something for Florence to do so she could earn money for her family.  I had visited with her and she had told me she would be willing to do anything to earn some money for her family.  During the last months in the USA I shared my dream and prayer with some individuals and one woman provided me with paper, glue, instruments and instruction books for Florence to learn to quill – to make cards or art work and sell them.  I was so thankful and I could hardly wait to visit Florence but everything takes time.

 

Last week I was visiting my dear friend and mentor who has helped us so much with the feeding program for the mal-nourished and starving children (we are still admitting many to the Pediatric Ward and sending them home with food.)   While we talked in her tiny shop where she sells beans and legumes, Joshua came to visit her.  Joshua was the cleaner at the School of Nursing while I was a teacher there.  He and I became close friends.  He lives in Athiru Gaiti and I had always asked him to keep me posted on how Florence and her family were doing.  He has helped her in many ways.  After greetings and talking about family members here and there he broke into a huge smile and said he had wonderful news about Florence.  He told me she was teaching children in a local school.  I was so thrilled and thankful to God but very surprised as I did not know Florence was a teacher.  Joshua told me she wasn’t a teacher but there had been a one month training session in Maua to train a new type of teacher.  Because primary school is mostly free the number of students has increased significantly and the government cannot afford to pay that many college trained teachers nor do they have that many trained teachers.  Thus they had this training and trained persons that had a secondary school certificate.  Florence was trained and was now teaching though she had not been paid by the government yet.  Joshua said some of the parents were paying her a small amount.  I was so excited that Joshua and I danced for joy.  She would be a wonderful teacher and I am so thankful to God for this opportunity for her to help support her family.  Certainly this is the answer to many, many prayers.  God’s plans are so much better than mine.

 

A wheelchair, home and a teaching job; answers to prayers and a story that just keeps on and on proclaiming the goodness and love of God.  Now don’t think I won’t need those quilling supplies in the next two years – I am confident they are part of God’s plans for someone else.

 

Thank you again for all the love, support, and care you gave us while in the USA.  We are so thankful for that time and so thankful to be back in Maua.  Thank you for your prayers – they remain our greatest need every day.

 

Clinging to Him,

 

Jerri & Bill Savuto
 

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