Sadness & Anger....

I finally have some time to sit down and type an email, a blog.

As most of you are aware, Daniel is back in Kenya. He arrived in Kitale last Thursday evening, along with his hilarious and fun parents, Larry & Danel. It’s been a busy few days so far, planning our schedule over the next four weeks while Larry & Danel are here and then visiting all of our TI projects so that they can see what we do.

On Sunday, Larry, Danel, Daniel and I went to Eldoret to visit a children’s home that Daniel and I both used to be a part of. Daniel and I hadn’t been there since November and Larry and Danel hadn’t been there in two years. It was great to see the kids that we’ve seen grow up over the past few years. It was nice to be so welcomed and missed by them. We got to spend a lot of time with them, especially the high school kids that were home on their break, like my sweet son Derrick, whom I’ve missed like CRAZY.

Yesterday was back to the routine of work. We had a usual Monday morning TI staff meeting which consisted of a lot of catching up on all of our parts from the past 6 weeks of Daniel’s absence.

After our meeting, we headed to the hospital to visit one of our children, Benard, whom I told you all about a week or so ago. Benard was released from the hospital today and we wanted to go down there and see him and pay the medical bill for his family. Benard looked SO much better then he did when I saw him a week ago. He was wide awake and sitting up. The doctor, who had been on his case, came and greeted us. She went over a few things with us including the results of an HIV test that was done on Benard. The result was what was thought for awhile now. Benard is HIV positive.

When the doctor told us this, I immediately looked at the grandmother and saw the sadness in her face. She looked at me and I saw her eyes fill with tears, for just a moment and then she looked down. I suddenly felt my eyes fill with tears and I had to turn to Danel and look away from Benard and his grandmother to control the tears from falling.

The doctor explained to Anne, Daniel and I that we can apply for assistance for Benard through EMPATH, a government organization here that provides medication to HIV/AIDs patients, should they qualify. This is something that we’ll be doing this week.

While I was standing at Benard’s bed, a woman came up to me and asked if me and my friends would come and pray for her baby. Anne suspected that the woman may have remembered me from the week before when we prayed for the children in the ward. After we were done with Benard, the woman again approached Larry & Danel, asking them to pray for her child. Daniel asked the woman what was wrong with her child and she said that she was born prematurely; she was born at 7 months.

The four of us followed the woman in to a small room. There were two beds on either side of the room; the one on the left had two women and a little girl sitting on it. The other bed on the right hand side had a sweet little baby with the biggest eyes, laying down but staring up at us. There also seemed to be another baby lying on that bed too but was covered in a few blankets.

Up against the wall in front of us was another bed which had a lady lying down, asleep and in the corner to the right was an incubator with the tiniest baby inside. Daniel asked what the baby’s name was; the mother said it was Michelle. So Daniel began to pray; we all began to pray for this little girl, this little, sweet, innocent child, born way too early.

As we left the hospital, I said to Daniel, “It’s déjà vu…remember the last time we left this hospital?” It was when we heard that the street girl, Josephine and her son Mark-Isaac were both HIV positive.

Yesterday a man showed up at our compound gate. He told me that someone told him about me and that I may be able to help me. Daniel and I listened to his story. His wife had died a few years ago of AIDs and he is now fighting the disease himself. His second wife left him not long ago as he had hit a really weak time in his fight of AIDs and therefore she couldn’t handle it and ran away. This man is getting medical assistance from EMPATH and said that he is doing better but he is still very weak and cannot work.

The reason for his coming to our gate was to seek assistance, not for him but for his seven children whom he cannot properly care for. Since he cannot work, he doesn’t have an income and therefore his children are starving. The sadness in his face, the plea of help for his children was evident. He showed that his plea wasn’t for him but for the sake of children. He wanted to somehow know that they would be taken care of now and once something happened to him.

We will be looking at his story, looking at his case….perhaps we can see what can be done.

This is the world we live in here. HIV/AIDs is all around us; we here of stories, deaths, situations almost daily of this disease and what it is doing and has done to so many families. It doesn’t make it easier; it doesn’t make me more numb to the sufferings. In fact, it angers me, it saddens me, it makes me want to do more to protect and care for the children of this country…for they’re the innocent ones.

That’s all I have for you today. Oh yeah, I’ve posted lots of pictures on my blogger the past few days. You’ll need to check them out.


Love you all!
Meredith
xoxoxo