Centennial Celebration

After returning to Kenya, we had a brief respite at the Samaritan’s purse midyear retreat and then returned to Kijabe for centennial week.  I had quite a few roles, first coordinating housing, meals, and events for alumni missionaries; photographing the week; presenting the work I have done this year on hospital history; singing in the choir, and chauffeuring people to and from events.

It was a special time, to hear stories of our past, to meet the ones who built Kijabe, and to celebrate what God has done here.  Arianna, it turns out, has the same vision for training Kenyan docs and nurses as her forebears.  Dr. Bill, Nurse Sinclair, and many others spent their life on this work, and it is wonderful that she can now carry their torch.

Looking at old pictures and hearing stories from the alumni missionaries about their time in Kijabe.

Dr. Bill Barnett, 98, who worked at Kijabe from 1963-1979 and at other mission hospitals before an after.  To say he is a remarkable man is an understatement – he grew up in Kenya and had a close relationship with the first several Kenyan presidents.  He also was a colleague of Billy Graham at Wheaton – Dr. Bill’s wife Laura introduced Billy to his wife Ruth!!

He is a wonderful storyteller, and my favorite one he shared from the week was about an incident in the hospital with a nurse named Fernando.  A patient had come in with a broken leg, and as Dr. Bill walked down the hall to visit the patient, he saw a prosthetic leg leaning against the wall.  Sensing an opportunity, he grabbed the leg and put it under the sheets where the patient lay.  When Fernando came to help him with the patient, Dr. Bill said, “this man has a badly broken leg, and we need to put him in traction.  I will stand here and support his body, and when I count to three, you pull his leg as hard as you can.”

Fernando did as he was asked, pulled with all his might, and landed on the floor holding the fake leg, in a panic.  “Dr. Bill!  Dr. Bill!  I pulled off his leg!  I pulled off his leg!”

The centennial choir – I joined Isaac as a bass (far right)

Arianna, Bethany, and Jennifer at the Centennial Gala in Nairobi.

The biggest to-do of the week was a visit from president Kenyatta.  Normally I am one of the only people at Kijabe walking around with a camera, but this day I found myself part of the press-scrum as we were pushed and pulled by handlers around the hospital.   You can barely see Arianna in the picture below, as the president shakes the hand of Arianna’s colleague on the new children’s ward.  I was shoved along and out of the way as he greeted Arianna, but it still was a special moment.

One more blog post to catch up to the excitement of a broken shoulder and surgery – that will come in the next few days.