We spent the last two days in the valley (more rural than Kapsowar). On Wednesday, we took off for the valley in the late morning and spent a day and half ministering to the Pokot people. Before we left, we were warned of some of the dangers in the area. Five years ago, the Pokot people were involved in raiding the cattle of the Marakwet people. Various villages were ransacked and people were massacred. Dr. Steve mentioned that the situation was probably similar to what we see in Detroit. Uh… Detroit was ranked the most violent city in all of the United States. Later, I mentioned this to Dr. Steve and he said, “Oh, I should have said that it is BETTER than Detroit.” Haha!
But we went down with faith and in prayer, expecting God to do some great things. We were prepared to do a mobile clinic and some youth rallies. We opened up our first clinic in Liter (pronounce le-taire). There were so many people that we had to turn some away and told them to come back tomorrow. Then the non-medical team led a portion of a youth camp. We shared a song and I preached from God’s Word. We had a great response from the youth – the hope for the next generation.
The next day we were planning on having another mobile clinic in 3 different places but due to the heavy rains we had to alter our plans. The roads were too slippery and dangerous for us to drive on. But then by the late morning it began to clear up and we started our journey again. As we were driving on the road, people came up to us right on the street and asking for medical help. There was this one time when a girl with a 105 degree temperature needed some medical assistance and we ministered to her right there on the spot.
Once we arrived in the heart of the Pokot territory, people started to line up for the mobile medical clinic. Since the town of Colowa had no medical resources, we were welcomed with open arms. We ended up meeting the “chief” who traveled with us and gave us access to a school where we could do the mobile clinic. It was so busy that everyone had to get involved in passing out the medicine and even assisting with the crowd control.
It was truly a blessing to see so many people getting physically ministered unto. In fact, the pastor in that area wanted Dr. Steve to bring future teams down in the area. After our time in Colowa, we drove to another mobile clinic location. As the patients got diagnosed and were waiting for their medicine, the rest of us prayed one-on-one with them for the ultimate healing, which was for our spiritual souls.
We drove up back to Kapsowar in the evening, but our work was not done because a lady stopped us for help. She was carrying her pre-mature baby which she delivered about 5 days ago. The baby was dehydrated and would not latch on to the mother in order to receive the milk. If we just left the baby there, he would have died. Therefore, we decided to take the mother and the baby back with us to the Kapsowar hospital which was 2.5 hours away. It is amazing to see all the needs in this area. God needs to raise up more people who will go and administer His love.
The next few days, we will be ministering at a few Christmas gatherings. We will then have one final youth gathering on Saturday and then we will be helping out with the Sunday Celebration. We are coming to the end our ministry time here in Kapsowar, therefore please keep us in your prayers.
Here are some more pictures:
The mangos here are incredible – you have to taste it to understand what I mean
The Pokot kids rarely have an opportunity to taste mangos therefore they were so blessed when we handed it out to them – for FREE
You would not believe how many people were in this truck – 19 in total! I counted them as they all came out at the next town.