Kenya July 2003

COMMIT Ministries partners with World Connection Ministries to help build new medical facilities

During the last fourteen years, I've worked among and alongside many impoverished people groups in Mexico, Ethiopia, Mainland China, Somalia, and Kenya. Until this past trip, however, I have never experienced intense relational trauma with a larger people group community such as the one we served by building a medical clinic in July and August outside of Sirinde, Kenya. This remote Luo Tribe is far removed from the nearest medical facility (100km). Up to this time, the entire community has been overrun by horrendous Poverty, Malaria, AIDS, Malnutrition, and Spiritual Darkness. The word, "hope" just doesn't appear in the everyday vocabulary of the thousands of people who simply try to survive in this rural community which is located just southwest of Lake Victoria near the Uganda border. According to some local authorities in the capitol city of Kisumu, nearly 40% of the children in this area are HIV positive and more than 50% of these children have been orphaned because of the AIDS virus. Of the children we met in Sirinde and Siaya, we estimated conservatively that one in five is in the second or third stages of acute malnutrition...I've never seen so many distended bellies, orange tinged or fungus-infested hair, and upper arms that resembled sticks covered with skin. Never before have I met so many adults who truly believe they contracted AIDS by "accident" and so many who are unable to reach out to Jesus because of a lack of options afforded by the resident evil spirits.

It is quite clear that God wants this pretty new clinic to do much more than treat the wounds of the flesh. He is continuing to reveal to us the need for compassionate intervention (especially from those who will serve with us in "short term" ministry) from the western church in an effort to end the endless cycle of suffering among these people whom He truly loves. In the coming months and years to come, COMMIT believes that opportunities will abound for those who would care to come and provide: AIDS and other medical treatment and education; agricultural reform; waste management expertise; insect irradication measures; drill new wells for clean water; heavy equipment expertise to help build new roads; paramedic and paranurse training; and those who are willing to provide pastoral discipleship and basic training to the large number of those who claim the saving blood of Jesus.

The clinic has been built; supplies and furnishings will follow. The government will soon fulfill their obligation by staffing the clinic with qualified people but the medical staff building must be constructed before any of this takes place. Upon return from this first very successful short term ministry trip, our ministry partners at World Connection Ministries asked us if we would form a medical training team to make the journey in early 2004.

Future Plans for Community Development in Sirinde

For the long haul, COMMIT Ministries will partner with World Connection Ministries (WCM) for the following objectives in and for the project in the Kaugagi Community, Siaya District, Kenya: