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Our Mission in Kenya Continued well. |
There are hardly any hospitals in this part of the world. The one government operated hospital in Kitale town serves a population of over one million people from the town and the surrounding rural farm communities.
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Sammy and Gary share a moment with Dr. Matasi next to a corn field in Kitale on Tuesday morning before heading out for the prayer service in Nairobi, some 400 miles away. |
Here you will find patients sleeping on the floor in overcrowded hallways, pregnant mothers sharing beds, and daily lines forming at the out-patient unit. There are hardly modern equipment available for the few qualified doctors and nurses to use for diagnostics or treatment. Majority of the patients can hardly afford to pay for quality medical attention.
Yet it is here where Matasi felt called by God to pitch his career tent. Thirteen years ago he and I were neighbors in a suburb of Nairobi. He worked at one of the leading hospitals in the country. We were prayer partners and met each week to pray together. For over four years we did this until in 1997 when God began to stir our hearts in different but convergent directions.
On my part, I felt a call toward pastoral leadership, world evangelization and global missions. God was calling me to relocate to Minnesota, train and serve as a world evangelist taking His gospel to many nations of the world. As for Dr. Matasi, God was calling him to leave the more comfortable Nairobi. He was calling him to relocate to the humble rural town of Kitale to establish a faith-based medical outreach center.
We each obeyed God's promptings as best as we knew how. What we didn't know was that our visions were related and were meant to converge along the way. As part of our global missionary effort, SWIM ministries is partnering with Dr. Matasi to help establish Ebenezer Medical Services a mission focused hospital in Kitale town.
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Sammy addresses several hundred believers gathered for prayer at Nairobi pentecostal church, Valley Road on Tuesday August 17th evening. |
Currently, and for the last twelve years, Dr. Matasi operates a medical clinic, Rapha Medical Center, in the town. We have been praying and hosptial plans are approved by the Kenya government, a site has been identified and purchased, and preparations are underway to begin the development of Ebenezer Hospital over the next two years. To his credit, although he has had many challenges to overcome, Dr. Matasi has not wavered in this vision that God delivered to him.
Besides helping to provide health services to this city of 200,000 people and to the neighboring rural communities numbering nearly a million people on an on-going basis, we anticipate the facility will serve as an outreach center for SWIM's as well as other Christian organizations traveling medical and evangelistic teams in the near future.
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| Believers pray in Nairobi |
On Monday night and Tuesday morning as we have been travelling and ministering here in Kenya, Gary, Candie and I got to visit with Dr. Matasi and his lovely wife Zipporah. My wife Suzanne and I will be back in Kitale in mid-September following the completion of our missions in Rwanda and Malawi to do some more work with Dr. Matasi related to this project.
Jesus while commissioning His disciples does not seperate healing and evangelism and neither should we. He says in Luke 10:2-9: "The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few; therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. Go, behold I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves...whatever city you enter and they receive you, eat what is set before you; and heal those in it who are sick, and say to them, 'the Kingdom of God has come near to you."
Please pray for Dr. Matasi and his team of medical providers as they serve in a challenging enviroment. Pray for us as we partner to seek resources to get the hospital off ground. Pray that God will continue to place the right people on our path with whom to share this vision for medical missions as part of our holisitc approach to evangelism and leadership development.
Your faithfulness to proclaim the gospel to all nations is a great encouragement to our hearts! We miss you all and are anxious to hear and read more of what God is doing on this adventure. Love you all a ton, Mark and Janet
ReplyDeleteOnce again, it's exciting to read about God's work in Kenya. Mungu akubariki. ~L
ReplyDeleteThank you Mark and Janet. You are a great part of our work here and the Kellens and I thank you for standing with us.
ReplyDeleteLisa, thank you too for continuing to lift us up before the Lord. Hope things are going well for you in Colorado.