Medical Camp

On Monday, the wonderful craziness began! When we arrived, a lot of people were already waiting.



Each day we arrived, it was full of people. Unfortunately, each day, there were people that couldn’t be seen. There was so much need, but not enough time or medicine to help them all. Over the course of the week, over 2100 people were seen. With only four doctors, that is quite a miracle. Each person on the team was busy all day. I was worried that because it is in such a rural, remote area, no one would come. However, news spread quickly about the camp and people stayed there overnight so they could make sure they would be seen. It broke our hearts that anyone had to be turned away and it makes us want to do more there.

Here are the different stations:

Registration: Basic info (name, age) were given by the patients and they were given a sheet of paper that would accompany them to each station.



Intake: More info was taken here: patient history, temperature, blood pressure, etc.



Doctor: Here is where they met with the doctors.




Pharmacy: This is where they turned in their papers and received their medicine.



George's brother (on the left) was very helpful. He did a lot to help us prepare for the camp while we were in Tanzania. He also did a lot during the week of the camp.



Lab: After seeing a doctor, some of the patients were referred to the lab area where George did a few tests on things like malaria and pregnancy. This is also where injections were given and wounds were treated.


Most of the time, George worked with Roman, an EMT who is also nursing student, and Lisa, a nurse practitioner. They were a huge blessing to him and they all made a great team.






Prayer Area: This is where the pastors hung out and were available to share the gospel and pray for the patients. I don't have the final numbers yet, but several hundred came to know the Lord this week!!!!



Because many of the people in this area didn't speak English or Kiswahili, we had to bring in extra translators who spoke their mother tongue. One of them was George's sister, Nancy. It was nice to see her everyday.



The team was made up of 22 people. That doesn't include the translators, pastors, cooks and other helpers that showed up at the camp each day. The 22 included people from the US, one person from Australia and several Kenyan staff (doctors, nurse, Kiswahili speakers, logistics, etc). One of them was Timothy, one of the doctor's sons. Timothy is in high school and came to help during his break. Eli took a special liking to him and called him "My Timmy." Timmy was always willing to play with him.



Everyday, the team went to a neighbors house for lunch. A few days, we had sandwiches, chips and fruit. On the first and last day, they cooked a hot meal for the team which was a real treat.



Our camera is slowly dying so I didn’t get a lot of good pictures, but this will give you an idea of how the medical camps run. There will be more posts to come with additional stories and photos.