Eyes on Christ 2014/15

December 27-Jan 4

            Saturday was the arrival of the Fisher Family and Eyes on Christ team in Mombasa. Thankfully everything went well for their flights except a minor delay.  Noah Fisher had a nose bleed so he was treated and asked a few more questions at the Ebola medical scan upon entrance. Thankfully all the luggage made it and everyone was in good spirits. We headed back to Malindi. When we got to the house we found that the dogs had killed a monitor lizard and a baby Puff Adder. Nothing says welcome to Africa like a dead monitor and highly poisonous snake on the compound you are staying in.  

We went straight to work on Saturday once everyone was settled in a little getting things together for the Eyes on Christ clinics. Clayton, John, and I had already started to load things on the Land Rover Friday so all we would have to do is put Julie and Tami Jo’s equipment on and tie it all up.  Sunday we all attended services in Malindi and had a good service then headed out for Mombasa. We dropped Ashley off at the airport along the way so she could  leave to go to France to spend the week with Lauren Wilson and Holly Couch (two other single missionaries) We spent the night at the Miritini Guest house just outside of Mombasa so we would be ready for our first clinic in Midiani on Monday. 

Rather than give a play by play on the clinic days I will just mention where we were each day and let the pictures tell the rest. Eyes on Christ came with two people Julie Shoeff and Tami Jo Rayle plus our team(13) on the ground and the Fisher family(5) from Washington, PA brought us up to a team of twenty strong . It was awesome to see how everyone worked during the clinics. Each place was unique but the system flowed smoothly, we saw a lot of people, and shared Jesus' love and the gospel with them all.

 We divided the jobs up. Basically the way it worked was Clayton and Lindsey did the signing in of folks and taking blood pressure. John and Ben were working among the people, passing out tracts, and preaching. Kenya and I translated for Julie and others as needed. Julie of course did all the eye exams. Amber worked with the village kids playing with them and took care of our lunches. Tami Jo worked the distribution of glasses with Abigail translating and Anne doing restocking. The other kids helped at times with the flow of people.

Our First Clinic was in Midiani. This was our second visit to Midiani where Elly, the pastor at Mnara Wa Kweli LBC, has been working to start a fellowship for the past few months. It was our desire to give this group some visibility and encouragement. Elly has been teaching weekly at this location so we were all excited to help him with this church plant. John had the opportunity to preach a little to those who were waiting to see Julie. We also had a good time of fellowship with the many who attend the Bible study. We are excited about the future in this area.

The second Clinic was at the Mnara wa Kweli LBC in Miritini. The church currently meets in an Orphanage so it gave us a great location to have the clinic. It was our first time to do a clinic in this area and assist the church with outreach. The Mnara wa Kweli church is composed mainly of people from the Luyha  tribe but they are smack in the middle of people primarily from the Duruma tribe. Our hope was this would help the give the church a presence in the community and show their desire to be a multitribal church. Elly has done a good work at this church and is trying to reach out. We were very privileged to help him in his efforts. Brother John and Brother Ben both had opportunities to preach to folks while they were waiting to be checked for glasses.

            After the Clinic in Miritini we packed it up and headed back to Malindi for the night so we could go to Mjomboni on Wednesday. It was a good follow up to the cinema and evangelistic outreach we did the week before in Mjomboni. We had a slow start because it was announced we would be in another location but once it was all sorted out we had a steady flow of people.

There are no pictures…. lest there be evidence … but we went down to the beach in the Land Rover and shot off a boat load of Fireworks that brother John bought in Mombasa to celebrate the New Year. We had a blast firing off bottle rockets and all kinds of pyrotechnics. It was a fun way to spend New Year's Eve.

            On New Year's Day we had the Eyes on Christ clinic in Malindi. It was a big day and we saw lots of folks. We decided to stay close with it being a holiday and so we could rest a bit before heading to Singwaya on Friday.

            Our last day of clinics was on Friday in Singwaya. I really thought it would be our biggest day but it was not. We had a good turnout but not as many as I thought might come. It was just right though because we did not have to turn anyone away.  As a matter of fact we did not have to turn anyone away the entire week. We were able to see everyone that came and waited to be seen which made it nice. Julie said that in some places they are not always able to see everyone with time constraints.

Saturday Julie, Tami Jo, Ben Fisher, and his girls all loaded up and went on safari. The rest of us stayed behind to clean up a little, rest, and work on some needed office work. We had a celebration dinner Saturday night at Osteria and Julie gave us the numbers of all that we saw and the number of glasses that were given out.

Julie was able to examine  696 people; Tami Jo distributed 619 pairs of glasses and 900 pairs of sunglasses; we gave out 1200 John and Romans in Swahili; preached the gospel multiple times in each location; and did visitation as well..

         Our purpose was to preach the Gospel, share the love of Christ, and help give the churches and Bible studies public exposure and contacts to follow up on. We accomplished all our goals and more with the clinics. We planted a lot of seed and we are praying to God for the increase. We are so grateful for all that Eyes on Christ did while they were here, and we look forward to working with them again in the future.

            Sunday we divided up and part of the team went to Malindi and part went to Singwaya. It was a great close to a good week.