The Wittz End: How to run a medical outreach

Moving desks into the triage room and the room the doctors would diagnose patients.

There are two major ways to tangibly show the love of Jesus and make a difference in places around the globe. Those avenues are bringing education and medical care to people who had no access to them. Both are huge needs especially in locations so remote. There are many other ways or platforms to bring the goodness of Jesus but these are some of the most common.

Jason was exposed to both ways when he was on internship in college. After we got married and started planning on moving to Kenya we knew we wanted to be apart of these platforms in whatever way God would use us. Throughout the years we have learned a lot, messed up a lot, and remain humble that God has taken away our own ideas and taught us to be in His Kingdom in this region.

We recently teamed up with a lot of fellow workers to run a 4 day medical outreach, each day in a different village. I wanted to give details of all that had to happen to make it successful.

First and foremost financial provision was needed to fund everything and make it happen. Amos and Grace received money from donors in America. Then they formed a committee to assign who would be responsible for each aspect of the 4 day outreach. The committee went out to each village ahead of time to see what buildings could be used to set up the clinic. Jason was responsible for buying all the medicines that were needed as well as purchase the food to be cooked for lunch. Someone made the arrangements to bring doctors in from Kijabe (where Nevaeh was born). Someone called to reserve hotel rooms for the doctors. And someone organized for there to be enough drinking water for each day. The committee agreed on who would come to help run this program and how to divide up the jobs between each person. These details ensured that the volunteers would know what do so the day could go as smoothly as possible.

My daughters helped write and cut up 200 cards in 4 different colors. On the actual day of the medical outreach These cards were passed out to the people who came. People saw the doctor according to which number they had.

First the patient would go through the triage room. Their name, age, and where the lived would be written down. The volunteers took their blood pressure and recorded their weight from when they stepped on the scale. Then they waited to see the doctor with all their information. Meanwhile Kaleb, the intern, played songs on the guitar. This brought entertainment to all. Julia danced and played games with the children until it was their turn to see the doctor. The doctors listened to the patients complaints. Many Old people usually had extremely high blood pressure. Young children often had diarrhea. This is due to the harsh environment and poor diet. The doctors would write down a prescription for medicine and then the patients would head to the pharmacy room.

Jason and several others would gather the medicine that the doctors ordered and explain the dosage to the patients. I was in this same room on a mat set out to do crafts. My friends Grace and Dorothy helped me to make animals out of toilet paper rolls. When we finished 100 of those we made animal masks out of paper plates. When we finished those we made beads out of paper with intern Julia. At one point I was bombarded by children that were leaning up against me so I called in my girls as back up. With their help we were able to get all the to kids finish up their crafts fast so that it was less crowded in the room.

There were a few volunteers that asked patients if they would be okay with receiving prayer for their different ailments. Several patients agreed to be prayed for. In the mornings before we started, we would hear a devotional to be reminded why we're were serving in this capacity. We always had a "staff room" if we needed to get away for a few minutes through out the day for a break. Lunch was always goat pilau. At the end of the four days, over 750 people were seen and given medical treatment. This could not have happened without the Body of Christ being united in love to serve.

Paul writes in Galatians 6, "do not grow weary of doing good because in due time you will reap a harvest, If you do not give up". He a also writes, " let us do good to everyone especially to those who are of the household of faith." We had the chance to show these villagers the Kingdom of God at work as they saw people from 6 different nations and an 8 organizations work together as we, the body of Christ simply being the Kingdom of God!

We also believe that through this week of medical outreaches in the 4 different villages we did not grow weary of doing good and we have not given up so we know we'll see the harvest! We praise God for this future promise and hope!

Keagan, Sammy, and Mary handed out numbers and kept crowd control.

Nevaeh and Small McKenna watch to see what this man's weight would be.

Small McKenna getting ready to take blood pressure.

Tall McKenna recording this woman's information.

waiting to see the doctor.

Kaleb singing and playing the guitar.

Julia and Samara dancing in a circle.

Charis running so that she isn't tagged.

Teaching a young man how to strum properly.

Jason filling out prescriptions.

There was one old man who wasn't happy about the small amount of medicine he received. He came to Jason and said he must not have told the doctor all of his sicknesses because surely he needs more medicine.