Alison Talbert - Kenya |
 |
Prayer Update June 2008
STILL RAINING AND TRAINING…
Dear Friends,
Last month I was thankful for the cooler, fresher weather and its continuing. There are now young maize sprouts in the verges on the road to work. People have very little food stores left at the moment. In central Kenya which is usually very productive the rains have been poor and many people were displaced so didn’t plant. The rainy season is a time of sickness and our vicar, Japhet Komora, has been unwell and off work recently. Please pray also for his family as his sister was seriously injured in a road accident last month.
Our preparations for the food supplement study are progressing steadily. We trained half of the outpatient nurses in weighing and measuring children and nutrition counselling. We hope to finish training this month and observe each nurse in the clinic measuring 20 children and counselling 3 mothers before they get their certificate of competence. We seemed to get off to a good start and have been given a room to do the counselling in. Meanwhile the every day ward duties continue. It's been quite challenging month with lots of complicated cases and several malnourished children dying. We are seeing more sexual assault cases in children, 3 last month, one as young as 3 years and another case associated with armed robbery where all the female members of the family including a 9 year old girl were raped.
I am aiming to write an outline for an application to Oxford University to start a Doctor of Medicine (research) degree on spiritual beliefs of the coastal people with regard to malnutrition. I keep procrastinating so maybe writing this to you and asking for prayer will kick start me into action!
Praise God for
- good rains locally
- a promising start to training and working with the outpatient nurses
- His enabling to work under pressure
Please pray for:
- Japhet Komora and his sister to get completely well
- wise use of time to cover outpatient supervision, research activities and clinical duties
- writing an outline for personal research into spiritual beliefs and health
- stability and (re)constructive politics in Kenya
- funding for the food supplement study and my own personal support
With love,
Alison