Contrast of a village unreached

We worked with a medical team this past week. I’ll write more on it later but there is one story that needs to be told…

On our fifth and final day, everyone was exhausted from the massive amount of patients we had seen. It was lunch time, and the team was enjoying the solitude of one of the school classrooms. Two young girls interrupted our down time, but they were shooed out of the room.

In that brief moment they caught the attention of one of the missionaries, a guy who, although a great person, is not known to be the most sympathetic human alive. Eddie brought the girls back in and gave them some leftover food. He asked one of the doctors to take a quick look at the girls’ infected wounds even though they had seen their patient quota. 

One of the wounds was a perfect circle, and although possibly a scratched and infected mosquito bite, it was identified most likely as cigarette burn gone wrong. One of the doctors pointed out that a large number of injuries treated during the week appeared to be the result of abuse. There was an old man who was beat with a cane and countless children with scars, infected wounds, and other injuries resulting from abuse.

The doctor was surprised that last time she was in Kenya, she did not see the prolific number of abuse cases. What was the difference?

Last time she was in the north among the Turkana tribe. Comparing the tribes, the Turkana are a rough group as they are faced with the harsh conditions of life in the dessert and conflicts with neighboring tribes. Personality wise they would be and in most places are much more prone to abuse than the polite and relatively good-natured Meru tribe we were with this trip.

The difference was not tribal but related to the reason we were in each region. 2 years ago the team was working through well established churches that Eddie, the missionary mentioned above, had planted. In Meru, we were working to help grow two small churches and open new villages to planting a church. The Turkana had a strong exposure to the gospel where the rural Meru villages we visited were largely unreached.

The contrast was an amazing testimony of the life transforming power of the message of Jesus! Abuse is a direct result of our sinful rebellion against God. Jesus died so our sins can be forgiven and people can be restored to a right relationship with their creator.

“ We love because He first loved us!” -1 John 4:19