Here’s an update from Jen Radler who Journey Church supports in Kenya:
As always, I am excited to connect with you all in the Journey Community to share what God’s been doing over in my little corner of the mission field.
Thanks to our partnership with IC13, we are able to continue bringing large medicine orders to understocked, rural clinics. We purchase medication through a wholesale provider in the city and are working on finding ways to ensure that these smaller rural clinics get consistent access to the medications that are most commonly needed for their patients. These medications include antibiotics, anti-fungal tablets and creams, antihistamine tablets and creams, antimalarials, respiratory meds, diabetes tablets, BP meds, anemia supplements, general fever/pain relievers, and more. Each clinic that we’ve been to has been extremely thankful to receive an essential boost to their inventory as they often have to send their patients far away to receive even the most basic treatments.
We have several patients who are experiencing chronic illnesses that require additional testing or imaging and may ultimately lead to surgeries. I ask that you take a moment to pray specifically for a few of our patients. We have a teenager with a growing sickle-cell ulcer, a woman with a blood-clotting problem in her brain, an infant who possibly has a tumor on her spine, and an older woman who is bed-ridden and refusing “quality of life” measures that may help her to live more comfortably. We continue to receive referrals from other ministries and institutions and we do the best we can to help who we can.
On the Weza side, I am working on helping them to develop a counseling program that falls in line with the Kenyan government’s most recent Care Reform Strategy. This strategy addresses orphans and street children, and how they can be reintegrated into family units or community-based care, rather than be placed in long-term care institutions. This is a huge undertaking for the government, as well as NGOs and Charitable Children’s Institutions, as they are all key players in caring for orphans and vulnerable children in this country. As time goes on, I see there being some overlap in both sides of my ministry as many of the patients I’ve worked with through IC13 are children who are the most likely to become abandoned or neglected. As I continue to dive deeper into Care Reform and work on developing Weza’s counseling program, I pray that I’ll be able to use this knowledge to help our patients.
As far as my little family goes, we are doing well, but please continue to pray for Anyango as we await next steps for her student visa. Thank you all for your continued love and support. I could not do this alone. God does not call people into the mission field alone, and I feel like I become more aware of that every day. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions pertaining to ministry, family or if you just want to say hello! Love you all!
– Jen Radler
