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| Three monkeys and a Kijabe sunset |
We had about two weeks at Tenwek in August to pack up and say our goodbyes. Our happiest moments were being reunited with our dog Nova and having one last celebration with the Tenwek neuro team before leaving. We celebrated all that God has done through PAACS neurosurgery at Tenwek since we first began in 2016. What a privilege to be a part of this work!
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| 2023 Tenwek Neuro Team |
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| She remembered us after being apart for a year. |
We arrived at Kijabe in mid-August. Shortly after, Will began work at the hospital and the kids began school at Rift Valley Academy. Kijabe and RVA are located next to one another in central Kenya in the Great Rift Valley, about one hour’s drive outside the capital city of Nairobi.
What a beautiful part of the world. This is the view from my neighbor’s house where we have Bible study each week.
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| Mt. Longonot in the distance |
As expected, Will is working as the only full-time neurosurgeon at Kijabe. He has excellent support staff working alongside him that welcomed him on arrival. It has been a slower pace so far, but word is spreading that there is a neurosurgeon at Kijabe and the service is building steam. Kijabe Hospital is also a PAACS site so Will is continuing to teach residents here from across Africa.
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| The Kijabe neurosurgery team in September with doctors from Uganda, the US, Sierra Leone, Kenya, and Ethiopia. |
He is also still serving as the residency program director at Tenwek. He zooms in for meetings and has already returned once to Tenwek for a few days to help cover call, attend didactics, and connect with the neuro team in Bible study. He’s hoping to do that every other month or so. We are thankful that Kijabe has been agreeable to his on-going service at Tenwek. We are praying for wisdom in how to balance the pull between the two hospitals.
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| Goodbye Tenwek house |
Many have asked how we are all adjusting to a new place. Truthfully, we had all braced ourselves for the next hard thing. Expecting misery, I guess you could say. After a season of challenges, pessimism had crept in, anticipating the next shoe to drop.
It has not been what I expected. The kids have transitioned beautifully to a new school. (I think a small part of me hoped they would desperately miss my homeschooling.) Their teachers and peers have warmly welcomed them, and they have quickly found community at RVA. We are so grateful.
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| the path from our house to the school |
It has been pressing on my mind that many of you are walking through a season of change yourself and maybe not seeing the beauty on the other side yet – whether it be losing a parent, losing a friend, moving cities for a new job, raising challenging teens, getting married, changing churches, adopting a child, and many more. Maybe like me you’re anticipating the next hard thing. I do not think it’s wrong for us to expect the next hard thing to come. But continually living in that head space for too long is defeating and mentally exhausting.
My dad loved the psalms, and I am loving them more and more as I see the fuller picture of God they give me. I read that I have much more to anticipate and expect in this life than hardship. Psalm 118 says God brings us into “a spacious place.” It’s easy to visualize that characteristic of God in the beauty of the landscape here. I can expect and trust God to be that spacious place presently and to bring me to that in the future. He is my hope in life and in death. He is my spacious place. This song, "Not My Home", by Luke Bower has resonated with me lately when I think about hope. Maybe it will encourage you too.
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| Rhett and a friend picnicking in a spacious place near our house |
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