Doing God's Work - Latest Kenya Trip Article (Daily Republic)

SUISUN CITY — The person who touched Zoey Quewon’s heart the most during her recent mission in western Kenya was an orphan named Marvin who first came in for medical treatment in the shreds of the school uniform he wore.

“He sleeps on the floor and doesn’t even have a blanket,” Quewon said of the child’s circumstances.

But after getting a set of clothes from Quewon and other members of the First Christian Church of Suisun City, the child made a point of sitting on a fence waiting “for us to walk with him to church,” Quewon said.

The group of 13 people, all but one of them from the First Christian Church of Suisun City, left July 19 for western Kenya and returned Aug. 3. They flew into Nairobi and then drove for two hours to get to the small town of Kakamega, where they started with missionary and humanitarian work.

They were far from the drought-stricken humanitarian disaster area of northeastern Kenya near Somalia, but they did pass by a Kenyan Army checkpoint, where soldiers blocked the roads with spike strips to stop and search cars to make sure they didn’t contain any refugees.

The members described their destination, Kakamega, as a dusty town of brick, sheet metal and mud with the ever-present smell of diesel. The streets were a chaos of cars, trucks, motorcycles, carts and goats.

Their primary humanitarian projects consisted of extending a pipeline and improving spring wells, providing medical assistance and giving out clothing to about 300 orphans the group hopes to build an orphanage for in the future, lead pastor Steve Kiefer said.

“The unemployment there is very high,” team member Mark Asprey said. “People beg to dig a trench for a dollar a day.”

Asprey was so moved by the need he saw there that he plans to move to that part of Kenya permanently to continue the work and help build a church, he said.

Despite the prevalent poverty, Candy Hanratty said the people they met “were always ready with a smile.”

Improving the water supply involved extending a water pipe 1.4 miles to the community’s school and putting concrete around one of the springs “so people could get their water out of a clean site instead of getting their water out of a mud puddle,” team member Tricia Isayi said.

Hanratty treated a lot of children with dirty skin wounds and said the next time she goes back, she will bring more antibiotics and vitamins to help those children who she said showed obvious signs of suffering from malnutrition.

“It broke my heart to see the children, their eyes are always pleading for more,” team member Malissa Huff said. “That was where it got me, the children and their need.”

That didn’t stop the Kenyans from showing what members described as warm, selfless hospitality.

More than 600 pieces of clothing were passed out to the orphans, including 250 dresses that were made by hand by parishioners here and in a church in Florida.

“Seeing all the girls getting new dresses, that meant so much to me,” Isayi said.

Kiefer described the needs in the area as “overwhelming,” and described the time the team distributed food one evening as his most haunting experience there.

Hundreds of Kenyans showed up for the food and when the serving bowls started running low, the hungry crowd noticed “and chaos broke out,” Kiefer said. The team had to step back away from the bowls and the local school master had to restore order.

With such a need still there, all of the group members said they plan to go back some time within the next two years with a larger mission to help the Kenyans of Kakamega as well as to promote the nonprofit Operation International, with which their church works.

“We will be working to raise funds for an orphanage because there is no orphanage there now,” Isayi said.

“We also want to help more than just the orphans, because all of the children are just as needy,” Huff said.

Reach Ian Thompson at 427-6976 or ithompson@dailyrepublic.net.